The power of policy networks in authoritarian regimes: Changing environmental policy in China

In this article, I examine how civil society organizations (CSOs) in China created policy networks among government officials to change environmental policies. I contend that these networks work in similar ways to those in democracies, despite the focus in the literature on how policymaking in authoritarian regimes lacks societal participation. China adopted strict regulations to control CSOs by requiring registration with a supervisory agency. However, CSOs exploit the regulations to use the supervisory agency as an access point to policymakers whom they otherwise could not reach. I use case studies to demonstrate how the strategies used to construct policy networks determined their success in changing policy. This finding represents an initial step in theorizing bottom‐up sources of policymaking in authoritarian regimes given that these regimes all create mechanisms for government control over CSOs, have difficulty accessing good information for policymaking from society, and a policy process formally closed to citizen participation.     

The Myths of Data-Driven Campaigning

Campaigns’ ability to use data and analytics to make informed decisions about the strategies and tactics they deploy is unparalleled, and also understudied. While much has been written about the possibilities of data driven campaigning, the on-the-ground realities are often much less precise and much less novel than journalistic coverage implies. This piece investigates the gap between the rhetoric of data driven campaigning and actual campaign practices, especially as it relates to how the 2016 Trump campaign compares to the 2016 Clinton campaign, other prior presidential campaigns, and down-ballot races in recent years. It focuses on the use of analytics in two channels in particular, social media and email, as those offer many opportunities for targeting and message testing. Ultimately, I argue that despite the great amount of journalistic attention paid to the Trump campaign’s novel use of data and analytics, their email campaign was significantly underpowered, while their use of Facebook analytics was comparable in quality and greater in quantity than other leaders in the field.     

What Happens When Rules Stay the Same? Examining Changes in Implementation Intent over Time

Rules are dynamic entities whose implementation is shaped by context, resources, and institutions. Variations in this implementation influence the functionality and effectiveness of rules. While the last decade has seen considerable scholarship on the determinants and effects of ineffective and effective rules, less is known about how rule implementation evolves over time. Particularly, what are the factors that influence administrative implementation intent over time? This study uses interview and archival data to examine administrative implementation intent of a single rule over a 25-year period. From qualitative data analysis, propositions are developed to explain why, although the text of the rule remained nearly the same, administrative intent of implement changed drastically.     

Social contracts and authoritarian projects in post-Soviet space: The use of administrative resource

Drawing on evidence from Ukraine and other post-Soviet states, this article analyses the use of a tool of political coercion known in the post-communist world as adminresurs, or administrative resource. Administrative resource is characterized by the pre-election capture of bureaucratic hierarchies by an incumbent regime in order to secure electoral success at the margins. In contrast to other forms of political corruption, administrative resource fundamentally rewrites existing social contracts. It redefines access to settled entitlements—public infrastructure, social services, and labor compensation—as rewards for political support. It is thus explicitly negative for publics, who stand to lose access to existing entitlements if they do not support incumbents. The geography of its success in post-communist states suggests that this tool of authoritarian capacity building could be deployed anywhere two conditions are present: where there are economically vulnerable populations, and where economic and political spheres of life overlap.     

Teacher Support Moderates Associations among Sexual Orientation Identity Outness,Victimization, and Academic Performance among LGBQ+Youth

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and youth with other minority sexual orientations (LGBQ+) who are more out to others about their sexual orientation identity may...     

BETWEEN POSITIVISM AND POSTMODERNISM:

A growing body of scholarship has pointed to the problems of positivist assumptions that underlie policy analysis. Scholars have noted that neither the ends nor the methods by which judgments are derived are unambiguous or value-free. In the place of a positivist epistemology, some scholars have argued for a view of policy analysis as a rhetorical activity. In this view, the analyst becomes a participant in strategies of persuasion in-which the reasons for decisions are rhetorically constructed. Neither view, though, provides an adequate basis upon which the analyst is to form judgments that can claim public validity. In this essay, we draw on the work of Hannah Arendt whochallenges the distinction between “subjectivity” and “objectivity” upon which much of the contemporary debate hinges. Arendt argues for a notion of “impartiality” that arises from the imagining of other perspectives. In this way, the validity of judgments depends on a broadened perspective gained through a grasping of particulars. It is within this context that we can understand the importance of narratives in policy evaluation and judgment.