Policy convergence and policy feedback: Agricultural finance policies in a globalizing era

In a comparative study of five countries: Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, the UK, and the USA, this article examines the degree of convergence of agricultural credit policy content, policy instruments, and policy outcomes on a market liberal model. It shows that all five countries have moved toward market liberal policy arrangements over the past quarter century of globalizing and domestic fiscal pressures, but important differences in policy remain. The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom move further toward a market liberal model than do Australia, Canada, and the USA. The distinct national paths taken to market liberalism give rise to policy feedback that hastens or retards the adoption of a fully market liberal system. Historical choices of policy instruments and path dependence help account for continuing policy divergence.     

Policy convergence and policy feedback: Agricultural finance policies in a globalizing era

Abstract In a comparative study of five countries: Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, the UK, and the USA, this article examines the degree of convergence of agricultural credit policy content, policy instruments, and policy outcomes on a market liberal model. It shows that all five countries have moved toward market liberal policy arrangements over the past quarter century of globalizing and domestic fiscal pressures, but important differences in policy remain. The Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom move further toward a market liberal model than do Australia, Canada, and the USA. The distinct national paths taken to market liberalism give rise to policy feedback that hastens or retards the adoption of a fully market liberal system. Historical choices of policy instruments and path dependence help account for continuing policy divergence.     

Designing policies that intentionally stick: policy feedback in a changing climate

Policy feedback is a widely used concept, but many who use it only focus on the positive and/or unintentional feedback effects of certain types of policy. The literature as a whole is therefore poorly equipped to make sense of the negative policy feedbacks that often appear in more regulatory areas such as climate change, where target groups are put under pressure to shoulder concentrated costs. Advocates of the ‘new’ policy design have an opportunity to address this gap by exploring how policy makers approach the design of policies that intentionally generate positive policy feedbacks and/or are resilient to negative ones. This paper contributes to that effort by identifying the conditions under which specific instrument designs are likely to have opportunity enhancing and/or constraining effects. It relates these expectations to a design situation where positive feedback seemed unlikely, and hence, the challenge of designing locked-in policies was correspondingly greater. It concludes by drawing on the findings of this exploratory case to investigate what the ‘new’ policy design can do better to explicate the temporal aspects of design.     

Modeling complexity: Using dynamic simulation to link regression and case studies

The success or failure of programs typically depends on how numerous variables interact over time. Individuals adjust their strategies continuously on the basis of prior events. Unintended consequences abound. And the very meaning of success or failure may change over time. Yet the studies that command the most influence in the policy community are typically based on multiple regression, a technique whose capacity to capture these complexities is sharply limited. Accordingly, findings based on regression studies and findings based on the study of individual cases commonly conflict. Dynamic simulation modeling can serve as a methodological bridge between case studies and regression-based studies of policy systems. The results of some early experiments along these lines indicate how the bridge can be fashioned.     

Median voters,political systems and public policies: An empirical test

This paper tests the median voter hypothesis that variations in policies across political systems are caused by variations in median voter preferences. The context of the empirical analysis is the tax policies of three groups of sub-national governments in England in three time periods. The results of a median voter model of tax policy variation are compared to the results of a mean voter model in different party systems and different electoral systems. The evidence provides little support for the median voter hypothesis.     

Competition in the sandbox: A test of the effects of preschool competition on educational outcomes

The emergence of publicly subsidized preschool raises important policy questions about the role of market forces and, in places where competition to provide these services exists, presents a setting in which the effects of competition on educational outcomes can be tested. We test neo‐institutional hypotheses concerning the effects of competition to provide publicly‐funded prekindergarten (pre‐k) services on the performance of public schools and private organizations. We use student‐level data collected over a five‐year period on a large sample of children who attended publicly subsidized prekindergarten in Georgia. Overall, we find that more competition improves third grade reading and math test scores but does not significantly affect retention or school readiness ratings during elementary school. Not all children are equally affected by competition; for example, greater competition significantly decreases the likelihood of retention for children of the working poor. Contrary to the expectations of some theorists, both public schools and private organizations respond to increased competition in ways that improve test scores but not retention. However, children attending private prekindergarten have higher language arts scores and lower retention across the range of competition when compared with children who attended public school pre‐k. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Evaluating the effectiveness of policies related to drunk driving

New findings are presented on the effectiveness (in terms of fatal crash reductions) of state‐level public policies related to drunk driving. Conventional estimates of policy effects might be biased because of the endogeneity of policies; this concern is addressed by analyzing the time pattern of policy effects with respect to the date of adoption. For the 0.08 BAC law, the results suggest that a bias upward exists, but the policy is still somewhat effective. Graduated licensing programs for young drivers and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) organization are also evaluated for the first time in this type of analysis. The estimated time pattern of effects for graduated licensing suggest that its effects are also overstated in conventional analyses, but the policy is still effective for young drivers. The estimates for MADD do not imply an effect, but this result could be due to the crudeness of the variable used. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Symbolic and pseudo policies as responses to diffusion of power

Democratic welfare states are increasingly characterized by uncertainty, complexity and often changing divisions of labor between actors and agencies. The main functional answer to such diffusion of power is an increase of symbolic and pseudo policy ingredients. This means that many policies are either not intended to be fully implemented or are characterized by unsatisfactory usage of available knowledge regarding preconditions for implementation. Politicians often have to make decisions even when they are unsure of what to do and pressured by lack of economic resources, time or relevant knowledge. This is not something they alone should be blamed for but a rather problematic feature of modern politico-economic systems. Decentralization of symbolic and/or pseudo type is a strategy often used to muddle through the present difficulties. Because of the extension of the public sphere, real decentralization might be the only alternative to complexity and difficulties in governing. The form in which it occurs is, however, crucial for the future of democratic mechanisms.     

《理想国》中教育思想对青年教育的启示

当代青年教育存在思想教育不足,教育实效不明显,心理健康问题凸显等情况。在《理想国》中,柏拉图以建构理想城邦为中心,完整论述了对儿童、护卫者和哲学王的教育,包括音乐、体操学习,非强迫教育,辩证法学习,美德教育等思想。本文结合《理想国》中的教育理念,比较当代中国青年教育存在的问题,提出加强青年唯物辩证法学习,采取兴趣教育,通过分级制度过滤青年接触的事物等主张。     

When government programs create inequities: A guide to compensation policies

When the government institutes a program thought to be useful for society as a whole, such as building a highway or controlling air pollution, those that benefit from such programs are usually quite different from those that bear its costs. Sometimes the government responds by postponing or modifying the program, sometimes by compensating those that are bearing an inequitable share of the costs. By using familiar economic concepts, the analyst can more effectively choose between the two approaches. Applying those concepts to the case of highway construction in California, we conclude that in this instance cash compensation is clearly superior to postponement as the policy of choice.     

Civil service policies in Indonesia: An obstacle to decentralization?

Decentralization of a substantial portion of development activity under Indonesia's New Order has been attempted in the context of centralizing civil service reforms. This analysis, based on field observation in two areas distant from the ‘bureaucratic centre’ of Java, South Sulawesi and East Nusa Tenggara in early 1986, shows some ways in which the structure of the civil service and recent policies governing it have handicapped regional governments in their attempts to develop an apparatus capable of managing decentralization. For example, the structure often leads local officials to prefer rank over technical qualifications in appointments to managerial positions. The analysis also shows how they cope and attempt to maintain their legal prerogatives vis-à-vis the central government. In conclusion policy recommendations are offered that would help to achieve a better balance between the New Order's concerns for centralization and decentralization.     

A new barrier to participation: Heterogeneous application of voter identification policies

In democratic societies there is a tension between maximizing ballot access and minimizing voter fraud. Since the 2000 presidential election, this tension has been central to discussions about election reform at the national, state, and local level. We examine this tension by focusing on the implementation of voter identification laws in one state that has experienced significant issues in recent elections, and that is currently implementing election reform: New Mexico. We hypothesize that Hispanic voters are more likely to show some form of identification than other types of voters. Using a voter data set from New Mexico's First Congressional District in the 2006 election, we find that Hispanic, male and Election Day voters are more likely to show some form of identification than non-Hispanic, female and early voters. In addition, using an overlapping study of Bernalillo County 2006 poll workers, which almost entirely overlaps with the First Congressional District, we find no evidence that differences in poll worker partisanship or ethnicity produce differences in voter identification procedures. Our findings suggest that broad voter identification laws, which may be applied unequally, may be perceived as discriminatory.     

Policy feedback and pathways: when change leads to endurance and continuity to change

Policy Sciences - The policy feedback literature was initially concerned with explaining how positive feedback could lead to self-reinforcing policy trajectories. More recently, policy scholars...     

图书馆教育职能在促进大学生全面发展中的作用

简要论述高校图书馆教育职能的内涵,如何发挥图书馆教育职能,促进大学生全面发展。     

Rational inattention and politics: how parties use fiscal policies to manipulate voters

Public Choice - We model a two-party electoral game with rationally inattentive voters. Parties are endowed with different administrative competencies and announce a fiscal platform to be credibly...