An Overview of State Policy Problems

Concepts of federalism are briefly rmiewed with the intent of inquiring whether the states have become entrepreneurial as a result ofthe Reagan devolution. An overview of the contributions to the symposium suggests that support for a theory of cyclicality is not consistently evident in the states. Necessary resatrcesarenotalways present toallow thestates to bethe policyentrepreneurs in the United States.     

Electric Industry Restructuring: An Overview of the Policy Issues

abstract The crisis precipitated by the flawed restructuring of California's electric power industry focused national attention on the questin of whether to allow utility companies-highly regulated by government-to operate in a deregulated energy market. This symposium examines the issues involved in moving from regulation to deregulation of the electric power industry. This introductory paper reviews the deregulation policy issues and discusses California's deregulation experience to put the issue in context.     

Brexit and UK International Development Policy

In this article we explore the implications of Brexit for the UK and the EU's development policies and strategic directions, focusing on the former. While it is likely that the operational process of disentangling the UK from the various development institutions of the EU will be relatively straightforward, the choices that lie ahead about whether and how to cooperate thereafter are more complex. Aid and development policy touches on a wide range of interests—security, trade, climate change, migration, gender rights, and so on. We argue that Brexit will accelerate existing trends within UK development policy, notably towards the growing priority of private sector‐led economic growth strategies and blended finance tools. There are strong signals that UK aid will be cut, as successive secretaries of state appear unable to persuade a substantial section of the public and media that UK aid and development policy serves UK interests in a variety of ways.     

Policy Regimes for the International Waste Trade

Among the unforeseen problems of the new industrial age has been the disposal of increasing quantities of wastes—many hazardous and toxic. Industrial chemistry has produced numerous products that, while useful, are alien to nature and resistant to biodegradation or detoxification. Growing public awareness of the possible hazards and risks involved in disposal of the residuals of industrial activities is arousing a popular demand for environmental protection. But this popular awareness depends upon public information and a degree of scientific literacy—conditions which vary widely among nations. Initial consequences are environmental regulations and restrictions respecting waste disposal in scientifically developed countries, and vulnerability among less developed countries to the export of hazardous wastes from the countries of their origin. A secondary consequence is the emergence of international waste trade as a national and international multidimensional policy problem.     

Comparative Climate Change Policy and Federalism: An Overview

This commentary provides an overview of the four papers in this issue of Review of Policy Research on the politics of climate change. The papers all address in one way or another aspects of how federal‐type systems are dealing with the collective action and multilevel governance issues of climate change policy. The comparative study of federal systems provides insight into how domestic authority is so often overlapping and divided when dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Federal arrangements offer a rich array of norms, institutions, and practices for tackling these problems. Federal systems grapple continuously with the kinds of issues that are the most intractable in the climate change case, such as overcoming interregional differences of interests and values. A common federal feature is competition among subnational governments and between them and national or federated governments over climate change policy, which has been especially significant in the United States and in Canada in the relative absence of national action––although soberingly, the whole is as yet nowhere near as great as the sum of the parts. More significant, but rarer is the achievement of tighter coordination in federal systems achieved through intergovernmental co‐decision, as seen in the European Community and Australia. This has been accomplished in large part due to a consensus among all intergovernmental parties on the nature of the problem and congruence with the existing international regime, characteristics missing in the North American context.     

Office and Policy at the Expense of Votes: Plaid Cymru and the One Wales Government

This paper will examine Plaid Cymru's experience in government from 2007 to 2011. Drawing on literature on autonomist parties, parties in government for the first time, and Strøm and Müller's policy/office/votes framework, the paper examines where strategic 'trade-offs’ were made and what the consequences of such trade-offs were. The paper takes a qualitative approach, using semi-structured interview and documentary data. The paper finds that Plaid Cymru valued the policy-seeking potential of office at the expense of vote-seeking ones because of the importance of 'autonomist' goals, namely the 2011 referendum which saw primary law-making powers granted to the Welsh Assembly. Furthermore, the experience of governmental office exposed organizational vulnerabilities in the party's leadership structures which undermined the ability to construct an effective vote-winning strategy at the 2011 Welsh election, where the party lost four seats.     

The National and International Context of French Policy Communities

There are numerous, well-organized policy communities in France, based upon specialized corps of senior administrative officials in symbiosis with the environment they are responsible for regulating and managing. They also derive their strength from the integration of the groups concerned in the policy process, allowing them to compensate for the weakness of their organization and social base by the privileged access and legitimacy they acquire. Nevertheless, the traditional way in which the policy process is structured is modified by the territorial shift (both local and international) in the arenas in which public policies are made.     

国外妇女参政政策及对我国的启示

妇女参政是衡量一个国家文明程度和民主建设进程的重要尺度,目前,国外的妇女参政,无论从数量和比例上还是从任职结构和质量上来说,都取得了令人瞩目的成就。总结梳理世界各国近年的政策和实践经验,以期对提高我国妇女参政水平以启示。     

Policy Networks, Policy Communities and the Problems of Governance

This article reviews and evaluates the literature on policy networks and policy communities that has emerged in the comparative public policy field. It argues that these concepts are important innovations because they suggest a renewed attempt to be both encompassing and discriminating in describing the policy process: encompassing because they refer to actors and relationships in the policy process that take us beyond political-bureaucratic relationships; discriminating because they suggest the presence of many communities and different types of networks. Yet if the concepts are going to continue to make a contribution, some problems must be resolved. The article suggests three that are particularly important: network and community concepts encounter obstacles in incorporating the influence of ma-cropolitical institutions and the power of political discourse; they have some difficulty in accommodating the internationalization of many policy domains; they have not addressed well the issues of policy innovation and policy change.