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.
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.
All articles featured in this blog post are free to access until 31 October 2024
It’s that time of year again when course syllabi are updated with fresh research. We hope to make this easier with the essential reading list below, which features some of the most significant research relevant to public policy students that we’ve published over the last year. We feature nine articles and a special issue for teaching topical themes such as health policy, policy learning and advocacy. All articles are ideal for Public Policy, Politics and Social Policy classes alike.
As always, we welcome your feedback on the articles featured, as well as future unit topics you’d like to see covered! Let us know what you’re teaching and how we can help!
Our first theme focuses on a substantive policy area that is increasingly taught in public and social policy courses, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and on-going climate crisis: health policy.
Our first article, “Analysing the ‘follow the science’ rhetoric of government responses to COVID-19” by Margaret Macaulay and colleagues, has been one of the most widely read and cited articles of last year and was the winner of our Best Paper prize for 2023. This is not surprising, as it advances bold and well evidenced claims on a hot topic in public health governance. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic – and in the face of widespread anxiety and uncertainty – governments’ mantra that they were “just following the science” was meant to reassure the public that decisions about pandemic responses were being directed by the best available scientific evidence. However, the authors claim that 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.
Our second featured article, entitled What types of evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system? by Geoff Bates and colleagues, explores the use of evidence to influence different groups across the urban development system to think more about health outcomes in their decisions. Their three key findings are: (i) evidence-based narratives have wide appeal; (ii) credibility of evidence is critical; and (iii) many stakeholders have priorities other than health, such as economic considerations. The authors conclude that these insights can be used to frame and present evidence that meets the requirements of different urban development stakeholders and persuade them to think more about how the quality of urban environments affects health outcomes.
Welcome to our first virtual issue of 2023 featuring the latest policy process theory research published in Policy & Politics. This issue features three recently published articles that apply and develop different policy process theories across a range policy contexts.
Our first article, Advocacy Coalitions, Power and Policy Change by Tim Heinmiller, critiques a core principle of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) – that major policy change will not occur as long as the advocacy coalition that instated the policy remains “in power” in a jurisdiction. Firstly, Heinmiller explores what it means for a status quo advocacy coalition to be in power in a jurisdiction, especially as it relates to the ACF’s theory of policy change. After critically examining how this concept has been used in existing ACF scholarship, the author proposes a standard operationalization of being in power, drawing on the veto players literature, which he then illustrates using a case study of Canadian firearms policy. His conclusion demonstrates how the proposed operationalization is an improvement on existing practices that advances the theory around and measurement of policy change in the ACF.
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what drew me to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) about a decade ago. Part of it was frustration with the policy process theories I had used to that point. Part of it was the concept of advocacy coalitions, which – intuitively – seemed ubiquitous and important in policy-making. In truth, though, my interest in advocacy coalitions has always been instrumental – a platform on which to build a general understanding of how and why policies change. What drew me most to the ACF was its implicit incorporation of both the “puzzling” and “powering” dimensions of policy-making, to borrow Heclo’s (1974) terms.
In spite of the best efforts of government, sometimes policies do not work as designed. As scholars of the policy process and citizens in a representative democracy, our normative expectation is that government should learn when policies do not work to improve outcomes for communities. This is especially true in the wake of a natural disaster. Disasters can serve as an opportunity for governments to engage in policy learning by updating beliefs about policies and learning lessons about policy tools, instruments, and politics. Often, disasters can reveal physical and social vulnerabilities and gaps in preparedness that unevenly distribute the risk of damage within a community. In our recent article in Policy & Politics , we investigate which conditions constrain or promote policy learning. Understanding these conditions is of critical importance in gaining a better understanding of why some governments learn to improve policies after a disaster and some do not.
Save the Date: January 10 – 14 2023 | Denver, CO USA
Advancing Policy Process Theories and Methods
Call for papers, roundtables panels, and workshops coming soon!
The Conference on Policy Process Research (COPPR) mission is to advance the scholarship of policy process theory and methods. It embraces a broad interpretation of theories and methods, supporting a plurality of theoretical perspectives. It welcomes both emergent and established theories and methods and questions of what it means to conduct science and engage with our communities. COPPR seeks to support both established and emerging research communities and build bridges among them. COPPR includes critical assessments of the lessons learned from the past, challenges to contemporary boundaries, proposals for innovative research agendas, and arguments of what our future should be. Continue reading →
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