Abstract
This project examines sub-national legislative policy to identify trends and describe policy innovations for addressing insect pollinator declines. Content analysis is used to describe these policies quantitatively (number of policies and frequency per year) and qualitatively (topic, comparison of policy instruments used). The policies selected constitute a census—not a sample—of policies passed then approved by all US state legislatures and signed by state Governors into law from 2000 to 2017. We used QSR International’s NVivo 10 text-based analytic software to organize and document our close-reading (line-by-line coding) of 109 laws to address insect pollinator population declines. Our analysis blended both conventional (inductive) and directed (deductive) content analysis approaches to reveal the spectrum of new legislative innovations and to describe lawmakers’ evolving view of pollinating insects. Applying proven methods from the health sciences and communication studies can aid large-scale analysis of legal texts.•Qualitative content analysis of all US state-level laws passed from 2000 to 2017 addressing insect pollinators (N = 109).•The close-reading analysis mixed both conventional (inductive) and directed (deductive) content analysis approaches to reveal the spectrum of new legislative innovations and to describe evolving views of pollinating insects.•Compared inductively gathered findings from US policies to global experts’ policy recommendations to evaluate status of conservation policy.
Highlights
Global declines of insect pollinators threaten global food security and economic stability and are due to human behaviors [1,2]
In the absence of comprehensive international agreements targeting insect pollinator declines [4], sub-national assemblies are leading the development of policy innovations [5]
Qualitative content analysis has been used to analyze environmental policy topics via expert interviews [10], technical reports [11], and newspaper articles on policy [12], we have found no studies using qualitative content analysis to examine environmental laws or policy texts
Summary
Global declines of insect pollinators threaten global food security and economic stability and are due to human behaviors (land uses, habitat alteration, pesticides, etc.) [1,2]. In the absence of comprehensive international agreements targeting insect pollinator declines [4], sub-national assemblies are leading the development of policy innovations [5]. We catalog and analyze all pollinator-relevant laws passed by 50 US state legislatures from 2000 to 2017. For a proposed “bill” to become a state law, it must be passed by both legislative chambers (except in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature), approved “signed” by the state’s elected Governor (executive branch). This study omits all proposed bills and only examines bills that have been passed successfully by legislatures and approved by states’ Governors as law. No comprehensive list of these US state-level pollinator policies is readily available—making the policy innovations developed at regional and US state levels less transferable
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