The Social Psychology of Policy Analysis

This article illustrates how some of the core concepts of social psychology can increase understanding of the practice of policy analysis. Policy analysis is shown to be a form of rhetoric subject to social psychological principles of attitude change. The article argues that policy analysts are primarily concerned with changing policymakers' beliefs about the consequences of alternative policies, but that preferences for alternative policies are largely the result of values. Values are formed and modified primarily by social comparison processes, conformity pressures, and the dynamics of group decision making rather than by rational argument. As a result, policy analysts could become more effective by addressing issues of values in their analyses or by mediating the social processes that might interfere with good policy choices.     

我国农村反贫困战略中的社会政策转型研究——发展型社会政策的视角

我国农村反贫困战略的基本框架是一种亲市场的经济政策与具有剩余特征的选择性社会救助,体现在生产性的开发式经济扶贫和处于激活程序中的农村五保与医疗救助政策.长期以来,旨在救助贫困者的社会政策成为经济政策的附属者角色,然而贫困者所面临的生计风险需要传统社会政策在扶贫框架中的转型.本文通过分析经济政策与社会政策在诸多方面的联系和差异比较,结合我国农村贫困的现实,以嵌入性要素来理解我国农村社会政策转型的方向.在这方面,发展型社会政策的视角在反贫困战略中提供了可让我们选择的嵌入性要素.它们是:减少风险管理成本的社会资本、反社会排斥的劳动力政策、农村生计的保护与发展、健康与医疗政策的整合以及资产为本的个人账户建设等五个方面.     

Social Policy and Politics

Social policy is central to current political debates. The framework in which social policy is discussed remains largely a social services or micro-social policy framework. The contribution of the social services has been reappraised. The importance of the 'private' behaviour of individuals and families that has social consequences is being increasingly realised. There is a growing need for a new 'macro-social policy' approach that extends to all the actors or agents that are relevant to social objectives.     

网络参与政策问题建构的社会条件审视

从政策科学发展脉络来看,政策问题建构虽然不曾作为一个明确的主题在政策科学研究中引起关注,但是作为构成要素,政策问题建构从未脱离过政策周期。网络社会的到来,无疑为社会组织与公众发挥自主性参与政策问题建构、共同解决治理问题提供了可能。然而,在实践中却充满波折,除了网民参与能力不足这一直接限制条件,更深刻的约束因素根植于现代社会的官僚主义化及工业社会的控制思维中。网络社会的行为倾向来自现实世界的刺激反应,这就要求网络参与政策问题建构的理性引导与现实世界的社会需求回应相结合,通过网络社会与现实社会在主体构成、价值引导及问题治理方面的融合,促进对话与信任意识的生成,继而改造传统公共行政模式。     

Federalism and Social Policy: The Case of Domestic Violence

This paper challenges long standing critiques of federalism that suggest it stymies the development of progressive social policies. Through a case study of national domestic violence policies in Australia, this paper argues that not only can the curses of federalism – especially conservatism, duplication and overlap – be surmounted, but even more positively, under the right condition, federalism can enhance opportunities for the development of progressive social policy. While the Howard government has adopted a conservative approach to domestic violence, federal structures have made it possible to maintain an alternative discourse at the state level. Moreover, national policy coordination machinery has opened the path for policy learning and innovation between governments in this social policy area.     

Incomes Policy in Finland: Economic and Social Effects in a Comparative Perspective

This paper examines the performance of the Finnish economy during the so-called incomes policy period, 1969-80. For this purpose Finland is compared with the other OECD countries both before and during the incomes policy period. The results suggest that in terms of economic growth, inflation and unemployment, Finnish economy has improved its performance, particularly before the economic recession of the mid-seventies. Cross-national comparisons point out that the recession has been met in various ways: some countries have restrained inflation, some unemployment. Secondly, the paper examines the effects of incomes policy agreements on the growth of social expenditure, the result being that incomes policy cannot be regarded as responsible for the growth of social expenditure in Finland. Thirdly, effects on income distribution are analyzed. Here incomes policy has played a role: income inequalities diminished during the first five years of incomes policy. Since then, they have not changed. The paper ends by discussing the impact and nature of incomes policy.     

The Effects of Women Officeholders on Environmental Policy

Studies show that women and girls consistently demonstrate higher levels of concern for the environment than men and boys. Separately, research also indicates that women officeholders pay particular attention to the issues prioritized by their female constituents. Interestingly, despite the consistency of the gender gap in attitudes to environmental issues the literature has paid scant attention to the role of women officeholders in the adoption of environmental policy. The goal of this paper was to start to address that lacuna. Using pooled cross‐sectional time series analyses of environmental standards in 18 Western parliamentary democracies (1990–2012), our initial findings indicate women officeholders are associated with the adoption of higher environmental standards.     

The Policy Effects of Internationalization: A Subsystem Adjustment Analysis of Policy Change

This article contributes to a better understanding of contemporary policy analysis and management by setting out the parameters for analyzing policy change induced by internationalization. It first maps the dynamics of policy change in domestic settings and then explores how internationalization has affected the dynamics identified. The central proposition of the article is that internationalization promotes the restructuring of policy subsystems in such as way as to form hospitable circumstances for swifter and deeper policy changes than would otherwise be the case. However, the analysis suggests that this is a two-stage process in that once its initial impact is felt, internationalization serves to entrench and stabilize reconstructed policy systems, thus constraining the scope for further change.     

Social Policy and Social Citizenship: Britain's Welfare States

In Britain the imagery and rhetoric of the postwar welfare stateremain powerful—citizens should have equal access to publicservices based on need not place of residence. Devolution issometimes depicted as a threat to this tradition. This articleshows that the immediate risk of a social policy race to thebottom is small. Moreover, because of the peculiarities of Britishterritorial politics the traditional imagery was never borneout in practice; the article traces policy variation beforeand after devolution. Finally, locating British social policywithin the comparative framework of "nationalization" and "citizenship,"I argue that Britain lost its status as an exemplary welfarestate partly because it failed to provide an adequate territorialframework for the development of social policy.     

公共政策体制与社会公正

公共政策对于社会公正的实现具有重要意义,这种意义首先发生于体制层面。在界定公共政策体制内涵的基础上,通过实现社会公正的责任体系找到公共政策体制与社会公正之间的关联逻辑,并从公共政策体制构成出发分析二者关联的具体内容,同时从宏观上考虑到公共政策在实现社会公正中所遭遇的悖论,提出：体制性思考是解决悖论的钥匙,良好的公共政策体制有利于实现社会公正。     

发展型社会政策视角下志愿者参与动机分析

志愿者参与志愿服务的基本动机包括内在动机和外在动机两方面。而从发展型社会政策来看,其在激发志愿者参与动机方面存在较大局限:政策定位过于单一,忽略了志愿者需要的异质性,未能改变志愿服务的弱势地位,无力回应志愿者自我的职业发展。这就要求我们从发展型社会政策的价值取向、政策主体、政策内容和政策规划层面着手,合理定位志愿者参与动机,重视政府在促成志愿者参与动机过程中的主导角色,强化人力资本理论在维持志愿者参与动机中的作用,突出持续发展对于激发志愿者参与动机的积极影响。     

Macro Measures and Mechanics of Social Capital

Interest in social capital has grown as it has become apparentthat it is an important predictor of collective well-being.Recently, attention has shifted to how levels of social capitalhave changed over time. But better measures are required totest even basic hypotheses such as establishing the directionof causality between the two components of social capital. Inthe following analysis, I develop macro measures of social capitalthrough the development of longitudinal measures of civic engagementand interpersonal trust. I use these measures to test basicassumptions about social capital. The result is not only thefirst over time measures of social capital, but also an increasein our understanding of social capital as a macro process withcomplex causes and effects.     

Social Policy and the Authority of Evidence

The growing call for social policy to be evidence‐based implies that ‘evidence’ possesses an intrinsic authority. Much of the evidence used by governments to formulate or evaluate social policy is signified through statistics and the language of quantification. Evidence presented in this way has the appearance of certainty and a legitimacy that seems beyond challenge. Having an appreciation of the history and sociology of the ‘science of the state’, as statistics was originally defined, helps demystify the authority of social statistics. This enables policy‐makers and program administrators to better discern the policy merit of numerical evidence.     

Social Democracy or Social Liberalism? Ideological Sources of Liberal Democrat Policy

Liberal Democrat policy has been labelled as social democratic, yet the party has been reluctant to so describe itself. Taking Crosland's The Future of Socialism as a reference point, there appears to be much shared ground between social democracy and Liberal Democrat policy. Meanwhile, the party's tax policy adopted in 2006 takes the Croslandite approach of taxing wealth rather than income. Despite this, the article argues that the party is a social liberal rather than a social democratic one. These two political philosophies have so much in common that it is understandable that some commentators see the influence of social democracy where they might instead perceive social liberalism. Yet the two differ in their attitudes to the state. Both see a positive role for the state in furthering social goods. However, social liberalism shares classical liberal concerns about the dangers of an over-mighty state. This approach underpins Liberal Democrat policy.