Authoritarian responsiveness: Online consultation with “issue publics” in China

In recent years, public consultation has become a standard feature of policymaking in authoritarian regimes. While previous studies found evidence of government responsiveness to citizens' demands, they did not measure responsiveness in terms of real policy change. This article presents the first systematic analysis of Chinese central government policy responsiveness to consultative input. In 2008, the Chinese government unveiled a blueprint for health‐care reform, inviting the public to post their opinions online. Having collected 27,899 online comments, the government subsequently published a revised draft. This article analyzes a random sample of 2% of this corpus of comments, assessing the effect of comments on revisions while controlling for both media content and bureaucratic preferences. The findings demonstrate that public comments have an impact upon policy revisions and suggest that the Chinese government is more responsive to street‐level implementers than to other social groups.     

Making a Crisis out of a Drama: The Political Analysis of BSE Policy-Making in the UK

Political analysis presents the episode of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) as a crisis, a policy failure and a policy disaster, revealing fundamental problems with the political and administrative system in the UK. Associated with this finding is the view that trust in government has been damaged by the failure to communicate fully the potential risks to the public of eating beef. These conventional judgements are challenged here, on the basis of an exploration of the episode, the findings of the official inquiry into BSE, and the relationship between risk and trust. I conclude that the drama over BSE and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease does not amount to a crisis, a failure or a disaster, and cannot serve as a critique of the UK political system. Instead, the complexity of the case suggests that it is an intractable policy problem.     

Spillover Effects: Immigrant Policing and Government Skepticism in Matters of Health for Latinos

To what extent do people become less trusting of the government under threatening policy contexts? The authors find evidence that Secure Communities, a bureaucratic program that enhances immigrant policing through collaboration between local law and immigration enforcement agencies, spurs mistrust among Latinos but not non‐Latinos. This article focuses on the politics of immigration and health, two issue areas marked by large‐scale bureaucratic developments over the last 50 years. The authors argue that a major consequence of expanding immigrant policing is its trickle‐down effect on how individuals view public institutions charged with the provision of public goods, such as health information. The results indicate that Latinos in locales where immigrant policing is most intense express lower levels of trust in government as a source of health information. Through a policy feedback lens, the findings suggest that the state's deployment of immigrant policing conveys more widespread lessons about the trustworthiness of government .     

FISCAL STRESS AND HEALTH POLICY IN THE A.C.T.*

Abstract: Since 1981, the financing of the‘ ACT has been subject to five inquiries by the Commonwealth Grants Commission. These inquiries have incorporated the ACT into the fiscal equalisation process between Australian states and territories. and have significantly affected the ACT'S general revenue grants from the commonwealth. The inquiries produced evidence of generous commonwealth funding of the ACT compared with the other states. This funding has given rise to “over-spending” on service provision by the ACT government. The ACT government is not currently responsible for all identified “over-spending”. being buffered to some extent by transitional allowances recommended by the Grants Commission. The ACT government is, however, experiencing fiscal stress for the “overspending” for which it is responsible. This stress is expected to increase in the future as the ACT government comes to bear the full burden of all “overspending”. A significant cause of the “over-spending” identified by the Grants Commission was health services expenditure. This situation has raised a number of interesting questions. Is the “overspending” on health a conscious policy decision to produce a higher quantity/quality combination of health services in the ACT? Or does it represent inefficiency? What policy options are appropriate in view of the “over-spending” on health? This paper addresses these questions using data from the Grants Commission inquiries and a recently released study of hospital utilisation and costs in Australia. It is concluded that, at least with respect to public hospitals in the ACT. excessive stafting is the primary cause of “over-spending”. There is little evidence to support an argument that this “over-spending” is resulting in superior health outcomes for ACT citizens.     

Dilemmas in Policy Support for the Arts and Cultural Sector

This article questions the specific challenges that the management of culture poses for government.² Unlike some ‘public good’ policy domains, such as prisons, defence or infrastructure, or benefit provisions such as unemployment, disability or health measures, the complex area of cultural policy cannot be justified in instrumental terms as an essential ‐ or unavoidable ‐ policy of government. Nonetheless, the cultural lobby is an effective and indefatigable pressure on government. The area of culture is just one small component of the public agenda that governments are obliged to support. Given other pressing portfolios, why do governments continue to take an interest in culture? Moreover, recent government policies seem to be setting up problems for the future such that governments will find it hard if not impossible to extricate themselves from a problematic relationship. So, what is the hold that culture has over governments? Traditionally, the answer seemed to be a combination of boosterism and cultural capital. Governments liked to bask in the reflected glory of cultural success believing that it contributed to their legitimacy and cultural competence. The glow of elite culture was seen to rub off onto political incumbents and their regimes. But in an age of pressures on government to justify public expenditure and meet accountability regimes, cultural support continues to appear on the funding agenda and governments continue to become embroiled in debates about competing support formulae. This relates to both the nature of ‘culture’ and broader definitions under the banner of ‘cultural policy’ as well as the nature of the sector which is, at once, elitist, institutionalized, commercial, highly specialist, niche and industry ‐ all premised on intangible nature of ‘creativity’. Paradoxically, contrary to other trends in public policy, arts and cultural funding has reverted to forms of patronage as the centrepiece of broadly defined policies of access, equity and self‐sufficiency. How has this policy portfolio managed to buck the trends of other domains of government attention? This article attempts to open some new ways of examining the question.³     

Aboriginal citizen, discredited medical subject: Paradoxical constructions of Aboriginal women's subjectivity in Canadian health care policies

In this paper, we explore paradoxes and contradictions in Canadian health policy discourses that define Aboriginal women as empowered citizens on the one hand and as discredited medical subjects on the other. Drawing on critical discourse theory, we analyze health policy discourses within the contexts of related political and public discourses about Aboriginal peoples in Canada. We describe a double-speak: a paradox between the constructions of Aboriginal women as citizens in dialogue with government in health policy “reforms,” and their construction as discredited medical subjects who lack legitimacy in health care services. Intertwined with explicit resistance to Aboriginal entitlements, deconstruction of health policy discourses within this political context is central to understanding how Aboriginal women continue to be discredited through processes of marginalization.     

Open Data for Science,Policy, and the Public Good

Supporters of open data believe that free and complete access to research data is beneficial for science, public policy, and society. In environmental science and policy, open data systems can enable relevant research and inform evidence‐based governmental decisions. This article examines the unlikely case of Brazil's National Institute for Space Research's transition toward an open data model. Considering Brazil's young democracy, incipient practice of government transparency and accountability, and lacking a tradition of science‐policy dialogue, this case is a striking example of how open data can support public debate by making information about forest cover widely available. The case shows the benefits and challenges of developing such open data systems, and highlights the various forms of accessibility involved in making data available to the public.     

COVID-19 and American Attitudes toward U.S.-China Disputes

The COVID-19 outbreak has fueled tension between the U.S. and China. Existing literature in international relations rarely focuses on virus outbreaks as factors affecting international relations between superpower countries, nor does research examine an outbreak’s potential influence on the public’s opinion about their country’s foreign policy. To bridge this research gap, this study explores the extent to which the American public may be prone to favor policies that “punish” China via existing U.S.-China disputes, such as the South China Sea dispute and the U.S.-China trade war. I conducted an online survey using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and ran multinomial and ordered logit models to estimate the association between an individual’s preferred policies and the country or government an individual blame for the impact of the pandemic. After controlling several essential confounding factors, such as one’s levels of nationalism and hawkishness, I found strong evidence that there is a positive association between people’s attribution of blame to the Chinese government and the likelihood of supporting aggressive policy options in the two disputes with China. That is to say, U.S. citizens who believe that the Chinese government is solely culpable for the outbreak in the U.S., compared to those who think otherwise, are more likely to support hawkish policy options, such as confrontational military actions, economic sanctions, or higher tariff rates. The research provides a glimpse into where Americans may stand in these disputes with China and the potential development of U.S.-China relations in the post-pandemic era.

     

Are they listening? Public opinion,interest groups and government responsiveness

What is the role of interest groups in the transmission of issues between the public and government policy? While government responsiveness to voters has received widespread scholarly attention, little is known about the role of interest groups in the transmission of public opinion to government. It is argued here that interest groups importantly influence government responsiveness to public opinion, but that the effect varies by type of interest group: while cause groups increase the responsiveness of governments to their electorate, sectional groups decrease government responsiveness. Drawing on a new and unique dataset, this article examines the relationship between public opinion, interest groups and government expenditure across 13 policy areas in Germany from 1986 until 2012 and shows that interest groups indeed have a differential effect on the responsiveness of governments. The article’s findings have important implications for understanding political representation and the largely overlooked relationship between public opinion, interest groups and government policy.     

Victimization,rent-seeking and just compensation

When should government compensate citizens for harm inflicted by public policy? In practice, all public policy is harmful to somebody, even when it is beneficial to society as a whole. The common view in the legal profession is that a fuzzy but serviceable line can be drawn between “taking” which should be compensated and the proper exercise of the “policy power” where no compensation is warranted. Recently this view has been challenged by some authors who argue that harm to victims of socially-advantageous public policy should never be compensated, and by others who argue that compensation is almost always warranted. The latter would go so far as to proscribe all redistribution of income as a “taking” from the well-to-do. This paper is a defense of the common view against both challenges. The key to the problem is the distinction between unalterable risk and the risk of victimization of citizens by the government, giving rise to rent-seeking and a general disorganization of society.     

Local Economic Development: What is Proposed, What is Done, and What Difference Does it Make?

This paper assesses the comparative policy insights gained from the articles in the symposium in terms of three dimensions: policies proposed, actions taken, and impacts scored. Local economic development interventions are classified in terms of a five-way categorization in terms of geographic breadth of action and reliance on complementary private action as a prerequisite to lasting impact. The nine symposium cases are then examined for their evidence on development efforts' accountability to the public and lessons about efficient use of public funds. The paper concludes that the cases demonstrate that most development efforts have wasted public funds, offering at best the limited success resulting from efforts to beggar neighboring local economics with which competition for development continues.     

当代中国传媒、民意与公共决策的互动探析——以电话初装费政策调整和取消为案例

描述和分析了1990年末期以来由传媒参与、促进公共政策议程的个案。在该个案中,社会意见表达得以实现,促成了公共讨论,并导致了政府对在公共讨论基础上形成之民意的政策回应。对这一进程的发生及促成因素进行了分析和解释,研究表明:传媒、民意与公共决策的互动过程有三个重要关节点:民意表达、公共讨论、政府回应。在这个过程中,传媒起到了关键性作用,它充当了形成公共意见的"公共领域"的角色与功能。除了探讨传媒、民意与公共决策的互动过程与机制之外,对本个案中表现出的遗憾与局限也做了讨论。通过本个案研究,希望为当代中国传媒、民意与公共决策互动问题提供一个微观视角。     

Exploring Social Capital: as Concept and Practice in Australian Public Health Policies and Programs

Over the past twenty years interest has grown in the concept of social capital in international and Australian public policy. We explore how social capital is understood as a concept and used in practice for guiding policy development and program delivery in South Australian public health programs. The empirical research compared policy makers’ and practitioners’ understandings of social capital and how theories about social capital and health inequality were translated into practice in three case study projects. It found that there are shifting discourses between social capital and related concepts, including community capacity building, and social inclusion/exclusion. Policy makers reported less use of the concept of social capital in favour of social inclusion/exclusion reflecting changing political and policy environments where terms come into favour and then go out of fashion. In this transition period the two terms are often used interchangeably although there are some conceptual points of difference.     

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.     

Regulation for Safe Food: A Comparison of Five European Countries

This article explores food safety regulation in five European countries by comparing their main legislation and organizational characteristics. The aim is to gain insight into the particular characteristics of food safety regulation, understand major differences and similarities, and reach a firmer understanding of how regulation evolves. Food safety regulation concerns vital questions, and is a field with a long history. Food scandals – in particular the 1996 BSE crisis – and European integration have prompted major changes. The BSE scandal revealed important underlying conflicts of interest and dilemmas concerning the twin objectives of ensuring safe food while also ensuring honest trade in food. This led to a questioning of existing structures and paved the way for new regulation. The authors' main finding is that food safety regulation has similar origins, addresses similar tasks, and raises similar problems and conflicts in all five countries. A tension between protecting public health and paying heed to business interests, and a struggle for control over this policy field between the administrations of health and agriculture, are common features. However, the configuration of food safety regulation in legislative and organizational terms varies. The comparative focus reveals that national context and history are important for understanding change. This leads to the conclusion that the framing and reframing of the field depend largely on how it is structured and regulated initially, as well as on the constellations of interests and values that are operative and legitimate in each context.     

Dynamic Representation(s): Federal Criminal Justice Policy and an Alternative Dimension of Public Mood

Does public policy respond to public opinion? Previous research suggests dynamic representation occurs in the aggregate. Yet, most of the evidence for policy response is limited to the policy intentions of elected officials on issues related to more or less government spending. We examine policy response to an alternative dimension of public mood, public preferences for more or less punitive criminal justice policies, using multiple indicators of policy from various stages of the policy-making process. Criminal justice policy should be responsive to public preferences given the public’s concern about crime and the negative social construction of criminals. Thus, there is an electoral incentive for public officials to respond to public preferences along this alternative dimension of public sentiment regarding criminal justice policy. We estimate a DYMIMIC model of federal criminal justice policy as a function of the multiple dimensions of public policy mood using Kalman filtering. The results indicate that criminal justice policy responds to the second, not the first, dimension of public mood. We find evidence that policy-makers at multiple stages of the policy process are able to differentiate among multiple signals from the public and respond appropriately. The results present a more sophisticated portrait of democratic responsiveness.     

Opportunity Lost? Victorian Labor's Enactment of Community Development 1999–2006

The idea of community development has been evoked by Australian governments over many decades. The expressions of community have differed widely, often as a result of politics rather than informed policy. In 1999, after seven years of radical neo‐liberal restructuring in Victoria, the Bracks government found itself unexpectedly elected to power. They faced new challenges such as a diminished public sector, growing social inequality and climate change. The first two terms of Victorian Labor were a seminal period in terms of the role they would invoke for ‘community’. Did grass roots participation take a central place, or did rhetoric rule over substance? The evidence points to a government maintaining a neo‐liberal trajectory, and thereby losing an opportunity to enable an active citizenry.     

Representation,agendas and institutions

Dynamic agenda representation can be understood through the transmission of the priorities of the public onto the policy priorities of government. The pattern of representation in policy agendas is mediated through institutions due to friction (i.e., organisational and cognitive costs imposed on change) in decision making and variation in the scarcity of policy makers' attention. This article builds on extant studies of the correspondence between public priorities and the policy activities of government, undertaking time‐series analyses using data for the United States and the United Kingdom, from 1951 to 2003, relating to executive speeches, laws and budgets in combination with data on public opinion about the ‘most important problem’. The results show that the responsiveness of policy agendas to public priorities is greater when institutions are subject to less friction (i.e., executive speeches subject to few formal rules and involving a limited number of actors) and declines as friction against policy change increases (i.e., laws and budgets subject to a greater number of veto points and political interests/coalitions).     

Partisanship,attribution and approval in a public health shock

Political scientists have long agreed that partisanship can bias how voters evaluate government performance and attribute responsibility. However, less is known about how – and to what extent – these biases work across different types of voters, or how they respond to positive or non-partisan policy outcomes. In this research note we address these questions, focusing on how voters respond to a positive, non-partisan public health shock: the successful early rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations in England. Through a pre-registered information experiment embedded in the British Election Study (N > 6000), we test how voters respond to claims that the quasi-independent National Health Service, rather than the government, deserved credit for the success of the programme. On average, subjects do attribute less responsibility to government, but this has no downstream effect on general approval. Exploratory heterogeneity analyses suggest that government and opposition supporters, as well as historic swing voters, respond homogeneously to our intervention. Our findings are not fully explained by rational or selective frameworks of responsibility attribution, and add nuance to existing experimental work on the political effects of the pandemic.     

Trust in government increased during the Covid-19 pandemic in Australia and New Zealand

Using an online panel, we surveyed a representative sample of 500 each in Australia and New Zealand during July 2020, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. We find trust in government has increased dramatically, with around 80% of respondents agreeing government was generally trustworthy. Around three quarters agreed management of the pandemic had increased their trust in government. Over 85% of respondents have confidence that public health scientists work in the public interest. Testing four hypotheses, we find that income and education predict trust in government and confidence in public health scientists, as does voting for the political party in government. Trust in government and confidence in public health scientists strongly predict Covid-19 phone application use, largely through convincing people the App is beneficial. Trust in government then is both an outcome and antecedent of government effectiveness. Building trust is important for governments implementing difficult policy responses during a crisis.