Assessing Climate Change: International Co-operation and Predictions of Environmental Change

Past scientific assessments of global climate change impacts have tended to give us information on global impacts. But scientists have been refining their predictions down to regional, national and local levels. Improved understanding of climate change impacts, and particularly more specific information on which countries are most vulnerable, will affect international co-operation. Presumably, countries that are most vulnerable to climate change will be more likely to join international efforts to address climate change. At least that is what one could logically hypothesise. Questions addressed include: Does 'vulnerability' to climate change matter for international co-operation? What might be the political impact of improved understanding of the effects of climate change on international environmental co-operation?     

The Policy Brief: Building Practical and Academic Skills in International Relations and Political Science

The policy brief is an innovative and underutilised form of teaching, learning and assessment which provides undergraduate students with practical skills that translate directly into the workplace. This alternative to standard essays also challenges students to expand their research, writing and presentation skills. Further pedagogical advantages include assisting students in building personal development portfolios, improving internship programmes and making it difficult to plagiarise. International relations and political science curricula in the UK would benefit from the wider use of this tool.     

Recalibrating Policy Orthodoxy: The IMF Since the Great Recession

This special issue reviews patterns of policy stability and change at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the Great Recession and attempts to explain their causes. The contributors show that the crisis ignited a reassessment regarding how the IMF would position itself as a pivotal player in global economic governance. Some new ideas and evidence definitely found their way into IMF decision making, but this process was often tempered by the nature of the institution and the powerful interests that control its governing structure. Where change did occur, its causal generators could be found in some combination between IMF staff politics, a string of innovations coming from academic and IMF economists, and the emerging economic powers' creative leveraging of institutional fora both within and inside the Fund.     

Back to Basics: The Great Recession and the Narrowing of IMF Policy Advice

This article contributes to the literature on the dynamics of change and continuity in the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) policy paradigm. The IMF embarked on a process of “streamlining conditionality” during the 2000s, but many observers have argued that the IMF's policy paradigm from the 1990s remains intact. This article examines whether the scope of the IMF's policy advice to borrowers during the Great Recession narrowed in comparison to its advice to borrowers during the heyday of the Washington consensus in the 1980s and 1990s. The article uses qualitative content analysis to establish the frequency of a series of policy dialogue indicators in four sample sets of countries requesting IMF stand‐by arrangements over three decades. The evidence suggests that contemporary IMF policy advice to borrowers continues to stress the importance of fiscal consolidation, with reduced emphasis on promoting the structural economic reforms associated with the Washington consensus era.     

Western Wildfires: A Policy Change Perspective

My research objective in this article is to analyze policy change affecting wildfire suppression programs administered by the United States Forest Service and the United States Department of the Interior. Using a variant of the punctuated equilibrium approach, a content analysis of New York Times stories dealing with wildfires over the past two decades was examined in relation to both administrative and legislative policy changes. I conclude by suggesting that administrative shifts were undertaken by federal land administrators in response to crises and media attention to protect decisional autonomy as well as forest resources, while the architect of legislative change was a president taking advantage of the combined effects of increasingly intense wildfire seasons, demographic shifts involving the movement of people and structures to the high‐risk wildland urban interface areas, greater media scrutiny, and pressure to act from wildfire weary constituencies.     

Assessing Economic Change in HOPE VI Neighborhoods

Abstract

Neighborhoods surrounding large public housing developments have historically been economically distressed. The revitalization of many developments through the federal HOPE VI program, in conjunction with increased inner‐city lending and a strong economy for much of the 1990s, should theoretically lead to improvements in these neighborhoods. This study analyzes changes in selected HOPE VI neighborhoods since 1990 and compares them with changes in other high‐poverty communities, as well as with overall trends in their respective cities.

At the beginning of the decade, conditions in HOPE VI communities were almost universally worse than in other high‐poverty areas. By the end of the decade, the relationship was reversed. The changes resulted from a number of interrelated factors, including the redevelopments themselves, other private market activity, specific commitments of resources by city governments, and increased attention to the communities by lenders. These neighborhoods still qualify as economically distressed, but economic development now seems a realistic possibility.     

International Institutions and Domestic Compensation: The IMF and the Politics of Capital Account Liberalization

Certain governments have been faster than others in relaxing their restrictions on the cross‐border movement of capital. How can we explain the timing and extent of financial liberalization across countries since the 1970s? We argue that IMF stabilization programs provide a window of opportunity for governments to initiate financial reforms, but that policy makers are more likely to seize this opportunity when welfare expenditures are high. Large loans from the IMF shield policy makers from the costs of financial reform, while welfare expenditures provide credibility to the government's ex ante promises of compensation to individuals who are harmed by the reforms. We test this hypothesis on data for 87 countries from 1975 to 2002. We employ a spatial autoregressive error sample selection model which accounts for the nonrandom participation of countries in IMF programs as well as the processes of international policy diffusion. The results provide strong support for the interactive effect of IMF programs and domestic welfare expenditures on financial liberalization.     

Attitude Change and Policy Decisions: The Case of Norwegian Alcohol Policy

In a democracy, political decisions ought to be based on public opinion. In practice, however, the mechanisms connecting voter preferences and public policy are complex, and it appears that public opinion may be partly policy-shaping and partly shaped by policy. In this article, some of these mechanisms are discussed. The article presents, first, three models of public reactions to policy decisions. These models are then applied in an analysis of the liberal trends in Norwegian alcohol policy as well as attitudes towards this policy. The results are consistent with a "consumer model", where citizens evaluate public policy according to their preferences, as well as a "support model", where they tend to follow and support decisions made by political leaders. A "discontent model", where implementation brings about less acceptance of a policy, is not supported by the data.     

Continuity or Change: US Policy & Taiwan

Although the government and society of the Republic of China’s (ROC or Taiwan) have changed markedly in the new millennium, the fundamentals of US policy toward the island remain intact. This study outlines recent developments in Taiwan and shows how they represent challenges to the US. It also discusses American policy toward Taiwan and examines several proposals for change that an American administration may wish to consider. In conclusion, the paper explains why the current policy, albeit contradictory and ambiguous, is in the best interest of the United States. There is a strong possibility that any major change in policy would succeed only in undermining peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Dennis V. Hickey is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at Missouri State University. His most recent book, Foreign Policy Making in Taiwan: From Principle to Pragmatism, was published by Routledge Publishers (London) in 2006.     

Climate Change Policy Implementation: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Why would countries invest resources to protect the global atmosphere, a global common‐pool resource? After all, this is an open‐access resource with no restrictions on appropriating its benefits. Furthermore, why would they do so under the aegis of a weak global regime (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC) that has virtually no provisions for sanctioning noncompliance and when the largest contributor to the problem is not participating in the regime? This article examines why a number of countries have implemented the UNFCCC. I hypothesize that countries implement UNFCCC because they corner domestic environmental benefits, namely reduction in local pollution. In my empirical analysis of 127 countries, employing an ordinal logistic regression model, I find that local air pollution is associated with higher levels of implementation of the UNFCCC. Thus, I conclude that the incentives to implement a relatively weak global regime can be found in the domestic political economy.     

Explaining Public Management Policy Change: Germany in Comparative Perspective

Public management policies have changed significantly in numerous countries in recent times. Policy entrepreneurs remain active in this policy domain, which encompasses government-wide rules and routines in the areas of expenditure planning and financial management, civil service and labor relations, procurement, organization and methods, and audit and evaluation. Case-oriented comparative research provides policy entrepreneurs with historically and theoretically informed knowledge useful in designing or improvising change strategies in this domain. This article focuses on the case of public management policymaking in the German federal government during the 1980s and 1990s. A coherent explanation of the careers of the overbureaucratization issue in the 1980s and the lean state issue in the 1990s is provided, along with an explanation for marked changes in selected public management policies in the 1990s. Analysis of this case is also harmonized with findings about public management policy change in the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia. Limited generalizations about the process of public management policy change are proposed. Policy entrepreneurs can factor these generalizations, plus analysis of the Germany case, into their prospective, situational analysis of the process of public management policy change.     

Beyond Kyoto: Climate Change Policy in Multilevel Governance Systems

Climate change policy has commonly been framed as a matter of international governance for which global policy strategies can be readily employed. The decade of experience following the 1997 signing of the Kyoto Protocol suggests a far more complex process involving a wide range of policy options and varied engagement by multiple levels of governance systems. The respective experiences of the United States and Canada suggest that formal engagement in the international realm of policy is not a good indicator of domestic policy development or emissions reductions. The different contexts of intergovernmental relations, varied resources available to subnational governments for policy development and implementation, and role of subnational leaders in policy formation have emerged as important factors in explaining national differences between these North American neighbors. Consequently, climate change increasingly presents itself as a challenge not only of international relations but also of multilevel governance, thereby creating considerable opportunity to learn from domestic policy experimentation.     

The Policy Effects of Internationalization: A Subsystem Adjustment Analysis of Policy Change

This article contributes to a better understanding of contemporary policy analysis and management by setting out the parameters for analyzing policy change induced by internationalization. It first maps the dynamics of policy change in domestic settings and then explores how internationalization has affected the dynamics identified. The central proposition of the article is that internationalization promotes the restructuring of policy subsystems in such as way as to form hospitable circumstances for swifter and deeper policy changes than would otherwise be the case. However, the analysis suggests that this is a two-stage process in that once its initial impact is felt, internationalization serves to entrench and stabilize reconstructed policy systems, thus constraining the scope for further change.     

The Kansas Financial Information System (KFIS): Policy Design and Policy Failure

States are reported to have spent large sums of money on information resources management in financial year (FY) 1989. Of concern to several authors is the fact that most states have not attempted to integrate their accounting and budgeting systems. Calls for integrating accounting, budgeting, and personnel systems frequently fail to take into account the design problems associated with such tasks. This article uses a case study of the Kansas Financial Information System (KFIS) to highlight the importance of policy design to successful policy implementation. The results support the theory that design is an integral part of decision making and policy development. Policy design is an important determinant of implementation outcomes.     

Innovative Leadership and Policy Change: Lessons From Thatcher

This article employs the concept of Innovative Leadership to challenge the literature on policy change, particularly its skepticism about executive-led policy innovation. It examines evidence of innovative leadership under the Thatcher governments in the face of the social, governmental, and economic and secular factors normally believed to structure policy choice in democracies. On the basis of this it considers the opportunities/resources available to executives wishing to pursue innovative leadership. The conclusions are qualified by reference to system-specific and environmental factors which may circumscribe Innovative Leadership.     

A Case Study in U.S. Government Financial Management in Cross-Disciplinary Teams

Following the example of the private sector, the public sector in the United States has been undergoing process-reengineering, most notable in the Federal Government with the National Performance Review (NPR). The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) asked its overseas missions for volunteer participation as Country Experimental Laboratories (CELs) during USAID's NPR efforts. USAID/ Senegal, in French West Africa, became a CEL in the spring of 1994. The reengineering, occurring over a two-year period, created multi-disciplinary teams centered around Strategic Objectives (SOs). This article describes the experience and lessons learned from developing and implementing financial management policies and procedures to support the SO Teams, while concurrently ensuring that accountability requirements were met. The article uses the case study format, delineating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the Mission Controller, the trade-offs between the decentralization of program management and accountability, and the organizational relationships established to reengineer the financial management processes at USAID/Senegal.