Policy learning and change during crisis: COVID-19 policy responses across six states

Whereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID-19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.     

Overlapping International Regimes: The Case of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF) between Climate Change and Biodiversity

A great number of organisations and actors are participating in a plethora of international and regional fora geared towards the forest issue. Are there inherent traits about how these fora interact that can increase understanding about why the forest issue seems largely to be at a standstill? In this article I focus on the final meeting of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests (IFF-4) and examine the overlap with the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the overlap with the Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC). How have the overlaps between these international fora been dealt with and why has one led to linkages while the other has not?

     

Flawed attacks on contemporary human rights: Laudan,Sunstein, and the cost-benefit state

After giving a brief account of human rights, the paper investigates five contemporary attacks on them. All of the attacks come from two contemporary proponents of the cost-benefit state, attorney Cass Sunstein and philosopher Larry Laudan. These attacks may be called, respectively, the rationality, objectivity, permission, voluntariness, and comparativism claims. Laudan's and Sunstein's rationality claim (RC) ist that only policy decisions passing cost-benefit tests are rational. Their objectivity presupposition (OP) is that only acute, deterministic threats to life are objective. Sunstein’s permission claim (PC) is that regulators are merely permitted, 3 not required, to take distributive and human rights concerns into account. Sunstein’s 3 voluntariness claim (VC) is that the consent of potential victims is not relevant to government regulations about risks and benefits. Laudan’s comparativism claim 3 (CC) is that there are no rules of thumb, no precomparative norms like human rights, for assessing theory choice in policy science. The paper analyzes each of these claims, shows how they undercut human rights, and argues that each of them errs.     

A Meta-Analytic Review of Pretrial Research: Risk Assessment,Bond Type,and Interventions

This study makes an attempt to aggregate what we currently know about pretrial decision making and jurisdictions’ responses to the pretrial population. This meta-analysis began with an exhaustive search for pretrial research which may have revealed the most prominent finding—that being a distinct lack of research that utilizes any amount of methodological rigor. The findings of this meta-analysis hold several policy implications for the field of pretrial research and practice. First, future research studies in the field of pretrial need to focus on methodological quality and rigor. Second, it appears that some conditions of release may be related to a defendant’s likelihood of failure to appear. Third, it appears that none of the conditions of release reviewed in this study are related to a defendant’s likelihood of re-arrest while on pretrial release. Finally, it is recommended that the field of pretrial develop a sound research agenda and execute that plan with rigor, transparency, and an approach that favors the continued cumulation of knowledge. Strong conclusions about the impact of pretrial release conditions cannot be made as the quality of the pretrial research, overall, is weak at best.     

Retail medical clinics: increasing access to low cost medical care amongst a developing legal environment

Retail medical clinics are an innovation in health care with the potential to increase access to low-cost basic health care services while changing the delivery model for routine, non-urgent medical care. However, the few states that attempted to directly regulate retail medical clinics have been met with criticism by the FTC due to the proposed legislations' anticompetitive undertones. The relationship between retail medical clinics and the host stores or pharmacies that house them has the potential to spark fraud and abuse concerns. Retail medical clinics must abide by state-specific regulation on scope of practice of the various mid-level practitioners who work for the clinics, particularly to minimize exposure to litigation and keep within the clinics' intended purpose of a supplement to primary care physician offices. The author concludes that the consumer benefits of cost and convenience, combined with the potential for growth and expanded consumer base from a retailers' perspective, make the legal challenge inherent in running a retail medical clinic well worth the effort.     

What is a good post-separation relationship? The perspectives of Australian parents

Socio-legal research has established the importance of a ‘good’ post-separation parental relationship; however there is little work addressing the definitions and experiences of parents themselves. Thus, we have few insights into how socio-legal expectations align with those of separated parents. This paper draws on interview data from 27 separated Australian parents to explore the question: how do parents define a good post-separation parental relationship? Our analysis indicated a typology of three relationships: allied, arm’s length and autonomous relationships. These were differentiated by parents’ emotional connection, practical interdependence and deliberate co-operation in caring for their children. They shared in common parents’ focus on the wellbeing of children, which both motivated parents’ on-going connection and informed their definition of a good post-separation relationship with their former partner. Our findings indicate an alignment between socio-legal expectations of good relationships and those of parents, albeit in sometimes unexpected forms.