Policy Transfer as a Form of Prospective Policy Evaluation: Challenges and Recommendations

This article focuses on policy transfer as a form of prospective policy analysis, which we define as policy makers' attempts to assess the effect of a policy or program before it is put in place. Despite a burgeoning literature on cross-national policy transfer, there has been little systematic comparison of cases to identify either common problems or potential strategies in the practice of policy transfer. This article sets forth a rational model of policy transfer and examines, in light of that model, case studies of cross-national policy transfer spanning different policy domains. Taking into account the constraints faced by policy makers, we relax standard rational decision-making criteria and make recommendations for improving the process of policy transfer as a form of prospective policy evaluation.     

Administrative Discretion and Active Representation: An Expansion of the Theory of Representative Bureaucracy

Recent studies of the theory of representative bureaucracy have focused on active representation, whereby administrators in public organizations work to advance the interests of particular groups, achieving policy outcomes that directly address the needs of those groups. The concept of administrative discretion is central to these studies, as an administrator must have the discretion to produce results that reflect the values and beliefs of these groups. While the presence of discretion is often implied in these studies, few have examined it explicitly. Using data from the Farmer's Home Administration, we explore whether administrators who perceive themselves as having more discretion enact policy outcomes that are more representative of minority interests. The results strongly support the conclusion that administrators who perceive themselves as possessing significant discretion and who assume the role of minority representative in their agencies are more likely to enact policy outcomes that favor minority interests.     

Gendering Parliamentary Questions

This article explores MPs' use of parliamentary questions to address gender-related concerns. The discussion is based upon a sample of oral and written questions asked during the 1997/1998 parliamentary session. All questions including the terms 'women', 'men' and/or 'gender' were selected. Using quantitative analysis, the first part of the article examines which MPs asked these questions. The second part uses qualitative approaches to explore the content of such oral parliamentary questions. The article finds that women MPs were more likely than their male colleagues to refer to 'women' and 'gender' in both written and oral questions. Male members were more inclined to refer to 'men' than their female colleagues. Whilst the questions address a wide range of concerns, MPs shared a common understanding of which issues should be linked to 'women'. Representations of wo/manhood, however, upheld conservative gender roles and risked essentialising sexual categories. The discussion has relevance for questions of women's political representation that have become increasingly topical and significant since the increase of female MPs in 1997.     

Change and Stasis: The Institutionalisation of Developing Country Mitigation in the International Climate Regime

Diplomacy is an institution that has undergone tremendous change over the last century—not least in relation to the new, supranational institutions of the European Community/European Union. Nonetheless, it is only very recently that political scientists and historians have taken an interest in the changes brought about by European integration processes for diplomatic norms, roles, and practices. This article investigates the background for this late and limited interest. It does so by comparing and contrasting dominant theoretical trends that have shaped research on European diplomacy in the two disciplines since the Second World War. Against this background it briefly evaluates the recent surge in research on diplomacy and the European Union within political science, and it points to possible avenues for further, joint, research combining the transnational and sociological approaches adopted by political scientists with the attention to temporality and national specificities characteristic of historians' dealings with European diplomacy.