Editorial Introduction: Advances in Theory and Practice of Policy Research from National to Local Level

Abstract

This year has ushered in many changes, including for the PSJ. As of September 2020, the PSJ is now housed within the University of Tennessee, Knoxville's Political Science Program, who, along with the Howard Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy, is generously providing much needed support for journal operations. With no home institutional support forthcoming during 2019–20, we want to acknowledge and thank the University of Arkansas and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, which both stepped in to fill our resource gap by providing essential support for the PSJ in the year prior to our relocation to Knoxville. Coupled with the assistance and continued support of the Policy Studies Organization, the PSJ has not only been able to function at previous levels, but has also been able to significantly expand operations and offerings during what proved to be a hectic transition. To our benefactors, we tip our hat. This year has seen a high volume of top-quality submissions. We were able to increase the speed at which those manuscripts have traditionally been processed. The PSJ has also published two virtual special issues this year, in addition to our quarterly regular issues—one on COVID-19 (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1541-0072.covid-19-crisis-2020) and a second on Racial Justice, edited by Dr. Jamila Michener (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1111/(ISSN)1541-0072.racial-justice). We have also launched an energetic social media campaign that spans Facebook (PSJ Live, https://www.facebook.com/psjlv/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/policy-studies-journal-psj-5989441a6/), and Twitter (https://twitter.com/PSJ_Editor).This expanded online presence is the result of a strategic decision to increase and diversify the PSJ's approach to drawing attention to the cutting edge research featured in the pages of the journal. We think it is working. The final issue of the Policy Studies Journal for the year 2020 contains ten articles that address three broad themes—Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), and state and local governance. The articles that focus on punctuated equilibrium include an examination of the effect of the fiscal management of a government on punctuations in budgetary output and the influence of bureaucratic autonomy on punctuations in budgetary outputs. In the first of these articles, Xiao, Wang, and Liu (2020) build on the literature which suggests fiscal management plays an important role in shaping policymaking and, in turn, budgetary outputs (e.g., Epp & Baumgartner, 2017) by examining how the strategic fiscal choices that a government makes shape punctuations in budgetary output patterns. Focusing on the context of Hong Kong, the authors test three hypotheses regarding punctuations in budgetary spending, finding that budgetary spending is more punctuated in (i) capital funds as compared to operating funds, (ii) restricted funds as compared to non-restricted funds, and (iii) discretionary spending as compared to entitlement spending. The authors further examine legislative filibuster cases in Hong Kong, demonstrating that institutional friction was associated with the democratization process in Hong Kong, which, in turn, led to greater punctuations in budgetary outputs. Furthering recent work finding that individual agency and institutional constraints work together to affect change (e.g., Deslatte, 2020), Park and Sapotichne (2020) utilize PET to examine how the institutional design of city management influences the likelihood of punctuated budget changes. Specifically, the authors examine whether the degree of discretion held by Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) or city managers impacts the likelihood of experiencing a punctuated distribution of budgetary outputs. Utilizing a sample of cities in Michigan, the authors find that having higher levels of managerial autonomy decreases the likelihood of large budgetary changes for both city managers and CAOs. Broadly, the authors argue that these results indicate that providing city managers and CAOs with an appropriate level of autonomy is likely to be beneficial by increasing rationality in decision-making and reducing the occurrence of sudden and abrupt budget changes, thus helping stabilize municipal spending. The next four articles address the theme of state and local governance. The first article serves as a bridge from our first theme of punctuated equilibrium by analyzing state budgets and the factors that shape punctuated policy changes. The next three articles explore our second theme by examining the influence of stakeholder participation on state-level rulemaking, exploring the role of interest group resources in policy change, and elaborating on the environmental impact of local sustainability programs. Given the current political climate and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, state and local government policymaking is commonly overshadowed by the spectacle that often characterizes national politics. However, in keeping with the longstanding emphasis in PSJ on understanding the role of state and local governments in the policy process, the current issue continues this tradition. Tianfang Li et al. (2020) examine the factors that shape punctuated policy changes by analyzing the influence of the disproportionate allocation of government attention. Focusing specifically on the role of electoral incentives, political institutions, and policy transparency in shaping policy outcomes, the authors utilize a two-level hierarchical random intercept logit model to generate the probability of budget punctuations in policy data from all 50 U.S. states from 1988 to 2008. Their most significant findings include a lower probability of policy punctuations when greater policy transparency is present and a higher probability of these punctuations with increased electoral competition in the legislative and executive branches. The next two articles in our theme of state and local governance examine the role of stakeholder participation in state-level rulemaking (Crow, Albright, & Koebele, 2020) and examine the role of interest group resources in explaining policy change (Marianno, 2020). Crow et al. (2020) build on previous work in PSJ on state-level policy and stakeholder influence (Collingwood, El-Khatib, & Gonzalez O'Brien, 2019; Teodoro, Zhang, & Switzer, 2020) in attempting to determine stakeholder influence on rulemaking outputs. In seeking to discern when and how stakeholders participate in state-level rulemaking processes, they use a comparative case study research design to extract insights on whether common patterns of stakeholder influence exist across both state's and issue areas. The results suggest that opportunities exist for stakeholders to make significant impacts on the rulemaking process, and make a special note that even non-industry stakeholders, often considered less influential in the process, can still be consequential. Marianno's (2020) article connects interest group theories related to policy change with empirical studies that analyze this role (e.g., Finger, 2018) by considering the significance of political context in conditioning how interest groups translate their resources into policy influence. This research chronicles proposed and enacted teacher policies across five legislative cycles from 2011 to 2015 in all 50 U.S. states. Deploying a within-state fixed effects model and introducing a proportional interest group resource variable, Marianno finds empirical evidence to support the theory that interest group resources matter for explaining policy change. More unfavorable teacher policies and fewer favorable teacher policies were shown to be proposed and enacted in states where opposition groups expended more resources relative to teachers' unions over time. Importantly, this research helps illuminate potential gains to be had in other policy areas from the further examination of changes in interest group resources and influence, relative to one another and over multiple periods of time. In the final state and local government themed article, Hyunjung Ji (2020) looks at the efficacy of local-level government sustainability programs. She bridges the gap between the stated intent of local-level sustainability programs and their actual environmental performance outcomes. Her research follows in the footsteps of previous PSJ work combining these ever-more-critical topic areas (Deslatte, 2018; Hughes, Yordi, & Besco, 2020; Madariaga, 2020) by comparing over a hundred local-level government sustainability programs to measures of ozone quality to determine the environmental efficacy of the programs. Encouragingly, the results indicate that not only are local sustainability programs related to improved environmental outcomes, but also that more comprehensive policies are often more efficacious than their more narrowly focused counterparts. Moving to the last theme, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) originally posited that shared beliefs of policy actors' were central to coordinating efforts of policy coalitions to influence policy outcomes. In recent years, the role of belief systems has been further specified, informing our current understanding of how beliefs shape organizational and coalitional structure (Rietig, 2018). At the same time, evidence suggests that the structure of collaborative networks produce certain types of policy outcomes (Bodin, Sandström, & Crona, 2017). The final four articles of this issue focus on the ACF, refining the concept of advocacy coalition, examining the drivers of social tie formation in collaborative networks, explaining the changes in advocacy coalitions with policy feedback, and applying the ACF to low salience policy subsystems. Two ACF articles attempt to refine key theoretical concepts that explain collaboration at the individual and coalitional levels while improving the empirical measurement of those concepts. Weible, Ingold, Nohrstedt, Henry, and Jenkins-Smith (2020) article uses broad lens to identify subtle but important variations in coalition types, while Nohrstedt and Bodin's (2020) targeted perspective systematically examines the drivers of social tie formation among policy actors. Both articles contribute to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of collaboration networks. Weible et al. (2020) refine the concept of advocacy coalitions by clarifying some of the attributes central to the original definition. Informed by a meta-analysis, they examine concepts related to policy actors, shared beliefs, coordination, resources, and stability. In doing so, they articulate subtypes of an ideal coalition: disconnected, ephemeral, dominant, minority, and cooperative coalitions. The authors refine policy actors based on actor motivations and the nature of their coordination activities, thereby introducing six new typologies of policy actors. Regarding the ACF's emphasis on beliefs as key to creating and maintaining a coalition, the authors identify why it is important to empirically ascertain the motivation for these beliefs, while also accounting for their existence within a subsystem. This is particularly the case when the research is concerned with distinguishing between different levels of beliefs. For example, the number of policy subsystems an actor is involved in, or their level of awareness of their own belief system across issues could produce inconsistencies in measuring beliefs. Finally, the measure of deep core beliefs may be aided by incorporating cultural theory, as it has found success operationalizing such beliefs across various policy subsystems. Coordination within and between coalitions, the competitive use of coalition resources, and the stability within a subsystem over time are all important for identifying the theoretical subtypes of coalitions. While the refined conceptualizations are inherently related to measurement, Weible et al. (2020) carefully distinguish qualities of conceptualization from measurement and recommend that researchers embrace a plurality of methods to operationalize concepts and advance theory. Nohrstedt and Bodin (2020) examine the collaborative network formed around wildfire management in Sweden. Building on previous theories that focus on the actor and relational attributes to explain collaboration among policy actors, the authors argue that social network structures form not only in response to endogenous factors but also to exogenous factors attributable to the nature of collective action problems. More specifically, Nohrstedt and Bodin (2020) incorporate the effects of task engagement and interdependency into the traditional model. To disentangle the effects of actor and relational factors on social tie formation relative to task engagement and interdependency, they apply exponential random graph modeling (ERGM). This approach allows for the characterization of the collaborative network through the identification of various social processes. Multilevel network modeling reveals that policy actors select collaborators based on actor and relational factors as well as the nature of the collective action problem. Policy actors who share certain attributes are more likely to form social ties. Shared task environments within specified organizational models demonstrated higher levels of collaboration. This article illustrates how the task environment in collective action problems can be empirically mapped. The environment can be represented as a set of interdependent tasks among actors that function to define the structure of the network. This has the effect of facilitating future investigations through more robust models, moving us closer to understanding social tie formation around collective action problems. Continuing with the ACF theme, the third article focuses on theory building and strengthening the previous PSJ research that elaborates the concept of “contingent coalitions” in incremental policy change (Madariaga and Allain, 2020). Schmid, Sewerin, and Schmidt (2020) provide new and interesting theoretical arguments using policy feedback mechanisms to explain changes in advocacy coalitions, which ultimately result in policy changes. The authors illustrate their theoretical points empirically by a longitudinal single-case study on policy-induced technological change in the German energy subsystem (1983–2013) using discourse network analysis and process tracing. With this inductive mixed-methods approach, they conceptualize a complete feedback loop among policy, policy outcomes, and subsequent politics. Through this article, the authors develop propositions on how coalition change and feedback mechanisms explain the trajectories of policy change. In the final article in this issue, Giordano (2020) contributes to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and social policy literature by applying the ACF to low salience policy subsystems. Unlike previous research, which looked at the applications of ACF in high salience or nascent subsystems (Ingold, Fischer, & Cairney, 2017; Pierce, Peterson, & Hicks, 2020), this article focuses on those who engage and seek to influence policies in Day Habilitation and Employment services for working-age adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities—a low salience policy area. Using a mixed-methods approach, coalitions were verified in two U.S. states, Washington and Pennsylvania, both of which experienced distinct state-level policy changes during the last two decades despite low levels of public attention and conflict. This research identifies the presence of two advocacy coalitions (Employment First and Choice) with distinct belief systems who undergo struggles to influence policy. The study concludes that there is sufficient evidence to apply ACF to low salience subsystems and offers theoretical and practical implications for scholars and policymakers interested in applying the ACF to similar settings. Taken together, each of these articles in our final issue of 2020 makes a significant contribution to advancing policy theory and our scholarly knowledge of numerous public policy issue areas. Those contributions would not have been possible if not for the authors and their research teams. We are grateful to all of them for submitting their best work and affording us the opportunity to evaluate and scrutinize their research. However, as the final issue of the Policy Studies Journal for 2020, we also wanted to be sure to acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances that we are all dealing with: the anxiety, uncertainty, and discord that characterize the state of our politics, economies, and societies. Given these circumstances, we feel compelled to also acknowledge the extraordinary contributions of our reviewers, who have managed (somehow) to find the time and energy to continue providing high-quality and timely reviews for manuscripts submitted to the PSJ. The policy community is incredibly fortunate to have such commitment among its members and we want to be sure to extend our profound appreciation to them for all they do. And sometimes—we know—we ask a lot. Until next year, we hope that everyone stays safe, healthy, and happy; and, finds a spare hour here and there to send us your best new research or read a PSJ article or two. Sincerely, Michael “the Dungeon Master”1 Jones and the PSJ Editorial Team.