Australian Public Policy, Federalism, and Intergovernmental Relations: The Federal Factor

Public policy is the overt activity of governing and what governmentshave as their primary purpose. This is so whether the politicalsystem is unitary or federal. There are many more elements thatcomplicate policymaking in a federal system. In particular,constitutional, financial, and political issues intrude becauseof the necessary interdependence of otherwise independent andautonomous national and subnational components. This articleaddresses this complexity of joint action through use of theideas about federalism, the structure of governing institutions,and the processes of policymaking. The extent to which an outcomedepends on the mixture of independence and interdependence isconceptualized as degrees of the federal factor. Linking thisconcept to particular policy arenas may provide a better understandingof federal systems than explanation from centralization or decentralizationor dependence or independence.     

Austerity or welfare state transformation? Examining the impact of economic crises on social regulation in Europe

This article provides an encompassing analysis of how economic crises affect social regulation. The analysis is based on an innovative dataset that covers policy output changes in 13 European countries over a period of 34 years (1980–2013) in the areas of pensions, unemployment, and child benefits. By performing a negative binomial regression analysis, we show that economic crises do matter for social policymaking. Our main empirical finding is that crises impinge on social regulation by opening a window of opportunity that facilitates the dismantling of social policy standards. Yet crisis‐induced policy dismantling is restricted to adjustments based on existing policy instruments. We do not find significant variation in policymaking patterns across different macroeconomic conditions for the more structural elements of social policy portfolios, such as the envisaged social policy targets or the policy instruments applied. This suggests that economic crises do not lead to a profound transformation of the welfare state but to austerity.     

Three views of the expert's role in policymaking: Systems analysis,incrementalism, and the clinical approach

This paper compares three approaches to improving policymaking: systems analysis, disjointed incrementalism, and the clinical approach (elsewhere referred to as the planned change or human relations approach or organization development). It pays particular attention to the way in which these three approaches view organizations and the role of the expert in reform-mongering.It is suggested that systems analysis and incrementalism are quite compatible and that, in fact, systems analysis has, in large measure, accepted the incrementalists' view of the policymaking process. But this acceptance has served not so much to strengthen policy analysis as to increase awareness of its weaknesses.The clinical approach, on the other hand, holds out the promise of strengthening policy analysis, since it focuses on changing organizations, an area in which both systems analysis and incrementalism are weak and, as action-oriented approaches, hampered by their weaknesses. The potential contributions of the clinical approach are considered as well as the likelihood of an eventual synthesis.The first version of this paper was prepared for presentation to the Systems Analysis Group, Canadian Treasury Board.     

The rise of public sector innovation labs: experiments in design thinking for policy

Governments are increasingly turning to public sector innovation (PSI) labs to take new approaches to policy and service design. This turn towards PSI labs, which has accelerated in more recent years, has been linked to a number of trends. These include growing interest in evidence-based policymaking and the application of ‘design thinking’ to policymaking, although these trends sit uncomfortably together. According to their proponents, PSI labs are helping to create a new era of experimental government and rapid experimentation in policy design. But what do these PSI labs do? How do they differ from other public sector change agents and policy actors? What approaches do they bring to addressing contemporary policymaking? And how do they relate to other developments in policy design such as the growing interest in evidence-based policy and design experiments? The rise of PSI labs has thus far received little attention from policy scientists. Focusing on the problems associated with conceptualising PSI labs and clearly situating them in the policy process, this paper provides an analysis of some of the most prominent PSI labs. It examines whether labs can be classified into distinct types, their relationship to government and other policy actors and the principal methodological practices and commitments underpinning their approach to policymaking. Throughout, the paper considers how the rise of PSI labs may challenge positivist framings of policymaking as an empirically driven decision process.     

Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States

Motivated by recent work suggesting that low‐income citizens are virtually ignored in the American policymaking process, this article asks whether a similar bias shapes the policy positions adopted by political parties much earlier in the policymaking process. While the normative hope is that parties serve as linkage institutions enhancing representation of those with fewer resources to organize, the resource‐dependent campaign environment in which parties operate provides incentives to appeal to citizens with the greatest resources. Using newly developed measures of state party positions, we examine whether low‐income preferences get incorporated in parties’ campaign appeals at this early stage in the policymaking process—finding little evidence that they do. This differential responsiveness was most pronounced for Democratic parties in states with greater income inequality; it was least evident for Republicans’ social policy platforms. We discuss the implications of these findings for representation in this era of growing economic inequality.     

Steering through Complexity: EU Environmental Regulation in the International Context

The nature of governance in the European Union (EU) and its member states is continuing to evolve as the EU develops. This paper focuses on the challenges to this governance process in the sector of environmental policy, and particularly the role of external organizations and states in providing alternate policy fora. The policy impact of these institutions and organizations leads to more actor participation in a way that EU players may not be able to anticipate or control since the EU is only one of several arenas involved. Both states and non-governmental actors actively seek to shift issues to arenas that provide them advantages. Consequently, developments in other arenas shape and are shaped by EU issues as actors pursue forum shopping. The paper presents two cases, the amendment of the Basel Convention to ban hazardous wastes export and the EU regulation of chemical risk, which demonstrate how external players can shape EU regulation.     

Fragmented Welfare States: Federal Institutions and the Development of Social Policy

Despite political scientists' growing appreciation of the ways in which institutions influence political processes, the “new institutionalism” has so far had a limited impact on the comparative study of welfare state development. This article discusses some broad issues concerning institutions and public policy by exploring the implications of one set of institutions — those associated with federalism — for the politics of social policy. Federal institutions encourage three distinctive dynamics: they influence the policy preferences, strategies, and influence of social actors; they create important new institutional actors (the constituent units of the federation); and they generate predictable policymaking dilemmas associated with shared decision-making. Comparisons between social policy development in Canada and the United States are used to demonstrate that while federalism clearly matters, how it matters will depend on the characteristics of a particular federal system and the ways in which federal institutions interact with other important variables.     

The Advantages of Proximity: Comparing Higher Education Policy in Scotland and Catalonia

The article claims that, following devolution, increased proximity will increase policy capacity by changing the form of policymaking and providing greater scope for policy tailoring. The hypothesis is tested against devolution of higher education responsibility in Scotland and Catalonia. Results show that devolution did not entail the development of the same form of policymaking in the two regions, but it nonetheless permitted the implementation of policies and tools that were both in contrast with global trends in higher education policy.     

Experiments and evaluation of public policies: Methods,implementation, and challenges

Evidence-based policymaking is all about developing and implementing better public policies. Although the logic underpinning this philosophy is simple, the practicalities of demonstrating causal effects of a public policy are much more complex. In recent years, there has been a wave of optimism about the usefulness of experimental approaches to public policy evaluation which mimics the clean, causal inferences observed in clinical trials. Although these methods, such as randomised controlled trials, have been widely advocated and implemented, they are not without their potential problems. In this paper, we consider the strengths, weaknesses, and challenges posed by the revolution in policy evaluation brought about by embracing experimental methods.     

Issue Redefinition, Venue Change and Radical Agricultural Policy Reforms in Sweden and New Zealand

This paper compares radical agricultural policy reforms in Sweden and New Zealand in the 1980s and 1990s to establish which factors bring about such types of policy reforms. Ruling out a number of alternative explanations for reform found in the public policy and political economy literature, we focus on the role of reform strategies. We show that the redefinition of agricultural policy – from a matter of finding the balance between budgetary costs and farmers' income to considering agricultural policy as part of macroeconomic policies – was important, particularly in Sweden. Change of policy venue is the other reform strategy identified, which was crucial to the successful introduction of the reform. In both countries, ministers of finance deliberately shifted agricultural policymaking to arenas in which they were able to control the reform process.     

Types of knowledge utilization of regulatory impact assessments: Evidence from Swiss policymaking

Ex ante policy appraisals, such as Regulatory Impact Assessments (RIAs), are promoted because they are expected to inform decisionmakers and, thus, to lead to better quality regulation. Such instrumental use is not the only possible use of RIAs. Ex ante policy appraisal can affect the policy process in various ways. However, a consolidated theory on the conditions for utilization of RIAs in the policy process has yet to be developed. In order to explore these conditions, we analyze three case studies of Swiss decisionmaking processes and apply concepts from knowledge utilization literature. In conclusion, we find that policy arenas matter more than the institutional context and design of RIA procedures. In line with previous literature, political use seems to be a prevalent type of utilization. Yet we find that, under specific conditions, RIAs also provide a basis for the optimization of policy designs (instrumental use), help improve interagency relations (policy‐process use), and may change how a policy issue is understood (conceptual use).     

The Limits to Evidence‐Based Policy: Evidence,Emotion and Criminal Justice1

While ‘evidence‐based’ or ‘rationalist’ approaches to criminal policy may appeal to technocrats, bureaucrats and a number of academics, they often fail to compete successfully with the affective approaches to law and order policies which resonate with the public and which appear to meet deep‐seated psychological needs. They also often fail to recognise that ‘policy’ and ‘politics’ are related concepts and that debates about criminal justice are played out in broader arenas than the academy, the bureau or the agency. To be successful, penal reform must take account of the emotions people feel in the face of wrongdoing. Further, successful reform must take into account changes in public ‘mood’ or emotions over time and be sensitive to different political and social cultures. This article argues that criminal justice policies are more likely to be adopted if, in addition to the gathering and presentation of evidence, they recognise and deal with the roles of emotions, symbols, faith, belief and religion in the criminal justice system. It also recognises that evidence alone is unlikely to be the major determinant of policy outcomes and that the creation and successful implementation of policy also requires extensive engagement and evidence‐based dialogue with interested and affected parties. This necessitates a different kind of modelling for evidence‐based policy processes.     

Policy Legacies,Visa Reform and the Resilience of Immigration Politics

Comparative scholarship tacitly assumes immigration politics to be relatively rigid. A state's immigration policy legacy is said to institutionalise policy preferences, thereby making it difficult to implement lasting reforms that are inconsistent with that legacy. This presents difficulties for states with restrictionist legacies wanting to implement liberal reforms in response to the emergence of labour shortages or demographic problems. The supposed rigidity of immigration politics is scrutinised in this article through a systematic process analysis of developments in the United Kingdom over the past decade, where the Blair government confounded the UK's characterisation as a ‘reluctant immigration state’ to implement various liberal work visa reforms. The uncoordinated nature of policymaking and implementation, and the limited involvement of state and societal institutions in the reform process, reflect the UK's historical experience with restrictionist policies, and help to explain the subsequent reintroduction of strict visa controls. The case demonstrates that policy legacies indeed play a significant role in defining the character of the policymaking institutions that shape a state's immigration politics.     

Understanding Cross National Policy Transfers: The Case of Britain and the US

Policy transfer across countries is occurring with increasing frequency. Yet, despite the fact that the importance of such policy learning is often cited as one of the primary rationales for comparative policy analysis, policy transfer is an under-researched area of political science. This article examines and analyzes the actual process of policy transfer between the US and Britain and considers the relationship between policy transfer and the policymaking process.     

Deadly divide: Malawi’s policy debate on HIV/AIDS and condoms

This paper examines the dynamics of condom policymaking in Malawi by analyzing debates, which took place in the Malawi National Assembly between the year 2000 and 2004. Using content analysis and key informant interviews, and situating the overall discussion within policy and science literature, we examine how scientific evidence is being applied in the policymaking process as it relates to the place of condoms within the context of HIV/AIDS prevention. The study not only shows the extent to which the policymaking process on condoms in Malawi largely embodies a tendency to blur the conventional divide between science and politics, but also demonstrates why controversy around condoms still persists at the highest level of government in a country with one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the world. It was found that even when people are dying, consensus in HIV/AIDS policymaking can be difficult to achieve in a policy climate characterized by a binary perspective to social problems, and where different actors compete for control over the policy terrain. The paper makes recommendations that may be helpful in facilitating a more inclusive HIV/AIDS policymaking process in Malawi.     

The Role of Assessments and Institutions for Policy Learning: A Study on Swedish Climate and Nuclear Policy Formation

This study examines two challenges related to the integration of environmental concerns into public policymaking: how to shape institutions that facilitate policy learning in national policymaking processes, and how to create effective supporting assessment processes. A simple construct of policy learning is applied empirically; distinguishing what is learned in terms of conceptual and technical learning, and unpacking the process of learning into three elements: knowledge acquisition, interpretation, and institutionalization. Two empirical policy cases, climate and nuclear policy formation in Sweden, are analyzed over two decades, detecting patterns of learning and investigating what institutions have facilitated or obstructed them. The analysis is based on a study of actual policy outputs, an examination of reasoning and argumentation in policy documents, and evidence from testimonial interviews. Results indicate that climate policy has undergone fundamental learning processes whereas nuclear policy has been more intractable. Most learning has occurred in some agency and committee processes, while ministries and political levels have suffered from weak capacities and incentives to learn. Key drivers of learning included trust building among key agents coupled to international driving forces. Ultimately, institutional rules, capacities, and incentives are more important factors for enhancing learning than what types of assessments feed in.     

Historical perspective and better regulatory governance: An agenda for institutional reform

Compared to economics, sociology, political science, and law, the discipline of history has had a limited role in the wide‐ranging efforts to reconsider strategies of regulatory governance, especially inside regulatory institutions. This article explores how more sustained historical perspective might improve regulatory decisionmaking. We first survey how a set of American regulatory agencies currently rely on historical research and analysis, whether for the purposes of public relations or as a means of supporting policymaking. We then consider how regulatory agencies might draw on history more self‐consciously, more strategically, and to greater effect. Three areas stand out in this regard – the use of history to improve understanding of institutional culture; reliance on historical analysis to test the empirical plausibility of conceptual models that make assumptions about the likelihood of potential economic outcomes; and integration of historical research methods into program and policy evaluation.     

The Institutionalization of Environmental Attention in the United States and Denmark: Multiple- versus Single-Venue Systems

The European countries have surpassed the United States with regard to comprehensive and stringent environmental regulation. This policy pattern has become very visible in the international debate about reduction of CO₂ emissions. From a comparative public policy perspective, the recent difference is interesting because it restates the question about policy consequences of political institutions. This article addresses this theoretical question from the perspective of policy agenda-setting theory. We present the argument that while the U.S. political system, with its many "venues" that are relatively open to internal and external competing forces, might be quicker in generating attention to new issues like the environment, the institutionalization of attention is also less strong than in a European parliamentary system. The article substantiates this argument with empirics by comparing attention to and policymaking for environmental issues in the United States to Denmark.     

Design Thinking in Policymaking Processes: Opportunities and Challenges

Design thinking has the potential to improve problem definition and mechanism design in policymaking processes. By promoting greater understanding of how citizens experience government services, design thinking can support public managers who desire to enhance public value. In Australia, as elsewhere, design thinking currently remains separated from mainstream policymaking efforts. This article clarifies the essence of design thinking and its applicability to policy development. Five design thinking strategies are discussed, all of which have lengthy histories as social science methodologies. They are (1) environmental scanning, (2) participant observation, (3) open‐to‐learning conversations, (4) mapping, and (5) sensemaking. Recent examples from Australia and New Zealand are used to illustrate how these strategies have been incorporated into policymaking efforts. The article concludes by considering how design thinking might be more broadly applied in policymaking, and the training and resourcing requirements that would entail.     

The Diffusion of Human Trafficking Policies in the Post-Soviet Region: A Comparative Analysis of Policy Adoption in Ukraine,Latvia, and Russia

This paper analyzes how human trafficking policies diffused in the post-Soviet region. By adapting the diffusion of innovation framework to fit the international context, I examine whether human trafficking adoptions in the post-Soviet region were due to internal determinants and/or diffusion effects. A comparison of Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine found that internal determinants such as state commitment to human trafficking policy and interest group strength were more important to policy adoption than external pressures from the international community while state capacity and bureaucratic restructuring impeded policy adoption. I argue that policymaking, even in authoritarian regimes, is more nuanced than blind compliance with international treaties and shows that interest groups and policy entrepreneurs work within the constraints of national policymaking to adopt human trafficking policies.