Comparative Policy Research Research Articles

On Concepts, Analytics, and Statistics in Comparative Policy Studies: An Introduction from the New Section Editors

Effective comparative public policy research necessitates three key aspects. Firstly, it requires concepts that allow the differences in policies and policy developments across various domains to be discerned. Secondly, even with robust concepts established, they typically must be “put into practice”. This means scholars need analytical tools that can either provide theoretical insights helpful in creating careful research designs or extract relevant information from laws, legislation, and other governmental sources and organize it meaningfully. Lastly, the objective of these endeavors is to produce statistics on policies or their effects that permit robust conclusions to be drawn about policy efficacy and impact. Building upon this “trinity” as the foundation of successful comparative policy research, the new section editors of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis (JCPA) are seeking contributions in the areas of policy concepts, analytics, and statistics. This introductory article further clarifies what these aspects entail and presents examples from existing research that may align with this section.

Comparative Measurement of Citizens’ Perceptions of Local Policies: A 3MC (Multinational, Multicultural, Multiregional) Approach

Comparative social policy research continues to face considerable methodological challenges. Scholars particularly struggle to capture sub-national policy variation in comparatively reliable ways, including subjective perceptions of local policies. Local-level variation increases the need for conceptual and methodological attention to comparability across differing national, cultural, and linguistic settings. The article outlines a conceptually grounded approach relying on the 3MC (multinational, multicultural, multiregional) method to measure and compare individual perceptions of local policies cross-nationally. Often applied in cross-national survey research, a 3MC approach can help address methodological challenges inherent in comparative policy research and improve cross-national studies of local policy differences.

Connecting Health and Social Services for Patients with Complex Care Needs: A Pan-Canadian Comparative Policy Research Program.

Comprehensive primary healthcare for patients with complex care needs requires connections to other health services, social services and community supports. This descriptive comparative policy research program used publicly available documents and informant interviews to examine progress toward integrated comprehensive care through the lens of services needed by children and youth (0-25 years) and community-dwelling older adults (≥ 65 years) with high functional health needs. This article describes five projects. The following three findings emerged across all the projects: Canada indeed has multiple health systems; numerous integrated service delivery solutions are being trialled and most focus on medical services; and it is an ongoing challenge for ministries of health to engage physicians and physician associations in integration.

Energy Storage Governance in the Asia-Pacific through the Law of the Sea Convention: Exploring Bottlenecks and Enablers of Regulating Offshore Wind Combined with Energy Storage

Abstract Following projections of high economic and demographic growth, the Asia-Pacific region is poised to take the lead in the global production of offshore wind energy. A critical barrier is the intermittency of renewables, increasing the need for energy storage capacity to conserve energy harvested from the ocean. The bankability of energy storage systems combined with offshore wind power remains low and depends on varied policy frameworks. Meanwhile, the potential of the Law of the Sea (los) Convention for storage governance is underexplored. This paper highlights current regulatory bottlenecks and enablers to energy storage based on the los Convention and comparative policy research. It focuses on hydrogen as an energy carrier to store offshore wind energy, demonstrating how energy justice and environmental stewardship can result from ocean-based storage capacity developments. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate access to financing to increase the storage capacity of the Asian-Pacific sustainable blue economy.

Building back better tourism sector post-COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia: input-output and simulation analysis

ABSTRACT This study, by employing an input-output and simulation analysis, aims to examine policies to build back better the tourism sector's post-COVID-19 pandemic by taking Indonesia as a case study. The result confirms that to build back a better tourism sector in the post-COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Indonesia needs to maintain the supply of domestic inputs used as the primary source of intermediate inputs in the tourism sector and other sectors related to the tourism sector. The simulation analysis indicated that the worst effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry occurred in output reduction compared with the value-added and labor income losses. However, the government needs close collaboration with the private sector and other wide-range tourism stakeholders in determining tourism policies post-COVID-19 pandemic, apart from the importance of evidence-based policy research. This study contributes to international comparative policy research in the tourism field post-COVID-19 pandemic.

Austria’s Long-Term Care System: Challenges and Policy Responses

Approaches to design comprehensive support systems for people in need of long-term care (LTC) have appeared on the policy agenda of European countries from the 1990ies. Austria was one of the first to implement such a system separate from health care. In this last significant expansion of its social protection system, the country established a universal and tax-funded LTC system, departing from Austria’s Bismarckian tradition while carrying along the familialist logic and federalist structure in this policy field. Thirty years later, Austria now joins other countries in creating solutions to important contemporary challenges by discussing another major revamp of its LTC system. This paper renders a country case study to explain the development of Austrian LTC policies in greater depth and from a dynamic perspective. The two-step approach, starts with presenting the logics and major building blocks of Austria’s LTC system, and provides an update on its benefits and services. The second part identifies and discusses a raft of current and planned measures for three areas that appear critical in terms of future proofing LTC: (i) responses to staffing challenges, (ii) policy pilots to support informal carers, and finally, (iii) the role of digital transformation for LTC in Austria. This showcase exercise fosters policy learning and thus supports innovation and refinement of LTC systems. It could also serve as a futile starting point for comparative LTC policy research that moves beyond the outer hull of care-regime typologies to explore more specific system features and policy interventions.

A value based approach to assessing changes in cultural policies

ABSTRACT In democratic societies, the political process ultimately is about making value judgements. Comparative cultural policy research indicates different value orientations may be behind cultural policies of different nations. It has also indicated developments that are common, such as democratisation of culture, neoliberalisation of politics and globalisation. As of yet, such value changes have not been studied at the level of cultural policy documents analysed as text [Bell, D., & Oakley, K. (2014). Cultural policy. Routledge]. This article proposes a methodology to study value changes behind cultural policies over time and across nations. Based in the “pragmatic sociology” of Boltanski, Thévenot, and Chiapello [(2005). The new spirit of capitalism. (Translated by Gregory Elliot from Le nouvel esprit du capitalisme). Gallimard Verso. (Original work published 1999); (2006). On justification, economies of worth. (Translated by Catherine Porter from De la justification, Les économies de la grandeur). Gallimard & Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1991)], the article presents a big data methodology to uncover value changes of policy documents over time, between different policy agents, and across nations using material from the UK and the Netherlands. The paper explains the methodology, discusses the implications of the preliminary outcomes and provides suggestions for further comparative policy analyses.

Apples and oranges? Establishing equivalence in comparative sport policy research

ABSTRACT The notion of equivalence is important in the context of comparative studies, such as those that compare performance across sporting nations or those that compare good governance across different sport organisations. However, despite its importance, the concept has been interpreted and employed in different ways, resulting in the term being misunderstood or conflated. This article examines the concept of equivalence, discusses how issues of non-equivalence can arise, and identifies potential strategies that can be employed by researchers to ensure it is more appropriately addressed. We examine and apply three main types of equivalence (construct, sample and functional) to two empirical cases, (1) the SPLISS analysis of critical success factors in elite sport policy and (2) Play the Game’s Sport Governance Observer to demonstrate how researchers attempt to overcome or at least mitigate the problems of equivalence and how, despite these efforts, there remain equivalence-related problems that limit the reliability and credibility of comparative elements of the study. We conclude our paper by discussing the implications for comparative sport research and specifically how future comparative sport research may be enhanced.

The impact of partisan politics on migration policies: the case of healthcare provision for refugees by German states

Comparative migration policy research has increasingly dealt with the question of whether partisan differences in government can explain differences between migration policies. The empirical findings, however, for both, European states and states of the USA, are inconsistent as governing parties’ positions on integration policies do not in all cases explain the differences in migration legislation. This article investigates the conditions under which German states opt for a permissive model of healthcare provision for asylum seekers as an alternative to the existing restrictive bureaucratic model. Using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), we find that a left-of-center state government is a necessary condition for the introduction of the alternative model. Full cost reimbursement by the state is the sufficient condition, i.e. the permissive alternative model is fully implemented only in those states with a left-of-center state government and where municipalities do not bear the risk of potentially higher costs for healthcare provision. With this unambiguous partisan effect, this article represents an important contribution to the international debate.

Social Safety Nets and COVID-19 Stay Home Orders across US States: A Comparative Policy Analysis

Sub-national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have been politicized in the US. Survival analysis was run on when stay-at-home orders were enacted and lifted across US states from March to June 2020. Results show a strong linkage between pre-crisis social safety net protections (paid sick leave, expanded Medicaid Health Insurance, higher state minimum wage, higher welfare benefits) and crisis policy response – whether a state shuts down earlier and reopens later. Republican-controlled states imposed stay-at-home orders later and reopened sooner. This comparative policy research shows that providing social safety net protections is a policy complement to public health.

Using Instrument Typologies in Comparative Research: Conceptual and Methodological Trade-Offs

The lack of cumulative knowledge challenges scientific relevance and the capacity for problem solving. Despite the multiplication of instrument typologies, a shared comparative understanding of what instruments are, how they function and what effect they produce is still lacking. This article assesses the extent to which major policy instrument theories are fit for comparative analysis. It identifies five main methodological and theoretical trade-offs that should be considered when elaborating on the research design of comparative policy research: parsimony, reliability, analytical purpose, comparative perspective and performance assessment.

Tourism Policy Research after the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reconsidering the Role of the State in Tourism

Over the last thirty years of research into tourism policy, there has been a dominant assumption that the appropriate role of the state in tourism is mostly settled. The state has a legitimate role in the tourism industry, but it is essentially one of ‘steering and not rowing’. This assumption has developed against the backdrop of the neoliberal shift towards small states, powerful markets and light touch policy interventions in industry. This research note argues that the measures that have been taken by governments around the world in respect of their tourism industries, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, are sufficiently significant and long-term to warrant a re-appraisal of the role of the state in tourism. Specifically, this note makes the case for a renewed focus on research into tourism policy in non-Western contexts, where the role of the state has not been as constrained by the neoliberal shift, and for an increase in international comparative policy research, which has been notably absent in the tourism policy field to date.

Do COVID-19 Policies Affect Mobility Behaviour? Evidence from 75 Canadian and American Cities.

We construct a new measure of the aggressiveness of COVID-19 policies in 75 Canadian and American cities and estimate the effect of these policies on mobility patterns in each city. Using a new dataset of five municipal COVID-19 policy indicators for each of our 75 cities, combined with 11 provincial/state policy indicators, we estimate a daily measure of the “aggressiveness” of the provincial/state and municipal COVID-19 policy mix in each city. We then estimate the effects of these policies on subsequent mobility behaviour using dynamic time series models. We find strong evidence of policy effects on subsequent mobility behaviour, but few overall differences between Canadian and American cities. We discuss the significance of our findings both for COVID-19 policy research and for other comparative urban policy research in multilevel policy environments.

Overcoming the dependent variable problem in studying food policy

The development of a comparative food policy research agenda has been hampered by the dependent variable problem of how to delineate the policy field. Through a concise literature review, we show that the existing literature has conceptualised food policy as policy outputs, institutional orders, or discursive constructs. Focusing on the policy outputs, we define food policy as a set of policy outputs adopted to address one or more food system activities (production, processing and packaging, distribution and retailing, and consumption) with the explicit aim of affecting food system outcomes in a desired direction. The paper develops a heuristic encompassing four dimensions along which food policy outputs may differ: (i) policy scope, (ii) targeting of policy efforts, (iii) type of policy instruments applied and how these are calibrated, and (iv) integration of the various components of the policy complex. These four dimensions can be applied to characterise individual food policies and compare across countries and time. Comparing and tracking the development of food policy along these dimensions would allow for addressing follow-up questions about impacts and what explains policy change.

Pitfalls in comparing Paris pledges

The Paris pledges are unique documents in climate governance that outline what each country intends to do to combat climate change. Often, these documents contain headline greenhouse gas percentage reduction targets that appear to summarize countries’ contributions to mitigation. This is a boon for comparative climate policy research. However, I show in this paper that the Paris pledges require detailed interpretation to be comparable. I demonstrate the risks in comparing these targets by re-visiting a recent studying linking national public opinion to the stringency of countries’ mitigation goals. I develop new indicators that better account for the structure of the targets and show in replications that the original finding is inconsistent with the underlying data. I conclude by drawing lessons for studying the Paris pledges.

The Use of Hypothetical Household Data for Policy Learning: Comparative Tax‒Benefit Indicators Using EUROMOD HHoT

Tax‒benefit microsimulation models are typically used to quantify the effect of specific policy changes on the income distribution based on representative microdata. Such analysis evaluates policies by considering how different tax‒benefit elements interact given personal, household and labour market characteristics. Using hypothetical household data instead helps address broader questions of policy design and systemic (cross-national) differences. This article introduces the Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT) in combination with the microsimulation model EUROMOD to analyse European tax‒benefit policies from a comparative perspective. It presents a series of applications from social welfare analysis illustrating how hypothetical data can benefit comparative academic and policy research.

Moving landscapes of Nordic basic education: approaching shifting international influences through the narratives of educational experts

ABSTRACT Throughout history educational leaders have looked to other countries and have attempted to learn by borrowing useful examples to implement in their own educational systems. As recent comparative policy research shows, processes of policy lending and borrowing have their own socio-historically defined dynamics. In this paper, the authors approach the use of reference countries through narratives of educational experts in Finland, Norway and Sweden. By comparing how international influences are used in stories about basic education, this research constructs a core narrative of a moving Nordic landscape. This landscape indicates both recognised and acknowledged policy borrowing relations in the past, as well as a changing orientation to preferred and avoided reference countries in the present. While new country-specific performance indicators such as PISA have widened the landscape of reference countries at an official level, culturally mediated images seem to redefine how reference countries are observed in everyday semantics.

Two worlds, too apart to converge? A comparison of social regulation policies aimed at the employment of disabled people in Norway and India

The purpose of this article is to compare for the first time social regulation policies aimed to influence the employment of disabled people for Norway and India. This article situates the social regulation policy reforms and compare them to chart convergence within the policy goals and content for these two very different countries. The article relies on evidence from secondary sources, such as legislations, country reports and policy dossiers since early 1990s. The taxonomy of regulations, economic means and information strategies, popularly understood as “sticks, carrots and sermons” grounded in institutional theory, is employed to systematically analyse and present the similarities within social regulation policies. “The most instructive comparisons (…) are those that surprise” and through documentary analysis this article demonstrates that there is a surprisingly high degree of convergence concerning the social regulation policy goals and content for Norway and India. This article expands the boundaries of the still emerging field of comparative disability policy research and will help policy makers to understand the social regulation policy options in a cross-national perspective. The research findings reveal the need to uncover driving forces putting these countries on the path of policy convergence.

The Uneven Foci of Work Disability Research Across Cause-based and Comprehensive Social Security Systems.

This scoping review identified what kinds of work disability policy issues are critiqued in articles published in countries with cause-based versus comprehensive welfare systems. Drawing on a review of work disability policy research, we identified 74 English-language, peer-reviewed articles that focused on program adequacy and design. Articles on cause-based systems dwelled on system fairness and policies of proof of entitlement, while those on comprehensive systems focused more on system design complexities relating to worker inclusion and scope of medical certificates. Overall, we observed a clear difference in the nature of problems examined in the different systems. Gaps in work disability policy literature are identified, and challenges for comparative policy research are discussed.

Deconstructing comparative sport policy analysis: assumptions, challenges, and new directions

ABSTRACTDespite progress within comparative sport policy analysis over the past two decades and advancements within the broader comparative sociology literature, comparative analysis within sport policy/management remains limited and challenging. Furthermore, there is a dearth of literature that explicitly addresses the philosophical, methodological, and practical challenges of comparing sporting nations. We address this shortcoming by developing a framework to interrogate the philosophical assumptions and methodological approaches of comparing sporting nations. In doing so, we review the current state of comparative sport policy research and elaborate on the challenges and limitations of conducting comparative sport policy analysis. Thus, we seek to deconstruct the theory and method of comparative sport policy research by exploring its underlying assumptions and challenges. Ultimately, our broader intention is to reengage and reinvigorate scholarly debate surrounding the philosophical and methodological approaches of comparing sporting nations.