Termination Theory and National Climate Change Mitigation Programs: The Case of New Zealand

In 2008 New Zealand (NZ) changed from a Labour‐led to a National‐led government, and this resulted in a shift to government's carbon emission mitigation strategy, including the abandonment of the Communities for Climate Protection (CCP) and the Carbon Neutral Public Service (CNPS) programs. Using deLeon's seminal model for program termination, the objective of this research is to determine why NZ's newly elected government discontinued these initiatives. This empirical research is investigative and probing, and comprises a series of semi‐structured interviews with senior managers responsible for the delivery of the respective program within their organization. The architects of each program are also investigated. In the end, this study finds that while economic constraints and programmatic inefficiencies may have played a contributing role, political ideology is the primary rationale for the termination of the CNPS and the CCP‐NZ programs.     

Social process in grizzly bear management: lessons for collaborative governance and natural resource policy

In this study, we analyze a case of governance in natural resource management. Building on the limited body of literature on termination and using methods of problem orientation and social process mapping, we examine a stakeholder engagement process designed to address conflicts in grizzly bear management in Banff National Park, Alberta. Terminated in 2009 after several years of collaboration, this stakeholder engagement process explicitly used the policy sciences framework to cultivate dialogue, improve participants?? decision-making skills, and make consensus-based recommendations for grizzly bear management. Our analysis demonstrates the utility of undertaking social process mapping and problem orientation in order to understand a natural resource policy problem. We include recommendations to foster a social process that allows for clarification and advancement of the common interest in stakeholder groups, insights into how social process can contribute to policy termination, and reflections on the practical, collaborative use of the policy sciences to solve problems of governance. This analysis complements other articles on this case that examine stakeholder perspectives, initial outcomes, and decision process, collectively providing a thorough policy analysis.     

Church–state separation Swedish-style

The ‘events approach’ claims for a new explanation of cabinet termination and cabinet survival in parliamentary democracies. The failure of the universal laws set by the culturalist approach and the party system approach raised the question whether one should search for random or probabilistic events of cabinet termination and survival. It is argued that the events approach fails both for the epistemological weakness of its premises and for the poverty of its empirical conclusions. A reappraisal of theoretical enterprise is advanced and a new research perspective is sketched, which requires a more careful treatment of the non‐uniform institutional features of parliamentary democracies.     

Politikbeendigung als policyanalytisches Konzept

The article analyses the policy termination literature that originated during the 1970s in the USA. It discusses the value of the traditional termination concept and the (meagre) empirical results of now three decades of its application. The article argues that policy termination may still be a promising policy analytical tool ’ if appropriately revised and refocused. The final part of the article suggests possible ways of reviving the policy termination concept by concentrating seriously on policy content, ideology and the cohesion of potential losers of termination decisions.     

And the clocks were striking thirteen: The termination of war

Military analysts have focused on the problems of war initiation and conduct while largely ignoring the problem of how to terminate war on acceptable terms. This paper attempts to define the necessary conditions for war termination and proposes a framework for assessing alternative strategies.Deterrence and limited war theories suggest three war termination strategies: (1) attrition of warfighting capabilities; (2) protracted stalemate; and (3) coercive threats of unacceptable damage. A review of recent armed conflicts indicates the limitations on effective pursuit of these strategies and reveals an alternative formulation of the conditions necessary for effective war termination strategies. Based on these notions, current U.S. force posture and force employment doctrines are evaluated in terms of their consistency with war termination requirements. Finally, an agenda of issues related to the development of war termination strategies is proposed.     

Agency Termination in the UK: What Explains the ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’?

In October 2010, the UK’s Coalition Government announced a radical reduction in the number of public bodies in the UK. This research tests the impact of three factors identified in the termination literature as affecting agency survival: political turnover, age and agency type. The research found that advisory Non-Departmental Public Bodies were five times more likely to have been identified for abolition or merger than other agency types. The research also found that agency age was a factor, but that political turnover was not significant.     

An analysis of budget compliance measurement in South African local government best‐practice financial management technical assistance programs, 2001—2003

South Africa's local government financial management best‐practice technical assistance program (known as MFMTAP) was to reform municipal financial management; achieve credible, realistic budgets and prevent financial failure. We consider whether a budget compliance procedure, developed by National Treasury (NT) to measure funding requirements compliance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) focusing on ‘realistic’ revenue budgeting, improves our understanding of technical assistance effectiveness. We assess a metropolitan municipality's compliance before, during and after advisory assistance. The compliance procedure was robust. Potential exists for wider application to assess best‐practice technical assistance (BPTA) program financial reform effectiveness. The findings from this single, important sample suggest that MFMA funding requirements are not being sustained 4 years after MFMTAP commencement, attributable to either BPTA performance or termination effects. We conclude that MFMA financial performance can be assessed by the procedure, from analysis of the metropolitan municipality performance assisted by a BPTA advisor for approximately 3 years. The analysis raises questions about BPTA program reform sustainability, but we add the caveat that conclusions cannot be drawn from a single sample metropolitan municipality, but a larger sample need be used for further methodology development to confirm its efficacy. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Teaching and Assessing the Responsible Conduct of Research: A Delphi Consensus Panel Report

In an effort to foster research integrity, the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation mandate education of all trainees in the responsible conduct of research (RCR). Nevertheless, recent studies suggest that rates of questionable research practices and scientific misconduct are both high and considerably underreported. In part, this may be due to the fact that some ethical norms (e.g., authorship assignment) are far from clear and researchers are unsure how to respond to perceived misconduct. With funding from the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (ORI), we convened four panels of experts to develop a consensus on the overarching goals and teaching content of RCR instruction. Our panelists recommended nine overarching objectives for RCR instruction that require us to rethink common modes of instruction, and they identified issues and standards that should be covered within controversial areas such as authorship assignment and whistle-blowing. Additionally, our experts recommended two new core areas for RCR instruction: The social responsibilities of scientists and current topics in RCR.     

Terminating Taiwan's Fourth Nuclear Power Plant under the Chen Shui-bian Administration

This article integrates the termination literature with the Punctuated‐Equilibrium (P‐E) model of policy change into a broader framework of policy termination to examine the Chen Shui‐bian administration's abrupt decision to terminate Taiwan's fourth nuclear power plant (FNPP) as well as to explore the evolution of agenda‐setting for the FNPP's termination over a decade. The termination of the FNPP may be viewed as a result of interactions among the nuclear policy image, the institutional venue, and the political or policy strategy over time, as indicated in the integrated framework. Nevertheless, changing nuclear policy image is not sufficient to automatically change the institutional venue in the process of Taiwan's transition from an authoritarian regime to a pluralist political system. Before venue shopping for policy termination, antinuclear activists had to ally with the Democratic Progressive Party to struggle for opening up Taiwan's political institutions along with Taiwan's democratization. On the other hand, as a consequence of Taiwan's recent democratization, antinuclear activists were unsuccessful in terminating the FNPP in the absence of sufficient political resources, notwithstanding a major venue change from the Kuomintang (KMT) government to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government under President Chen's leadership. Furthermore, besides domestic venues, international institutions also appear to be important to the creation and maintenance of the nuclear policy system, as well as to the dramatic reversal of the Chen administration's termination decision in this case.     

Politics,Science, and Termination: A Case Study of Water Fluoridation Policy in Calgary in 2011

Policy termination is identified as a rare occurrence and thus difficult to study. However, one policy area, community water fluoridation, has seen an apparent increase in termination in recent years. We examine the specific case of termination in Calgary, Alberta in 2011 with a specific goal to apply Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach to the policy termination framework. Our findings suggest that of key importance for the termination of water fluoridation was the impending need for an upgrade to the fluoridation infrastructure, the effectiveness of the local anti‐fluoridation activists, the speed of decision making, and a prominent framing of the issue in ethical terms. The opening of a policy window made possible by the 2010 Calgary municipal election, one that introduced a number of new members to council, as well as the presence of a policy entrepreneur who took advantage of the window's opening, were of specific importance to the success of policy termination.     

How Large‐Scale Research Facilities Connect to Global Research

Policies for large‐scale research facilities (LSRFs) often highlight their spillovers to industrial innovation and their contribution to the external connectivity of the regional innovation system hosting them. Arguably, the particular institutional features of LSRFs are conducive for collaborative research. However, based on data on publications produced in 2006–2009 at the Neutron Science Directorate of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee (United States), we find that internationalization of its collaborative research is restrained by coordination costs similar to those characterizing other institutional settings. Policies mandating LSRFs should consider that research prioritized on the basis of technological relevance limits the international reach of collaborations. Additionally, the propensity for international collaboration is lower for resident scientists than for those affiliated with domestic universities or government laboratories. Policies conceiving LSRFs as “knowledge attractors” therefore should consider the complementarities between research at a LSRF and in its academic context at a regional or national level.     

NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR): Subsidizing academic research or state budgets?

This cross‐state empirical study focuses on the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and examines its impact on the academic research and development (R&D) expenditures financed by state governments. Based on a panel of 50 states during 1979–2006, the empirical results indicate that EPSCoR, while increasing federal R&D support to EPSCoR states, crowded out financial support for academic research from the governments of EPSCoR states. About one‐third of EPSCoR funds went to subsidize state budgets. The crowd‐out effect calls for some reconsideration of EPSCoR program design in order to maintain or even increase the state government financial support for academic research activities deemed critical to academic competitiveness and economic prospects. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Does Election Day weather affect voter turnout? Evidence from Swedish elections

Does rainfall during the Election Day reduce voter turnout? Previous research shows that in the US one inch of rain reduces turnout with about one percentage point. We turn to the Swedish context in order to test whether rainfall on Election Day have the same impact in a high turnout context. We move beyond previous research by testing the impact of GIS-interpolated rainfall on three different datasets that allows us to view the issue both from a wide time frame as well as with high precision as for turnout measures: (a) aggregate turnout data for Sweden's 290 municipalities, (b) individual level data from the Swedish National Election Study and (c) data from a register-based survey on voter turnout. In none of the three datasets do we find robust negative effects of rain.     

Does Targeted,Disease‐Specific Public Research Funding Influence Pharmaceutical Innovation?

Public funding for biomedical research is often justified as a means to encourage development of more (and better) treatments for disease. However, few studies have investigated the relationship between these expenditures and downstream pharmaceutical innovation. In particular, although recent analyses have shown a clear contribution of federally funded research to drug development, there exists little evidence to suggest that increasing targeted public research funding for any specific disease will result in increased development of drugs to treat that disease. This paper evaluates the impact of changes in the allocation of U. S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) extramural research grant funding across diseases on the number of drugs entering clinical testing to treat those diseases, using new longitudinal data on NIH extramural research grants awarded by disease for years 1975 through 2006. Results from a variety of distributed lag models indicate that a sustained 10 percent increase in targeted, disease-specific NIH funding yields approximately a 4. 5 percent increase in the number of related drugs entering clinical testing (phase I trials) after a lag of up to 12 years, reflecting the continuing influence of NIH funding on discovery and testing of new molecular entities. In contrast, we do not see evidence that increases in NIH extramural grant funding for research focused on specific diseases will increase the number of related treatments investigated in the more expensive, late-stage (phase III) trials.     

Cross-national election surveys: A French pre-test

In common with scholars in other leading democracies, election researchers of France and the United States rely heavily on a survey research methodology; but their respective national election surveys do not pose many of the same questions, and the dominant research paradigms in each country offer opposing explanatory models of vote choice. Herein are reported preliminary results from a joint effort of US and French researchers, which seeks to include numerous cross-national items in the French National Election Study (for 1995). The following American National Election Study (ANES)-type items receive attention: candidate feeling thermometers, job approval ratings, economic evaluations, seven-point proximity measures on social issues and party identification. Inclusion of these measures in French surveys may allow an important cross-nation extension of voting models thought to be peculiar to one political culture, such as the US.     

On tolerating policy and organizational termination: Some design considerations

This essay explores some factors that have led us to expect perpetuity rather than termination as normal in dealing with policies and organizations. After suggesting that this is a dangerous assumption where change and uncertainty are sufficient to require substantial adaptive capacity, it is proposed that a model tolerant of acting to make termination either more or less likely is preferred. Given that we already know how to invest to make termination less likely, the next two sections explore some strategies that may allow termination to be more easily tolerated, and the learning incident to its existence increased. The first explores the use of matrix models of organization to institutionalize the capacity for initiating and terminating temporary projects within organizations. The second section suggests several external mechanisms (savings banks, insurance policies, receivership referees, trust officers, salvage specialists, and marriage/divorce/ escrow brokerages) that could operate to make termination of policies and organizations less difficult.I wish to express my appreciation especially to Arnold Meltsner, a colleague in no way responsible for either the obvious or subtle flaws of this essay. Several years ago we undertook an empirical investigation of several score terminated organizations, and I know my thinking has greatly benefited from his effort in setting both me and the subject straight. His comments on this essay have been very helpful. Eugene Bardach and Aaron Wildavsky also provided helpful comments in the drafting of this paper.     

“The Big Mo”: The Early Days of Housing Policy Debate

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary year of Housing Policy Debate, this article details the circumstances and the political climate of the late 1980s that led to the origin of this journal. I review the influence and the confluence of the National Housing Task Force of 1987, Jim Rouse (CEO of the Rouse Corporation), the Senate Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs, and David O. Maxwell, then the chairman of Fannie Mae, to create the Office of Housing Research (OHR) within Fannie Mae. The article also highlights the role of the National Housing Task Force and the first Fannie Mae Housing Conference in expanding high-quality housing research in the 1990s through the MIT Housing Policy Project and the research and convening efforts of the OHR in Fannie Mae, which included this journal and a continuance of the Annual Housing Conference thereafter.     

The survival and termination of party mergers in Europe

Why do constituent parties that participated in a party merger that was intended to be permanent decide to leave the merger to re‐enter party competition separately? To address this question, merger termination is conceptualised in this article as an instance of new party formation, coalition termination and institutionalisation failure. Building on this conceptualisation, three sets of factors are presented that account for which mergers are likely to be terminated by constituent parties and which are not. To test these three sets of hypotheses, a mixed‐methods design is used. First, survival analysis is applied to a new dataset on the performance of mergers in 21 European democracies during the postwar period. The findings support hypotheses derived from a conception of merger termination as new party formation: pre‐ and post‐merger legislative performance significantly affect the probability of merger termination. Furthermore, the institutionalisation of constituent parties helps to sustain mergers if the latter already built trust in pre‐merger cooperation, in line with the conception of merger termination as institutionalisation failure. Two theory‐confirming case studies are then analysed: one case of merger survival and the other of termination. These case studies substantiate the working of the significant variables identified in the large‐N analysis that drove the selection of case studies. They also reveal how mediating factors difficult to capture in large‐N designs help to account for why factors that – theoretically – should have complicated the working of the ‘survival case’, and should have been beneficial to the ‘termination case’, did not generate the expected effects.     

The Panglossian politics of the geoclique

ABSTRACT

Solar radiation management (SRM) – a form of geoengineering – creates a risk of ‘termination shock’. If SRM was to be stopped abruptly then temperatures could rise very rapidly with catastrophic impacts. Two prominent geoengineering researchers have recently argued that the risk of termination shock could be minimised through the adoption of ‘relatively simple’ policies. This paper shows their arguments to be premised on heroically optimistic assumptions about the prospects for global cooperation and sustained trust in an SRM deployment scenario. The paper argues that worst-case scenarios are the right place to start in thinking about the governance of SRM.