Policy advisory systems: change dynamics and sources of variation

The special issue aims to enhance our understanding of the conditions under which policy advisory systems vary. The contributions comprise both continental European countries (Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands) and Anglo-Saxon countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK). The introduction to the special issue briefly outlines existing scholarship on policy advisory systems and identifies different research gaps to the filling of which the special issue seeks to contribute. The introduction highlights that the articles in the special issue point to both political system and policy process variables to better systemize, theorize and explain the origins and change dynamics of policy advisory systems.     

Dynamics in the Dutch policy advisory system: externalization,politicization and the legacy of pillarization

Although the literature on policy advisory systems has experienced a revival in recent years, its empirical focus has mainly been on Anglophone countries (Craft and Halligan 2016). This paper applies the policy advisory systems approach to the Netherlands, which can serve as an example of the dynamics in the policy advisory systems of consensus-driven, neo-corporatist polities Lijphart in Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, 21, 235–266 1999). Using a historical-institutionalist perspective, the dynamics of the Dutch policy advisory system from the mid-1960s to the present day are examined. Based on original cross-time survey data and an analysis of secondary sources, the impact of depillarization (mid-1960s–mid-1990s), new public management (mid-1980s onwards) and an increased pressure on the executive have had for the Dutch policy advisory system (from the late 1990s): fragmentation, externalization and a non-partisan brand of politicization are shown. More specifically, the use of the institutionalized system of permanent advisory councils has lost part of its significance in favour of both external consultants and ad hoc advisory committees. The Dutch case, with its accumulative institutional design based on Weberianism, neo-corporatism and new public management elements, has thus experienced markedly different dynamics in its policy advice system than the Anglophone countries.     

Think tanks and strategic policy-making: the contribution of think tanks to policy advisory systems

Think tanks have proliferated in most Western democracies over the past three decades and are often considered to be increasingly important actors in public policy. Still, their precise contribution to public policy remains contested. This paper takes the existing literature in a new direction by focusing on the capacity of think tanks to contribute to strategic policy-making and assessing their particular role within policy advisory systems. We propose that strategic policy-making capacity requires three critical features: high levels of research capacity, substantial organizational autonomy and a long-term policy horizon. Subsequently, we assess the potential of think tanks to play this particular role in policy-making, using empirical evidence from structured interviews with a set of prominent Australian think tanks.     

Designing policy for the long term: agency,policy feedback and policy change

Policy Sciences - Policy feedback research faces a potential pivot point owing to recent theoretical and substantive advances. Concerted attention now spans new scientific communities, such as...     

Global climate change: defining the policy problem

The U.S. appears to be misdefining the policy problem posed by the threat of global climate change, and is therefore not likely to find satisfactory policy solutions.The dominant definitions of the policy problem - alleging certain scientific, economic, and political barriers to effective policy - circumscribe the search for policy solutions. But those solutions meet neither practical criteria of rationality nor the test of practical experience. We seem to be trapped within problem definitions that reflect and reinforce the convergence of powerful interests with elements of the culture.The problem may be a culture that fails to integrate science-based technologies for mastering nature with ethical or political constraints on their use. and therefore jeopardizes its own sustainability. If so, then reasoned action begins with political leadership that challenges selected elements of the dominant culture and directs attention to alternatives - thereby opening up the search for solutions.     

Political context,policy networks and policy change: the complexity of transition in Hong Kong

Abstract

Central to the debates on the transition of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty is how this process has affected change in the policy process and policy outputs. Many see policy change as a result of the evolving political environment in Hong Kong following the political transition. This article, however, adopts the notion of policy networks and argues that the analysis of policy change cannot be reduced to a simple contextual stimulus – the policy alteration model. A case study – ‘the development of civic education’ – demonstrates the importance of policy networks, as a particular structure of government and group relations in decision making, in explaining the course of policy change. It is apparent that the relationship between regime change and political liberalization, on the one hand, and established networks, on the other, tends to be complex and dialectical in Hong Kong. Despite the importance of sovereignty transition and political restructuring, the effect of contextual factors on public policy greatly depends on the nature of the network involved.     

Mechanisms for policy (dis)integration: explaining food policy and climate change adaptation policy in the Netherlands

Policy Sciences - Recent years have witnessed increased political interest to the challenge of organizing policy integration to govern societal problems that crosscut the boundaries of traditional...     

The dynamics of policy change: Policy succession

This paper suggests that the policy model assumed by most writers on policy analysis neglects the implications of the fact that most new policies in contemporary Western political systems are in fact replacing old policies, and that this is increasingly likely to be the case. Similarly, the recent interest in policy termination is partly misplaced since it fails to follow through adequately the implications of the fact that most policy terminations lead to policy succession. Accordingly, there is a need to study and analyse the processes involved in policy succession. This paper places policy succession in the context of policy change, sketches a model which describes the distinctive features of the policy succession process, outlines the various kinds of policy succession which occur, and draws out some implications for policy makers resulting from the increasing importance of policy succession.This article is a revised version of a paper entitled The policy succession process: Implications of policy change, presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 28–31 August 1980.     

The lessons of learning: Reconciling theories of policy learning and policy change

Several different explanations of policy change based on notions of learning have emerged in the policy literature to challenge conventional conflict-oriented theories. These include notions of political-learning developed by Heclo, policy-oriented learning developed by Sabatier, lesson-drawing analyzed by Rose, social learning discussed by Hall and government learning identified by Etheredge. These different concepts identify different actors and different effects with each different type of learning. Some elements of these theories are compatible, while others are not. This article examines each approach in terms of who learns, what they learn, and the effects of learning on subsequent policies. The conclusion is that three distinct types of learning have often been incorrectly juxtaposed. Certain conceptual, theoretical and methodological difficulties attend any attempt to attribute policy change to policy learning, but this does not detract from the important reorientation of policy analysis that this approach represents.     

Neoconservatism and conservative-liberal economic policy in West Germany

Abstract. This article outlines the development of contemporary German conservatism, its renaissance in the 1970s and its (partial) transformation into neoconservatism in the 1980s. Its purpose is to explain, in the case of economic- and social policy, one of the subjects most relevant within the neoconservative discourse – why the impact of neoconservative ideology on the policies of the conservative-liberal government since 1982 has remained weak. The findings will be discussed in the light of recent theories about a 'new institutionalism' in policy research. The main argument is that it was the political, organizational and institutional fragmentation of West German politics that prevented neoconservatism from becoming hegemonial within the conservative-liberal government.     

Understanding policy change through bricolage: The case of Chile's renewable energy policy

Chile is a country where path dependency made energy policy change extremely difficult by international standards. However, the country has recently become a renewable energy poster child thanks to a gradual process of policy change. How was this possible? This article contributes to discussions about policy change driven by ideas and to explaining the puzzling case of Chilean energy policy change. It does so by discussing the mechanism of bricolage—the recombination of old and new ideas by policy entrepreneurs—and its capacity to produce policy change in contexts of high path dependency. The article develops the political manifestations and consequences of bricolage and problematizes how actors continue to contest and change ideas' meaning after they have been institutionalized, a key question when analyzing processes of bricolage. The analysis is based on an array of data sources including interviews with key actors, newspaper notes, and legislative proceedings.     

Determinants of policy change: a cross national analysis

Abstract. This study is an attempt to explain redistributive policy changes in democratic political systems. The two major competing paradigms of such determinants are the 'political environments matter' hypothesis and the economic resources model. This study attempts to show that there is an interdependent or exchange relationship between the choices of the policy makers and the policy takers, and that the periodic elections and the parties are important institutional mechanisms which make the exchange relationship possible. Several propositions about the conditions of policy change emerge from the assumptions about the behaviour of the policy makers and the policy takers. These propositions along with those emerging from the socio-economic and the political factors are tested using data from 21 contemporary democratic regimes beteen 1952–1980. The two dependent variables in the model are expenditures on the direct transfers to the households, and revenue from the direct taxes. Multiple regression analyses are utilized in the statistical tests. These analyses confirm the contention that political exchange plays an important part as a determinant of policy outcomes. It explains as much, if not more, variation in the model as the socio-economic or political environment variables.     

Case-wise policy information systems: redefining poverty

Problem definition and program adaptation are difficult tasks in policy analysis. In the analysis of social welfare policy, for example, there are tendencies (1) to ignore many of the factors necessary to distinguish the truly needy, resulting in the misdirection of resources; (2) to focus on individual programs, resulting in unintended consequences arising from program interactions; and (3) to overlook evolutionary changes in the target populations, resulting in obsolete programs. Conventional techniques that simplify data by variables exacerbate these and related problems of analysis. Unconventional techniques that simplify by cases might help resolve them. This paper develops the rationale for case-wise policy information systems, using the measurement and definition of poverty as an example.