Policy Categories Research Articles

Widening participation policy as practice: category work and local policy appropriations at student support units

ABSTRACT The massification of national systems of higher education in recent decades and the rapid increase in the number of students have raised widening participation for students from underrepresented groups as a central policy agenda. In this study I focus on an overlooked group in the research literature – student support practitioners, who provide advising and counseling services to students – and explore how these practitioners negotiate and shape widening participation policies as part of their ongoing work. The study is based on interviews with 43 support practitioners working in 17 Israeli higher education institutions. It draws on the policy-as-practice approach and the theoretical construct of category work to explore how these practitioners interpret, adapt, and modify widening participation policies. The analysis reveals three practices of category work: creation, transformation, and disruption of policy categories: Practitioners create a new category of flexible and part-time studies, transform the category of students eligible for support by expanding its boundaries to include low socioeconomic status, and disrupt a target group’s category by dissolving its boundaries, modifying its homogenous nature, and eliminating problematic support tools. This study contributes to our understanding of the gaps between WP policies and their appropriation, and of the processes in which local actors shape policy categories.

The role of micro-mobility in shaping sustainable cities: A systematic literature review

Micro-mobility is increasingly recognised as a promising mode of urban transport, particularly for its potential to reduce private vehicle use for short-distance travel. Despite valuable research contributions that represent fundamental knowledge on this topic, today’s body of research appears quite fragmented in relation to the role of micro-mobility as a transformative solution for meeting sustainability outcomes in urban environments. This paper consolidates knowledge on the topic, analyses past and on-going research developments, and provides future research directions by using a rigorous and auditable systematic literature review methodology. To achieve these objectives, the paper analysed 328 journal publications from the Scopus database covering the period between 2000 and 2020. A bibliographic analysis was used to identify relevant publications and explore the changing landscape of micro-mobility research. The study constructed and visualised the literature’s bibliometric networks through citations and co-citations analyses for authors, articles, journals and countries. The findings showed a consistent spike in recent research outputs covering the sustainability aspects of micro-mobility reflecting its importance as a low-carbon and transformative mode of urban transport. The co-citation analysis, in particular, helped to categorise the literature into four main research themes that address benefits, technology, policy and behavioural mode-choice categories where the majority of research has been focused during the analysis period. For each cluster, inductive reasoning is used to discuss the emerging trends, barriers as well as pathways to overcome challenges to wide-scale deployment. This article provides a balanced and objective summary of research evidence on the topic and serves as a reference point for further research on micro-mobility for sustainable cities.

How to design policy packages for sustainable transport: Balancing disruptiveness and implementability

In order to achieve emission reduction targets in the passenger transport sector, the demand side and especially the mobility behavior of consumers deserve special attention. It is unlikely that such behavior will change without significant political intervention, nor will single policy instruments be sufficient to induce the needed changes. In this study, therefore, we analyze the design of so-called disruptive policy packages required to drastically reduce passenger transport emissions in industrialized countries and illustrate it for the case of Austria. Our research approach consists of three methods: a literature review to develop a policy category system, expert interviews to build effective policy packages and a stakeholder workshop to identify the specific needs of different geographical areas. For the design of successful policy packages, we identify two critical dimensions, disruptiveness (having high-level and rapid effectiveness) and implementability. A well-balanced combination of diverse policy instruments is required to adequately address both dimensions.

Improving outpatient medication counselling in hospital pharmacy settings: a behavioral analysis using the theoretical domains framework and behavior change wheel.

Background:Despite the importance of medication counselling for patients, it is common knowledge that it is often sub-optimally carried out by pharmacy staff. While some interventions have been designed to help improve counselling, no study till date has used the Capability Opportunity and Motivation behavior model (COM-B) or Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) as a basis for identifying evidence-based intervention strategies to improve medication counselling.Objective:To understand barriers/facilitators to optimal medication counselling by conducting a behavioral analysis using the COM-B model and TDF, and use the Behavior Change Wheel (BCW) as a basis for identifying evidence-based intervention strategies and policy categories that could be used to improve outpatient medication counselling by pharmacy staff in hospital settings located within Northwest Nigeria.Methods:Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 25 purposively sampled pharmacy staff working at eight major public hospitals, from January till March 2020. Data from the interviews were then transcribed and deductively coded using the COM-B model and TDF. These findings were then used to identify areas requiring change, as well as the intervention type and policy functions required to support these changes.Results:Findings from the behavioral analysis revealed shortfalls in pharmacy staff capability, opportunity and motivation with respect to outpatient medication counselling. To improve their counselling behaviors, change was identified as necessary in eight TDF domains namely ‘knowledge’, ‘interpersonal skills’, ‘memory’ ‘environmental context’, ‘social influences’, ‘intentions’, ‘reinforcement’ and ‘beliefs about capabilities’. Seven intervention functions including ‘education’, ‘training’, ‘modelling’, ‘enablement’ and ‘environmental restructuring’, in addition to three policy categories (‘guidelines’, ‘regulations’ and ‘environmental/social planning’) were also identified as relevant to future intervention design.Conclusions:Various factors were identified as affecting medication counselling by the pharmacy staff, with several of them requiring changes if counselling was to be improved upon. Multi-component interventions combining several of these intervention functions are recommended for hospital authorities and other relevant stakeholders to improve outpatient medication counselling.

Lessons Relearned? H1N1, COVID-19, and Vaccination Planning.

Lessons Relearned? H1N1, COVID-19, and Vaccination Planning.

AI and Big Data: A New Paradigm for Decision Making in Healthcare

The latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI)—a general-purpose technology impacting many industries — have been based on advancements in machine learning, which is recast as a quality-adjusted decline in forecasting ratio. The influence of Policy on AI and big data has impacted two key magnitudes which are known as diffusion and consequences. And these must be focused primarily on the context of AI and big data. First, in addition to the policies on subsidies and intellectual property (IP) that will affect the propagation of AI in ways close to their effect on other technologies, three policy categories — privacy, exchange, and liability — may have a specific impact on the diffusion of AI. The first step in the prohibition process is to identify the shortcomings of current hospital procedures, why we need acute care AI, and eventually how the direction of patient decision-making will shift with the introduction of AI-based research. The second step is to establish a plan to shift the direction of medical education in order to enable physicians to retain control of AI. Medical research would need to rely less on threshold decision-making and more on the prediction, interpretation, and pathophysiological context of contextual time cycles. This should be an early part of a medical student's education, and this is what their hospital aid (AI) ought to do. Effective contact between human and artificial intelligence includes a shared pattern of focused knowledge base. Human-to-human contact protection in hospitals should lead this professional transformation process.

Health-care guidelines and policies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico: A case of health-inequalities

BackgroundHeterogeneous government responses have been reported in reaction to COVID-19. The aim of this study is to generate an exploratory review of healthcare policies published during COVID-19 by health-care institutions in Mexico. Analyzing policies within different health sub-systems becomes imperative in the Mexican case due to the longstanding fragmentation of the health-care system and health inequalities. Data and MethodsPolicies purposely included in the analysis were published by four public health institutions (IMSS, ISSSTE, SSA and PEMEX) during the COVID-19 epidemic in Mexico (from February 29th to June 15th, 2020) on official institutional websites. Researchers reviewed each document and classified them into seven policy categories set by the Rapid Research Evaluation and Appraisal Lab (RREAL): public health response, health-care delivery, human resources, health-system infrastructure and supplies, clinical response, health-care management, and epidemiological surveillance. ResultsPolicy types varied by health institution. The largest number of policies were aimed at public health responses followed by health-care delivery and human resources. Policies were mainly published during the community transmission phase. ConclusionsThe pandemic exposed underlying health-care system inequalities and a reactive rather than prepared response to the outbreak. Additionally, this study outlines potential policy gaps and delays in the response that could be avoided in the future.

Greece’s Discriminatory Migrant Regime: Volunteers, Informal Street-Level Bureaucrats, and Moral Rationalities

AbstractIn the aftermath of Europe’s 2015 so-called refugee ‘crisis’, tens of thousands of border crossers remain stuck in Greece aided by an array of humanitarian workers, government employees, and volunteers. Drawing on previous scholarship about street-level bureaucracy, I discuss the work of informal volunteers in Athens and Lesvos, where they continue to aid border crossers attain entitlements and rights. Based on 10 months of ethnographic research conducted from 2017 to 2018, this article explores how volunteers within the humanitarian landscape of Greece sought to enact their ethical principles within governance regimes that categorized border crossers in restrictive and at times harmful ways. I show how the struggle to assist border crossers in effect transformed volunteers into informal street-level bureaucrats, who drew on a range of tactics that simultaneously reproduced and subverted the policy categories of refugee or vulnerable person. This article argues that rather than facilitating administrative care of border crossers, these categories were in fact a political battleground upon which volunteers struggled to pursue their moral rationalities despite an exclusionary governance regime.

A Policy Category Analysis Model for Tourism Promotion in China During the COVID-19 Pandemic Based on Data Mining and Binary Regression.

Background and AimAt the end of 2019, the outbreak of COVID-19 had a significant impact on China’s tourism industry, which was almost at a standstill in the short-term. After reaching the preliminarily stable state, the government and the scenic area management department implemented a series of incentive policies in order to speed up the recovery of the tourism industry. Therefore, analyzing all sorts of social effects after policy implementation is of guiding significance for the government and the scenic areas.MethodsTargeted as the social effect with the implementation of tourism promotion policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper briefly analyzes the impact of COVID-19 on the national cultural and tourism industry and selects several representative types of tourism policies, crawls the comment data of Weibo users, analyzes users’ perception and emotional preference to the policy, and thus mines the social effect of various policies. Subsequently, by identifying the social effects of various policies as dependent variables, a binary logistic regression model is constructed to obtain the best combination of tourism promotion policies and promote the rapid revitalization of the cultural and tourism industry.ResultsThe results show that from the single policy, the social effect of the “safety” policy is the best. From the perspective of combination policies, the simultaneous release of “safety” policies and “economy” policies have the greatest social impact, which can dramatically accelerate the recovery of the cultural and tourism industry. Finally, this paper proposes suggestions for policy formulation to improve the ability of the cultural tourism industry to cope with crisis events.ConclusionThese results explain the perceived effects of the public on the government policies and can be used to judge whether the policies have been released in place. Based on the above results, corresponding suggestions are proposed as follows: 1) the combination of economic policies and security policies can achieve better results; and 2) the role of “opinion leaders” can be played to improve the perceived effect of policies.

Development of Renewable Energy in China, USA, and Brazil: A Comparative Study on Renewable Energy Policies

Countries differ in terms of their socio-economic development, population growth, and energy consumption. Many countries still depend on conventional energy to supply enough energy source for their demand, while some have made considerable progress in making the transition to renewable/sustainable energy sources. Owing to the increasing demand and drawbacks of conventional energy sources, policies can play a major role in encouraging and increasing the uptake of renewable energy (RE) technologies. In this paper, a general overview on the RE activities in the three leading countries—China, Brazil, and the United States of America (USA)—is presented. Moreover, a comparative analysis on the implementations of the RE support policies is conducted. The linear regression analysis technique is applied to develop several models for the three countries in order to investigate the effect of different policies on RE. The main contributions of this study are establishing a link between RE support policies and RE development (in terms of the installed capacity) in the three countries under study, and providing models that can be used in estimating RE development using RE policy data. In addition to this, some models are developed to investigate the relationship between RE installed capacity and the patents. The linear regression analyses suggest that RE policies promote the development of RE installed capacity in the three countries in different proportions. For example, it is found that each additional wind policy will increase the RE wind capacity in China, Brazil, and the USA by 1.63, 0.689, and 1.576 GW, respectively. Moreover, the economic instruments turn out to be more effective in promoting the RE installed capacity in the USA and Brazil, while the policy support and regulatory instruments are the most influential policy categories in China. Furthermore, the linear regression analyses indicate the existence of a positive significant relation between the number of patents and the total RE installed capacity in the three countries.

Do no harm? The impact of policy on migration scholarship

The mass migrations of 2015 were not merely a watershed moment for ‘EUrope’ but also for the scholarly study of migration to EUrope. With academic expertise and insights becoming much sought-after in the media and political discourse, migration scholarship has gained in unknown popularity over recent years. This current ‘migration knowledge hype’ has particularly benefited scholarship that claims to be of relevance for EUropean policymakers in finding responses to ‘migratory pressures’. This article critically interrogates the increasing intimacy between the worlds of migration scholarship and migration policy and seeks to unpack how the quest for policy-relevance has shaped the process of research itself. The impact of policy on migration research can be discerned when policy categories, assumptions, and needs constitute the bases and (conceptual) frames of research that seeks to be legible to policymakers. However, with EUropean migration policies causing devastation and undeniably harmful effects on migrant lives, what is the responsibility of researchers for the knowledge they produce and disseminate? Should the ‘do no harm’ principle prevalent in the migration discipline be expanded to also include the potentially harmful consequences resulting from research made relevant to migration policymakers? This article makes the case for an engaged scholarship that does not shy away from intervening in the contested field of migration with the intention not to fix but to amplify the epistemic and other crises of the EUropean border regime.

Addressing behavior in pollinator conservation policies to combat the implementation gap.

Solutions for conserving biodiversity lie in changing people's behavior. Ambitious international and national conservation policies frequently fail to effectively mitigate biodiversity loss because they rarely apply behavior-change theories. We conducted a gap analysis of conservation behavior-change interventions advocated in national conservation strategies with the Behavior Change Wheel (BCW), a comprehensive framework for systematically characterizing and designing behavior-change interventions. Using pollinator conservation as a case study, we classified the conservation actions listed in national pollinator initiatives in relation to intervention functions and policy categories of the BCW. We included all national-level policy documents from the European Union available in March 2019 that focused on conservation of pollinators (n = 8). A total of 610 pollinator conservation actions were coded using in-depth directed content analysis, resulting in the identification of 787 intervention function and 766 policy category codes. Overall, these initiatives did not employ the entire breadth of behavioral interventions. Intervention functions most frequently identified were education (23%) and environmental restructuring (19%). Least frequently identified intervention functions were incentivization (3%), and restriction (2%) and coercion were completely absent (0%). Importantly, 41% of all pollinator conservation actions failed to identify whose behavior was to be changed. Building on these analyses, we suggest that reasons for the serious implementation gap in national and international conservation policies is founded in insufficient understanding of which behavioral interventions to employ for most beneficial impacts on biodiversity and how to clearly specify the intervention targets. We recommend that policy advisors engage with behavior-change theory to design effective behavior-change interventions that underpin successful conservation policies.

A Study on the Application of Successful Forest Greening Experience for Forest and Landscape Restoration: A Comparative Study of Two Koreas

This study examined the development, direction, and characteristics of the North Korean forest restoration policy when compared to similar restoration policies established in South Korea. The success factors of South Korea’s Forest Conservation and Afforestation Project were classified into four forest policy categories: (a) policy and system improvement, (b) evaluation and capacity building, (c) people’s participation encouragement, and (d) restoration foundation creation. Similarities in terms of these aspects were found when compared with the Forest Restoration Battle of North Korea. For policy and system improvement, South Korea established the 1st and 2nd Forest Conservation and Afforestation Plans and transferred the control of the Korea Forest Service to its Ministry of Home Affairs. Similarly, North Korea established a forest development plan and a command unit for the Forest Restoration Battle. For evaluation and capacity building, South Korea utilized a tree monitoring and forestry association. North Korea is obtaining these effects through both a socialist competition movement and agroforestry. Further, South Korea aimed to promote people’s participation through a nursery project, a tree planting movement, and a responsible afforestation system, whereas North Korea adopted agroforestry, a patriotic forest movement, and a responsible forest system. Finally, South Korea succeeded in replacing forest fuels with fossil fuels, clearing slash-and-burn fields, and performing erosion control. By comparison, North Korea is promoting the development of replacement fuels, such as ultra-high-grade anthracite coal and the formation of separate firewood forests. North Korea has revised its forest law to strengthen penalties for deforestation activities, such as anthropogenic forest fires, and replaced erosion control works with agroforestry, which allows for slope management. Among the four aspects, the largest difference was found for restoration foundation creation. Therefore, this area can provide a guideline for future inter-Korean forest cooperation.

The use of the behaviour change wheel in the development of ParticipACTION's physical activity app.

The purpose of this study was to provide a detailed and systematic outline of how a theoretical behaviour change framework was applied in the development of ParticipACTION's app to support a more active Canada. The app development process was guided by the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) framework, a theoretically-based approach for intervention development, in collaboration with the commercial app industry. Specifically, a behavioural diagnosis was used to understand what needs to change for the targeted behaviour to occur. Current literature, along with a series of surveys, and market research informed app development. Additionally, a validated app behaviour change scale, was consulted throughout development to help ensure app features maximized behaviour change potential. The behavioural diagnosis revealed that the app needed to target individuals' physical and psychological capabilities, physical and social opportunities, and reflective and automatic motivations in order to increase physical activity levels. To accomplish this, 6 of a possible 9 intervention functions and 2 of 7 policy categories were selected from the BCW to be included in the app. Goals and planning, feedback and monitoring, behaviour identification, action planning and knowledge shaping were selected as the main behaviour change techniques for the app. Collaboration with a mobile app development firm helped to embed the selected behaviour change techniques, policy categories, intervention functions, and sources of behaviour within the app. Using a systematic approach, this study used the BCW to ensure the health promotion app was theoretically informed. Future research will evaluate its effectiveness in increasing the physical activity of Canadians.

Enhancing participation while aging with spinal cord injury: applying behaviour change frameworks to develop intervention recommendations.

Knowledge translation study. Use the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) and Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) to (1) identify barriers and facilitators to participation in daily activities and social roles among people aging with spinal cord injury (SCI); and, (2) systematically co-develop participation-focused intervention recommendations with SCI community organizations that can support people aging with SCI. Canadian SCI community. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 people (minimum 45 years of age; minimum 10 years post injury). Participants were asked about their experiences with participating in daily activities and social roles while aging and preferences for what participation-focused interventions should entail. Transcripts were analyzed to address three stages of behaviour change intervention design: (1) identify barriers and facilitators; (2) identify intervention functions and policy categories; (3) identify implementation options. Findings were synthesized into intervention recommendations and assessed for feasibility. Participation in daily activities and social roles was heavily influenced by three TDF domains: environmental context and resources, skills, and social influences. Six intervention functions and all policy categories within the BCW were considered viable intervention options. Multiple messengers and modes of delivery were identified as important. The synthesized recommendations included educating SCI organization membership, partnering with other disability organizations, and advocating to the provincial government. Findings suggest that multiple intervention formats delivered through a variety of implementation options are needed to enhance participation in daily activities and social roles while aging with SCI. Future efforts should focus on translating the recommendations into real-world behaviour change interventions.

Exploration of Surgeon Motivations in Management of Abdominal Wall Hernias

Although evidence-based guidelines designed to minimize health care variation and promote effective care are widely accepted, creating guidelines alone does not often lead to the desired practice change. Such knowledge-to-practice gaps are well-recognized in the management of patients with abdominal wall hernia, where wide variation in patient selection and operative approach likely contributes to suboptimal patient outcomes. To create sustainable, scalable, and widespread adherence to evidence-based guidelines, it is imperative to better understand individual surgeon motivations and behaviors associated with surgical decision-making. To evaluate the systematic application of the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to explore motivations and behaviors associated with surgical decision-making in abdominal wall hernia practice to help inform the future design of theory-based interventions for desired practice and behavior change. This qualitative study used purposive sampling to recruit 21 practicing surgeons at community and academic hospitals from 5 health regions across Michigan. It used interviews consisting of clinical vignettes for highly controversial situations in abdominal wall hernia repair, followed by semistructured interview questions based on the domains of the TDF to gain nuance into motivating factors associated with surgical practice. Patterns within the data were located, analyzed, and identified through thematic analysis using software. All data were collected between May and July 2018, and data analysis was performed from August 2018 to July 2019. Factors associated with decisions on the surgical approach to abdominal wall hernia repair were assessed using TDF. Seventeen (81%) of the 21 participants were men, with a median (interquartile range) age of 47 (45-54) years. Of the 14 TDF domains, 5 were found to be most associated with decisions on the surgical approach to abdominal wall hernia repair for surgeons in Michigan: knowledge, beliefs about consequences, social or professional role and identity, environmental context and resources, and social influences. Mapping of the findings to the sources of behavior identified the potential intervention functions and policy categories that could be targeted for intervention. The intervention functions found to be most relevant included education, persuasion, modeling, incentivization, and environmental restructuring. Using the TDF, this study found that the primary factors associated with individual practice were opinion leaders, practice conformity, and reputational concerns. These findings are important because they challenge traditional dogma, which relies mainly on dissemination of published evidence, education, and technical skills acquisition to achieve evidence-based practice. Such knowledge allows for the development of sustainable, theory-based interventions for adherence to evidence-based guidelines.

How previous epidemics enable timelier COVID-19 responses: an empirical study using organisational memory theory

IntroductionThere has been little systematic exploration into what affects timeliness of epidemic response, despite the potential for earlier responses to be more effective. Speculations have circulated that previous exposure to...

Applying translational behavioural science to improve people’s health

Abstract Background The rising burden of chronic diseases poses a challenge for the whole public health system, and to deal with this we need to address the socioeconomic, cultural, and behavioural aspects of health and its determinants. While a change in individual 'lifestyle' factors, such as diet, exercise, smoking, and alcohol are often the target of intervention design, there needs to be an acknowledgement that behavioural science is much more than just 'lifestyle choice' on the individual level. Governments worldwide are increasingly incorporating the behavioural insights approach into policymaking. There has been an increasing interest in 'choice architecture' and 'nudging' to facilitate behaviour (change), often by manipulating elements of the environment. Designing interventions that target the most important determinants of behaviour, based on research evidence in the field of behavioural science, provide the best chance of changing behaviour and demonstrating a positive impact in terms of health outcomes and cost-effectiveness. However, knowing what works and how to apply it presents an ongoing challenge. Results The COM-B, EAST, and MOST are behaviour change models that were built on an impressive effort to synthesize available evidence regarding intervention development frameworks, behaviour change theories, and behaviour change techniques. They tackle determinants of behaviour in terms of capability, opportunity, and motivation on the level of the individual (micro level), alongside ways in which to intervene, at mezzo level (intervention functions) and macro level (policy categories). Conclusions These approaches take a holistic view of interventions and can contribute to the development of new scientific knowledge regarding mechanisms underlying effective knowledge mobilization in behaviour change. They are also expected to further support the adoption of the evidence-based practices within the field of public health.

Assessment of India's energy dynamics: Prospects of solar energy

During the last decade, energy demand has increased manifold in India. To cope up with the rising energy demand, the Indian government has announced the National Solar Mission to generate 100 GW solar power by 2022. Large-scale solar power developers have been allotted around 60% of the National Solar Mission target. Therefore, it becomes pivotal to find the ground reality of solar power developers. To fulfill this objective, we selected the solar sources of the country and adopted a hybrid research methodology. The solar irradiation data were collected for one year in the four big cities of India, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, and Bangalore during 2019 to evaluate the efficiency of photovoltaics (PVs). MATLAB and RETScreen were employed for data analysis and evaluating the efficiency of photovoltaics. We take this a step further by performing the Life Cycle Assessment analysis to scrutinize the different features of solar energy, including fuel consumption, price, average lifetime, maintenance and operation expenses, land requirements, and greenhouse gas emissions. The results reveal that all these cities have an enormous solar power potential, as they are located in an area where solar irradiations are consistently available all over the year (except for monsoon season). Moreover, solar energy is more durable, cost-saving, and easy to maintain. Furthermore, we identified the significant barriers over the whole solar energy spectrum by conducting semi-structured interviews with industry experts. These barriers are broadly classified into technological, policy, regulatory, financial, transparency, accountability, infrastructural, and trade policy categories. Finally, essential policy recommendations have been suggested for all stakeholders in order to fulfill the country's energy demand on its way to a future of sustainable development.

The relational co-production of “success” and “failure,” or the politics of anxiety of exporting urban “models” elsewhere

ABSTRACT This paper critically examines the case of the much-vaunted Singapore “model” and its export via the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city (SSTEC), a megaproject jointly developed by the Singaporean and Chinese states in northeastern China. It revolves around the central question of why, for some Singaporean officials, this export was thought to have “failed” in spite of the model’s acclaimed success globally. To address this, the paper historicizes the Singapore model, tracing undercurrents of (geo)political existentialism through Singaporean state meta-narratives that are enacted through thehistorical politics of anxiety and the practitioner politics of anxiety. It argues that categories of policy “success” and “failure” are relationally co-produced through a politics of anxiety, wherein their stakes are amplified in ways distinctive to small postcolonial city-states. Collectively, the paper emphasizes the enduring significance of (inter)state actors and structures for transnational urban policy mobilization and the limits to assumptions of post-failure policy learning.