This paper explores different “cultures of evidence” in energy policymaking in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. The urgent energy system transformation needed to respond to the climate crisis depends on policies informed by technical and engineering expertise, and particularly energy modeling. Such expertise had traditionally been poorly represented in the energy ministries of the Dutch, German, and UK governments. There is limited understanding of how policy advisory systems have evolved to respond to these emerging evidence needs. This paper presents a framework for describing how cultures of evidence differ, and applies this to a comparative study of energy policymaking in the UK, Netherlands, and Germany. I show clear differences in how evidence is understood and used. The Dutch and German governments have sought technical and modeling evidence from consultants or independent agencies. In doing so, the Dutch and German ministries appear to place stronger value on the “independence” of such evidence, while the UK system builds credibility through adherence to formal procedures. A second clear difference in the cultures of evidence relates to different beliefs about the extent to which expert knowledge can be impartial and value-free. The cases suggest that different cultures of evidence have coevolved with each country’s institutional history and shaped the energy policy advisory system.
{"title":"Exploring cultures of evidence in energy policymaking in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands","authors":"Will McDowall","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puae035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae035","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores different “cultures of evidence” in energy policymaking in the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands. The urgent energy system transformation needed to respond to the climate crisis depends on policies informed by technical and engineering expertise, and particularly energy modeling. Such expertise had traditionally been poorly represented in the energy ministries of the Dutch, German, and UK governments. There is limited understanding of how policy advisory systems have evolved to respond to these emerging evidence needs. This paper presents a framework for describing how cultures of evidence differ, and applies this to a comparative study of energy policymaking in the UK, Netherlands, and Germany. I show clear differences in how evidence is understood and used. The Dutch and German governments have sought technical and modeling evidence from consultants or independent agencies. In doing so, the Dutch and German ministries appear to place stronger value on the “independence” of such evidence, while the UK system builds credibility through adherence to formal procedures. A second clear difference in the cultures of evidence relates to different beliefs about the extent to which expert knowledge can be impartial and value-free. The cases suggest that different cultures of evidence have coevolved with each country’s institutional history and shaped the energy policy advisory system.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"55 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142672950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kidjie Saguin, João V Guedes-Neto, Pedro Lucas Moura Palotti, Natália Massaco Koga, Flavio Lyrio Carneiro
Evidence use across policy sectors is widely believed to vary as each sector espouses a specific and dominant pattern in how it sources evidence. This view privileges the idea that a “culture of evidence” serves as a norm that guides behavior in the entire sector. In this article, we seek to nuance the policy sectoral approach to understanding evidence use by analyzing the results of a large-N survey of federal employees in Brazil (n = 2,177). Our findings show a diverse set of cultures of evidence with a few sectors like Science and Technology demonstrating a strong likelihood for using scientific evidence with most sectors showing a mixed pattern of sourcing evidence. However, a majority of the surveyed civil servants show an “indistinct” pattern of evidence use who are likely to not use any sources of evidence.
{"title":"Variation in evidence use across policy sectors: the case of Brazil","authors":"Kidjie Saguin, João V Guedes-Neto, Pedro Lucas Moura Palotti, Natália Massaco Koga, Flavio Lyrio Carneiro","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puae031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae031","url":null,"abstract":"Evidence use across policy sectors is widely believed to vary as each sector espouses a specific and dominant pattern in how it sources evidence. This view privileges the idea that a “culture of evidence” serves as a norm that guides behavior in the entire sector. In this article, we seek to nuance the policy sectoral approach to understanding evidence use by analyzing the results of a large-N survey of federal employees in Brazil (n = 2,177). Our findings show a diverse set of cultures of evidence with a few sectors like Science and Technology demonstrating a strong likelihood for using scientific evidence with most sectors showing a mixed pattern of sourcing evidence. However, a majority of the surveyed civil servants show an “indistinct” pattern of evidence use who are likely to not use any sources of evidence.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Simon Montfort, Lukas Fesenfeld, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, Karin Ingold
Public support for ambitious climate policies and carbon prices that have direct costs for voters may depend on policy sequencing. Policy sequencing theory suggests that the strategic ordering of policies into sequences that initially create benefits can subsequently increase support for higher carbon prices. However, systematic quantitative evidence about the effects of sequencing on public support is lacking. We provide novel theoretical and empirical insights on the mechanisms through which strategic policy sequencing affects public support for climate policies. We generated these insights using geospatial data and a representative conjoint experiment with Swiss voters conducted just before the popular vote on an amendment to the Federal Act on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in June 2021. Our evidence shows that the perceived effectiveness of prior policy-induced benefits is related to more public support for higher carbon prices across sectors. Moreover, we find that more opportunity structures for low-emission alternatives—like higher EV charging station density—are associated with increased public support for carbon prices in the sector where the former material benefits occur. Our results also imply that positive policy perceptions of prior climate policies are related to increased support, particularly among conservative voters and those who do not regard climate change as a salient issue. Thus, strategic policy sequencing could be an effective strategy for broadening public support for ambitious climate policies.
{"title":"Policy sequencing can increase public support for ambitious climate policy","authors":"Simon Montfort, Lukas Fesenfeld, Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, Karin Ingold","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad030","url":null,"abstract":"Public support for ambitious climate policies and carbon prices that have direct costs for voters may depend on policy sequencing. Policy sequencing theory suggests that the strategic ordering of policies into sequences that initially create benefits can subsequently increase support for higher carbon prices. However, systematic quantitative evidence about the effects of sequencing on public support is lacking. We provide novel theoretical and empirical insights on the mechanisms through which strategic policy sequencing affects public support for climate policies. We generated these insights using geospatial data and a representative conjoint experiment with Swiss voters conducted just before the popular vote on an amendment to the Federal Act on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions in June 2021. Our evidence shows that the perceived effectiveness of prior policy-induced benefits is related to more public support for higher carbon prices across sectors. Moreover, we find that more opportunity structures for low-emission alternatives—like higher EV charging station density—are associated with increased public support for carbon prices in the sector where the former material benefits occur. Our results also imply that positive policy perceptions of prior climate policies are related to increased support, particularly among conservative voters and those who do not regard climate change as a salient issue. Thus, strategic policy sequencing could be an effective strategy for broadening public support for ambitious climate policies.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"150 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138559468","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Government information activities are often thought to be motivated by a classic calculus of blame minimization and credit maximization. However, the precise interactions of “blame” and “credit” communication activities in government are not well understood, and questions abound about how they are deployed in practice. This paper uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) machine-learning sentiment analysis of a unique dataset composed of several thousand tweets of high-level political leaders in four OECD countries—namely the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Canada—during 2020–2022 to examine the relationships existing between “blame” and “credit” communication strategies and their relation to the changing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, both in an objective and subjective sense. In general, the study suggests that during this high-impact, long-lasting, and waxing and waning crisis, political leaders acted in accordance with theoretical expectations when it came to communicating credit seeking messages during the periods when the COVID situation was thought to be improving, but they did not exclusively rely upon communicating blame or scapegoating when the situation was considered to be deteriorating. The consequences of this finding for blame and credit-based theories of government communication are then discussed.
{"title":"Blame avoidance and credit-claiming dynamics in government policy communications: evidence from leadership tweets in four OECD countries during the 2020–2022 COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Ching Leong, Michael Howlett, Mehrdad Safaei","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad029","url":null,"abstract":"Government information activities are often thought to be motivated by a classic calculus of blame minimization and credit maximization. However, the precise interactions of “blame” and “credit” communication activities in government are not well understood, and questions abound about how they are deployed in practice. This paper uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) machine-learning sentiment analysis of a unique dataset composed of several thousand tweets of high-level political leaders in four OECD countries—namely the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and Canada—during 2020–2022 to examine the relationships existing between “blame” and “credit” communication strategies and their relation to the changing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, both in an objective and subjective sense. In general, the study suggests that during this high-impact, long-lasting, and waxing and waning crisis, political leaders acted in accordance with theoretical expectations when it came to communicating credit seeking messages during the periods when the COVID situation was thought to be improving, but they did not exclusively rely upon communicating blame or scapegoating when the situation was considered to be deteriorating. The consequences of this finding for blame and credit-based theories of government communication are then discussed.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"115 33","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138455784","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract The article argues for a revised research on behavioral public policy focused on the core claim and sine qua non of a behavioral “revolution”: the ability to produce equal or better outcomes with less stringent policy designs than in traditional solutions, at least for certain types of problems. Three contributions to such an agenda are proposed. First, the article argues that the growing focus on the evaluation of real-world behavioral policy programs, as opposed to experimental studies within specialized areas of research, calls for a corresponding theoretical orientation toward existing literature on policy tools and design. Second, a doctrine of policy design is extrapolated from the broader behavioral paradigm and specified in relation to four general areas of application. These provide an essential context for the evaluation of the behavioral claim to improved policy design and highlight that behavioral successes may well, contra this claim, be a result of a de facto increase in stringency vis-à-vis traditional responses. Third, the article proposes a new and substantially revised inventory of the behavioral toolbox, which specifies the stringency, mechanisms, and potential costs of different behavioral tools and techniques, which is both essential to the evaluation of the behavioral claim and necessary to overcome the arbitrariness and mistakes of existing inventories.
{"title":"Is there a behavioral revolution in policy design? A new agenda and inventory of the behavioral toolbox","authors":"Anders Esmark","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad028","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad028","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The article argues for a revised research on behavioral public policy focused on the core claim and sine qua non of a behavioral “revolution”: the ability to produce equal or better outcomes with less stringent policy designs than in traditional solutions, at least for certain types of problems. Three contributions to such an agenda are proposed. First, the article argues that the growing focus on the evaluation of real-world behavioral policy programs, as opposed to experimental studies within specialized areas of research, calls for a corresponding theoretical orientation toward existing literature on policy tools and design. Second, a doctrine of policy design is extrapolated from the broader behavioral paradigm and specified in relation to four general areas of application. These provide an essential context for the evaluation of the behavioral claim to improved policy design and highlight that behavioral successes may well, contra this claim, be a result of a de facto increase in stringency vis-à-vis traditional responses. Third, the article proposes a new and substantially revised inventory of the behavioral toolbox, which specifies the stringency, mechanisms, and potential costs of different behavioral tools and techniques, which is both essential to the evaluation of the behavioral claim and necessary to overcome the arbitrariness and mistakes of existing inventories.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"264 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135685233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sebastian Sewerin, Lukas P Fesenfeld, Tobias S Schmidt
Abstract Effectively addressing grand societal challenges like climate change and environmental degradation requires policy intervention that is not only continuous but also increasing in ambition over time. However, negative feedback could lead to policies being weakened or even discontinued after a while. An important but unresolved policy question, therefore, is whether policies can be deliberately designed to survive (i.e., to “stick”) and, ideally, be replaced with more ambitious ones over time (i.e., to “ratchet up”). We bridge policy feedback and policy design scholarship to derive hypotheses on the effects of two policy design features—“intensity” (i.e., a measure of policies’ overall design) and “specificity” (i.e., a measure of policies’ targeted focus)—on policy (dis-)continuation and ratcheting-up (-down) of ambition. Focusing on policy design, we contribute to the theorization and empirical understanding of endogenous factors behind policy change. We test our hypotheses with an event history dataset of 627 low-carbon energy policies in eight developed countries. Conducting a multilevel survival analysis, we find statistically significant evidence of more intense policies being replaced with less intense ones, i.e., more intense policies lead to ratcheting-down of ambition. We also find that more specific policies are more likely to be replaced with more intense policies, i.e., more specific policies lead to ratcheting-up of ambition. Based on these novel insights, we discuss how policy design can navigate these complex dynamics. In this sense, our approach also contributes to the discussion about the “forward-looking” potential of the policy sciences.
{"title":"The role of policy design in policy continuation and ratcheting-up of policy ambition","authors":"Sebastian Sewerin, Lukas P Fesenfeld, Tobias S Schmidt","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad027","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Effectively addressing grand societal challenges like climate change and environmental degradation requires policy intervention that is not only continuous but also increasing in ambition over time. However, negative feedback could lead to policies being weakened or even discontinued after a while. An important but unresolved policy question, therefore, is whether policies can be deliberately designed to survive (i.e., to “stick”) and, ideally, be replaced with more ambitious ones over time (i.e., to “ratchet up”). We bridge policy feedback and policy design scholarship to derive hypotheses on the effects of two policy design features—“intensity” (i.e., a measure of policies’ overall design) and “specificity” (i.e., a measure of policies’ targeted focus)—on policy (dis-)continuation and ratcheting-up (-down) of ambition. Focusing on policy design, we contribute to the theorization and empirical understanding of endogenous factors behind policy change. We test our hypotheses with an event history dataset of 627 low-carbon energy policies in eight developed countries. Conducting a multilevel survival analysis, we find statistically significant evidence of more intense policies being replaced with less intense ones, i.e., more intense policies lead to ratcheting-down of ambition. We also find that more specific policies are more likely to be replaced with more intense policies, i.e., more specific policies lead to ratcheting-up of ambition. Based on these novel insights, we discuss how policy design can navigate these complex dynamics. In this sense, our approach also contributes to the discussion about the “forward-looking” potential of the policy sciences.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134971090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Few scholars have dedicated their attention to the role of think tanks as policy experts within captured states. We investigate how, why, and to what extent think tanks are used in the captured states in the Western Balkans. Our assumption was that think tanks could become party to the processes of “capture”. However, original findings from focus group and interviews with think tankers show that think tank expertise is perceived as an imposed obligation—from external pressures and existing national regulatory frameworks. Accordingly, incorporation of think tank policy advice is fulfilled to an extent, but not necessarily for the sake of improving the quality of public policies. In this environment, think tanks are enrolled in the simulacra of inclusive policy deliberation without substantially influencing policy making. Nevertheless, these organizations have developed creative mechanisms to survive, preserve their independence, and still foster advice uptake within captured bureaucracies. Openly value-driven advice is the overarching one.
{"title":"“State captured” policy advice? Think tanks as expert advisors in the Western Balkans","authors":"Irena Djordjevic, Diane Stone","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad021","url":null,"abstract":"Few scholars have dedicated their attention to the role of think tanks as policy experts within captured states. We investigate how, why, and to what extent think tanks are used in the captured states in the Western Balkans. Our assumption was that think tanks could become party to the processes of “capture”. However, original findings from focus group and interviews with think tankers show that think tank expertise is perceived as an imposed obligation—from external pressures and existing national regulatory frameworks. Accordingly, incorporation of think tank policy advice is fulfilled to an extent, but not necessarily for the sake of improving the quality of public policies. In this environment, think tanks are enrolled in the simulacra of inclusive policy deliberation without substantially influencing policy making. Nevertheless, these organizations have developed creative mechanisms to survive, preserve their independence, and still foster advice uptake within captured bureaucracies. Openly value-driven advice is the overarching one.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"112 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2023-09-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50165227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Fee-for-service remains a popular mode of paying for healthcare despite widespread knowledge of its ill effects. This has resulted in a gap between policy knowledge (understood as consensus among experts) and policy practice (actual policy measures to implement the consensus) in healthcare. The existing literature attributes such gaps to a range of factors, including the stakeholders’ different interests, incentives, ideas, and values. Our focus on this debate is through the lens of policy capacity, specifically the ability of public actors to utilize policy knowledge and inform policy practice. We show that the observed knowledge–practice gap is rooted in the complexity of healthcare payment reforms. While actors agree on the problematic condition, there is a deep disagreement on what to do about it. Agreeing on and adopting alternate payment arrangements are challenging because reformers need to anticipate and respond to the future while accommodating the interests of the current providers who benefit from the status quo. In such instances, the capacity of public actors to devise reforms and overcome resistance to them is critical. We argue that the knowledge–practice gap in healthcare payments exists because of deficiencies in the analytical abilities of governments to devise workable alternate arrangements and shortcomings in their political capacity to overcome the resistance to proposed reforms. Put differently, we argue that no amount of evidence or consensus among stakeholders is sufficient when the analytical and political capacities to act on the evidence are lacking. The arguments are illustrated with reference to payment reforms in South Korea and Thailand.
{"title":"Knowledge–practice gap in healthcare payments: the role of policy capacity","authors":"Azad Singh Bali, M Ramesh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad019","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Fee-for-service remains a popular mode of paying for healthcare despite widespread knowledge of its ill effects. This has resulted in a gap between policy knowledge (understood as consensus among experts) and policy practice (actual policy measures to implement the consensus) in healthcare. The existing literature attributes such gaps to a range of factors, including the stakeholders’ different interests, incentives, ideas, and values. Our focus on this debate is through the lens of policy capacity, specifically the ability of public actors to utilize policy knowledge and inform policy practice. We show that the observed knowledge–practice gap is rooted in the complexity of healthcare payment reforms. While actors agree on the problematic condition, there is a deep disagreement on what to do about it. Agreeing on and adopting alternate payment arrangements are challenging because reformers need to anticipate and respond to the future while accommodating the interests of the current providers who benefit from the status quo. In such instances, the capacity of public actors to devise reforms and overcome resistance to them is critical. We argue that the knowledge–practice gap in healthcare payments exists because of deficiencies in the analytical abilities of governments to devise workable alternate arrangements and shortcomings in their political capacity to overcome the resistance to proposed reforms. Put differently, we argue that no amount of evidence or consensus among stakeholders is sufficient when the analytical and political capacities to act on the evidence are lacking. The arguments are illustrated with reference to payment reforms in South Korea and Thailand.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"177 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136265485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
“Global Commissions of Inquiry” have usually been associated with the multilateral initiatives of governments and international organizations. However, various styles of “global commission” have emerged over time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, global commissions have been a key aspect of the COVID-19 international policy landscape, quickly emerging, in 2020 and 2021, to corral knowledge and evidence. These include “formal” commissions, such as the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and the Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy, and “informal” commissions, including the Reform for Resilience and The Lancet Covid Commissions. This paper considers whether these Commissions have been engines for new ideas and global policy knowledge or whether this “chorus” of COVID Commissions represented a “clutter” of ideas at a time when global policy focus was needed. Global Commissions, in general, deserve greater scholarly attention to their design and the construction of their legitimate authority as hybrid and private commissions enter global policy making alongside official commissions.
{"title":"Expert knowledge for global pandemic policy: a chorus of evidence or a clutter of global commissions?","authors":"Diane Stone, A. Schmider","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad022","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 “Global Commissions of Inquiry” have usually been associated with the multilateral initiatives of governments and international organizations. However, various styles of “global commission” have emerged over time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, global commissions have been a key aspect of the COVID-19 international policy landscape, quickly emerging, in 2020 and 2021, to corral knowledge and evidence. These include “formal” commissions, such as the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and the Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy, and “informal” commissions, including the Reform for Resilience and The Lancet Covid Commissions. This paper considers whether these Commissions have been engines for new ideas and global policy knowledge or whether this “chorus” of COVID Commissions represented a “clutter” of ideas at a time when global policy focus was needed. Global Commissions, in general, deserve greater scholarly attention to their design and the construction of their legitimate authority as hybrid and private commissions enter global policy making alongside official commissions.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"91 3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86552706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Think tanks and their roles in rendering expertise in policy advice have been the subject of historical and ongoing research in policy sciences. However, the widening trend of digital behaviors of think tanks in the social media era is yet to be investigated. While social media is reshaping the political ecology and challenging conventional sources of knowledge, it also serves as a potential channel for think tanks to publicly share their expertise and policy advice with the public and decision-makers, thus evolving into “digital advocators.” Based on social media big data methods, this paper has constructed two sets of new think tank indicators with “network centrality” of social media accounts and “ripple effect” of social media citations from Facebook and Twitter to capture and observe the digital activities of 207 prominent think tanks in 62 countries or regions. We have concluded that think tanks have displayed their opinion and values and increased visibility as digital advocators by spreading expertise on social media platforms with online marketing skills. With various values and ideas, social media not only is hosting massive policy advocacy activities and being an expertise spreading arena for think tanks but has also been changing the ecology of the think tank industry and expertise markets.
{"title":"Spreading expertise: think tanks as digital advocators in the social media era","authors":"Jing Zhao, Xufeng Zhu","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad025","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Think tanks and their roles in rendering expertise in policy advice have been the subject of historical and ongoing research in policy sciences. However, the widening trend of digital behaviors of think tanks in the social media era is yet to be investigated. While social media is reshaping the political ecology and challenging conventional sources of knowledge, it also serves as a potential channel for think tanks to publicly share their expertise and policy advice with the public and decision-makers, thus evolving into “digital advocators.” Based on social media big data methods, this paper has constructed two sets of new think tank indicators with “network centrality” of social media accounts and “ripple effect” of social media citations from Facebook and Twitter to capture and observe the digital activities of 207 prominent think tanks in 62 countries or regions. We have concluded that think tanks have displayed their opinion and values and increased visibility as digital advocators by spreading expertise on social media platforms with online marketing skills. With various values and ideas, social media not only is hosting massive policy advocacy activities and being an expertise spreading arena for think tanks but has also been changing the ecology of the think tank industry and expertise markets.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"76 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135889386","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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