European Policy Analysis最新文献

Disproportionate policy responses—policy over- and underreaction—are ubiquitous in policy affairs, yet detecting their full spectrum remains uncharted territory. To this end, I developed a descriptive-analytical framework centering on a novel conceptual tool, the Ladder of Disproportionate Policy, based on assessing the gap between the scope of the audience that the policy ostensibly serves and the degree of policy (mis)fit, that is, how the policy tools are set and adjusted to serve the actual audience. This scale assumes that policymakers can “game” these two policy dimensions before and during policy implementation. Political executives can climb up and down this conceptual Ladder and ascend or descend one dimension independently of the other in addition to moving from one side to the other. The case of the 2021 food voucher policy in Israel illustrates the feasibility of the Ladder.

Scholarship is growing on societal transitions, describing radical societal change involving multiple sectors and scales, and transformative governance, describing how public, private, and civil society actors use tools of policy to pursue this fundamental change, aiming to build resiliency and sustainability. Much of this literature has a systems-level focus and does not closely examine how governance participants, working individually or collectively, can steer a jurisdiction toward or away from transformativeness. This paper offers a corrective, integrating policy entrepreneurship scholarship with transformative governance research to advance understanding of how human agency underpins societal change. Drawing on accounts from 50 interviewees across eight case studies of US cities grappling with flooding hazards, we show how policy entrepreneurship can boost the political and economic resources that city officials rely upon to help propel radical shifts towards greater social, economic, and environmental equity.

Summer is the time for conferences and the release of new journal rankings. For the editorial teams of journals specializing in policy process research, including European Policy Analysis (EPA), both are interconnected. Ideally, they both help to increase the chances of attracting more high-quality submissions and special issues, while also promoting the journal among readers and reviewers.

The citation scores for 2023 remained very high for EPA. Both in the Web of Science and Scopus, the journal is ranked in Q1 of the political science category. Our new Impact Factor (IF) is 2.7, which positions us at 56/317 in Political Science and 23/91 in Public Administration. In Scopus, we have an outstanding CiteScore of 9.7, placing us at 9/706 in Political Science and International Relations, and 11/232 in Public Administration. These figures are, of course, situational and will fluctuate frequently; they likely say little about the actual quality of the journal. However, we hope they contribute to attracting more interest in the journal, thereby helping us to firmly establish EPA as a leading journal for European perspectives in policy process research.

Relevant conferences in both political science and public policy are also very helpful in this regard. We engage in regular exchanges with the editorial teams of other journals to discuss new challenges. These include formal developments such as open access, the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, and possible reactions from commercial publishers and professional associations, all of which we must address. Simultaneously, there are exciting substantive developments in our field. These include new approaches and methods for understanding networks in policymaking, which are particularly intriguing in the diverse European countries and the European Union (EU) multi-level system. Are there European perspectives and knowledge from which the international policy process community can benefit? The freely submitted contributions in this issue make important contributions in this regard and will hopefully generate significant interest.

Capano et al. (2024) investigate a question of fundamental importance to current policy process research: What constitutes political networks? What are the motives for cooperation between policy actors, and what role do coalitions between actors play in policy-making? Policy process research has developed and tested a variety of perspectives on specific cases of collaboration (Guo, 2022; Ingold et al., 2021; Möck, 2021). This paper draws on three perspectives and examines their explanatory power through the example of two networks of administrative reform in Italy. What do we find in these networks? Are they more akin to policy communities, which are stable coalitions of heterogeneous actors with a common interest to frame the policy discourse (Jordan, 1990; Miller & Demir, 20

Agricultural pesticide use is a wicked sustainability challenge: Trade-offs exist between health, environmental, agro-economic, and socio-political objectives. Various actors involved have diverse beliefs regarding these trade-offs and policies to address the challenge. But to what extent does the agreement or disagreement between actors reflect belief similarities or differences, and thus, the formation of advocacy coalitions? To answer this question, the study draws on the advocacy coalition framework and investigates data from 54 key actors in the case of Swiss pesticide policy. The study explores the relationship between the actors' (dis)agreement relations and their beliefs using Random Forests. Coalitions are identified through block modeling and beliefs based on multi-attribute value theory. The study shows that the two relations are a good proxy for identifying coalitions with conflict lines concerning beliefs and presents an approach to exploring ideological reasons behind (dis)agreement relations that supports identifying conflicting beliefs relevant to future policy solutions.

Policy capacity is vital for a nation's prosperity and sustainability, enabling governments to fulfill diverse responsibilities, such as security, economic growth, and accountable governance. This study evaluates policy capacity across countries from 2014 to 2020 using Sustainable Governance Indicators by the Bertelsmann Foundation. Focusing on executive capacity, which encompasses policy capacity's analytical, managerial, and political aspects, we gauge governments' ability to implement sustainable policies. Executive capacity is further classified into steering capability, policy implementation, and institutional learning. Findings show that policy capacity significantly influences policy effectiveness in all countries, with high-capacity countries demonstrating more impact. Enhancing policy capacity through efficient steering, implementation, and learning can improve policy effectiveness and foster responsive governance for sustainable development. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers seeking to bolster governance capacities and achieve positive policy outcomes.

In this study, we seek to understand the interplay between industry and policy, to explain how and why the UK shifted from the promotion of low-emission road transportation, to policy based on zero tailpipe-emission electric vehicles (EVs), as part of its evolving net zero ambitions. For this, we unify the Multi-Level Perspective, Multiple Streams Framework, and Multi-Level Governance into a synthetic model—the Multi-Level Governance and Strategy model. Within this, we identify distinct windows of opportunity (WoO) that relate to each of the technology, policy, and market factors that needed to come together to put the UK automotive industry on a specific trajectory. Utilizing (pragmatist) grounded theory to analyze our extensive interview and documentary data, we find that this trajectory resulted from the interplay of technology innovators and policy entrepreneurs in different WoO, to achieve the ultimate goal of a functioning market for EVs.

Bureaucratic elites and national public administrations' experts play a key role in the preparation of supranational policies and in shaping global governance instruments. However, we know surprisingly little about what factors drive their preferences and support for supranational solutions. Drawing on the results of a vignette and conjoint experiment and the case of the European Commission's policy initiative to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards, this study analyzes the effect of the communicative framing of a policy's objective and how experts' attitudes influence their preferences for policy outcomes. The study shows that the communicative framing of a policy's objective based on functional needs rather than on normative grounds increases support among national administrations' experts. Moreover, the study finds evidence that experts who internalized a public service motivation and those with a supranationalist collective identity are more willing to give up national sovereignty in favor of supranational policy solutions.

Through learning, policy actors can maintain, reinforce, or revise their beliefs and positions about the design and outcomes of policies. This paper critically analyzes factors influencing policy learning by comparing policy processes of two EU laws of the recent “Fit for 55” climate package: (i) revised provisions on increasing energy efficiency in companies included in the recast Energy Efficiency Directive and (ii) the new FuelEU Maritime regulation provided for decarbonizing maritime shipping. Learning across coalitions with competing beliefs was encountered in the first case but not in the other despite similar institutional settings. The difference is attributed to a more politicized debate on decarbonizing shipping, leading to consensus through bargaining instead of deliberation, and a circumscribed leader of one coalition, with a less flexible negotiation mandate. The paper adds to the theory on policy learning, suggesting that levels of politicization and polarization, as well as the mandates of the coalition leaders, influence cross-coalition learning.

Free movement of goods within the EU is guaranteed via mutual recognition: any product lawfully produced in one member state must also be accepted in all other member states. While unleashing economic benefits from trade without regulatory barriers, mutual recognition potentially limits member states' ability to address societal concerns with regard to production conditions. This hypothesis is addressed via the case of farm animal welfare in Germany, combining a thorough policy analysis with 20 elite interviews. The results demonstrate how the discourse of inner-European competition has discouraged policymakers to adopt stricter legislation over the past three decades, exemplifying the impeding effect of mutual recognition on member states' policies. Understanding these mechanisms is vital for handling regulatory diversity within integrated markets and offers insights into similar policy areas. This research contributes to the broader issue of national sustainability standards in a globalized world, where collective preferences increasingly collide with economic goals.