Month: May 2024

NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON Policy Learning: Types, Mechanisms and Effects. BLOG 1: Ad hoc groups and policy learning under crisis: more than a ‘quick fix’

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Sreeja Nair 


Each time a crisis hits, be it a natural disaster, pandemic or a corruption scandal, several ad hoc units are assembled by governments for quick action, only to be dismantled soon after the crisis becomes manageable or settles. Are these groups deployed as a signal of assurance to the public that indeed some action is being taken, or to bypass long-drawn bureaucratic processes in favour of quick action or to efficiently assemble and utilise resources under crisis? Perhaps all of the above. The possibilities of how ad hoc groups can be structured and the range of functions these can offer are plenty.  

The term ‘adhocracy’ first featured in the book titled ‘The Temporary Society’ (Bennis and Slater, 1968) to describe flexible, unstructured and adaptable organisational models, which operated in stark contrast to a typical bureaucracy. Owing to their transient nature, policy learning opportunities brought about by ad hoc groups, have received little attention in public policy literature. Our new article in Policy and Politics presents insights from an exploratory study to understand the diverse institutional roles played by ad hoc groups deployed during crisis.  

Continue reading →

How and why equal pay remains on the EU agenda?

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Sophie Jacquot
UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles 


In my recently published article in Policy & Politics, I ask how and why equal pay remains on the EU agenda, and, relatedly, if policy failure can be useful in policymaking. 

Equal pay for equal work between women and men has been enshrined in European treaties since 1957. It is one of the EU’s founding principles, and, even though the EU’s action against gender inequalities has expanded to include areas as varied as domestic violence, integration of gender equality in external relations, gender budgeting or the articulation between private and working life, equal pay certainly remains the flagship and most symbolic policy domain of the EU gender equality policy. Equal pay can be considered as an identity marker for the EU.  Implementing the principle of equal pay has regularly been on the European policy-making agenda since the 1970s with new legislation, case law, soft regulation, etc. However, the gender pay gap in the EU is 13% in 2022. It means that women would need to work 1.5 extra months to make up the difference. It also means that progress in closing the gender pay gap is extremely slow: it decreased by only 2.8% pp in 10 years.  

Source: Extract from Equal Pay? Time to close the gap! (European Commission, November 2022, https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2022-11/equal_pay_day_factsheet_2022_en_1_0.pdf). Reproduction allowed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. 

Given these (poor) results, the EU equal pay policy could be assessed as a failure and its existence questioned. But, on the contrary, the EU equal pay policy seems unaffected by failure. Recently, the von der Leyen Commission has put equal pay at the heart of the Union of Equality programme and has proposed a Directive on pay transparency, which was adopted on 10 May 2023. My recent article “Can failure be useful in policy-making? The case of EU equal pay policy” explores this paradox: Why and how, despite repeated implementation failure, is the EU equal pay policy still up and running? 

Continue reading →

Latest Policy Process research from Policy & Politics free to access

policypressblogLeave a comment

As proud co-sponsors of the Conference on Policy Process Research 2024, we bring you our latest policy process research, free to access for the conference period from 15-17 May. 

Please look out for members of our team attending COPPR! 


Happy reading! 

Organisation, information processing, and policy change in US federal bureaucracies 
Authors: Samuel Workman, Scott E. Robinson, and Tracey Bark 

Identifying proactive and reactive policy entrepreneurs in collaborative networks in flood risk management 
Authors: Per Becker, Jörgen Sparf, and Evangelia Petridou 

Continue reading →

The climate crisis and radical political action

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Hubert Buch-Hansen and Martin Bæk Carstensen


Addressing the existential threat posed by the climate and biodiversity crises requires deep-seated transformative change. Such change necessitates political action far more radical than that characterising current mainstream policymaking. Yet what sort of policymakers and policymaking could foster the needed radical transformations towards ecological sustainability? This is the question we address in our recent article published in Policy & Politics entitled What kind of political agency can foster radical transformation towards ecological sustainability?  

The paper takes “degrowth” as an example of a radical political project, contemplating the sort of political action that could bring about the type of policies its proponents call for. Degrowth involves deep transformations towards a society co-existing harmoniously within itself and with nature. To bring about such transformations, degrowth proponents, for instance, suggest eco-taxes and limits placed on advertising, caps on income and wealth, subsidies for organic agriculture and regulation making it illegal for companies to produce products that cannot be repaired.  

Continue reading →

Policy & Politics highlights collection on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis: free to access from 1st May – 31 July 2024

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Sarah Brown, Journals Manager

Policy & Politics highlights collection on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis: free to access from 1st May – 31 July 2024 

Barely out of the media spotlight it seems, the role of experts in policymaking is as topical now as it was during the Covid-19 pandemic. So, we’re delighted to introduce our new special issue re-examining this hotly debated topic – Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis. 

The Covid-19 pandemic increased the focus on the relationship between experts and politicians. For example, health experts globally became engaged in new ways of exchanging knowledge where they recommended strategies for coping with the pandemic and gave advice to governments and citizens. New institutional structures for exchanging knowledge came about, organised around communities of expertise, advisory committees, public campaigns and the crisis management operations of state agencies. These have also been evident during other crises, such as climate change and specific economic and political crises. 

In Western liberal democracies, politics and expertise are, ideally at least, seen as preconditions for each other. Here, experts provide knowledge and advice based on the latest research and politicians make decisions based on that expert advice. Experts are, in this view, neutral and unbiased, providing legitimacy to the policy process.

Continue reading →