by Annemieke van den Dool & Tianlei Qiu, Duke Kunshan University
Why do policymakers address some societal issues but not others?
For decades, public policy researchers have tried to answer this question by using the so-called multiple streams framework (MSF). This framework was originally developed to understand policymaking in the USA.
In our recent Policy & Politics article, we provide an overview of 178 studies that use the MSF to analyse policymaking and implementation in China.
We found that scholars increasingly use this framework to examine how policies are made and implemented in China, which is illustrated by the Figure below.
Figure 1: China-focused MSF articles (N = 178) published per year.
The first article that used the MSF to analyse policymaking in China was written by Chao Zhou & Xueyong Yan and published in 2005. They used the framework to identify the driving forces behind China’s State Council’s abolishment of the Custody and Repatriation Measures in 2003, following the domestically well-known case of Sun Zhigang, a migrant worker who was beaten to death after being arrested for failure to show his ID. In their 2005 article, Zhou and Yan show that the Custody and Repatriation Measures had been criticised by academics and some government officials for several years. Yet, it was not until the death of Sun Zhigang that the measures were finally abolished. Important factors that contributed to the abolishment was sustained news attention about Sun Zhigang’s death, which was amplified through online platforms. In addition, law students and legal scholars filed multiple petitions to request an assessment of the extent to which the Custody and Repatriation Measures were consistent with the Constitution.
The United Nations Development Programme has described 2024 as a global elections “Super year”. However, while that may be the case, younger generations across many established democracies remain deeply disillusioned with mainstream electoral politics. This is hardly a revelation, but reflects the findings from a large body of existing research identifying low levels of youth voter turnout. By way of contrast, very little attention has been paid to how young people can – and occasionally do – engage with politicians and officials between elections on issues of importance to them. Even when parties attract overwhelming youth support, such as the Labour Party in 4 July UK General Election, they often have little idea of how to govern for - let alone with - young people. In our recent article for Policy & Politics, we argue that youth engagement with local policy-communities on issues that have meaning for their everyday lives offers a potential antidote to this democratic malaise.
So first the good news. Our research points to an increasing willingness of policymakers to engage with young people – particularly in the area of environmental policy. Less positively, policymakers struggle to provide opportunities for meaningful and sustained engagement. Our article explores where the problems lie and suggests how these might be resolved.
by Oemar van der Woerd, Jitse Schuurmans, Iris Wallenburg, Wilma van der Scheer and Roland Bal
In an attempt to deal with societal issues like changing demographics and the sustainability of welfare state regimes, policymakers increasingly seek solutions to organise care closer to citizens’ homes, in close cooperation between health and social care providers and informal caregivers. ‘The region’ is presented as a promising place to organise and provide a networked model of care (see for instance the Integrated Care Boards in the UK, or caring regions in Scandinavian countries). Yet, the region, as a new entity of governance, must be incorporated into existing governance arrangements. Our central research question in our recent article published in Policy & Politics addressed this issue: How is the region made into a ‘governance object’?
In exploring how the region is made a governance object, we draw on years of (ongoing) research on older person care and care for disabled people in the Netherlands, where we follow regional experiments, such as task reallocation between professionals (see here for more information). We analyse the work of professionals, managers and policymakers in their attempts to shape ‘the region’.
While people in countries such as the United States were discontented and heavily opposed to stricter COVID-19 mitigation measures, why did individuals in some democratic societies voluntarily request and support stringent policies? This was our central research question in our recent article published in Policy & Politics.
Securitisation scholars argue that the exceptionalism of allowing the government to restrict people’s liberties and allocate more resources to certain policies results from successful securitisation—a persuasive process that convinces people that COVID-19 is a national security threat.
However, despite extensive studies applying securitisation theory to public health crises, existing research often lacks empirical data. Additionally, securitisation theory does not clearly define “exceptionalism,” nor does it explain why successful securitisation leads to public support for some policies but not across all related policy areas.
by Thomas Bolognesi, Eva Lieberherr and Manuel Fischer
In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, we investigate the formation of policy preferences, which are critical in the policy process as they primarily drive policymakers’ choices and, consequently, policy design. Therefore, understanding policy preferences is essential for understanding policy design. To define policy preferences, we draw on bounded rationality and complexity theory. To explain policy preference formation, we explore two key mechanisms: the willingness to solve a given problem and affiliation with a particular group. Our central question is to determine the extent to which each mechanism influences policy preferences.
Our analysis reveals that each actor’s policy preference is a specific point within a broader policy preference space, which is defined along multiple policy dimensions (see Figure 1). We use the case of the water sector in Switzerland to measure these three interconnected concepts. By performing a principal component analysis on 39 variables representing choices of policy instruments or organisational structures, we identify four distinct policy preference dimensions: regional planning, privatisation, public financing, and flexible inter-municipal collaboration.
To explain the specific preferences of water policy stakeholders within these four policy preference dimensions, we estimate the role of their water policy goal priorities and affiliations. Goal priorities might include cost saving, security of supply, and resource protection. Affiliations considered in the policy process include different administrative levels of the state or the type of participating actors, such as water suppliers or interest groups. We account for regional specificities to limit the impact of the local context of water governance on our estimates.
Our results provide detailed insights into how the willingness to solve a problem and group affiliation affect preference formation. They reveal two distinct patterns. First, preferences along the policy dimensions are significantly associated with a single goal priority, indicating that actors tend to share a common perspective on how to address specific problems. For instance, the preference for privatisation is negatively associated with infrastructure as a goal priority, while public financing is positively associated with security of supply as a primary policy goal. Conversely, various actor types are significantly associated with policy preference dimensions, confirming that there is collective positioning along these dimensions. Additionally, we find that the more central the policy dimension, the stronger the effect of affiliation on individual positioning. Combining these two effects explains the emergence of policy preference spaces and the diversity among individuals’ preferences.
Our research has significant policy implications. It highlights that a few key policy dimensions, such as the public-private debate in the water sector, shape the policy preference spaces. We also emphasise that the willingness to solve a problem and affiliation with a group influence preference formation through different mechanisms, with variations arising from different levels of analysis (preference dimension, space, individual). This insight is crucial for framing policy change and fostering effective collaboration. Methodologically, we offer a replicable approach to analysing policy preferences that facilitates comparability across cases and enhances the relevance of measurements by being both deductive and inductive.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at Bolognesi, T., Lieberherr, E., & Fischer, M. (2024). Identifying and explaining policy preferences in Swiss water management. Policy & Politics, 52(3), 384-411 from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2023D000000004
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also be interested to read: Hornung, J., & Bandelow, N. C. (2024). Social identities, emotions and policy preferences. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000036
The idea of innovation has become one of the most persistent and sought-after today. While too conceptually elusive to pin down to a single statement, innovation can be broadly understood as a process whereby new elements and approaches are introduced to existing ones, in an attempt to solve problems, add value, and contribute to knowledge. Being a problem-solving, value-oriented process, it is no surprise that the concept of innovation is increasingly finding footholds in different theoretical spaces within policy and political sciences, from collaborative arrangements, democratic practices, policy design and experimentation, to behavioural and cognitive theories. Within the public sector, innovation can be understood as the creation of new policies, services, advisory, governance and political arrangements, often leading to the development of novel shared views of what is acceptable and expected by the public as beneficiaries.
Intuitively, policy learning has a family resemblance to policy innovation. It seems almost self-evident that they should be considered together in the explanation of policy dynamics. Yet the two literatures have developed independently of each other. Studies which put them in conversation are few.
Collaboration in cross-sectoral networks is proliferating in response to different public policy issues such as climate change, public health crises, economic inequality and urban renewal. These collaborative networks are typically characterised as horizontal partnerships, where public, private, and civil society actors have equal power, and work together to achieve shared goals. Yet, some form of governance is necessary for collaborative networks to succeed as they otherwise risk becoming inefficient. But how can power be exercised in the governance of collaborative networks without undermining the capacity of these networks to solve collective problems? This is the question we asked in our article recently published in Policy & Politics, entitled “Metagoverning collaborative networks: A cumulative power perspective”.
Metagovernance is a suitable way of governing collaborative networks, as it relies on a complementary mix of subtle governance mechanisms to indirectly steer collaborative networks towards achieving their goals. In our article, we developed a new framework to understand how power is exercised in collaborative networks through metagovernance. Our framework outlines three types of metagovernance (outputs, inputs, and process) that can be used at different stages of the collaborative process:
Metagoverning outputs: issuing formal project output requirements (legal, financial, administrative) or expressing informal expectations about the project outputs
Metagoverning inputs: selectively enlisting and excluding actors as participants or normatively framing the values, interests, and identities of project participants
Metagoverning processes: steering the conceptual content of the collaborative process toward predefined output goals, for instance by controlling access to resources such as time and knowledge.
Metagovernors can gradually steer collaborative networks towards specific goals based on these three collaborative stages, where power can be exercised repressively or constructively. To show how these insights unfold in practice, we encourage you to read our full article where we present an illustrative case study of the development of a sustainable and socially inclusive craftsmanship dormitory in Denmark. This project was developed in a collaborative network involving teams of architects, artists, students, and consultants (metagovernors), showcasing both the constructive and repressive aspects of power exercised through metagovernance.
by Matthew Flinders, Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen and Thurid Hustedt
Although often overlooked, the rise of populism has placed additional pressures on the relationship between ministers and their senior civil servants. Dismissed as part of ‘the elite’, ‘the establishment’ or even ‘the blob’, the civil service has in many countries been required to adapt and navigate an increasingly fluid set of politico-administrative boundaries. In this context it was highly symbolic that the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, issued a direct message to all civil servants as one of his first acts in office.
‘I am so pleased to have this early opportunity to speak directly to every one of you…… working in the Civil Service’ he stated ‘I want you to know that– you have my confidence, my support and, importantly, my respect.’
The fact that the new occupant of No.10 was at exactly the same time trying to install new media management structures underlines the existence of a potential tension between, on the one hand, a ministers desire to respect the civil service and established constitutional relationships, but on the other hand, ensure that officials do promote a positive ‘spin’ on the work of the government.
The root issue is that senior civil servants are expected to be politically neutral and largely anonymous and yet their role in relation to media management brings with it politicising tendencies and risks. As Rod Rhodes noted in his book Everyday Life in British Government(2011) ‘…nowadays, senior civil servants speak in public almost as often as ministers’.’
Understanding whether and under which conditions civil servants can respond to requests for advice and assistance in managing the media from ministerial masters is therefore crucial.
How do senior civil servants cope with the pressures of media management, and how does this affect different relationships? Are senior civil servants increasingly required to be ‘promiscuously partisan’ as Peter Aucoin once suggested?
Our extensive research in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden, recently published in Policy & Politics, has helped tease-apart the various layers to this question.
By blending the theory of public sector bargaining with existing studies of politico-administrative media management, and interviewing over sixty officials, ministers and special advisers, our recent study came to three main conclusions.
First and foremost, none of the three cases found evidence of widespread problems in relation to breaching rules, sacrificing neutrality, or undermining anonymity. However, civil servants perceive their political neutrality to be under more pressure than their professional anonymity.
How do individuals form policy preferences? In our recent article, published in Policy & Politics, we argue that individuals’ identification with social groups, and the emotions associated with these groups, can explain why people support certain policies to address societal problems. Specifically, we investigate this connection using two examples from one of the most complex problems of our time: climate change.
Climate change puts pressure on governments around the world. There are multiple public policies that aim to reduce harmful carbon dioxide emissions, such as promoting meatless nutrition or reducing the use of individual cars for transport. These policies not only need the approval of political elites but must be supported by people and their individual preferences.
In public policy research, insights from social psychology are drawn on, because they offer valuable insights into how individuals think and behave. Explanations for preferences within this field primarily focus on cognitive aspects, such as social group affiliations and emotions experienced. Building on this strand of research, we propose that individuals’ policy preferences are influenced by the social groups they identify with, and the emotions they associate with their own groups and others. More specifically, individuals are likely to support policies aligned with the values and norms of their social group, especially if they harbour strong negative emotions toward opposing groups. For instance, when considering preferences towards meatless diets, we expect individuals who identify as vegetarians to be more supportive of such policies, particularly if they feel strong negative emotions (such as anger) towards non-vegetarians. Similarly, in the context of individual car use, those who own a car are expected to favour policies promoting individual car use as a means of transport, especially if they feel strong negative emotions towards people who do not drive cars.
Public policy research is rife with questions about policymaking processes and outcomes. Yet, perhaps none as quintessential as – why do policy actors do what they do? In my recent article published in Policy & Politics, I explore this question through the lens of policy learning. In the early days of policy sciences, this question was predominantly answered from a lens of “powering”. This meant that policymaking was largely understood as an outcome of power struggles between competing factions, with winners and losers. Subsequently, pioneers of contemporary policy sciences such as Harold Lasswell, Karl Deutsch, John Dewey, and Hugh Heclo, among others, paved the way for a different explanatory lens: “puzzling”. In this view, rather than only competing for power, what drives and fuels policymaking is also actors’ puzzling or wondering about how to solve policy problems, in other words, how they “learn” in an attempt to develop solutions to emerging problems. This gave rise to what is now known as the discipline of policy learning, focused on policy actors’ pursuit, and processing of policy related information and knowledge in an attempt to find solutions to different policy problems. This is not limited to technical problems like healthcare, natural disasters, technology, and the economy, but also includes political and social challenges.
This puzzling lens substantively contributed to our understanding of the policy process, helping us better answer the questions of why policy actors do what they do, and why the policy process behaves this or that way. Theoretical developments over the past decades helped advance policy learning to the ranks of policymaking ontologies. i.e., positioning it as a fundamental behaviour and omnipresent process that shapes policymaking. These theoretical developments materialised across various ontological-epistemological approaches from mechanistic, positivist, interpretivist, to social constructivist.
However, despite the fact that puzzling was initially conceived as a supplementary (not an alternative) understanding to the then-dominant powering-based view of policymaking, a schism between puzzling and powering perspectives in policy learning literature has grown over the decades, rendering them almost mutually exclusive. As a result, the predominant view of agency in policy learning research has followed through this trend, becoming rather learner centric. This mainly focused on how policy actors exercise their agency as learners of policy lessons. For example, the research in this area expounds how actors pursue and process information and knowledge about policy problems, how their beliefs, biases, and cognitive structure influence what they learn and what lessons come out of this learning process. However, little attention has been paid to how policy actors exercise their agency and deploy their power to shape and direct the policy learning process, in other words, the influence of powering within the puzzling process.
Policy & Politics Journal Blog 