Who teaches and who learns? Policy learning through the C40 cities climate network

This study examines the network structure of policy learning in the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, which is a network of the world??s largest cities committed to tackling climate change issues. Among forty members and nineteen affiliate members, we ask the question with whom do cities learn and why? How are policy-learning relationships associated with cities?? multi-stakeholder governing body, policy performance, and cultural similarities? While studies on learning have analyzed conditions facilitating learning, quantitative studies of local government learning in global networks are rare. To facilitate the investigation into learning, we conceptualize learning as a process comprising information seeking, adoption and policy change, and focus on information seeking as the foundation step in the learning process. This social network analysis using the exponential random graph model reveals the cities that seek information and those that are information sources are different subgroups. Furthermore, analysis of nodal attributes suggests that transmunicipal learning in the C40 network is facilitated by the presence of a multi-stakeholder governing body; homophily of culture (language and regional proximity); and higher level of climate change policy performance. Creating a multi-stakeholder governing body could ensure participatory representativeness from citizens and relevant stakeholders to enhance climate change policy engagement and decision making as well as policy learning.     

Remunicipalization in German cities: contesting neo-liberalism and reimagining urban governance?

After two decades of widespread privatization, German municipalities have started to re-purchase privatized companies. At the same time, social movements are campaigning for remunicipalization, promoting it as a means of achieving greater urban democracy, though these objectives are often divergent from those of municipalities concerned with reasserting local state autonomy. With reference to Berlin, the paper discusses how remunicipalization campaigns might contribute to post-neo-liberal urban governance. It presents a preliminary frame for developing progressive remunicipalization movements centred on three elements of contestation: rejection of neo-liberalism; connection to other and broader struggles; and commoning as an alternative form of urban governance.     

The governance of self-organization: Which governance strategy do policy officials and citizens prefer?

Policy Sciences - This article compares views of policy officials and members of community-based collectives on the ideal role of government in processes of community self-organization. By using Q...     

Policy entrepreneurship and institutional change: Who,how, and why?

In the past three decades, “policy entrepreneurship” has emerged as a key analytical concept helping to explain institutional and policy change. Despite this, however, the literature on policy entrepreneurship remains theoretically vexed, producing limited theoretical knowledge or explanatory models able to draw firm conclusions. Theory building on policy and institutional change, for example, how policy entrepreneurs institute and navigate change agendas, using what tools, strategies, resources, and capacities remains opaque. This is especially the case in developing country contexts, where most analytical investigation of policy entrepreneurship has addressed “first world” case examples. This special issue seeks to address this analytical gap in the literature, focusing on cases specific to developing country contexts, deepening our empirical knowledge of policy entrepreneurship in developing countries, but also exploring theoretical and conceptual debates as they relate to developing countries.     

Who Benefits? Race,Immigration, and Assumptions About Policy

Political Behavior - Existing scholarship suggests that attitudes about the real or imagined beneficiaries or targets of public policies shape public opinion about those policies, with racial and...     

Grammar Schools,a Policy of Social Mobility and Selection—Why?

Initially, four plausible reasons for introducing selection in secondary education are examined, three of which are irrelevant to contemporary debates about expanding grammar‐school education. These are: first, to ration education in less advanced economies; second, to increase the supply of skilled labour within an expanded national elite; third, as part of a ‘segmented’ system of education. A fourth—increasing upward social mobility—is open to two objections: first, the May government's proposals are so limited as to have little likely impact on mobility and, second, upward mobility in the twentieth century was possible only because of structural change in the British labour market, and that will probably not continue in this century. Finally, it is argued that attempts to select the ‘best’ in any activity or skill are necessarily highly imperfect, and are far less accurate than testing who does and does not meet some minimum level of competence.     

How do interests,ideas, and institutions affect multisectoral governance? The case of tobacco governance in two Pacific small island developing states

Multisectoral governance has been recognized to be vital to regulate harmful commodity industries, yet countries struggle with reaching policy coherence due to government agencies' conflicting mandates and industry interference. Limited empirical evidence is available on how interests, ideas, and institutions intersect and influence multisectoral governance in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Pacific small island developing states (PSIDS), often exploited by vested industry interests and whose non-communicable disease crisis commands urgent action to regulate harmful commodities. This study assessed the ways interests, ideas, and institutions intersect and shape multisectoral tobacco governance in PSIDS. Interviewee data collected in Fiji and Vanuatu show that the idea of individual responsibility, the limited recognition of commercial determinants of health, the centralization of authority, and the vulnerabilities of small island developing states, (including small population, land, economy, geographic isolation, and status as a developing economy), prevent these states from achieving policy coherence in multisectoral tobacco governance.     

The governance of the European patent system: effective and legitimate?

Abstract

This article argues that effectiveness and legitimacy are two inseparable issues for the success of economic governance systems. Moving beyond the conventional market failure and state failure approaches, the article develops the notion of network governance success, a notion that looks at the formal and informal dimensions of interactions in economic systems. This is further developed into an analytical framework which is then used in the assessment of the structural features of the current European patent system, one of the most advanced, complex, and contested economic systems in Europe. The conclusions elaborate on the normative implications regarding the current weaknesses of the European patent system, and examine the general theoretical implications of the findings, particularly looking at the effectiveness and legitimacy of technically complex governance systems.     

Rural and Regional Policy: A Case of Punctuated Incrementalism?

The rural policy environment has many of the conditions that might suggest a tendency towards punctuated equilibrium. The Commonwealth has little direct power over rural space and industries, there has been a long tradition of state support for agriculture and decision‐making has generally been kept within a tight policy community, dominated by rural interests. In our review of the PAP data and policy history, we find instead an underlying movement across time and governments towards an expectation of self‐reliance for rural businesses and communities. On top of the long‐term incremental movement towards this expectation, issue attention has shifted according to political, climatological and market conditions, rather than necessarily in line with changes in policy content.     

Party over Policy? Scottish Nationalism and the Politics of Independence

The Scottish National Party (SNP) won control of Scotland's devolved government in the 2007 election yet opinion polls show no majority for its objective of independence in Europe. While the party is adept at exploiting short‐term political opportunity structures in the wider British context, as well as appealing to the ‘opinion electorate’, it appears less successful at persuading a majority of Scottish voters to agree with its core ideology. Helpful parallels can be drawn between 2007 and the last time the party polled over 30 per cent of the popular vote in Scotland at the 1974 (October) British General Election—then, as now, the Scottish voter appears to be willing to distinguish between party and policy.     

Europeanization,Policy Transfer or Domestic Opportunity? Comparison of European Impact in Higher Education Policy

The study conceptualizes three distinct functions European initiatives have in national policy changes: providing a model (Europeanization), providing a communication platform (policy transfer) or providing a legitimizing label (enabling opportunism of domestic policy entrepreneurs). Building on the example of higher education policy changes in four European countries – Belgium/Flanders, Croatia, the Netherlands and Serbia ? the study demonstrates that Europeanization, which is the role that can potentially lead to convergence, is actually not the most prominent one. In most cases, European initiatives primarily serve as legitimizing labels for pre-existing policy preferences, thus leading to convergence of policy rhetoric and ideas, while allowing for significant diversity of policy instruments and outcomes.     

Consenting to Exclude? Empirical Patterns of Democracy and Immigrant Integration Policy

Studies explaining immigrant integration policies commonly focus on single aspects such as right-populist party politics or the immigration legacy of a country. This neglects the overall character of the democratic system within which policy-making unfolds. Research on empirical patterns of democracy, in turn, suggests that consensus democracies pursue ‘kinder and gentler’ policies and outperform majoritarian democracies in terms of minority representation. The article tests whether this conclusion holds for the specific group of immigrant minorities and analyses the relationship between patterns of democracy and immigrant integration policy using a new dataset on empirical democracies in 30 European and North American countries. Simultaneously estimating the character of democratic systems in terms of power dispersion and its effect on integration policies, the analysis reveals a distinct ‘Janus-faced’ pattern: while proportional power dispersion tends to coincide with more inclusive immigrant integration policies, pronounced veto structures tend to foster exclusion.     

Policy processes sans frontières: interactions in transnational governance of global health

Policy Sciences - National policy on global health (NPGH) arenas are multisectoral governing arrangements for cooperation between health, development, and foreign affairs sectors in government...     

Safe as Houses? Conservative Social Policy,Public Opinion and Parliament

Social policy is of key importance to contemporary society, accounting for two thirds of public expenditure and, through provision such as the NHS, pensions, benefits, schools, universities and social care, touching on the lives of much of the population on a daily basis. It has also been one of the areas where the Conservative party have sought to change their image, and to some extent policies, under David Cameron. Drawing upon a range of evidence, including interviews with more than ten per cent of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, this article examines the potential challenges for a Conservative government of either stance, focusing on the extent of possible support for the Conservatives' approach to social policy amongst three key groups: the public, MPs, and members of the House of Lords.     

Voters' wrath? Policy change and government popularity

Recent research suggests that voters are bad at responding in a meaningful way to policy events when deciding for whom to vote. Voters rely on so‐called “blind retrospection”, punishing governments for events outside politicians' control. However, another core aspect of the blind retrospection perspective has not been put to the test: are voters unable to respond to policy decisions that clearly are under the politicians' control? We construct a unique large‐N dataset on legislative changes in German old age pensions and unemployment protection to see if cutbacks and expansions lead to lower/higher support for the government. Our data are exceptionally fine‐grained and allow us to track the policy‐vote link for 416 months from 1977 to 2013 with a total of 329,167 respondents. We find substantial support for the notion that voters react in a meaningful way to policy changes, but also that they can be distracted by high‐profile, extreme events.