C. Viano, Sowelu Avanzo, Monica Cerutti, Alex Cordero, C. Schifanella, G. Boella
Blockchain technology is generating interest in novel applicative fields such as co-production of public services. Our CommonsHood project is a “wallet app” that uses the Blockchain as a tool to support sustainability of the local economy. Its tokenization mechanism allows everyone to create new types of cryptographic tokens on the Blockchain in order to digitalize assets, augment the availability of local liquidity, and incentivize cooperative socio-economic interactions. This article analyzes a concrete application of CommonsHood for innovating local development policies and service co-production in the tourism sector. We examine this application using Linders’s analytical framework for information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled co-production of services (2012). We show the advantages our project brings for local policies on tourism development, and we discuss the benefits and costs of using the Blockchain in that context. We argue that the observed case study covers different types of digitally enabled co-production of services, and that it can be defined as a case of Governance as a Platform. We also argue that well-established analytical frameworks for ICT-enabled co-production of services need to be expanded in order to account for the new affordances enabled by the Blockchain technology, namely the creation and transaction of digital values, which represent a paradigm change in how we understand the Internet and digital co-production.
{"title":"Blockchain tools for socio-economic interactions in local communities","authors":"C. Viano, Sowelu Avanzo, Monica Cerutti, Alex Cordero, C. Schifanella, G. Boella","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac007","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Blockchain technology is generating interest in novel applicative fields such as co-production of public services. Our CommonsHood project is a “wallet app” that uses the Blockchain as a tool to support sustainability of the local economy. Its tokenization mechanism allows everyone to create new types of cryptographic tokens on the Blockchain in order to digitalize assets, augment the availability of local liquidity, and incentivize cooperative socio-economic interactions. This article analyzes a concrete application of CommonsHood for innovating local development policies and service co-production in the tourism sector. We examine this application using Linders’s analytical framework for information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled co-production of services (2012). We show the advantages our project brings for local policies on tourism development, and we discuss the benefits and costs of using the Blockchain in that context. We argue that the observed case study covers different types of digitally enabled co-production of services, and that it can be defined as a case of Governance as a Platform. We also argue that well-established analytical frameworks for ICT-enabled co-production of services need to be expanded in order to account for the new affordances enabled by the Blockchain technology, namely the creation and transaction of digital values, which represent a paradigm change in how we understand the Internet and digital co-production.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89571597","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}
Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.
{"title":"The alegality of blockchain technology","authors":"Primavera de Filippi, M. Mannan, Wessel Reijers","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Similar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86455532","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}
How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries—Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types—this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of “capacity” and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward “liberalization” and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care—all of which have reduced the country’s ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups.
{"title":"Covid (In)equalities: labor market protection, health, and residential care in Germany, Sweden, and the UK","authors":"N. Ellison, P. Blomqvist, T. Fleckenstein","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac004","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 How have differently institutionalized welfare regimes dealt with the Covid-19 crisis? In particular, how have they confronted the social and economic inequalities exposed by the virus? Taking three European countries—Germany, Sweden, and the UK, corresponding broadly to conservative-continental, social democratic, and liberal regime types—this paper tracks the virus response in the areas of income and employment protection and health and residential care. With attention paid to issues of “capacity” and the institutional arrangements in each case, we find that institutional histories in Germany and Sweden permitted a certain recidivistic reliance on established practices in the areas of employment and social protection. In sum, certain social and economic inequalities were mitigated as these countries set aside recent trends toward “liberalization” and mobilized longer-standing institutional capacities to protect some groups, although by no means all. Evidence of this trend is less clear in the health and residential care sectors, where Germany had existing capacity, allowing its older population to weather the crisis in better order than its counterparts in Sweden and the UK. In the UK, welfare liberalization has led to increased social and economic inequalities and funding reductions in health and residential care—all of which have reduced the country’s ability to deal with severe crisis. The Covid response in this case was agile, but also chaotic, with little being done to ameliorate the positions of the most vulnerable groups.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82169198","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}
C. Segatto, Fernando Burgos Pimentel dos Santos, Renata Bichir, E. Morandi
This paper contributes to discussions about subnational responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in federal countries. In the scholarship on federalism and public policy, few studies seek to understand the factors that shape subnational differences in welfare levels. This article seeks to better understand this issue in Brazil by exploring how, in a context with little national-level coordination, subnational governments tackle the inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study analyzes two social policy areas with distinct national-level coordination mechanisms and federal responsibilities: social assistance and education. Two multi-level cases are examined: the states of Amazonas and São Paulo and the cities of Manaus and São Paulo. This analysis relies on quantitative data, mainly social indicators, and qualitative data collected through documents and in-depth interviews. Social assistance and education policy actors in Amazonas and São Paulo faced at times significant obstacles adapting and/or creating policies to tackle inequalities, resulting in a fend-for-yourself federalism and fragmented subnational policies. Differences in subnational responses can be explained by distinct policy legacies and previous capacity, which were key in organizing a useful response to the pandemic. However, to fully explain subnational responses, the role of actors within institutional contexts must also be taken into account. In social assistance, shared responsibilities among different levels of government led to competition and credit claiming dynamics, reinforcing fragmented and uncoordinated responses. In education, decentralization and more stable funding allowed political leadership to activate and mobilize subnational capacities and other actors at the subnational level, producing more sustainable responses.
{"title":"Inequalities and the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil: Analyzing un-coordinated responses in social assistance and education","authors":"C. Segatto, Fernando Burgos Pimentel dos Santos, Renata Bichir, E. Morandi","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac005","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper contributes to discussions about subnational responses to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in federal countries. In the scholarship on federalism and public policy, few studies seek to understand the factors that shape subnational differences in welfare levels. This article seeks to better understand this issue in Brazil by exploring how, in a context with little national-level coordination, subnational governments tackle the inequalities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study analyzes two social policy areas with distinct national-level coordination mechanisms and federal responsibilities: social assistance and education. Two multi-level cases are examined: the states of Amazonas and São Paulo and the cities of Manaus and São Paulo. This analysis relies on quantitative data, mainly social indicators, and qualitative data collected through documents and in-depth interviews. Social assistance and education policy actors in Amazonas and São Paulo faced at times significant obstacles adapting and/or creating policies to tackle inequalities, resulting in a fend-for-yourself federalism and fragmented subnational policies. Differences in subnational responses can be explained by distinct policy legacies and previous capacity, which were key in organizing a useful response to the pandemic. However, to fully explain subnational responses, the role of actors within institutional contexts must also be taken into account. In social assistance, shared responsibilities among different levels of government led to competition and credit claiming dynamics, reinforcing fragmented and uncoordinated responses. In education, decentralization and more stable funding allowed political leadership to activate and mobilize subnational capacities and other actors at the subnational level, producing more sustainable responses.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83954754","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}
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created tremendous hazards to people worldwide. Incidence, hospitalization, and mortality rates have varied by individual and regional socioeconomic indicators. However, little is known about the indirect social and economic losses following the COVID-19 pandemic and to what extent they have disproportionately affected different groups of people. Building on the traditional conceptualizations of “old” and “new social risks,” this article tracks and analyzes the emerging “COVID social risks” in five critical areas: physical health, employment and income, skills and knowledge, care, and social relationships. The article empirically examines to what extent the manifestations of “COVID social risks” describe the makings of a new class divide in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Finally, this article discusses whether “COVID social risks” present a temporary or lasting phenomenon and to what extent interactions with processes of digitization and de-globalization are likely to produce similar problem pressures for East Asian governments amid future crises. East Asian governments should facilitate individuals’ ability to absorb “COVID social risks” and institutionalize a new welfare policy settlement that emphasizes complementarities between the social protection, social investment, and social innovation policy paradigms.
{"title":"From “new social risks” to “COVID social risks”: the challenges for inclusive society in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Amid the pandemic","authors":"Y. Choi, Stefan Kühner, Shih‐Jiunn Shi","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has created tremendous hazards to people worldwide. Incidence, hospitalization, and mortality rates have varied by individual and regional socioeconomic indicators. However, little is known about the indirect social and economic losses following the COVID-19 pandemic and to what extent they have disproportionately affected different groups of people. Building on the traditional conceptualizations of “old” and “new social risks,” this article tracks and analyzes the emerging “COVID social risks” in five critical areas: physical health, employment and income, skills and knowledge, care, and social relationships. The article empirically examines to what extent the manifestations of “COVID social risks” describe the makings of a new class divide in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Finally, this article discusses whether “COVID social risks” present a temporary or lasting phenomenon and to what extent interactions with processes of digitization and de-globalization are likely to produce similar problem pressures for East Asian governments amid future crises. East Asian governments should facilitate individuals’ ability to absorb “COVID social risks” and institutionalize a new welfare policy settlement that emphasizes complementarities between the social protection, social investment, and social innovation policy paradigms.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"18 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90752749","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}
Diego Cagigas, Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz‐Fuentes, Marcos Fernández, J. Echevarría-Cuenca, Celia Gilsanz-Gómez
Blockchain is emerging as one of the major disruptive technologies of our times. In the context of public administration, blockchain heralds major transformations of public service provision and has the potential to increase the transparency of, and citizens’ trust in, public administration and its services. However, the introduction of blockchain to public administrations means potentially changing aspects of the job performed by public officials, including their day-to-day activities and responsibilities, and even their very control over administrative processes. While some public officials may view blockchain positively as a means of improving current administrative practices, others may view it more negatively and resist it. The acceptance or otherwise of blockchain is, therefore, a fundamental issue for analysis. We conduct a vignette experiment to probe public officials’ opinions on the introduction of blockchain in the provision of public services in a local council. We follow an influential classification of blockchain configurations to analyze whether different configurations of blockchain affect public officials’ opinions toward its implementation. Results show that a more public configuration of certain aspects of the blockchain increases the likelihood that public officials will accept blockchain, while it is also associated with an increase in trust in public administration and its services.
{"title":"Explaining public officials’ opinions on blockchain adoption: a vignette experiment","authors":"Diego Cagigas, Judith Clifton, Daniel Díaz‐Fuentes, Marcos Fernández, J. Echevarría-Cuenca, Celia Gilsanz-Gómez","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puab022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puab022","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Blockchain is emerging as one of the major disruptive technologies of our times. In the context of public administration, blockchain heralds major transformations of public service provision and has the potential to increase the transparency of, and citizens’ trust in, public administration and its services. However, the introduction of blockchain to public administrations means potentially changing aspects of the job performed by public officials, including their day-to-day activities and responsibilities, and even their very control over administrative processes. While some public officials may view blockchain positively as a means of improving current administrative practices, others may view it more negatively and resist it. The acceptance or otherwise of blockchain is, therefore, a fundamental issue for analysis. We conduct a vignette experiment to probe public officials’ opinions on the introduction of blockchain in the provision of public services in a local council. We follow an influential classification of blockchain configurations to analyze whether different configurations of blockchain affect public officials’ opinions toward its implementation. Results show that a more public configuration of certain aspects of the blockchain increases the likelihood that public officials will accept blockchain, while it is also associated with an increase in trust in public administration and its services.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76144394","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}
Poor people proved especially vulnerable to economic disruption during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which highlighted the importance of poverty reduction as a policy concern. In this article, we explore the politics of poverty reduction during the COVID-19 crisis in Canada and the United States, two liberal welfare-state regimes where poverty reduction is a key policy issue. We show that, since the beginning of the pandemic, policies likely to reduce poverty significantly have been adopted in both Canada and the United States. Yet, this poverty reduction logic has emerged in different ways in the two countries—with the United States embracing more significant departures from its policy status quo. This situation leads us to ask the following question: in each country, what are the political conditions under which public policies susceptible of reducing poverty are enacted? To answer this question, we study the politics of poverty reduction both before and during the pandemic, as we suggest that grasping the evolution of partisan and electoral patterns over time is necessary to explain what happened during the pandemic, whose impact is closely related to how it interacts with such patterns. Our analysis suggests the need to consider more carefully the impact of both crises and partisanship on social policy, including poverty reduction.
{"title":"COVID-19, poverty reduction, and partisanship in Canada and the United States","authors":"D. Béland, S. Dinan, P. Rocco, Alex Waddan","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac002","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Poor people proved especially vulnerable to economic disruption during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which highlighted the importance of poverty reduction as a policy concern. In this article, we explore the politics of poverty reduction during the COVID-19 crisis in Canada and the United States, two liberal welfare-state regimes where poverty reduction is a key policy issue. We show that, since the beginning of the pandemic, policies likely to reduce poverty significantly have been adopted in both Canada and the United States. Yet, this poverty reduction logic has emerged in different ways in the two countries—with the United States embracing more significant departures from its policy status quo. This situation leads us to ask the following question: in each country, what are the political conditions under which public policies susceptible of reducing poverty are enacted? To answer this question, we study the politics of poverty reduction both before and during the pandemic, as we suggest that grasping the evolution of partisan and electoral patterns over time is necessary to explain what happened during the pandemic, whose impact is closely related to how it interacts with such patterns. Our analysis suggests the need to consider more carefully the impact of both crises and partisanship on social policy, including poverty reduction.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89202593","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}
The existing literature suggests that external shocks, such as pandemics, stimulate people’s demand for social protections and prompt them to favor short-term social consumption over long-term investments. However, this argument may not apply fully in a society with an urban–rural divide in addition to an unequal welfare system. Through a telephone survey conducted in July 2020, this study sought to investigate public opinions on the social policy response to the coronavirus disease pandemic in China. Quantitative evidence showed large economic hardship among the respondents, who expressed a strong expectation for labor market interventions instead of social assistance. This study reveals that the preexisting inequalities in people’s access to welfare benefits have led local residents and migrants to develop differential preferences for social policies. This attitudinal heterogeneity is illustrative of the inequalities in the Chinese welfare system as well as of the labor market dynamics that have resulted from massive internal migration and the informalization of the workforce. The division between locals and migrants in China’s urban welfare system has shaped a demarcation of welfare preferences between the two groups through peculiar interpretive feedback effects.
{"title":"COVID-19 and social inequality in China: the local–migrant divide and the limits of social protections in a pandemic","authors":"A. He, Chunni Zhang, Jiwei Qian","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puac003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puac003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The existing literature suggests that external shocks, such as pandemics, stimulate people’s demand for social protections and prompt them to favor short-term social consumption over long-term investments. However, this argument may not apply fully in a society with an urban–rural divide in addition to an unequal welfare system. Through a telephone survey conducted in July 2020, this study sought to investigate public opinions on the social policy response to the coronavirus disease pandemic in China. Quantitative evidence showed large economic hardship among the respondents, who expressed a strong expectation for labor market interventions instead of social assistance. This study reveals that the preexisting inequalities in people’s access to welfare benefits have led local residents and migrants to develop differential preferences for social policies. This attitudinal heterogeneity is illustrative of the inequalities in the Chinese welfare system as well as of the labor market dynamics that have resulted from massive internal migration and the informalization of the workforce. The division between locals and migrants in China’s urban welfare system has shaped a demarcation of welfare preferences between the two groups through peculiar interpretive feedback effects.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77109255","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}
Wu, Howlett, and Ramesh’s understanding of policy capacity has been used to identify generalizable strengths and weaknesses of specific jurisdictions and policy sectors such as health. In an extension of this work, Howlett and Ramesh have argued that the mode of governance of a policy sector accentuates the importance of specific elements of policy capacity. In this paper we focus on the implementation of the System Level Measures Framework (SLMF) in New Zealand that has been specifically focused on health systems improvement and which aimed to do so by fostering network governance at the local level. However, this policy is introduced in a context in which there has been significant contestation regarding which mode of governance—network or hierarchy—is dominant in New Zealand health policy. By exploring three divergent local cases of implementation of the SLMF we develop three arguments that contribute to the literature on policy capacity and health. Firstly, local histories of interorganizational play a crucial role in shaping health policy capacity. Secondly, it is crucially important to understand the dynamics and feedback loops between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity. Network and hierarchical governance are characterized by distinct and contrasting understandings of the content of policy capacity elements and of the way in which they are dynamically related. Thirdly, the key challenge in developing policy capacity compatible with network governance is how to facilitate this capacity when connections between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity fail to fire.
{"title":"Cultivating health policy capacity through network governance in New Zealand: learning from divergent stories of policy implementation","authors":"T. Tenbensel, P. Silwal","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puab020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puab020","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Wu, Howlett, and Ramesh’s understanding of policy capacity has been used to identify generalizable strengths and weaknesses of specific jurisdictions and policy sectors such as health. In an extension of this work, Howlett and Ramesh have argued that the mode of governance of a policy sector accentuates the importance of specific elements of policy capacity. In this paper we focus on the implementation of the System Level Measures Framework (SLMF) in New Zealand that has been specifically focused on health systems improvement and which aimed to do so by fostering network governance at the local level. However, this policy is introduced in a context in which there has been significant contestation regarding which mode of governance—network or hierarchy—is dominant in New Zealand health policy. By exploring three divergent local cases of implementation of the SLMF we develop three arguments that contribute to the literature on policy capacity and health. Firstly, local histories of interorganizational play a crucial role in shaping health policy capacity. Secondly, it is crucially important to understand the dynamics and feedback loops between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity. Network and hierarchical governance are characterized by distinct and contrasting understandings of the content of policy capacity elements and of the way in which they are dynamically related. Thirdly, the key challenge in developing policy capacity compatible with network governance is how to facilitate this capacity when connections between operational, political, and analytical policy capacity fail to fire.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83126197","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}
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has tested the mettle of governments across the globe and has thrown entrenched fault lines within health systems into sharper relief. In response to the outbreak of the pandemic, governments introduced a range of measures to meet the growth in demand and bridge gaps in health systems. The objective of this paper is to understand the nature and extent of the changes in health systems triggered by the COVID-19 crisis. The paper examines changes in the role of governments in (1) sector coordination, (2) service provision, (3) financing, (4) payment, and (5) regulations. It outlines broad trends and reforms underway prior to the pandemic and highlights likely trajectories in these aspects in the future. The paper argues that while the pandemic has accelerated changes already underway before the crisis, it has made little headway in clearing the path for other or deeper health policy reforms. The reform window that COVID-19 opened has not been wide enough to overcome the entrenched path dependency and structural interests that characterize the sector.
{"title":"Health policy and COVID-19: path dependency and trajectory","authors":"A. Bali, A. He, M. Ramesh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puab014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puab014","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has tested the mettle of governments across the globe and has thrown entrenched fault lines within health systems into sharper relief. In response to the outbreak of the pandemic, governments introduced a range of measures to meet the growth in demand and bridge gaps in health systems. The objective of this paper is to understand the nature and extent of the changes in health systems triggered by the COVID-19 crisis. The paper examines changes in the role of governments in (1) sector coordination, (2) service provision, (3) financing, (4) payment, and (5) regulations. It outlines broad trends and reforms underway prior to the pandemic and highlights likely trajectories in these aspects in the future. The paper argues that while the pandemic has accelerated changes already underway before the crisis, it has made little headway in clearing the path for other or deeper health policy reforms. The reform window that COVID-19 opened has not been wide enough to overcome the entrenched path dependency and structural interests that characterize the sector.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2022-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83165570","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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