Two critical policy questions will determine the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the knowledge economy and the creative sector. The first concerns how we think about the training of such models—in particular, whether the creators or owners of the data that are “scraped” (lawfully or unlawfully, with or without permission) should be compensated for that use. The second question revolves around the ownership of the output generated by AI, which is continually improving in quality and scale. These topics fall in the realm of intellectual property, a legal framework designed to incentivize and reward only human creativity and innovation. For some years, however, Britain has maintained a distinct category for “computer-generated” outputs; on the input issue, the EU and Singapore have recently introduced exceptions allowing for text and data mining or computational data analysis of existing works. This article explores the broader implications of these policy choices, weighing the advantages of reducing the cost of content creation and the value of expertise against the potential risk to various careers and sectors of the economy, which might be rendered unsustainable. Lessons may be found in the music industry, which also went through a period of unrestrained piracy in the early digital era, epitomized by the rise and fall of the file-sharing service Napster. Similar litigation and legislation may help navigate the present uncertainty, along with an emerging market for “legitimate” models that respect the copyright of humans and are clear about the provenance of their own creations.
{"title":"Good models borrow, great models steal: intellectual property rights and generative AI","authors":"Simon Chesterman","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puae006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae006","url":null,"abstract":"Two critical policy questions will determine the impact of generative artificial intelligence (AI) on the knowledge economy and the creative sector. The first concerns how we think about the training of such models—in particular, whether the creators or owners of the data that are “scraped” (lawfully or unlawfully, with or without permission) should be compensated for that use. The second question revolves around the ownership of the output generated by AI, which is continually improving in quality and scale. These topics fall in the realm of intellectual property, a legal framework designed to incentivize and reward only human creativity and innovation. For some years, however, Britain has maintained a distinct category for “computer-generated” outputs; on the input issue, the EU and Singapore have recently introduced exceptions allowing for text and data mining or computational data analysis of existing works. This article explores the broader implications of these policy choices, weighing the advantages of reducing the cost of content creation and the value of expertise against the potential risk to various careers and sectors of the economy, which might be rendered unsustainable. Lessons may be found in the music industry, which also went through a period of unrestrained piracy in the early digital era, epitomized by the rise and fall of the file-sharing service Napster. Similar litigation and legislation may help navigate the present uncertainty, along with an emerging market for “legitimate” models that respect the copyright of humans and are clear about the provenance of their own creations.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"88 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139750313","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}
This Special Issue and its seven contributions seek to shift the gaze of public policy scholarship toward the authorities, legitimacies, and influences of transnational actors on the creation and implementation of global policy and its transnational administration. It is, in large part, both a demonstration of the analytical and explanatory value of accounting for the influence of non-state actors on global issues as well as a normative reflection on what this means for already tenuous connections between publics and those that make decisions on their behalf in global forums. This Issue breaks with heterodox public policy approaches that center on the capabilities of states and international organizations to determine and to deliver global public policy and outcomes. Instead, we widen our gaze to capture the influence of transnational actors such as global commissions, transnational public–private partnerships, philanthropic foundations, non-government organization networks, domestic associations with global influence, quasi-judicial authorities, and global citizen activists. The articles discuss the impact of transnational actors on the policy and administrative spaces of global actors and states alike. By dispensing with the notion that the state and state-created international organizations are the primary locus for public policy and public administration scholarship, the included papers conclude with the implications for scholarship on transnational actor authorities and legitimacies.
{"title":"Actors, alterations, and authorities: three observations of global policy and its transnational administration","authors":"Kim Moloney, Tim Legrand","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae003","url":null,"abstract":"This Special Issue and its seven contributions seek to shift the gaze of public policy scholarship toward the authorities, legitimacies, and influences of transnational actors on the creation and implementation of global policy and its transnational administration. It is, in large part, both a demonstration of the analytical and explanatory value of accounting for the influence of non-state actors on global issues as well as a normative reflection on what this means for already tenuous connections between publics and those that make decisions on their behalf in global forums. This Issue breaks with heterodox public policy approaches that center on the capabilities of states and international organizations to determine and to deliver global public policy and outcomes. Instead, we widen our gaze to capture the influence of transnational actors such as global commissions, transnational public–private partnerships, philanthropic foundations, non-government organization networks, domestic associations with global influence, quasi-judicial authorities, and global citizen activists. The articles discuss the impact of transnational actors on the policy and administrative spaces of global actors and states alike. By dispensing with the notion that the state and state-created international organizations are the primary locus for public policy and public administration scholarship, the included papers conclude with the implications for scholarship on transnational actor authorities and legitimacies.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139676945","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 policymaking often seeks to create processes for the effective delivery of public goods and services. What happens when individuals critique or dissent such policies? In this paper, we examine the case of two activists—Greta Thunberg and Disha Ravi—who have been mobilizing attention toward climate change since their teenage years, and who have been both celebrated and vilified for it. While climate change policies emphasize the importance of gender mainstreaming and youth participation, reactions garnered by these two activists are instructive in highlighting the narrow notion of “participation” that ungirds climate policy. Specifically, we show that Greta and Disha’s tactics do not readily jive with the postfeminist, neoliberal conceptualization of youth participation that emphasizes apolitical exercise of citizenship; valorizes girls’ activism only insofar as it enhances national economic growth; and views girls as symbols of hopeful futurities. Greta and Disha are instead what we call, “policy dissidents,” whose activism creates “tactical crevices.” We theorize tactical crevices as tentative and fleeting interruptions by the powerless that puncture prevailing logics through strikes and protests, and through consumption of discourses and materials in ways that those in power do not intend. The paper contributes to the study of girl activism broadly, and to notions of youth engagement (or disengagement) specifically, within the spheres of local and global politics.
{"title":"Policy dissidents: Understanding girl activism as creating “Tactical Crevices”","authors":"Shenila Khoja-Moolji, Mary Ann Chacko","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puae001","url":null,"abstract":"Global policymaking often seeks to create processes for the effective delivery of public goods and services. What happens when individuals critique or dissent such policies? In this paper, we examine the case of two activists—Greta Thunberg and Disha Ravi—who have been mobilizing attention toward climate change since their teenage years, and who have been both celebrated and vilified for it. While climate change policies emphasize the importance of gender mainstreaming and youth participation, reactions garnered by these two activists are instructive in highlighting the narrow notion of “participation” that ungirds climate policy. Specifically, we show that Greta and Disha’s tactics do not readily jive with the postfeminist, neoliberal conceptualization of youth participation that emphasizes apolitical exercise of citizenship; valorizes girls’ activism only insofar as it enhances national economic growth; and views girls as symbols of hopeful futurities. Greta and Disha are instead what we call, “policy dissidents,” whose activism creates “tactical crevices.” We theorize tactical crevices as tentative and fleeting interruptions by the powerless that puncture prevailing logics through strikes and protests, and through consumption of discourses and materials in ways that those in power do not intend. The paper contributes to the study of girl activism broadly, and to notions of youth engagement (or disengagement) specifically, within the spheres of local and global politics.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139676958","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 public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become prominent in efforts to address global challenges, particularly in the health field. In the scholarly literature, global PPPs have been conceptualized as arenas for voluntary public–private cooperation rather than agents of global governance. This paper challenges this approach, arguing that a sub-class of highly institutionalized partnerships have developed into transnational bureaucracies that, much like international organizations, can draw from their administrative capacities to exercise agency and gain and consolidate authority over time. To substantiate this argument, I present an in-depth analysis of five global health partnerships that played a leading role in the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), the initiative that sought to coordinate the global response to covid-19. Based on extensive document review and analysis of the ACT-A PPPs —Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, Unitaid, and The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics — I show how these partnerships’ leadership role during the pandemic emerged from a decade long build-up of PPP agency. These organizations gained administrative capacities that enabled them to increase their authority vis-à-vis their donors, boards, and other external actors through three interlinked strategies: (a) developing greater financial autonomy; (b) expanding their mandates (including toward pandemic preparedness and response); and (c) establishing inter-partnership cooperation and mutual representation to other forums. My analysis suggests the need for future research to consider highly institutionalized PPPs as agents of global governance and to explore empirically and theoretically the consequences of their rising authority.
{"title":"The rising authority and agency of public–private partnerships in global health governance","authors":"Antoine de Bengy Puyvallée","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puad032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puad032","url":null,"abstract":"Global public–private partnerships (PPPs) have become prominent in efforts to address global challenges, particularly in the health field. In the scholarly literature, global PPPs have been conceptualized as arenas for voluntary public–private cooperation rather than agents of global governance. This paper challenges this approach, arguing that a sub-class of highly institutionalized partnerships have developed into transnational bureaucracies that, much like international organizations, can draw from their administrative capacities to exercise agency and gain and consolidate authority over time. To substantiate this argument, I present an in-depth analysis of five global health partnerships that played a leading role in the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), the initiative that sought to coordinate the global response to covid-19. Based on extensive document review and analysis of the ACT-A PPPs —Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, Unitaid, and The Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics — I show how these partnerships’ leadership role during the pandemic emerged from a decade long build-up of PPP agency. These organizations gained administrative capacities that enabled them to increase their authority vis-à-vis their donors, boards, and other external actors through three interlinked strategies: (a) developing greater financial autonomy; (b) expanding their mandates (including toward pandemic preparedness and response); and (c) establishing inter-partnership cooperation and mutual representation to other forums. My analysis suggests the need for future research to consider highly institutionalized PPPs as agents of global governance and to explore empirically and theoretically the consequences of their rising authority.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2024-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139506110","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}
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