Policy-capturing Research Articles

Biodiversity, multi-level governance, and policy implementation in Europe: a comparative analysis at the subnational level

Abstract International efforts to protect biodiversity date back to the 1970s. The effectiveness of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and regional legal instruments has been influenced by national implementation. In this process, subnational governance plays a crucial role. Although policy implementation has been extensively investigated, its subnational dimension has been somewhat neglected, particularly in peripheral areas such as the Outermost Regions of Europe. These remote territories are critical areas in the global fight against biodiversity loss since their ecosystems’ richness makes them biodiversity hotspots. The article applies the knowledge cumulated in policy research to the implementation of biodiversity policy in two of these territories – Reunion Island (France) and the Canary Islands (Spain) – and analyzes policy implementation in the context of multi-level governance. The article questions whether and to what extent decentralization benefits biodiversity policies and highlights salient trade-offs: local empowerment versus fragmentation of competences; responsiveness versus subnational discretion; and accountability versus policy capture.

Which Information Matters? Using Policy Capturing to Understand Psychological Recommendations of Civil Competency

ABSTRACT Courts rely heavily on the recommendations of mental health evaluators when making decisions about competency (e.g., Zapf, Hubbard, Cooper, Wheeles, & Ronan, 2004), including civil competency (e.g., Quickel, Demakis, & Reeve, 2017); however, very little is known about how evaluators arrive at their opinions regarding an individual’s capacity. The current study assessed clinical decision-making using a policy capturing methodology. An ecologically valid sample (N = 47) of predominantly white (87.23%) and female (55.30%) clinicians who were eligible to conduct civil competency evaluations in North Carolina were recruited to examine the degree to which five key factors (functional test data, cognitive test data, personality test data, hospitalization history, and/or medication compliance) influenced clinician competency determinations. Personal insight into one’s decision-making process was also measured. Consistent with previous research, functional test data was weighted most heavily in evaluator decisions, though all five factors were considered. Further analysis suggested variable levels of self-awareness of one’s decision-making policies by participants depending on the factor. In addition, there was high agreement among clinicians when cases were straightforward, but perfect disagreement (half recommending competency, half recommending incompetency) among clinicians when cases were more complex. Implications for civil competency assessment and decision-making are discussed.

Under the influence: The celebrity factor in policy capture

AbstractCelebrity is a form of policy influence that can occur under distinctive circumstances. This paper draws on the regulatory/policy capture literature to develop a model of celebrity capture that explains how interest groups can affect policy in the absence of economic clout or constituency mobilization. We posit that the likelihood of celebrity capture increases when several factors align: (1) a context open to change; (2) reduced oversight in decisionmaking processes; (3) organizations that have credibility and a halo effect due to their celebrity status; and (4) an uncoordinated sector with weak intermediary organizations. The analysis applies process tracing to account for the success of one celebrity‐founded and celebrity‐led organization, WE Charity, in shaping the design and being awarded sole‐source implementation of the CAD $543 million Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) program during COVID‐19. The CSSG, which proposed to pay up to 100,000 students to “volunteer” in nonprofits over the course of a summer, quickly failed and became a public ethical scandal.

Information acquisition and cognitive processes during strategic decision-making: Combining a policy-capturing study with eye-tracking data.

Policy-capturing (PC) methodologies have been employed to study decision-making, and to assess how decision-makers use available information when asked to evaluate hypothetical situations. An important assumption of the PC techniques is that respondents develop cognitive models to help them efficiently process the many information cues provided while reviewing a large number of decision scenarios. With this study, we seek to analyze the process of answering a PC study. We do this by investigating the information acquisition and the cognitive processes behind policy-capturing, building on cognitive and attention research and exploiting the tools of eye-tracking. Additionally, we investigate the role of experience in mediating the relationship between the information processed and judgments in order to determine how the cognitive models of student samples differ from those of professionals. We find evidence of increasing efficiency as a function of practice when respondents undergo the PC experiment. We also detect a selective process on information acquisition; such selection is consistent with the respondents' evaluation. While some differences are found in the information processing among the split sample of students and professionals, remarkable similarities are detected. Our study adds confidence to the assumption that respondents build cognitive models to handle the large amounts of information presented in PC experiments, and the defection of such models is not substantially affected by the applied sample.

‘Creative City’ R.I.P.?

‘Creative City’ R.I.P.?

Cultural Capture of Competition Policy: Exploring the Risk in the US and the EU

This article explores whether there is a risk that competition policy on both sides of the Atlantic could be distorted by cultural capture. This type of capture differs from traditional regulatory capture operating through self-interest of public officials. It instead arises when policy-relevant views of the officials are subject to disproportionate social influence exerted by representatives of the private sector. The question here is hence whether social interactions enabling this influence take place between competition officials and practitioners. The article answers in the affirmative, finding that many competition officials seem to self-identify with a community dominated by competition practitioners, hold the practitioners in high regard, and have interpersonal relationships with the practitioners. These risk factors are especially pronounced in the United States. There is thus a possibility that competition policy could be designed and enforced in a way that furthers interests of big business to the detriment of consumers and small businesses. The article also discusses preventive measures to limit cultural capture of competition policy such as promotion of diversity and reduction of revolving door, cautioning nevertheless that difficult trade-offs may need to be made in their implementation. agency independence, anti-interventionism, competition community, competition policy, cultural capture, Antitrust Division, DG Competition, Bureau of Competition, regulatory capture, revolving door, social influence

Combining Process Tracing and Policy Capturing Techniques for Judgment Analysis in an Anti-Submarine Warfare Simulation

The Cognitive Shadow is a prototype decision support tool that can notify users when they deviate from their usual judgment pattern. Expert decision policies are learned automatically online while performing one’s task using a combination of machine learning algorithms. This study investigated whether combining this system with the use of a process tracing technique could improve its ability to model human decision policies. Participants played the role of anti-submarine warfare commanders and rated the likelihood of detecting a submarine in different ocean areas based on their environmental characteristics. In the process tracing condition, participants were asked to reveal only the information deemed necessary, and only that information was sent to the system for model training. In the control condition, all the available information was sent to the system with each decision. Results showed that process tracing data improved the model’s ability to predict human decisions compared to the control condition.

Sex and the Office for National Statistics: A Case Study in Policy Capture

AbstractOn 17 March 2021, just four days before the England and Wales census date, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) conceded in a judicial review case. The case concerned the meaning of the sex question in the census, and the guidance to accompany this question. How did the ONS end up in court defending its guidance on a question which most people would deem self‐explanatory? This article explains the legislative and political context around gender recognition, and the consequences for data collection. Drawing on my own experiences, I explore the politicisation of the definition of sex, and argue that the ONS gave undue weight to lobby groups with a particular viewpoint on sex and gender identity.

Regulatory Capture in Product Markets and the Power of Business Interests

This article explains pervasive regulatory failure, lagging productivity, and the corporate capture of policy and policymakers as possibly unintended, but not unpredictable, outcomes of the New Zealand Treasury’s radical adoption during the 1980s of public choice and Chicago school doctrines. With deregulation and a limited role of government written into statutes and embodied in regulatory practice, the pathologies identified and described by Buchanan, Tullock, Stigler and their collaborators became more, rather than less, prevalent in the New Zealand regulatory landscape. Privatisation opened the way for looting; the Commerce Act and new regulatory guidelines enabled rather than blocked anticompetitive practices and monopolistic renttaking; relaxed oversight meant that foreign direct investment became more extractive and less productive. From relatively inclusive politics and strong regulatory enforcement, New Zealand shifted towards more extractive institutions and weaker regulation. As a result, market power is exercised by the current business and financial elite in ways that have worsened wealth and income distributions, imposed deadweight burdens (both static and dynamic) on the economy, and now confront policymakers with roadblocks to achieving more inclusive institutions and pursuing a ‘wellbeing’ agenda.

Losing sight of women's rights (again): a response to Cowan et al.

This article responds to Cowan et al.'s critique of our article ‘Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland’, published by Scottish Affairs 28(3) in August 2019. Cowan et al. make a series of strong criticisms, including of our accuracy, diligence and adherence to scholarly norms. We reject these as unreasonable. In our view, they misunderstand and misrepresent the fundamental purpose of our article, fail to engage with our core thesis of policy capture, and implausibly seek to place our view of the law beyond academic respectability. Their own strongly-asserted view of the law appears at least open to question. We argue that the problem is not with our scholarship falling below any normal acceptable standard, but rather that Cowan et al. appear to be uncomfortable with others holding and expressing any different view to theirs on this topic. They have therefore reached too quickly for assertions of incompetence or worse. We discuss the climate in which our original article was produced and in which we are now defending it. Describing our own experiences as well of those of other academics, we question how the scholarship needed to help shape policy and law in this area can take place under such conditions.

Sex and gender equality law and policy: a response to Murray, Hunter Blackburn and Mackenzie

This article is a response to ‘Losing Sight of Women's Rights: The Unregulated Introduction of Gender Self-Identification as a Case Study of Policy Capture in Scotland’ by Kath Murray, Lucy Hunter Blackburn and Lisa MacKenzie, published in Scottish Affairs 28(3). Murray et al. sought to explore the legal status of women, particularly with regard to discrimination legislation, and concluded that the interests of trans women had begun to systematically erode the interests of non-trans women in Scotland. In this response, we aim to correct some of the erroneous statements made by Murray et al. about legal definitions of sex and gender, and about discrimination law. In critically engaging with Murray et al.’s argument we aim to build a much-needed clearer understanding of law and policy on sex and gender in Scotland, particularly as it relates to the application of the Equality Act 2010. We argue that, in that claiming that there has been policy capture in Scotland, Murray et al. have neglected to contextualise ongoing debates about sex and gender in law against the backdrop of over two decades of clear legal and policy shifts across the UK. We call for researchers and others – in Scotland and elsewhere – to take care, particularly in interpreting and applying the law, especially as it applies to marginalised minority populations, so that we do not further obfuscate or mislead on important legal and social issues.

A Policy Capturing Investigation of Bystander Decisions to Intervene against Workplace Incivility

The current research integrates theory on the contextual characteristics that impact bystanders’ decisions to prosocially intervene against workplace incivility. We built a model based upon two of the most influential theories of prosocial intervention—Latane and Darley’s (1970) decision-tree model and Piliavin et al.’ (1981) arousal: cost-reward model—and assert that decisions to intervene are affected by the inherent ambiguity of the uncivil context as well as the costs versus rewards of intervention in ways that facilitate action. Yet, depending on the gender composition of the dyad involved in the uncivil exchange, and both the moral identity and the role (i.e., supervisor versus coworker) of the observer, ambiguity and cost-reward considerations may differ in their relative impact. Policy capturing methodology was used to test the relative influence of ambiguity-reduction (i.e., harm to the target, appeal for help) versus cost-reward (i.e., target’s task performance level, bystander workload) situational cues on coworker and supervisor bystanders’ decisions to intervene with either social support to the target or confronting the perpetrator. Results of a large-scale experiment with over 3400 participants revealed that each of the situational cues surrounding the uncivil exchange positively influenced observers’ decisions to intervene in theorized ways and that cost-reward considerations and role obligations are intricately intertwined.

Understanding Systems Thinking for Sustainable Development Policy Formulation

Significant system change often comes from unleashing paradigm shift that builds consensus across boundaries to deliver the desired change. Development policy is the tool of engagement and as such the interrelationships governing the interaction become the cement toward consensus building. There is increasing interest in using systems thinking to help policy-makers facilitate interaction among people, encouraging inclusion and diversity, and making interconnectedness of things critical to policy delivery. The cycle of unintended consequences that derails policy objectives can better be managed by applying a systemic approach that builds on data, engagement, perceptual dynamics, and contextual underpinnings to engender a shared purpose. This participative consciousness can increase policy-makers’ capacity to communicate, establish trust, and invariably block self-centered efforts of powerful individuals who stand to gain from policy capture. Understanding the relational dynamics (lattice of interdependence) can help to better deal with the structure of the resource system. Because the major source of uncertainty is the lack of knowledge, the structure of the resource system, its boundary and internal characteristics must be established. Systems thinking provides the tools to unravel policy problems entangled in complex social, economic, environmental, political, and institutional contexts.

Sex and the census: why surveys should not conflate sex and gender identity

ABSTRACT The UK census authorities have proposed guidance for the 2021 census indicating that the sex question may be answered according to subjective gender identity. This raises issues about the measurement of sex and gender identity which other data collection exercises are also contending with. This paper addresses the questions that have arisen regarding the census, before going on to explain how these questions have emerged more widely. Finally, I address the difficulties of discussing the collection of data on sex in a climate of policy capture and silencing.

Statement from the authors of ‘Losing sight of women's rights’

This statement notes the contribution made by Lisa Mackenzie to the 2019 article ‘Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland’ in Scottish Affairs, 28 (3).

How Does Digital Campaigning Affect the Problems of Political Finance?

This paper deals with the intersection between three sets of challenges that constitute existential threats to democracies across the world. The first is money in politics which not only poses the danger of ‘policy capture’ but also, in worse scenarios, state capture by monied interests. As the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Jane Mohammed has said: ‘In many places the ability of private interests to influence elections is unfettered and the capture of the state by elites is warping the functions of state institutions.’ The second is the impact of digital technologies on elections. As the International IDEA’s 2019 Global State of Democracy report observed, ‘[n]ew technologies, including information and communications technologies (ICTs) and social media, are contributing to a profound transformation of the global democracy landscape’.The principal question addressed by this paper is poised at the meeting place between these challenges: How might digital campaigning affect the problems of political finance? Also integrated into the analysis is a third set of challenges. Here I refer to those arising from the COVID-19 pandemic, with the paper reflecting upon how the pandemic might shape the impact of digital campaigning on the problems of political finance.This paper is written by way of a road-mapping exercise. It seeks to draw out the key issues in determining the impact of digital campaigning on the problems of political finance with a sprinkle of examples for the purpose of illustration. All this is very much preliminary analysis with the paper aiming to be a conversation starter.

Social Capture of EU Competition Policy

Against the background of growing discontent over excessive leniency of US and EU competition policy, this article argues that the policy displays characteristics corresponding to those that brought about the social capture of financial policy co-responsible for the late 2000s global crisis. The prevailingly anti-interventionist worldview of competition practitioners working as industry representatives threatens to disproportionately affect the mindset of competition officials through three channels of social influence concerning self-identification, social status, and interpersonal relationships. Regardless of whether these channels have been actively shaped by the industry, their existence poses a risk that competition policy might be designed and enforced in a way that furthers industry interests to the detriment of consumers and small businesses, which risk might have already materialised in the excessive leniency of the policy. The article also discusses measures to prevent social capture such as promotion of diversity and reduction of revolving door, cautioning nevertheless that difficult trade-offs may need to be made in their implementation.

Welfare Effect of Monetary Financing

This study ascertained the direction and asymmetric pass-through of central bank’s monetary financing to welfare in Nigeria using annual time series data covering the period 1970 to 2018. The study depended on both the Monetarist and Keynesian theoretical postulations to provide insights on the policy significance of monetary financing. To undertake the empirical analysis, the study applied both the linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and non-linear ARDL (NARDL) technique. Unlike the ARDL equation, the estimated NARDL equation established that welfare losses respond negatively to both positive and negative changes in monetary financing; but the impact of negative monetary financing shock (7.11) is greater than the positive shock (2.87). In addition, the study found that it takes about 9 to 11 quarters for the changes in positive and negative monetary financing to fully release its effects on welfare loss. Besides, the results revealed that welfare loss is also driven by oil price, which is suggestive from oil price pass-through to domestic prices (exchange rate and consumer prices). The study, therefore, supports monetary financing in proper amounts and conditions to boost aggregate nominal demand but not to spur a fully-fledged monetary policy capture in the process.

I-deals and Managerial Reward Decisions: Evidence from a Policy Capturing and a Survey Study

I-deals have become a common organizational practice, but little do we know of how managers make decisions regarding reward compensation when such as individualized arrangements exist. We conducted...

Losing sight of women's rights: the unregulated introduction of gender self-identification as a case study of policy capture in Scotland

Within the last two years, respective proposals by the Scottish and UK Governments to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) to allow people to change their legal sex based only on making a legally-registered self-declaration have sparked an intense debate on how sex and gender identity should be defined in law and policy. This paper examines how gender self-identification had in fact become a feature of Scottish policy-making and practice, long before public consultation on GRA reform began. The analysis is structured as two case-studies that examine firstly, policy development on the census in relation to the ‘sex’ question, and second, Scottish Prison Service policy on transgender prisoners. The analysis shows that the unregulated roll-out of gender self-identification in Scotland has taken place with weak or non-existent scrutiny and a lack of due process, and that this relates to a process of policy capture, whereby decision-making on sex and gender identity issues has been directed towards the interests of a specific interest group, without due regard for other affected groups or the wider population. The paper raises questions about the adequacy of institutional safeguards against well-organised and highly purposeful lobbying, particularly where any groups detrimentally affected do not have effective representation.