The State as Architect of Political Order: Policy Dynamics in German Health Care

The focus of this article is on the state as an actor that can create, rearrange or even destroy established structures of interest representation. Through small, often almost overlooked, and sometimes even failed interventions, governmental policies create a legacy that can serve as a springboard for further political action. This policy dynamic is triggered by “architectural” activities of the state, aiming at the structure of the interest group system. This kind of policy bears the potential not only to manipulate the structure, but also the preferences and strategies of interest groups so as to overcome their veto-power. The case of German health care reform policies since the late 1970s is used to illustrate how suck a kind of governmental “design” has exerted a decisive impact on the structure of the policy field, culminating in an unexpected legislative success for the federal government.¹     

Measuring multi‐level regulatory governance: Organizational proliferation,coordination, and concentration of influence

As regulation increasingly results from the interplay of a wide array of different actors operating at different levels, it has become crucial to focus on how these constellations of regulatory actors operate. Although this research field presents huge potential for theoretical development, we still lack the measurement techniques to allow systematic comparative research. We contribute to filling this gap with four indices measuring crucial characteristics of multi‐actor regulatory arrangements: (i) the scope of organizational proliferation; (ii) the extent of coordination between regulatory actors; (iii) the amount of influence that each individual regulatory actor has on the sector regulation; and (iv) the extent to which the regulatory influence is concentrated in the hands of one or a few actors. We argue that our indices are sufficiently systematic, reliable, and flexible to be applied in a variety of research contexts relating to multi‐level and multi‐actor regulatory governance.     

IS IT BETTER TO BE POWERFUL OR LUCKY? PART 2

Abstract. Part I of this article comprising sections I-III, which appeared in the issue for June 1980 (Vol. XXVIII, No. 2), offered a critique of some standard power indices. Part 2 is devoted to working out an alternative way of thinking about power. Section IV defines success as luck plus decisiveness. Section v illustrates the use of these concepts by applying them to the example of the US Constitutional Convention. Section VI offers a definition of power in terms of the conditions under which an actor can be decisive. It is then suggested that power should increase in importance to an actor the more uncertain that actor is of the likely alignment of forces in the relevant period of time.     

Democratic authority to geoengineer

ABSTRACT

Does any existing single actor have, or could any existing single actor come to have, the authority to geoengineer? In this paper, I will focus on Solar Radiation Management strategies (leaving at least some Carbon Dioxide Removal strategies on the table). I’ll argue that global democratic authorization is possible in principle, and could be obtained on the basis of large-scale representative sampling. I present experimental findings from the Australian context showing that democratic authorization would not be granted, and conclude that if we can expect this result to generalize, then the deployment of SRM by a single actor is impermissible.     

The Enactment of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982: A Multiple Perspectives Explanation

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) is generally analyzed from the distinct perspective of any given actor involved in the nuclear waste policymaking process. Yet, these perspectives often rest on totally different models of decisionmaking. This article applies a multiple perspective explanation as developed by Allison (1971) and Linstone (1984) to the NWPA and explains policy outcomes by reference to three models of decisionmaking: rational actor, organizational processes and governmental politics. Commonalities and points of disjointure in the three models are highlighted and prospects for future nuclear waste disposal policy development are assessed using an integrated decisionmaking framework.     

Fear and Anger in Great Britain: Blame Assignment and Emotional Reactions to the Financial Crisis

While we know that emotional reactions are important influences on political behavior, we know far less about the sources of these emotions. This paper studies the causes of fear and anger in reaction to a negative stimulus: the financial crisis. Anger should have been experienced among individuals who believed a specific actor was to blame for the crisis. Moreover, individuals should have been particularly angry if they blamed an actor who should be accountable to them, for example the national government. I test these expectations using a panel survey run in Britain between 2005 and 2010. This data shows that British citizens experienced anger if they held an actor responsible for the crisis. Moreover, they felt particularly angry if they held the Labour government (and to a lesser extent the European Union) responsible. These findings underline the importance of studying the causes of emotional reactions and show how these may be linked to common institutional distinctions between political systems.     

Deconstructing competing courtroom narratives: representation of social actors

Underpinned by the assumption that the import of the facts and the law in the courtroom depends on how they are invoked and (re)presented mainly through language use by courtroom interactants, this functional linguistic study critically scrutinizes representation strategies that opposing lawyers use to position social actors in their narratives, integrating Halliday’s concept of transitivity and van Leeuwen’s inventory of social actor representation. The findings reveal that the two sides consistently exhibit contrasting discursive practices, and that referential choices and grammatical positioning constitute major semiotic resources that work in concert to construct different identities and alternate realities, and negotiate interpretations of the guilt and innocence of the defendant and the victims. Social actor representation, it is argued, constitutes an important contingency bearing on the outcome of this institutional discourse. Such resources are deeply intertwined with each presenter’s underlying ideologies in this institutional discourse.     

Advocacy Coalitions in Ontario Land Use Policy Development

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.     

制度与行为者之间的关系－－印第安纳学派的新制度主义

本以制度与行为之间的关系为主，对在社会科学领域影响甚大的新制度主义中各学派的主要理论观点进行了梳理，并在此基础上，着重介绍了印第安纳学派的有关理论，该理论对于制度与行为之间的关系的认识颇具洞见，有助于科学地分析社会现象。     

UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION: AN ACTOR‐NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

Development projects are central to international development, yet the actual practice of their implementation is under‐researched. In particular, we know little about how practice affects project performance and about how politics is enacted within such projects. This paper investigates these knowledge gaps through analysis, using actor‐network theory (ANT), of a donor‐funded reform project in the Sri Lankan public sector. By analysing, using mobilisation, interaction and disintegration of the local and global actor‐networks that typically surround such development projects, the paper explains the project's trajectory. These actions represent the practice of politics that must, in turn, be understood in relation to network actor power: not through a static conception of ‘capacitive power’ but through the dynamic enacted concept of ‘associative power’. The paper concludes by reflecting on the contribution and limitations of ANT's local/global networks component in analysing development projects, and in providing insights for development project practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Volunteers in Ukraine: From provision of services to state- and nation-building

This article discusses the volunteer movement in Ukraine. After the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity and the subsequent military confrontation with Russia, the volunteer movement became an influential and trusted actor capable of mobilizing a large number of supporters and a significant amount of resources. Donations made to volunteer initiatives represent in Ukraine a percentage of the country's GDP similar to that seen in some Western countries. However, compared with volunteerism in developed countries, volunteer initiatives in Ukraine have several distinct features: a mostly informal character; their reliance on a hard core of committed and active leaders; and connections with the nationalist movement understood here as an actor aiming to attain and maintain the identity of the Ukrainian nation-state in the making. The article explores the intersection between warfare, nation-building, state-building and democratization using Ukraine as a case in point. Data from two sources inform the analysis: a series of in-depth qualitative interviews with leaders of the volunteer movement (N?=?22) and results of a survey conducted on a representative sample (N?=?2040).     

The European Parliament in the External Dimension of EU Counter-terrorism: More Actorness,Accountability and Oversight 10 Years on?

The Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, considerably reinforced the powers of the European Parliament. This article examines to what extent the European Parliament has become an important actor in EU counter-terrorism by focusing on the external dimension of this policy. It also analyses the impact that this potentially changing role has had on the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. This article puts forward two inter-related claims. Firstly, the role of the European Parliament in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism has significantly grown in recent years. Following the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009, the European Parliament has become a fully-fledged actor in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism. Secondly, the reinforcement of the role of the European Parliament has also led to a strengthening of both accountability and oversight in the external dimension of EU counter-terrorism, although there are still some limitations in that respect.     

Theorizing Implementation of Public Management Policy Reforms: A Case Study of Strategic Planning and Programming in the European Commission

As a measure to rectify the European Commission's "management deficit," the institution's authorities decided to introduce new forms of commission-wide strategic planning and programming in 2000. Drawing on semistructured interviews with Commission officials, this article tracks the key turning points, trajectories, and outcomes of events within the implementation stage of this part of the Commission managerial reform. As an instrumental case study, the article begins to theorize the process of implementing public management policy change. Major conceptual issues addressed include how reform decisions serve to activate the social mechanism of actor certification and how actor conduct amplifies such certification. Actor certification provides a link from reform choices to organizational change. In this respect and others, the research argument contrasts and integrates social theory mind-sets deriving from institutionalism and social interactionism (processualism) in line with research trends in historical sociology, organization science, and public management.     

The Dynamics of an Interorganizational Emergency Management Network: Interdependent and Independent Risk Hypotheses

The purpose of this research is to uncover the dynamic structure of an interorganizational emergency management network after a disaster. This research tests two hypothesized network structures: interdependent risk and independent risk. While the former illustrates the importance of trust and information redundancy in coordinating and aligning emergency preparedness and response, the latter captures the tendency for local actors to seek dominant partners to bridge crucial information across the region. A stochastic actor‐based model with a forward selection strategy is used to analyze the structural effects of endogenous networks and the effects of exogenous community attributes on interorganizational ties. Based on the data sets collected before and after the 2012 typhoons in South Korea, the results support the interdependent risk hypothesis, suggesting that an interorganizational network structure tends to evolve into the notion of shared collaboration risk.     

An actor‐oriented approach for strengthening research and development capabilities in natural resource systems

This article is concerned with strengthening research and development capabilities in natural resource systems, especially systems oriented towards reducing rural poverty. It reviews current planning, monitoring and evaluation (PME) literature and identifies five major areas of concern: (1) the lack of systematic and usable methods for qualitative assessment; (2) the narrow focus of current activities; (3) the failure to address the political nature of evaluations; (4) the lack of integration of PME methods with the practice of research and development; (5) the need for methods that facilitate flexibility, learning and replanning in process projects. Major new approaches for PME in process projects are reviewed and some gaps are identified. The article develops an ‘actor oriented approach’ for strengthening research and development (R&D) capabilities in natural resource systems. This holistic approach identifies major actors in an overall R&D system and concentrates on the determinants of flows of information between actors. Two major tools are presented: an actor linkage matrix and a determinants' diagram. The use of these tools is illustrated with a retrospective case study from the Kavango region of Namibia, and the potential strengths and weaknesses of the approach are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bridging borders through institution-building: the EGTC as a facilitator of institutional integration in cross-border regions

This article examines cross-border integration at the sub-state level in the frame of a European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation (EGTC). The EGTC is a supranational and directly applicable EU legal instrument that regulates the creation of cross-border ‘associations' with legal personality between public authorities. Thus, it represents a policy tool that can have an effect on the institutional frame of cross-border cooperation and potentially enhance cross-border institutional integration at the sub-state level. The aim of this article is to examine the potential effect of this EU instrument on cross-border institutional integration by studying the institutional architecture of selected EGTCs. This is done on the basis of an analytical grid that defines elements of a possible integration process based on an institutional-oriented approach. This analytical grid is applied to four case studies: the Eurométropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, the EGTC Ister-Granum, the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion and the European Region Tyrol-South Tyrol-Trentino. The empirical analysis shows that despite the considerable improvement of the legal basis for cooperation, the possible effect of the EGTC for further institutional cross-border integration is still rather limited due to a narrow design of institutions and a low level of actor involvement.     

Rationalist and Constructivist Perspectives on Reputation

This article argues for a new and broader understanding of reputation as a generally shared belief concerning a referent's character or nature, based on a range of information, associations and social cues. This is in place of the conventional rationalist definition of this concept as the degree to which an actor reliably upholds its commitments, based on a record of past behaviour. A brief literature review shows that this concept is crucial in underpinning a wide range of work in political science and economics premised on strategic interaction. The difference between a rationalist and constructivist understanding of reputation hinges on three points. Firstly, reputation is argued to be a relational concept rather than a property concept. Secondly, reputation is a social fact with an emergent, intersubjective quality, not just a collection of individual beliefs. Thirdly, rather than being an inductively derived objective record of past behaviour, reputation is based on associations, feelings and social cues. The last section of the article applies this broader conceptual understanding to two empirical examples: the importance of international organisations' reputation for their influence over policy-makers, and the way in which small states are classified as tax havens by a reputation test.     

Issue Networks and Activism

Using an investigation of a technical policy issue, this paper demonstrates the utility of employing an issue networks approach to understanding the dynamics among those concerned about the threat of earthquakes to the province of British Columbia, Canada and the state of Washington, United States. Such an approach focuses on issue emergence in the early stages of agenda building. This research demonstrates how scientific and technical expertise, in the absence of political leadership, is an unrivaled source of presumptive rights leading to key actor status within a specialized policy community. A complementary finding is that career-related rationales provide the overwhelming motivation for issue network participation.     

服务型政府建设过程中的互动关系探讨

服务型政府建设是一项比经济体制改革更为艰巨的系统工程，政府在这项工程中无可争议地处于“主角”地位，但“主角”绝非“独角”。服务型政府建设只有在党和政府、中央政府和地方政府、行政机关和立法机关、行政机关和司法机关、政府和社会的双向互动中，通过循序渐进的方式得以实现。     

Fear and youth citizenship practices: insights from Montreal

This article explores how fear contributes to empowerment and citizenship practices among youth who choose alternative lifestyles. Fear is conceived in a threefold manner: (1) as a manipulated resource in the political process, (2) as energy to be tamed through individual will, and (3) as radiating from actors and flowing through situations of action. Through an examination of how ‘risk-taking’ youths play with fear, the article critically reflects on the modern and advanced modern conceptualizations of the political ‘heroic’ actor and its articulation with an understanding of political action as decentered from human actors. Citizenship practices, it is argued, operate on five distinct levels of political engagement ranging from an awareness of the world outside of oneself to empathy for others and activism. Rather than being state-centered, the article develops an understanding of intersubjective citizenship based on affective memory.