Policy responsiveness and its administrative organisation in China 

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by Yao Liu, Eduardo Araral, Jiannan Wu


Do policy makers in China care about public opinion? Our recent article published in Policy & Politics demonstrates that Chinese governments effectively address public demands, especially on environmental issues, using online petition data and fiscal expenditure records. 

We focused on a relatively new channel for assessing public opinion, namely online petitioning via official platforms. These represent a new tool for public expression, distinct from more traditional institutionalized and non-institutionalized channels. On the one hand, compared to traditional petitioning, they provide greater accessibility. As long as there is internet access, members of the public can easily leave online messages. On the other hand, compared to public opinion expressed on social media, online petitioning is subject to specific regulations and demonstrate a certain level of official moderation, rather than relying solely on unmoderated input from the public.  

Response agencies, the department within local government responsible for collecting and responding to these public opinions, bridge the gap between the public and policy makers and act as a “transit point” to help organise the process of converting public opinion into policy action. Using a theoretical framework that analysed the roles of different response agencies in converting public opinion into policy action, we focussed on two dimensions: political authority and interest homogeneity. Specifically, policy responsiveness improves significantly when government response agencies demonstrate a high level of political authority and share homogeneous interests with citizens. 

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Crisis management in English local government: the limits of resilience

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By Tania Arrieta and Jonathan S. Davies

In our recently published article in Policy & Politics, we explore the context for local authorities in England that have been pushed to develop “resilience.” This has been as a result of the austerity policies that have led to the phasing out of the Revenue Support Grant (e.g., a grant given to local authorities to finance expenditure on any service), increased service demand and the need to absorb more responsibilities in their communities. Whilst having a reduced capacity, local authorities also faced the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living-crisis. Several have issued Section 114 “bankruptcy” notices indicating that they cannot balance their budgets as required by law, further escalating pressure on local services in responding to the growing inability of many to meet basic subsistence costs, such as the cost of food and housing.

Exploring resilience through the lens of crisis management, our article investigates in what ways and for whom resilience generates positive, zero and negative- sum outcomes. We believe this is a crucial moment in understanding the medium and longer-term consequences of resilience measures deployed by councils to ameliorate the effects of austerity, as they face rising financial hardship with a severely depleted resource base. Our work centres on four resilience strategies used by two unitary authorities in the East Midlands in England: Leicester City Council and Nottingham City Council. These resilience strategies are savings, reserves, collaboration, and investment.  

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The policy impact of dissension within the Violence Against Women and Girls Movement

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By Leah McCabe


Women’s movements often play a crucial role in highlighting the problem of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and driving policy change, but what happens when feminists cannot agree on the most effective way forward? In my recent article published in Policy & Politics, I discuss how this very dilemma unfolded within the Scottish VAWG movement. While the movement has made significant gains in incorporating feminist concerns in domestic abuse/VAWG policy, making effective use of the new structures facilitated by devolution, it encountered difficulties in reaching a consensus on the definition of domestic abuse.

Specifically, my study revealed an enduring internal disagreement around the dominance of (single-axis) gendered frames. This policy framing conceptualises domestic abuse as a cause and consequence of gender inequality and patriarchal structures – a perspective subsequently integrated in national policy in 2000. However, organisations supporting Black and minority ethnic victims/survivors have argued that this conceptualisation of the problem oversimplifies the issue, failing to account for the complexity of violence. Instead, feminists from these organisations have advocated for intersectional frames which acknowledge the interlocking gendered, classed, and racialised dynamics of violence. Ultimately, these actors have not been granted similar access to policymaking processes, resulting in the marginalisation of their perspectives. Significantly, these internal debates have endured in the decades following devolution.

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Advocacy coalitions, soft power, and policy change in Mexican electricity policy: a discourse network analysis 

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by Raúl Gutiérrez-Meave


A central hypothesis in the influential policy process theory, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) posits that major policy change is unlikely if the coalition defending the status quo retains power. However, operationalising which coalition is in power has proven challenging.

In my recent article on this topic published in Policy and Politics, I argue that coalition power can be operationalised based on two dimensions: formal authority over decisions (hard power) and the ability to shape policy preferences through discourse (soft power). Employing discourse network analysis to capture the relative dominance of competing coalitions based on discourse interactions, I analysed the contentious 20-year-old debate surrounding the proposed liberalisation of the Mexican electricity generation sector.

The findings align with the ACF hypothesis; they show that the status quo coalition maintained consistent soft power when two reform attempts to liberalise the sector failed. This discursive dominance corresponded with continued policy stability, supporting the ACF hypothesis. However, major policy change occurred when the reforming coalition gained discursive influence and internal consensus, leading to a shift in soft power dynamics.

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Investigating stakeholder rationales for participating in collaborative interactions at the policy–science nexus 

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by Helena Seibicke


Contemporary politics has become increasingly reliant on scientific knowledge. In evidence-based policymaking, science is invoked to address complex, ‘wicked’ problems. Yet, policymakers do not necessarily base decisions on the best-available evidence, and models of knowledge used in policymaking have long been criticised as simplistic.  

Therefore, collaboration with non-scientific actors (so called ‘stakeholders’) has emerged as a possible way forward. The increasing emphasis on prolonged and formalised engagement of stakeholders in research projects is subjected to public expenditure justifications, improvement of the input, throughput and output of funded research to inform policymaking processes and address societal challenges. It also reflects the view that an effective response to these challenges requires multi-partner collaborations between academic experts and various interests and perspectives.  

On both sides of the policy–science nexus, collaborative interactions are extended to include stakeholders to improve the impact (i.e. the usability and applicability) of knowledge. And while stakeholder involvement often follows this overarching justification, the question of stakeholder rationales for participating in these processes has previously received little scholarly attention. The scarce literature that does exist largely focuses on improving the transfer of knowledge outcomes of collaborative innovation, and knowledge production, rather than the involved actors’ interactions. 

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The importance of feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics 

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by Paloma Caravantes and Emanuela Lombardo


Democratic innovations in institutional politics are processes or institutions aimed at improving the quality of democracy beyond electoral politics. This is done by including the voices, knowledge and experiences of civil society in policy processes (Martínez-Palacios, 2018; della Porta, 2020). But what are feminist democratic innovations in policy and politics? They are actions seeking to transform unequal gender and intersectional hierarchies through promoting intersectional inclusion and participation in both policy content and institutional structures. 

In our article in Policy & Politics, we explore this topic and propose a conceptualisation of feminist democratic innovations in local institutional politics. We apply our framework to a laboratory of feminist municipal politics that was Barcelona’s local government from 2015 to 2023 (Cruells and Alfama, 2019). The case of Barcelona offers us an example of a public institution shaped by the struggles of progressive social movements (della Porta and Zamponi, 2022), in which critical feminist actors from institutions and civil society had the opportunity to tailor politics and policymaking.  

We identify four types of transformations: (a) transforming knowledge, (b) transforming policymaking and public funding, (c) transforming institutions, and (d) transforming actors’ coalitions. Firstly, knowledge has a prominent role in Barcelona’s gender equality policy, both in terms of the discursive construction of a ‘feminist city’, and as a tool for gender-informed diagnosis and policy solutions. Secondly, the municipality of Barcelona democratises policymaking in terms of inclusion and participation through mainstreaming gender and its intersections, mostly focused on class, as well as using gender-related criteria to assign and distribute public funding. Thirdly, inter-institutional change involves the strengthening of gender equality structures and tools, such as gender impact assessment reports. The fourth feminist democratic transformation is the effort to expand the municipality’s relations with civil society and increase the participation of feminist organisations in policymaking processes. 

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Activists have legitimate feelings and policy makers might want to start listening 

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By Michael Orsini and Jennifer M. Kilty 


We think with emotions. We reason with emotions.  

Straightforward enough? These statements may seem uncontroversial, and yet significant energy is expended banishing emotions from political discussion, arguing that they muddy the waters and get in the way of “reasoned” debate.  

Why? Must the commitment to evidence-based policy making be devoid of feeling?  Isn’t evidence marshalled in ways that reflect affective attachments to policy ideas? Is it because some are opposed to the specific emotions that are being mobilised in politics?   

Our recently published article in Policy & Politics: Emotions and anti-carceral advocacy in Canada: ‘All of the anger this creates in our bodies is also a tool to kill us’, examines a subject that has aroused intense debate: the expansion of the punitive state. We were interested in how activists mobilise others to resist punitive policies, the resources they bring to their activism, and the feelings that guide them. We were struck by how activists understand themselves as feeling actors, as people with thoughts, hopes and dreams that are grounded in their embodied experiences. Our focus group interviews with activists in Ottawa, Canada revealed three key findings about the role of emotions in organising: (1) anger mobilises anti-carceral activism; (2) fear of state actors and surveillance are motivational forces to become or remain involved in activist organising; and (3) organisers understand care and mutual aid as alternatives to incarceration and mechanisms to support one’s activist peers. 

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON POLICY EXPERTISE IN TIMES OF CRISIS. BLOG 7: The challenges experts face during creeping crises: the curse of complacency

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis

Ahmad Wesal Zaman, Olivier Rubin and Reidar Staupe-Delgado

The policy literature has generally presented crises as urgent public threats with clearly demarcated ‘focusing events’. As a result, most studies have identified the main challenges faced by expert agencies involved in evidence-based policymaking as managing uncertainty, time pressure and communication. However, less focus has been devoted to analysing the concrete challenges faced by expert agencies during creeping crises. Creeping crises are characterised by spatial and temporal fragmentation and elusiveness, which create an additional challenge for expert agencies: how to get the crisis on the political agenda.  

Comparing two global creeping crises: climate change (CC) and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), our recently published article in Policy & Politics, highlights two distinct strategies for influencing policymaking. Our analysis showed how two expert agencies, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), pursued different strategies when setting the global agenda and influencing policymaking. Our findings showed that the WHO’s approach to policymaking regarding AMR was mostly guided by top-down, science-led, formal engagements and strategies. This approach has successfully increased the salience of the global challenge of AMR, providing strong, evidence-based solutions. But it has been less successful in promoting the challenge onto the global political agenda.  

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON POLICY EXPERTISE IN TIMES OF CRISIS. BLOG 6: Did the Covid-19 pandemic cause enduring change in the roles of experts in politics?

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis

Kennet Lynggaard, Theofanis Exadaktylos, Mads Jensen & Michael Kluth

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us would probably have been a little hesitant on the exact field of work, or even unaware of the existence, of experts such as a mathematical virologist or experimental epidemiologist. Well into the pandemic, after several lockdowns and reopening of societies, highly specialised concepts from virology and epidemiology had entered everyday conversations, just like experts involved in handling the pandemic have become household names and, in many countries, even minor celebrities.  

Our article, just published in Policy & Politics, assesses the role for experts during the various stages of the pandemic, based on evidence collected from a survey of comparative politics scholars from 31 European countries in 2022, which you can find more detail on in the book: Governments’ Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe: Navigating the Perfect Storm 2023. In our P&P article, we analysed the role of experts during the processes of depoliticisation and re-politicisation at each stage of the pandemic, alongside their influence on government responses to the pandemic. We propose a new typology, classifying four different ideal types of roles for experts: leading, antagonistic, managerial, and auxiliary – see figure 1.

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Policy & Politics announces the 2024 winners of the Early Career and Best Paper Prizes

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We are delighted to announce this year’s prizes for award winning papers published in Policy & Politics in 2023. 

The Bleddyn Davies Prize, which acknowledges scholarship of the very highest standard by an early career academic, is awarded to joint winners: 

Michael Gibson, Felix-Anselm van Lier and Eleanor Carter (Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK) for their article entitled Tracing 25 years of ‘initiativitis’ in central government attempts to join up local public services in England. 

AND  

Ville Aula (London School of Economics (LSE, UK) for his article on Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures – Timeliness and politics of evidence in Finland. 

In celebration of these winning articles, we present summaries of each of their distinct contributions to the field. 

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