Search

Facing challenges of dealing with complex social and technical issues, Chinese government has sought to enhance social credibility of policy decisions by soliciting expert advice. One institutional...

The aim of this article is to determine whether there is opportunistic behavior in local government decisions related to contracting out, public-private partnership (PPP) and/or public externalizat...

In 1932, with the help of the League of Nations, the Chinese government sent an educational mission consisting of five scholars to Europe, in order to investigate education in different countries a...

In Summer 2020 when the UK government announced that it would be stopping the provision of free school meals in England over the summer holidays the announcement was met with public outcry. When the UK government then u-turned on that policy decision this outcome was attributed to a successful online campaign led by footballer Marcus Rashford. In the background human rights lawyers had issued a judicial review pre-action protocol to the Secretary of State for Education. When the UK government reversed the decision on free school meals the legal proceedings were halted and, as a result, potentially significant legal precedent was lost. This comment sets out the legal grounds against the UK government in respect of not providing free school meals in England that may be of renewed and wider relevance in the future.

Ex post review is a common feature of policy-making institutions. We consider an environment in which an expert agent makes a policy recommendation, which can then be accepted or rejected by an ove...

The value of a statistical life (VSL) establishes the money-risk tradeoff that U.S. government agencies have used for four decades to monetize the mortality reduction benefits of proposed regulations. This article advocates the adoption of the VSL more generally both for policy evaluation purposes and for setting the magnitude of regulatory sanctions involving fatalities. Agencies currently employ the inconsistent practice of using the VSL to set the stringency of regulations, while at the same time, reverting to very low monetary values of sanctions for violations that result in fatalities. Reform of penalty levels to reflect the VSL will require increasing the current statutory limits on regulatory penalties. Revamping the penalty structure also will incentivize private companies to incorporate the VSL in their corporate risk analyses. Government agencies, including those concerned with national defense, similarly could profit from greater expansion of the use of the VSL in policy decisions.

Metropolitan cities can serve as laboratories of sustainable development by experimenting with innovative sustainability programs while leveraging the advantages of metropolitan areas. With the importance of cities’ sustainability efforts, scholars have increasingly explored what factors motivate local governments to implement voluntary sustainability programs by focusing on internal government and community characteristics. However, what is missing in the previous discussion is whether city governments respond to sustainability efforts by other government entities, especially neighboring local governments. Drawing on institutional and policy diffusion theories, we analyzed the sustainability programs of 251 suburban cities in 66 metropolitan areas. We find that suburban cities are likely to consider sustainability efforts of central cities in the same metropolitan area when determining the extent to which they implement their sustainability programs. However, they are not necessarily responsive to sustainability efforts of nearby suburban cities. Our research sheds light on how local governments’ sustainability policy decisions are affected by their relationships with other local governments. It also provides policy implications for the important role of central cities in facilitating collective sustainability efforts in metropolitan areas.

In the face of technology failures in preventing oil from reaching beaches and coasts after catastrophic oil spills in the 1960s and early 1970s, the oil industry and governmental officials needed to quickly reconsider their idea of prevention. Initially, prevention meant stopping spilled oil from coating beaches and coasts. Exploring the presentations at three oil-spill conferences in 1969, 1971 and 1973, this idea of prevention changed as the technological optimism of finding effective methods met the realities of oil-spill cleanup. By 1973, prevention meant stopping oil spills before they happened. This rapid policy transformation came about because the oil industry could not hide the visual evidence of the source of their technology failures. In this century, as policymakers confront invisible pollutants such as pesticides and greenhouse gases, considering ways to visually show the source of the pollution along with the effects could quicken policy decisions.

Intensified by today’s increasingly contentious political environment, delays often occur in the policy-making process. This paper applies the time pressure theory to study how budget deadlines and...

The media play a key role in informing public opinion during refugee crises. Representations of refugees in the media shape public understanding of what a ‘refugee’ is and policy decisions over who to include or to exclude. Although extensive literature has examined representations of refugees in news media, few systematic comparative investigations look at discourses across types of immigration countries. In this article, the author compares news coverage of the Syrian refugee crisis in Canada and the UK, to consider how media discourse is affected by a nation’s historical relationship with and current policies of immigration. The author follows existing literature in arguing that the dominant discourses in the newspapers racialize refugees through a ‘victim–pariah’ couplet, and further argues that this shared model of racialized representation serves the particular nation-building projects and asylum regimes in the two countries. In addition, a comparison between coverage in newspapers that represent divergent political orientations shows that news stories that attempt to ‘give voice’ to refugees are more prevalent in the more left-leaning newspapers in both countries. Nonetheless, these attempts to ‘re-humanize’ refugees do not invalidate the Orientalist image of refugees as passive victims without agency and history.

This article examines what smartness does on the ground by examining how its anticipatory media visions have been interpreted and acted on in policy decisions and local implementations since the early 2000s. Using a comparative-historical analysis that draws on fieldwork in aspiring smart cities in the United States and Europe, we argue that the visions of smartness are neither singular nor fixed across time and space. Instead, the role of smartness in diffusing new technologies is recruited and reshaped in the present to lend legitimacy to future public and private interventions. We first demonstrate that the narrative of crisis, often associated with smartness, shifted from a pre-2008 emphasis on sustainability and climate change to a post-financial crisis engagement with entrepreneurship and platformization. We then discuss how the development of smart city initiatives has followed divergent paths in the United States and Europe, with big tech companies dominating in the former and the ‘living lab’ model prevailing in the latter. Our analysis highlights the importance of investigating the complex relationships between anticipatory media visions of smartness and their varying, down-to-earth implementations in the built environment rather than solely focusing on the discursive appeal of techno-idealism. It also explains the enduring appeal of smartness as an urban vision, despite its various shortcomings, by revealing its adaptability to the changing social and political–economic shifts.

American Indian nations, as pre-constitutional sovereigns, occupy a unique place in the USA. While tribal governments are able to exercise numerous rights as independent nations, they are often affected by policy decisions at the federal and state level. Yet little is known about the specific efforts of American Indians to seek representation in state legislative decision making. We address this shortcoming by answering two related questions. First, do American Indians and Native organizations lobby for public policy at the state level? If they do lobby, as we expect, do they focus solely on gaming given its role in providing an important source of economic development, or do they seek representation on a wide range of issues? Using data from the California legislature for the years 2000–2012, our findings suggest that American Indians seek representation via lobbying on a wide range of issues, including, but not limited to, Indian gaming. We posit that these findings support prior work on the political incorporation of American Indians as they seek representation on public policy issues.

This study explores the relationship between satisfaction and engagement survey items through an institutionally based survey, drawing on the two largest higher education student experience surveys in the world. The UK-based National Student Survey (NSS) was designed to inform student choice and drive competition and the US-based National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) was developed to provide actionable data for institutional enhancement. Comparing these surveys leads to a critical review of how such data can be used for policy decisions and institutional enhancement. The Institutional Experience Survey thus draws on findings from a survey of 1480 non-final year undergraduate students in a research-intensive UK university. Those who reported higher levels of engagement, measured across 17 engagement benchmarks, also reported significantly higher levels of satisfaction. Results are used to discuss the application of engagement-based surveys in the UK, compared to satisfaction-based surveys, and the benefits and challenges of both approaches. Conclusions are made about the usefulness of nationally standardised experience surveys, the different outcome goals of engagement and satisfaction, such as responsibility for learning and change, audience and results and lessons for other countries looking to measure the student experience. The paper highlights the need for a shift in perspective in relation to the role of student surveys in determining national and institutional policy from a student-as-customer approach to one that sees students and institutions as co-responsible for learning and engagement.

The study compares two fee-free policies at the upper secondary level in Ghana on how they responded to access and the policymaking processes in education. Secondary sources of data were used, while Haddad and Demsky’s framework of education policymaking served as the theoretical basis for textual data analysis. The results show that Free Senior High School policy responded to the program output of an increase in access, unlike Progressive Free Senior High policy. However, the inconsistent release of funding and limited stakeholder consultation are common features of the policies. It is further observed that the desirability of access is over prioritised in the current Free Senior High School policy, leaving gaps in educational facilities and resources during policy decision. To address these challenges, sources of funding must be re-assessed for possible policy redesign that invites consumers of the policy who opt for boarding status to absorb a proportion of boarding fees.

Recent European studies suggest that fathers’ leave-taking may contribute to parental relationship stability. Paternity leave-taking may signal a commitment by fathers toward a greater investment in family life, which may reduce the burden on mothers and strengthen parental relationships. This study uses longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to analyze the association between paternity leave-taking and relationship stability in the United States. Results indicate that paternity leave-taking, and taking relatively short leaves (i.e. two weeks or less) in particular, is associated with greater relationship stability. These findings increase our understanding of the potential benefits of paternity leave, and can inform policy decisions that aim to increase family stability.

Social workers can mobilize vulnerable populations to shape policy decisions about industrial practices that could have adverse impacts on their wellbeing. One such practice is hydraulic fracturing...

Public engagement can enrich policy-making, bringing a diversity of views and voices to policy decisions being made. By placing the experience of those affected by the outcome at the center...

Legitimacy is typically given to an authority by a subject. In most cases, the state. However, different governance structures alter the role of the state and the support of some policy decisions rests on the actions of others. In mine development, government sits in an interesting position. As the permitting authority, government holds the responsibility for determining the paths companies must travel to open and operate a mine. At the same time, mining companies engage in extra-legislative activities to build public support and move the process forward. Therefore, the state may no long control the legitimacy of the mine development process. Conducting interviews with state officials in two jurisdictions, Saskatchewan, Canada and Norrbotten, Sweden, this study investigates whether legitimacy issues exist from the perspective of the authority. Focusing on participation, influence, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness, the study determines first if shared conceptions of these factors exists amongst officials and then whether they viewed the process operating in a manner that matches these shared conceptions. The most significant differences in views occurred in Norrbotten where the results on throughput legitimacy pointed to legitimacy issues from the perspective of the state, particularly with other government agencies.

Contrary to the claims of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that its torture program was scientific, the program was not based on biology or any other science. Instead, the George W. Bush administration veneered the program’s justification with a patina of pseudoscience, ignoring the actual biology of torturing human brains. We reconstruct the Bush administration’s decision-making process to establish that the policy decision to use torture took place in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks without any investigation into its efficacy. We then present the pseudoscientific model of torture sold to the CIA, show why this ad hoc model amounted to pseudoscience, and then catalog what the actual science of torturing human brains—available in 2001—reveals about the practice. We conclude with a discussion of how a process incorporating countervailing evidence might prevent a policy going forward that is contrary to law, ethics, and evidence.

Banyak inovasi yang telah dihasilkan dalam pelayanan publik pemerintah namun tidak dapat menunjukkan inklusivitas manfaat yang lebih besar. Governansi inovasi memberikan kerangka kerja bagaimana inovasi dapat dikelola untuk dapat menunjukkan manfaat yang lebih besar. Penelitian ini bermaksud untuk mendeskripsikan elemen dan faktor yang mempengaruhi governansi inovasi pelayanan publik pemerintah. Metode kualitatif deskriptif digunakan dalam penelitian ini, sumber data dikumpulkan secara deduktif dari beberapa sumber ilmiah dan peraturan pemerintah. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa governansi inovasi memberikan kontribusi pengelolaan inovasi menjadi lebih baik dalam sektor pelayanan publik pemerintah. Di sisi yang lain governansi inovasi dapat diimplementasikan dengan menganalisis faktor kelembagaan sebagai pelaksana, aktor kebijakan sebagai pengambil keputusan dan partisipasi masyarakat sebagai penerima inovasi layanan pemerintah.

Smart cities are often criticized for preoccupation with technology, for ignoring the negative effects of technology, for irrelevance to the needs of the poor, and for ubiquitous data collection creating perfect conditions for surveillance societies and autocratic states. In response, cities pursue smartness and sustainability simultaneously, becoming global (by participation in global digital networks) and local (by addressing local needs and circumstances) at the same time. In the pursuit of smart sustainable cities, they make explicit policy decisions about how technology should serve their residents, businesses and visitors, and avoid disrupting them. Many decisions are about standards—which standards should be followed and how, and increasingly, standards and policy guidelines are adopted by cities from international organizations, circumventing national authorities. This chapter reviews international standards and policy guidelines published by international standards organizations or intergovernmental bodies, with stated goals to support member states in the development and management of smart sustainable cities. We conducted the review through exploratory research and comparative policy analysis. The result could be used to raise awareness and address knowledge needs among city managers, policy analysts, and smart city researchers.

President Trump’s rhetoric casting doubt on the integrity of mail-in voting ignited debates about whether the federal government should be allowed to intervene in states’ policy decisions regarding how elections are conducted. This study examines public opinion on rhetorical threats by the Trump Administration to block the expansion of states’ vote-by-mail policies and potentially delay the November 2020 election. In an online survey experiment, respondents were randomly assigned to receive information regarding the traditional role of states in administering U.S. federal elections and more or less salient partisan cues. Even though the information treatment was successful in informing respondents about intergovernmental control and reducing partisan gaps in knowledge, it had only a modest impact on attitudes. Preferences about which level of government should be in charge are malleable, subject to partisan and context-specific considerations.

This paper explores whether constitutional litigation contributes to sustaining the equity element of the right to health. Equity entails a fair distribution of the burden of healthcare financing across the different socio-economic groups of the population. A shift towards uncontrolled private healthcare provision and financing raises equity challenges by disproportionately benefitting those who are able to afford such services. The extent to which equity is enforced is an indicator of the strength of the right to health. However, do domestic constitutional courts second-guess, based on equity, policy decisions that impact on healthcare financing? Is it the task of constitutional courts to scrutinize such policy decisions? Under what conditions are courts more likely to do so? The paper addresses these questions by focusing on the case of Hungary, where the right to health has been present in the Fundamental Law adopted in 2010 and the Constitutions preceding it. While the Hungarian Constitutional Court has been traditionally cautious to review policy decisions pertaining to healthcare financing, the system has been struggling with equity issues and successive government coalitions have had limited success in tackling these. The paper discusses the role of constitutional litigation in addressing such equity concerns. In doing so, it contributes to the discussion on the role of domestic constitutional courts in the protection of social and economic rights.

Numerous studies over several decades have suggested that research evidence does not have the kind of impact on policy decisions...

While tensions may lie between science and policy, we argue that dissemination and public engagement are key in alleviating those perceived tensions. Science being valued by society results in fact-based policy-making being demanded by constituents. Constituents’ demands will yield representatives who are familiar with the scientific process and research to inform policy decisions.

This chapter looks at the way democratic leaders in recent decades took up the challenge of achieving a balance of authority and control, which was perceived as having gotten seriously out of kilter; in particular, by trying to explain some of the unintended consequences of the managerialist reforms. It concludes by explaining why the tension between bureaucratic and democratic authority must be perennially managed but can never be definitively resolved. Democratic leaders are never without resources for asserting themselves against the bureaucrats, for they possess the authority to reorder radically the shape of bureaucracy and to alter the rules and conditions within which it operates. Democratic leaders make policy decisions ostensibly for the public good, but must rely on a competent public service to ensure that policies are properly implemented.

This article examines the thermostatic responsiveness of EU public policy. It inquires into the conditions under which EU policy decisions are responsive to wavering public demands for policy change and how European citizens in turn respond to policy change. The main argument holds that the politicization of EU policy processes facilitates both public and policy responsiveness. My expectations are tested based on a novel database containing information on 15 EU policy issues (2010–2016). The analyses draw from panel data based on Eurobarometer polls and a large-scale content analysis of 5887 media statements in eight European news outlets. The results demonstrate that under politicized conditions, the adoption of EU policy decisions is preceded by increased public support and followed by decreased public support for EU policy change. The facilitating role of politicization is primarily triggered by the mobilization of civil society groups, while media salience and polarization are less consequential for responsiveness.

First published online: 18 April 2020 The world is in the grip of a crisis that stands unprecedented in living memory. The COVID-19 pandemic is urgent, global in scale, and massive in impacts. Following Harold D. Lasswell’s goal for the policy sciences to offer insights into unfolding phenomena, this commentary draws on the lessons of the policy sciences literature to understand the dynamics related to COVID-19. We explore the ways in which scientific and technical expertise, emotions, and narratives influence policy decisions and shape relationships among citizens, organizations, and governments. We discuss varied processes of adaptation and change, including learning, surges in policy responses, alterations in networks (locally and globally), implementing policies across transboundary issues, and assessing policy success and failure. We conclude by identifying understudied aspects of the policy sciences that deserve attention in the pandemic’s aftermath.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 has renewed concerns about nonrational decision making in American government. One view of the decision-making process, bounded rationality, is that decisions b...

La aprobación pública del Presidente juega un papel fundamental en el poder y la legitimidad con los que cuenta y en el éxito potencial que pueden tener sus decisiones de política. Este trabajo analiza y compara los determinantes de la aprobación presidencial de dos presidentes mexicanos, a saber: Felipe Calderón y Enrique Peña Nieto. Los datos que utilizo son dos oleadas de la Encuesta de las Américas 2008 y 2014. Entre los hallazgos más importantes, encuentro que, por un lado, los temas que prevalecieron en la prensa (los cuales, de algún modo, son los mismos que predominaron en los discursos presidenciales) coinciden de manera significativa con aquellos que los ciudadanos perciben como el asunto más importante para ellos. Por otro, aun con presidentes distintos, inmersos en coyunturas distintas, el tema económico es el que más pesa en la evaluación de su desempeño. Con todo, el tema de la inseguridad y el de la corrupción aparecen y permanecen durante los dos sexenios como temas que se mantienen con un efecto significativo en la ecuación de la aprobación presidencial.

Background/Context Educational policy is informed by multiple stakeholders and actors. Research has focused on understanding how policy decisions are informed and made, as well as how teachers and school leaders take up these policies in their practice. However, few researchers have examined how educational policy is framed for the larger public and voting electorate through media coverage and how the use of rhetorical devices can shape the public's understandings of policies, practices, and promised outcomes. Publicly funded prekindergarten is an emerging movement in many states. Purpose/Objective This research examined how local and national media framed the scale-up of publicly funded, Universal Pre-Kindergarten (UPK) in the largest school district in the country: New York City. Across two years, including a mayoral primary, mayoral election, and high-profile state budget negotiations, we examine how six media outlets used rhetoric to create specific narratives about the goals, outcomes, and possibilities of UPK that resonated with voters. Research Design Qualitative methods were used to examine the content of six national and local media sources. Over 640 sources were analyzed to address the questions central to this study. Utilizing our theoretical framework of rhetorical policy analysis, as well as emergent coding, we cross-analyzed multiple themes, working to identify consistent and dominant narratives across the media coverage. Findings Findings reveal that four main narratives dominated the media coverage of the scale-up of pre-K in New York City. These narratives used emotional rhetoric to frame UPK in ways that detracted from meaningful, research-informed information about how to successfully support the care and learning of young children. Conclusions/Recommendations The role of media in framing educational policy and practice for the public is growing. Researchers and policy makers must be mindful of how the rhetorical approaches utilized by the media can and will inform the public's understanding of public education policy.

The engagement of the US federal government with libraries has been disjointed. Financial support for libraries has been controversial and inconsistent, and many policy decisions have direc...

Coalition governance requires parties to come to collective policy decisions while simultaneously competing for votes. This reality has inspired a vibrant literature on coalition policy making, which is focused on legislative organization and behavior, though it is not clear how it affects the electorate. This article addresses this gap in the literature by examining how voters’ perceptions of compromise in coalition policy making affect their vote choices. Analyzing data from six parliamentary democracies where multiparty governance is the norm, it finds that voters punish parties they view as compromising. More specifically, voters are found to discount the policy accomplishments and policy promises of compromising parties, and that this tendency is more pronounced among previous incumbent cabinet supporters and the politically disinterested. These findings have important implications for the study of voting as well as coalition policy making.

Elections have consequences. This article analyzes the 2016 election results, previews how some of the policy decisions made across the multidimensional local, state, and federal levels of governments and made by officials across the executive, judicial, and legislative branches of governments could affect the work of charitable nonprofits and private foundations, and emphasizes that the advocacy function of nonprofits is going to be more important than ever in the foreseeable future.

In democracies, defence policy formulation and implementation are constrained by democratic deliberation and scrutiny. In this respect, the public plays an important role in delimitating the goals, means and priorities policy implementation. Accordingly, democratic leaders and senior public servants need to legitimize defence policy decisions in such a way as to gain widespread public assent. What do Canadians want in terms of defence policy? And more importantly, why do they share these preferences? Our chapter tries to review the existing academic research on Canadian public opinion on defence policy. First, we examine the attitude of Canadians towards defence policy issues. The number and quality of public opinion surveys examining defence policy issues has improved dramatically in the last decade and has provided scholars with a much stronger empirical foundation to reconsider strongly held assumptions on the nature and role of public opinion towards defence issues in Canada. Second, we explore the causes of defence policy preferences of Canadians. Although this research programme is still progressing, recent scholarly works have enriched our grasp of the underlying rationales associated with Canadians opinion towards defence policy issues.

This chapter examines how governments are held to account for defence policy decision in a Canadian context. Drawing on theories of accountability and the nature of Canada’s Westminster system of government, the chapter argues that accountability for defence affairs tends to operate subtly. Rather than involving admissions of failure or acceptance of blame, accountability is seen when governments quietly adjust their policies or engage in damage control to deflect opposition and media critiques. The chapter then provides examples, such as the F-35 and the war in Afghanistan, to demonstrate how defence accountability has unfolded in recent decades. In conclusion, the chapter discusses the limits of accountability for defence affairs in Canada and how other Westminster states compare.

ISSUES, QUESTIONS AND COMMENTARIES IN;Origins of Policy, Theories of Policy Cycle, Qualitative – Interpretive Methods in Policy Research, Deliberative Policy Analysis, Street-Level Bureaucracy, Managing Policy Networks, Advocacy Coalition Framework, Managing the Commons and Policy Decision-Making

In many countries, the foreign ministry is the foremost actor that formulates, articulates and implements foreign policy. In contrast, in China, the Foreign Ministry is but one of many actors and is perceived to confine its role to that of an implementer of state-to-state relations. Within the hierarchical structure of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, the highest decision-making body, makes all major policy decisions including foreign policy. The Party Foreign Affairs Coordination Bureau coordinates and manages the international work of organs directly under the CCP Central Committee and Party committees at the province, autonomous region and municipality levels. In the case of Vietnam, the CCP through the International Department (ID) played a key role in mending ties between China and Vietnam after the fallout following the 2014 oil rig incident.

This chapter discusses some types of aid policy decisions which stem from the Jackson Report’s recommendations on Australian bilateral aid to Asia. It summarises recent trends in Australian aid to Asia and the report’s chief recommendations on future aid to Asia. The chapter examines the logic of inter-country allocations of aid, and the current question of human rights and aid policy. It looks at the concept of country-programming in aid, especially the Jackson Report’s advocacy of ‘aid-for-growth’, and the authoritarian overtones of this rationale. The chapter sets out some alternatives to the report’s recommendations on these issues. The Australian aid program has often been criticised because the selection of programs and projects within a country seemed to be done on an ad hoc basis. The homogeneity which a country program might well encourage may not always be welcome, particularly when it contains an evaluation of a country’s development strategy.

In December 1984 President Ronald Reagan announced that the Soviet Union and the United States would return to the bargaining tables to resume the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START). The announcement, in conjunction with general public concern about the poor record of strategic arms limitation during the preceding decade, has sparked renewed interest in analyzing the possibilities for effective strategic arms control. US strategic arms limitation policy decision making during the first Nixon administration more closely resembled the propositions of the presidential politics paradigm than did perhaps any other episode in US arms control history. The Reagan administration was divided almost from the beginning about how to proceed with strategic arms limitation negotiations with the Soviet Union. In January, the Reagan administration withdrew the interim proposal and promised to provide a long-term solution by the end of the year.

This chapter investigates the nature and effectiveness of cost containment measures undertaken in the British National Health Service (NHS). It deals with a brief description of the private market for health services and medical insurance, a brief summary of the White Paper released in December 1997, and some concluding remarks. The chapter presents the essential features of the NHS, examines how its budget is set and looks at the historical trend in health care expenditure. Although the long-term trend indicates that hospital care is increasing at lower rates than those of the overall health care expenditure, latest data suggest that the situation is changing. The objective of the NHS strategy on Research and Development is quite ambitious: to create a knowledge-based health service in which clinical, managerial and policy decisions are based on sound information about research findings and scientific development.