Understanding What Shapes a Polycentric Governance System

Recent research has shown that communication networks involving governmental and nongovernmental actors self‐organize based on how risk is perceived. According to the “risk hypothesis,” actors embedded in governance systems in which there is widespread risk of defection tend to form bonding structures, whereas those in low‐risk systems form bridging structures. A parallel strand of research proposes to study complex governance systems composed of multiple actors and the decision‐making forums in which they interact. In this article, the authors couple these research threads and show how bonding and bridging structures form when stakeholders participate in three complex governance systems of varying institutional strength. Findings suggest that the prevalence of one type of structure over the other depends on contextual variables such as the stability of the institutions and the occurrence of environmental focusing events that demand quick policy responses.     

The Dynamics of an Interorganizational Emergency Management Network: Interdependent and Independent Risk Hypotheses

The purpose of this research is to uncover the dynamic structure of an interorganizational emergency management network after a disaster. This research tests two hypothesized network structures: interdependent risk and independent risk. While the former illustrates the importance of trust and information redundancy in coordinating and aligning emergency preparedness and response, the latter captures the tendency for local actors to seek dominant partners to bridge crucial information across the region. A stochastic actor‐based model with a forward selection strategy is used to analyze the structural effects of endogenous networks and the effects of exogenous community attributes on interorganizational ties. Based on the data sets collected before and after the 2012 typhoons in South Korea, the results support the interdependent risk hypothesis, suggesting that an interorganizational network structure tends to evolve into the notion of shared collaboration risk.     

Network Structure,Strength of Relationships,and Communities’ Success in Project Implementation

Studies of network effectiveness in the collaborative public program setting commonly have found that actors with more organizational partners, more indirect (bridging) ties to other partners, and more cohesive relationships among partners have greater success in implementing projects. This article contributes to this literature by developing and testing hypotheses about how strength of relationships, measured by frequency of contacts, moderates these results. In the context of community water supply projects in Nepal, the article shows that greater frequency of contacts between communities and organizational partners enhances the impact of having more partners and more cohesive relationships among partners but decreases the impact of having more indirect connections. For practitioners and network theorists, these findings highlight the importance of strength of relationships in the link between networks and performance.     

Policy beliefs,policy learning,and risk perception: Exploring the formation of local creative Placemaking-catalyzed policy network

This article studies the formation of a local Creative Placemaking (CPM) policy network based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and social capital perspective of policy networks. This article hypothesizes that policy beliefs, policy learning, social capital, and the perceived risks induced by defections, as well as macro-level changes in the broader political and socio-economic system, influence partner selection in the local CPM policy networks. The study collected survey data from policy actors participating in the Franklinton CPM-catalyzed revitalization project in Columbus, Ohio. An exponential random graph model (ERGM) was applied to test the hypotheses. The findings partially support the hypotheses: policy learning, certain secondary policy beliefs, and risk perceptions of changes in economic and political factors are correlated with tie formation. The reciprocity-driven bonding structure underlies the Franklinton CPM policy network, suggesting that policy actors perceive the Franklinton CPM policy network as a high-defection-risk network. This study has implications for policy makers in designing engagement strategies to better involve stakeholders holding different beliefs and occupying different network positions.     

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.     

Network Structure and Perceived Legitimacy in Collaborative Wildlife Management

The widespread supposition that collaborative management designs enhance legitimacy must be examined empirically, and the rich diversity of different collaborative arrangements should be better acknowledged in this endeavor. This study adopts a social network perspective and examines three state‐initiated and interest‐based collaborative management arenas in Swedish wildlife management: wildlife conservation committees (WCCs). Is there a link between social network structures in collaborative management arenas and the perceived legitimacy of output by policy stakeholders? This puzzle is addressed through social network analysis combined with survey data and interviews. The empirical results confirm the notion that collaborative arenas consisting of high network closure with many bridging ties across organizational boundaries enjoy a higher level of support among stakeholders directly involved in management, as members of the committees, than networks with a more sparse structure do. This type of well‐integrated network structure seemingly increases stakeholders’ understanding of other actors’ perspectives through deliberation. Contrary to what was expected, though, the empirical analysis did not verify the effect of linking, or outreaching ties between the committee members and the organizations that they represent, on the organizations’ support of WCC decisions. Given the rapid rise of collaborative designs in public administrations, the topic elaborated in this paper is urgent and further research is encouraged.     

Toward More “Evidence‐Informed” Policy Making?

The quality of public decision making depends significantly on the quality of analysis and advice provided through public organizations. Champions of “evidence‐informed” policy making claim that rigorous evaluation practices can significantly improve attainment of cost‐effective outcomes. After decades of experience, performance information is more sophisticated, but evaluation practices and capabilities vary enormously. Public agencies gather and process vast amounts of information, but there has been little analysis of how this information is actually utilized for policy and program improvement. This article examines how government agencies use evidence about policy and program effectiveness, with attention to four themes: (1) the prospects for improving “evidence‐informed” policy making, (2) the diversity of practices concerning evidence utilization and evaluation across types of public agencies and policy arenas, (3) recent attempts to “institutionalize” evaluation as a core feature of policy development and budget approval, and (4) the relationships between public agencies and nongovernmental sources of expertise.     

Network Structure and Governance Performance: What Makes a Difference?

Comparing and evaluating the performance of governance networks are important tasks for researchers and practitioners of network governance and public administration. Limited by the lack of network data across space and time, the study of network performance and effectiveness at the network level is not on pace with advances in theories and methodologies in network analysis. With a novel methodology to measure clean energy governance networks using hyperlink network analysis across the contiguous United States, this article collects a large sample of self‐organizing policy networks in the same policy domain across geographic locations. This article proposes that governance networks with high overall bridging and bonding social capital perform better. Regression analyses show that network structures have statistically significant effects on governance outcomes. States with high average closeness and average clustering in their governance networks are more likely to have faster clean energy development.     

Notes on contributors

International comparisons of new radical right‐wing parties usually focus on differences in electoral fortunes, party organisations and leadership. This article uses a different angle by focusing on public policy impact and the role these parties play in the parliamentary and executive arenas. The research is driven by the hypothesis that under the conditions of stable democracy, holding office produces a net result in a ‘taming effect’ on radical right‐wing actors rather than a sharp ‘right turn’. Evidence f rom four countries (Germany, France, Italy and Austria) shows that parliamentary presence alone does not result in policy effects. When the radical right holds executive office, a ‘right turn’ occurs primarily in cultural policies. Overall, real effects of radical right‐wing politics occur largely as a result of the interaction between the radical right and established actors ‐regardless of the radical right's assuming power.     

The Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia: The Politicisation of a Public Policy Issue

In Australia, there is a laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising but, over the past ten years as accusations of misuse for partisan purposes have grown, many external policy actors have tried to achieve a change in policy. This article traces the history of these (failed) reform attempts. This case study is of interest because it is an example of a government demonstrating long‐term resistance to reforms that are quite modest by international standards and despite attempts by usually influential policy actors to propel reform. This article draws particular attention to the role of the Auditor‐General and demonstrates the growing politicisation of the issue in an environment where those who seek to investigate and comment upon government advertising are severely discouraged.     

We All Need Help: “Big Data” and the Mismeasure of Public Administration

Rapid advances in our ability to collect, analyze, and disseminate information are transforming public administration. This “big data” revolution presents opportunities for improving the management of public programs, but it also entails some risks. In addition to potentially magnifying well‐known problems with public sector performance management—particularly the problem of goal displacement—the widespread dissemination of administrative data and performance information increasingly enables external political actors to peer into and evaluate the administration of public programs. The latter trend is consequential because external actors may have little sense of the validity of performance metrics and little understanding of the policy priorities they capture. The author illustrates these potential problems using recent research on U.S. primary and secondary education and suggests that public administration scholars could help improve governance in the data‐rich future by informing the development and dissemination of organizational report cards that better capture the value that public agencies deliver.     

Who Takes the Blame? The Strategic Effects of Collateral Damage

Can civilians caught in civil wars reward and punish armed actors for their behavior? If so, do armed actors reap strategic benefits from treating civilians well and pay for treating them poorly? Using precise geo‐coded data on violence in Iraq from 2004 through 2009, we show that both sides are punished for the collateral damage they inflict. Coalition killings of civilians predict higher levels of insurgent violence and insurgent killings predict less violence in subsequent periods. This symmetric reaction is tempered by preexisting political preferences; the anti‐insurgent reaction is not present in Sunni areas, where the insurgency was most popular, and the anti‐Coalition reaction is not present in mixed areas. Our findings have strong policy implications, provide support for the argument that information civilians share with government forces and their allies is a key constraint on insurgent violence, and suggest theories of intrastate violence must account for civilian agency.     

Cross-border Policy Networks in the Basel Region: The Effect of National Borders and Brokerage Roles

This paper provides evidence of how national borders affect the structure of policy networks. Our analysis of the Basel cross-border metropolitan region located across Switzerland, France and Germany considers the case of public transportation in border regions. Using a social network analysis of the relationships between 44 actors, we show that national borders play a diminishing role in the formation of policy networks for both information exchange and decision making. Local actors develop different brokerage roles according to their country of origin: Swiss actors function as coordinator and representative brokers vis-à-vis actors located in France and Germany.     

Randi Weingarten,the American Federation of Teachers,and the Challenges of Policy Leadership in a Hostile Environment

Randi Weingarten is the president of the most vocal and influential teachers’ union, the American Federation of Teachers. Since rising through the ranks to AFT president in just two years, Weingarten is now a major, if not the most prominent, nongovernmental player in national education policy. She has earned deep respect from many educational policy actors. Likewise, Weingarten elicits withering criticism from others. This fascinating profile explains why, in such a brief period, she has proved to be a fierce, fearless, and effective leader under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Her experience offers invaluable lessons applicable for others working in similarly intense policy arenas.     

Interest Group Access to the Bureaucracy,Parliament, and the Media

A key issue for interest groups and policymakers is the ways through which organized interests voice their interests and influence public policy. This article combines two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas. From a resource exchange perspective, it argues that access to different political arenas is discrete as it is determined by the match between the supply and demands of interest groups and gatekeepers—politicians, bureaucrats, and reporters. From a partly competing perspective, it is argued that access is cumulative and converges around wealthy and professionalized groups. Based on a large‐scale investigation of group presence in Danish political arenas, the analyses show a pattern of privileged pluralism. This describes a system where multiple political arenas provide opportunities for multiple interests but where unequally distributed resources produce cumulative effects (i.e., the same groups have high levels of arena access).     

Reciprocal policy diffusion: the regulation of executive compensation in the UK and the US

Because of popular and political pressure, governments have been compelled to regulate ‘excessive’ executive compensation and search both a policy and political solution. In this paper, I seek to establish the mechanisms of policy learning, competition, and emulation by examining American and British regulatory policies of executive compensation that show evidence of reciprocal diffusion, i.e. from the US to the UK and vice versa. The evidence suggests that during the past two decades, the extent of reciprocal policy diffusion varied and was primarily driven by policy learning. Using published government reports, press releases, public hearings, newspaper articles, and interviews, I demonstrate that reciprocal learning occurred because one country's policymakers and practitioners explicitly discussed and/or referred to the practices in the other country when deciding to adopt a specific policy solution to the problem of excessive executive pay. I discuss the implications for the literature on diffusion and point out avenues for future research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Transnational delegation in global environmental governance: When do non‐state actors govern?

Non‐state actors – including firms, non‐governmental organizations, and networks – are now a permanent fixture in environmental politics. However, we know surprisingly little about when states choose to delegate to non‐state actors through multilateral treaties. This paper provides an historical picture, tracing patterns of delegation to non‐state agents in a random sample of multilateral environmental agreements from 1902 to 2002. I introduce a new unit of analysis – the policy function – to understand what non‐state actors actually do as agents. I find that analyses of delegation are sensitive to the unit of analysis; patterns of delegation at the treaty level are very different from those at the level of individual policy functions. While overall the decision to delegate to non‐state actors – what I term transnational delegation – is rare, it has grown over time. Complex treaties, those with secretariats, and those focused on the management of nature are more apt to delegate to non‐state actors. Non‐state agents fill a small, but growing role in multilateral environmental treaties.     

Participation,Dialogue, and Civic Engagement: Understanding the Role of Organized Civil Society in Promoting Active Citizenship in the European Union

Abstract

This article looks at current policies concerning the civic and political participation of youths, women, migrants, and minorities in the European Union. It highlights the ways in which active citizenship and civic engagement have become a political priority for European institutions. Representation of local policy actors at the supranational level and strategies for the inclusion of civil society provide a platform for evaluating the impact of Europeanization at the national and subnational level. The article focuses on key discourses and narratives associated with specific policy frames (e.g. European citizenship, European social policies, and the European public sphere (EPS)). Some of the key questions addressed by the article are: What are the strategies that are employed, both by the European institutions in Brussels and organized civil society (OCS), to enhance participation and reciprocal communication? What vision of governance do practices such as active engagement and civil dialogue represent? Drawing on current theories of governance, our article contributes to the debate about the EPS by evaluating the role of OCS in bridging the gap between European institutions and national polities. Equally, our focus on traditionally marginal groups provides a platform for assessing the institutionalization of the ‘European social dimension’.     

Central‐local relations in the people's Republic of China: Trends,processes and impacts for policy implementation

Central–local relations are a matter of great importance to developmentalists because they highlight an intriguing puzzle in public administration especially in large states: how policies decided at higher echelons of the formal system can possibly be implemented by the multitude of intermediary and local actors across the system. In the case of China—the most populous nation in the world, the contrast between the authoritarian façade of the Chinese regime and yet the proliferation of implementation gaps over many policy arenas adds additional complexity to the puzzle. This article reviews changes in central–local relations in the 60 years of history of People's Republic of China (PRC) as the outcome of four co‐evolving processes, and clarifies the roles of each process: state building and national integration, development efficiency, career advancement and external influences. It points out the continuous pre‐dominance of administrative decentralization from 1950s to present time, and the new emphasis on institutionalized power sharing in the context of new state‐market boundaries since 1980s. In conclusion, the article suggests going beyond the traditional reliance on the compliance model to understand central–local interactions and the abundant implementation gaps in a context of central–local co‐agency, thereby improving policy implementation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Policy networks,politics and decentralisation policies in Ghana

Policy‐making is a political process involving a network of actors with varied interests. This article uses policy network as an analytical framework to understand the politics of decentralisation policy‐making in Ghana from the perspective of interactions among interest groups. The article is based on a research study, which utilised semi‐structured interviews and documentary sources in its data collection. It argues that the lack of progress in decentralisation in Ghana can be explained by the politics surrounding government–interest group relations. The article also provides evidence to indicate how varied interests represented within the decentralisation policy networks affected politics and in turn influenced decentralisation policy‐making and outcomes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.