The political economy of churches in Denmark, 1300–2015

This paper reports new time-series for the numbers and sizes of churches in Denmark over a 715-year period. Per capita, the new series are termed church densities. A pattern emerges in the series that corresponds to the main development in the economy: until 1750, the economy was in the traditional steady state, where church densities were high and did not decline substantially. Modern development set in after 1750. Since then, church densities have declined more than five times. Moreover, capacity utilization of church rooms has declined, which means that the reduction in the demand for churches must have been even larger. We argue that this large decline is caused by a fall in religiosity that is caused by economic development as measured by the rise in incomes. In parallel with similar transitions in other sectors, e.g., the Agricultural Transition, it is termed the Religious Transition.     

Quadratic voting as an input to cost-benefit analysis

When agencies regulate, they must calculate the costs and benefits of their regulations. To do this, they must often price non-market goods—for instance, the value of protecting wildlife or the environment. Regulators have typically relied upon contingent valuation surveys to put prices on these types of goods. But contingent valuation surveys are fraught with error and often give rise to implausible valuations that cannot be trusted. Quadratic voting offers a better solution. Agencies should hold quadratic votes over nonmarket goods and use those votes to price the goods at issue.     

The politics of policy adoption: a saga on the difficulties of enacting policy diffusion or transfer across industrialized countries

While studies of policy diffusion and policy transfer have focused largely on industrialized countries, it is the exact opposite when it comes to pension policies where the focus remains on national elements such as institutions and partisanship. Focusing on a case with a high degree of programmatic similarities, this contribution fills this gap by analyzing the adoptive process in an industrialized country. The empirical analysis involves the transfer and diffusion of the Swedish pension reform in Norway. Norway has a long history of borrowing from Sweden. Following a highly publicized Swedish pension reform embraced by the World Bank, Norwegian policy makers could have easily introduced this reform at home when they embarked into a reform process in the early 2000s. By analyzing core policy instruments of the Swedish pension reform and the agenda-setting and the formulation stages in the policy process in the Norwegian case, this contribution explains why it proves complex and difficult to attribute the outcome of a reform to a diffuser and it argues that more attention is needed on the process behind the adoption of policies from abroad.     

Governmentalities without policy capacity

The professional community of policy experts takes it for granted that all governments seek to strengthen their policy capacity, considering it a key indicator and requisite of their success. Yet this assumption is far from universal, even in some European Union countries with long and complex institutional histories. If we look at the informed and explicit use of policy analysis tools in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, we have to conclude that this paradigm is not completely integrated into their governmentality. In these countries, three disciplinary approaches warrant especial attention as generators of competencies recognized as usable knowledge for public decisions: ‘law,’ ‘public finance’ and ‘public administration.’ Where the standard operating procedures of democratic institutions appear to be fully defined on the basis of these three categories, the inclusion of the policy perspective encounters major difficulties. In these contexts, the most important obstacle is the fear that the new paradigm will threaten the balance among the constitutional bodies, especially to the detriment of the legislature, and that it will constrict the political leadership. This explains why some countries, such as France and, most recently, Italy, have attempted to resolve the impasse by resorting to the strongest of legitimations: inclusion in their constitutions of public policy evaluation as a function of Parliament. This choice is certainly important, but in itself it does not guarantee recognition of the policy paradigm as a science for democratic institutions.     

Strategic use of evidence in state-level policymaking: matching evidence type to legislative stage

Although interest in research utilization in the policy process has grown, how advocates strategically deploy different types of evidence to influence lawmakers remains not well understood. In this paper, we draw on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Narrative Policy Framework to show how various types of evidence—from empirical findings to personal anecdotes—were utilized by advocates during the 2 years leading to the passage of California’s historic 2010 law to extend foster care. The result was a generous and flexible entitlement policy passed with bipartisan support in the context of a recession, a state budget deficit, and an ambivalent governor. We find that leaders of a diverse advocacy coalition strategically showcased different types of evidence at specific moments in the legislative process. Each evidence type can be tied to a specific narrative element and strategy. Advocates first used research evidence to convince lawmakers of the policy’s effectiveness, then used professional expertise and benefit-cost analysis to convince them it would come at an acceptable cost, and finally used personal narratives to motivate them to act. We conclude that though benefit-cost analyses play an integral role in policymaking during a time of austerity, advocacy coalitions may still benefit from personal stories that lend emotional potency and urgency.     

The new policy sciences: combining the cognitive science of choice,multiple theories of context,and basic and applied analysis

It is time to imagine a new policy sciences. The policymaking world has moved on since its first design. So too has our understanding of it. The original policy sciences were contextualized, problem-oriented, multi-method, and focused on using scientific research towards the realization of greater human dignity. We introduce a new policy sciences that builds on such aims. We describe the need for realistic depictions of ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ choice, multiple theories to portray the multifaceted nature of complex contexts, and the combination of applied and basic research. To set this new agenda, we build on two foundational strategies: identifying advances in the psychology of decision-making and describing how policy theories depict policymaking psychology in complex contexts.