Dynamic Policymaking with Decay

It is often said that the only constant is change itself. As time passes, the population grows, new technologies are invented, and the skills, demographics, and norms of the populace evolve. These changes, whether in isolation or in aggregate, influence the effectiveness of policy. In particular, policies designed for today's world are unlikely to provide a perfect fit tomorrow. We develop a notion of policy decay that captures this impact formally. We introduce policy decay into a paradigmatic model of legislative policymaking and show that it leads to a starkly different perspective on legislative politics. Our results upend the classic notion of gridlock and bear implications more broadly for the practice of politics. We show how a changing world impacts the power of agenda control, how it drives the dynamic path of legislation, how it reveals a novel conception of policy expertise, and how it, ultimately, provides a foundational logic to the design of bureaucracy.     

Decay and Reconstruction In the Study of American Intergovernmental Relations

Current criticism of the performance of American governmentsis often organized around an emergent theory of intergovernmentaldecay, which contains propositions about government size, accountability,control, capacity and achievement among its central assertions.Recent evidence of American governmental performance is usedto appraise the decay theory, leading to the conclusion thatthe evidence offers little support for its major assertions.An alternative approach is then sketched out, based on the structuralconcept of "organizational interest" and the inherent dynamismof a system in which every governmental unit is always partof the relevant political environment of at least one otherunit. These considerations lead to a somewhat different assessmentof the "problems" facing American governments as well as analternative way of conceptualizing their activities.     

Ideas and Policy Change

Peter Hall's 1993 article came at the same time as a parallel body of literature was developing, some building explicitly, some only implicitly, on similar ideas. I review some literature on policy communities, ideas, and the nature of policy change before exploring the statistical distribution of budget changes at three levels of aggregation. The similarity of these results suggests that a single process may be at work rather than different processes for first‐, second‐, and third‐order change, as Hall's original formulation has it. As Hall suggests, these processes typically generate only marginal adjustments but occasionally create fundamental change. The degree of discredit to the status quo may be an important unexplored variable in explaining the ability of policy reformers to enact marginal, substantial, or fundamental policy changes. In sum, this article shows the similarities and mutual value of Hall's approach with others that would appear to be starkly contrasting.     

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?     

Intergenerational Justice and Climate Change

Global climate change has important implications for the way in which benefits and burdens will be distributed amongst present and future generations. As a result it raises important questions of intergenerational justice. It is shown that there is at least one serious problem for those who wish to approach these questions by utilizing familiar principles of justice. This is that such theories often pre-suppose harm-based accounts of injustice which are incompatible with the fact that the very social policies which climatologists and scientists claim will reduce the risks of climate change will also predictably, if indirectly, determine which individuals will live in the future. One proposed solution to this problem is outlined grounded in terms of the notion of collective interests.     

环境变化与管理创新

环境是存在于主体周围的外部因素。就企业这个主体来说,环境是广义的,它包括政治、经济、科技、文化、人口和自然资源等诸多内容。环境是企业的不可控变量。企业只有通过管理不断地调整自己,才能适应不断变化的环境。     

Value Conflict and Policy Change

The analysis of policy change has produced a number of contrasting theoretical approaches, each offering a lens through which to view policy phenomena. This article suggests that the existing menu of approaches for understanding change can be usefully complemented by an understanding of the role played by value conflict. Using institutionalist analysis, I argue that the need to make value‐choices in a nondisruptive way shapes large areas of government activity, particularly in Westminster systems, and explains many observed patterns of stability and change. Building on work by Thacher and Rein, I describe and characterize six types of response to value conflict, giving examples of the role and implications of each. It is not claimed that all policy change can be understood in this way—simply that some types of change reflect the value‐based nature of public policy itself, and the fact that political and bureaucratic systems must evolve mechanisms for dealing simultaneously with thousands of competing and conflicting policy values.     

Public Policy and Behavior Change

Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle societal problems, such as obesity, alcohol abuse, and debt problems. This article has two goals. First, it aims to highlight how governments can try to change the behavior of citizens. Government can use policy instruments to do so, including incentives, bans and mandates, information campaigns, and nudges. However, the government should not be a manipulator that applies policy instruments without societal support. Therefore, the second goal of the article is to provide a conceptual framework that helps analyze whether public policies to stimulate behavior change are effective and supported by key stakeholders. This conceptual framework has five criteria indicating the extent to which there is effective and supported behavior change: the policy is (1) effective and (2) efficient, and there is support for the policy among (3) politicians, (4) implementing organizations, and (5) citizens. The article ends with suggestions to study public policy aimed at behavior change.     

单位制变迁与政府职能转变研究

单位制在计划经济时代具有不可替代的作用,是政府进行社会管理的微观缩影。然而,随着市场经济的兴起,单位制的弊端日益凸显。为适应现实经济社会的发展,单位制逐渐向社区制方向转变。通过厘清单位与政府的关系,并剖析单位功能与政府职能的内在相关性,探析出单位制变迁对明确政府角色、调整政企关系与政社关系等具有的积极影响,是我国政府职能转变的重要变量。     

Norms, Interests and Institutional Change

This paper provides a norms-based account of institutional change. It compares two cases of attempted change, one successful and one unsuccessful. The argument advanced is that norm-based change occurs when the norms are congruent with the perceived interests of the actors who have the power to take on the decision. Norms affect the process of institutional change not only by providing legitimacy to some forms of political action, but also by shaping the actors' perception of their interests as well their strategies. It is argued that norms, in that sense, help political actors combine Max Weber's zweckrational (goal-orientated) and wertrational (value-orientated) categories of behaviour. Empirical evidence drawn from the context of the evolving European Union supports this argument.     

Change and Permanence in Political Parties

Incessant changes alter political parties in their organization, structure, recruitment and all other characteristics. Nevertheless, they are usually credited with stable features by which they are identified, and which enable them to be classified. If we consider French political parties, it is possible to demonstrate that both change and apparent stability arise from interaction within each party as well as between them and between the social organizations to which they are linked. These interactions and their effects must be related to general processes, such as social and cultural transformation; they cannot be solely explained by specifically political competition.