Evaluating Punctuated Equilibrium Dynamics within a Crisis Context

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by Saahir Shafi & Daniel Mallinson


Our recent article published in Policy & Politics sets out its research context by building upon the assumptions of Punctuated equilibrium theory (PET), which state thatpolicymaking in democratic countries tends to follow patterns of long periods of policy stability interrupted by rapid large scale policy shifts, or ‘punctuations’. PET explains this pattern of policymaking as arising from the friction built into political systems and the cognitive limitations of decisionmakers. Friction is necessarily built into democratic political systems to prevent the arbitrary exercise of political authority and, when combined with the cognitive limitations of decision makers, policymaking favours the status quo. Large-scale policy shifts tend to occur sparingly and only after a build-up of political pressure for change.

More recently, punctuated policymaking has been observed to exist in a few autocratic countries with one important distinction—policymaking features more large-scale shifts in autocracies compared to more open systems of government. This is attributable to the limitations in the flow of information through formal and informal mechanisms—press censorship and restrictions on the exercise of civil liberties, particularly expressions of opposition—found in autocratic regimes.

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Policy responsiveness and media attention

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by Catherine Chen


Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has brought down the price of natural gas in the U.S. and made it an energy exporter to the U.K. and Germany, among other countries. In the meantime, anti-fracking movements have swept through states with rich shale gas reservoirs. Political conflicts about fracking play out on the national stage, featuring Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign promise of “no more drilling on federal lands”, and the “Drill Baby Drill” shawl worn by Congresswoman Lauren Boebert to the 2022 State of Union speech. Beyond these high-profile displays, citizens bear the day-to-day consequences of fracking, be it economic opportunities or environmental damages. Do state-level fracking policies genuinely respond to local public opinion? What are the driving forces behind the responsiveness of energy development policies?

My recently published research article, entitled Policy responsiveness and media attention, aims to address these questions by considering the media’s role as an intermediary between the public and the legislators within a U.S. context. Local newspapers, not national cable television, inform citizens of local affairs and state politics. Regarding matters such as releasing liquid from fracking production to a soil farm as a dumping ground, a local newspaper’s coverage is the source that local residents rely on, which in turn could lead to a bill proposal about regulating soil farms in the statehouse.

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Why Study Sub-national Policy Advisory Systems?

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by Andrew Connell, James Downe, Hannah Durrant, Eleanor MacKillop and Steve Martin


The study of Policy Advisory Systems sheds light on the wider network of actors, beyond government, who are involved in generating evidence that informs policy. Early studies of Policy Advisory Systems focused on national governments in Anglophone countries. More recently the concept has been reinvigorated by research in European countries and the global South. But there is a dearth of studies of Policy Advisory Systems at sub-national level.

Our recent research article, entitled Externalising policy advice within subnational governments, addressed this gap by using the concept of a Policy Advisory System to examine the role of a knowledge brokering organisation: the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP). The WCPP provides ministers in the devolved Welsh Government with independent evidence and expertise.

Our study revealed significant differences in the ways that this initiative to externalise policy advice in Wales has played out compared to the results reported by previous studies of externalising policy advice in other settings. And we trace the differences we observed to three key features of the historical, institutional and political context in which the Welsh Government operates.

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Policy & Politics – call for special issue proposals

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The Co-Editors of Policy & Politics invite proposals for a special issue to be published in 2025. Submissions close on 1 October 2023. Read the call for proposals to learn more: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/pp/pp-overview.xml?tab_body=call-for-papers Policy & Politics is a leading, top quartile journal that is committed to advancing scholarly understanding of the dynamics of policy-making and implementation.

The journal’s co-editors are seeking proposals for a special issue that will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the nexus of public policy and politics. To be successful, proposals need to offer a coherent set of excellent original research articles that will reframe or develop knowledge on a topic that is at the leading edge of current debates and is clearly relevant to the journal’s worldwide readership. Proposals may include a mixture of theoretical, conceptual and empirical cases and a range of research methods, and must demonstrate how they will make a significant and lasting contribution to the field.

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When policy feedback produces apathy towards policy development: understanding the end of Conditional Cash Transfers in Mexico

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by Viviana Ramírez and Ricardo Velázquez Leyer


In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, we investigated The impact of self-reinforcing and self-undermining policy feedback on Mexican social policy: the end of the conditional cash transfer programme.

Conditional cash transfers, or ‘CCTs’, constituted the backbone of Mexico’s poverty reduction policy for more than twenty years. CCTs provided cash benefits targeted at poor people, conditional on the compliance of certain requirements, like school attendance by children and participation in health promotion activities and check-ups by all family members. The objective of CCTs was to fight poverty through the formation of human capital. The approach was a social policy investment seeking to mould the behaviour of beneficiaries in desirable ways.  

Cash transfers were commonly paid to the mother of the family, to secure an adequate use of the additional income within the household. CCTs were pioneered in Mexico, the first country to introduce them at the national level, becoming the backbone of anti-poverty policy for more than two decades. Maintained and expanded by three federal governments of different political parties, the policy reached almost a quarter of the population and yielded significant improvements across many health, education and nutrition indicators, prompting its diffusion around the globe. The stability and positive results of CCTs might have presaged their continuity, but the government that came to power in December 2018, swiftly dismantled them with virtually no opposition.

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Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures

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by Ville Aula


Evidence-based policymaking is a popular approach to policy that has received widespread public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in the fight against climate change. It argues that policy choices based on rigorous, preferably scientific evidence should be given priority over choices based on other types of justification. However, delegating policymaking solely to researchers goes against the idea that policies are determined democratically.

In my recent article published in Policy & Politics: Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures we explored the tension between politics and evidence in the national legislatures. While evidence-based policymaking has been extensively studied within governments, the legislative arena has received much less attention. The focus of the study was on understanding how legislators, legislative committees, and political parties together shape the use of evidence. We also wanted to explore how the interviewees understand timeliness and relevance of evidence, because lack of time is a key challenge within legislatures. The study is based on 39 interviews with legislators, party employees, and civil servants in Eduskunta, the national Parliament of Finland.

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The racialisation of sexism in policy-making against gender-based violence: a comparison between Britain and France  

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by Charlène Calderaro


While gender-based violence is increasingly addressed through public policy, it also follows a process of ‘othering’ marked by racialisation in many European contexts. This racialisation process is particularly evident when examining the problem of gender-based violence in public spaces, for example, street harassment, where sexism is often attributed to migrant men or men from ethnic minorities. However, the extent of this racialisation process varies significantly across national contexts, as exemplified in our case studies in Britain and France, which I describe below. 

My recently published article in Policy & Politics, ‘The racialisation of sexism: how race frames shape anti-street harassment policies in Britain and France’, shows that the racialisation of sexism in policy-making against gender-based violence can be exacerbated by nationally embedded ideas on race and racism. It also suggests that, by extension, these different conceptions on race can affect the ability to prevent femonationalism, which refers to the increasing use of women’s rights to foster nationalism or racial exclusion.  

Through an empirical study conducted with policymakers and feminist activists involved in anti-street harassment policies in Britain and France, the article comparatively explores how street harassment is framed during policy-making. It focuses on the pre-adoption phases of the policy, analysing how policy actors conceive the problem of street harassment, as well as its causes and solutions.  

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Can policy instruments shape the problems they aim to solve?

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by Sofia Wickberg

Are anti-corruption instruments adopted to tackle existing problems or do they contribute to making new corruption risks visible? Policy sciences originally conceived of public policies as means to solve pressing public problems, such as corruption. However, scholars have demonstrated that policymaking is far more messy and complex, with policy problems and solutions often existing autonomously. In my article recently published in Policy & Politics entitled “Can policy instruments shape the policy problems they aim to solve? How interest registers redefined conflicts of interest”, I investigate this question by examining how policy solutions (here interest registers for parliamentarians) contribute to (re-)defining public problems (conflict of interest). Research has pointed to numerous actors and factors that contribute to the construction and definition of public problems. Examples of these include social movements, interest groups, political parties, experts or news organisations. But, I argue, policies themselves also contribute to the construction of policy problems.

Transnational policymaking is an interesting context in which to study the impact of policy instruments on problem definition. Policymakers often import policy ideas from abroad – for many reasons, as Umut Aydin wrote in a previous post of this blog. And policy instruments are not always (and even rarely) transferred into a new country because the latter faces the same well-defined problem as the source country. The pathways that policies take before reaching new jurisdictions can be complex. With the rapid transnationalisation of policymaking, it is important to better understand the impact of policy transfer on problem representations in ‘importing’ countries.

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“Just following the science”: blame avoidance and abdication of responsibility

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by Patrick Fafard and Adele Cassola

Pandemic politics saw governments repeatedly claim to be “just following the science.” In the face of widespread anxiety and uncertainty, this mantra was meant to reassure the public that decisions about pandemic responses were being directed by the best available scientific evidence. But making policy decisions based only on scientific evidence is impossible (if only because ‘the science’ is always contested) and undemocratic (because governments are elected to balance a range of priorities and interests in their decisions). Claiming to be “just following the science” therefore represents an abdication of responsibility by politicians.  Working with colleagues, we advanced these bold claims in a recent article published in Policy & Politics that is part of our long-running research program on public health governance.

The inherent limits of ‘evidence-based’ policy have been repeatedly described and analysed. We know that policy and programme choices are never based solely on the available scientific evidence. So why did politicians claim to be “just following the science,” and what are the implications of doing so?

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Policy integration in local government: what are the barriers?

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by Nicolai De Wulf, Joris Voets and Astrid Molenveld

Cities nowadays are confronted with a wide range of complex societal issues and, correspondingly, the expectations and challenges for local governments have grown. Within this context, they are often praised for their dynamism and their ability to achieve results. As a consequence, local governments often enjoy a large degree of trust from their citizens. But what are the barriers local policy makers face when trying to coordinate and integrate policies? Our recent article in Policy & Politics, entitled ‘Policy coordination and integration in local government: perspectives on barriers’ shows that three distinct perspectives emerge, which we describe in more detail below.

Complex societal issues mentioned are difficult to approach from within one single policy domain. Take, for example, the issue of sustainable mobility, which encompasses mobility, sustainability and the environment, urban planning, the local economy and so forth. Policy issues that span multiple policy domains (horizontally), also involve multiple political and administrative actors and interests (vertically). As such, complex societal issues challenge the traditional modes of collaboration between politics and administration.

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