Policy Competence Research Articles

Ministerial advisers between political change and institutional legacy: The case of Italy

A widespread strategy to enhance political control over permanent bureaucracy consists of the politicization of personnel policy through the appointment of ministerial advisers. This study sets out to investigate the appointment of ministerial advisers from an historical institutionalist perspective emphasizing the influence of institutional legacies on current empirical patterns. Drawing on this perspective, it identifies three patterns of institutional stability, radical, and gradual change in terms of ministerial advisers’ policy competence and political loyalty, which guide the empirical analysis. Empirical patterns are illustrated with data collected in Italy, based on an analysis of a combination of career pathways and expert interviews. The Italian case is noteworthy since it experienced an abrupt party system breakdown in the early 1990s. Yet, the empirical analysis reveals that the massive re-alignment of the party system has not implied a pattern of radical change in Italy. The legacy of stable administrative structures has only left room for gradual change to occur on the dimensions of ministerial advisers’ policy competence and political loyalty.

Regionalization of housing policies? An exploratory study of Andalusia, Catalonia and the Basque Country

The Spanish home ownership sector has been hit hard by the economic crisis. Repossessions stand at around half a million in the period from 2008 to 2014. This article investigates how the authorities, both at the level of the Spanish state and of the autonomous communities (regions), have responded to this problem. We investigated whether they assist troubled home owners and aim to design a less risky housing system, with more (social) rental housing. Our research in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Andalusia shows that Autonomous Communities are playing an increasingly important role in this matter. This finding fits well with theories on the formation of regional varieties of welfare, which indicate that flaws of the central governments in providing social welfare, are increasingly addressed by regions. The Basque Country seems to be on the way of designing the most comprehensive system of housing policies of the three regions, including a strong Right to Housing. All three regions regard the mobilisation of the large vacant dwelling stock as an important means to provide more affordable rental housing. However, the owners are often unwilling and the three regions have proposed drastic measures, such as fines and even temporary expropriations. The central government resists such measures, because they might interfere with the proper working of the country’s financial system. It shows that certain policy competences can never be totally isolated from other policy fields and multi-level distribution of competences makes it all the more complex.

Other identities in ethnofederations: women’s and sexual minorities’ advocacy in Belgium

ABSTRACTThis article considers the experience of the impact of ethnofederations on social identities that cut across such an ethnic divide. Based on a series of in-depth interviews focusing on the structure and operation of women’s and lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender movement organizations in Belgium, we demonstrate that these groups experience constraints of the dominant ethno-linguistic identity. These results in a ‘federalism disadvantage’ for identities cross-cutting the ethnic divide, the result of which is a neglect of policy competencies situated at the federal level.

Pengaruh Entrepreneurial Marketing dan Kebijakan Pemerintah terhadap Daya Saing Industri Alas Kaki di Bogor

<p><em>Entrepreneurial marketing is the suitable approach in terms of resource constraints and problems that exist in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Footwear industry is a sector of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) that is supported by the government of Bogor. Problems of development of footwear industry are divided into two main factors: the competence of SMEs and local government policy. Based on these problems, this study aims to (1) Identify the characteristics of entrepreneurs, business characteristics and linkages both of them, (2) Identify and analyze the ability of entrepreneurial marketing, implementation of government policies and the ability of the competitiveness of small industrial footwear in Bogor, and (3) Identify and analyze the influence of entrepreneurial marketing and government policies on the competitiveness of the footwear industry in Bogor. Sample selection is done by purposive cluster sampling method. The samples in this study were 100 small business owners. This study employs three data analysis: descriptive analysis, index transformation analysis, and analysis of structural equation modeling (SEM) with partial least square (PLS). Characteristics of footwear SME owners in Bogor is included the low-educated group. However, they have excellent expertise in the producing of footwear. Characteristics of footwear enterprises in Bogor, is categorized as the long standing and major businesses. Based on the analysis of SEM with PLS approach, it is known that the entrepreneurial marketing variables have a positive impact on the competitiveness of small industrial footwear in Bogor, while the government policies variables have an indirect effect on competitiveness through entrepreneurial marketing variables.</em></p><p><em>Keyword: entrepreneurial marketing, competitiveness, SMEs, footwear industry, PLS</em></p>

Explaining child rights mainstreaming in EU external policy

This article examines and explains child rights mainstreaming in European Union (EU) external affairs. It provides a within-case comparison of how children’s rights have been mainstreamed in development aid, common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and external trade policy. While most mainstreaming research have studied mainstreaming as a process of norm socialization, this article draws on hypotheses concerning bureaucratic self-interest that have thus far not been tested in the EU mainstreaming literature. The article finds support for rational functionalist assumptions that actor preferences, external policy competences and resource exchanges between EU institutions and child rights organizations together help explain variations in child rights mainstreaming across sectors and over time. Rationalist functionalism is found useful in explaining under which conditions at sector level mainstreaming is likely to succeed or fail.

An integrative review of pursing policy and political competence.

For several decades, there have been repeated calls for nurses to become more involved in policy and political processes. The purpose of this article is to conduct an integrative review to identify and assess the current state of the science relating to supporting the pursuit of greater involvement by the nursing profession in policy and political processes. Standard integrative review procedures were used to identify studies that examined how policy competence could be achieved. A comparative thematic approach to synthesis was used. Both published and grey literature written in English between January 1965 and January 2015 were identified via a structured search of CINAHL, SCOPUS, Science Direct and Google Scholar. Forty-five primary studies were identified with literature from North America dominating, but contributions from low- and middle-income countries have recently started to feature. Studies tended to focus on the immediate impact of didactic and action learning-based approaches. The majority of articles were descriptive survey designs utilizing small convenience samples. Many programmes of education have focused on developing an understanding of legislative policy and political processes, but the development of policy and political competencies at team and institutional levels has been ignored. Existing research have looked at the short-term effects of educational programmes. At this time, there are conflicting reports on the impact of variables such as gender and educational preparation on policy and political competence. There is an urgent need to address these major gaps if nurses at all levels are to play a full role in shaping policy and political process.

A Federalist New Deal for a More Perfect European Union

The European Crisis is a crisis of the legal framework of European legislation. The post-crisis regulation is executive-ridden, it weaks the stakeholder of a transnational democratic governance, the European Parliament. This horizontal shift of powers can be traced back to our comprehension of the E.U.’s federalist framework with its asymmetry between a centralized monetary and a decentralized economic, fiscal and social policy. As the E.U. is supposed to lack economic, fiscal, and social policy competences, it oversights the relevant policies of the Member States rather than shaping its own policy in accordance with the democratic rules in the Treaties. Taking up the debates on U. S. Federalism, this Article argues for A Federalist New Deal which departs from the idea that the E.U. and its Member States occupy separate worlds of governance with exclusive legal competences. The core element of the Federalist New Deal is a cooperative federalism that is legally safeguarded by a substantive judicial control rather than a formalistic division into mutually exclusive spheres and politically safeguarded by the national parliaments.

The Ecb's Powers and Institutional Role in the Financial Crisis

In the Gauweiler decision the Court of Justice of the European Union has confirmed that the European Central Bank's (ECB) non-conventional measures fall within its monetary policy competence, fulfil the proportionality requirement and contain safeguards ensuring that the monetary financing prohibition is not infringed, fully legitimizing the ECB's crisis management measures. The ECB enjoys broad discretion: the existence of different opinions in these controversial questions does not put in doubt the legality of the decision taken after careful and accurate analyses by the Governing Council says the Court, supporting the ECB's search for new measures to tackle the still critical economic situation. Risk taking is an inherent part of monetary policy and it is for the ECB to assess how much risk can be accepted (and how best to share this risk within the Eurosystem). Finally, subjecting press releases to the Court of Justice's interpretation might impact on the scope of ECB press releases, balancing the two conflicting interests of increasing transparency and limiting liability.

Social Security Regulation in the EU: The De-Territorialisation of Welfare

Although the European Union (EU) has not formally been assigned welfare policy competence, it has for decades regulated social benefits between the Member States. The social rights and obligations of the European migrant have for long been safeguarded by the EU, and the mutual responsibility for welfare undertaken by the Member States of the Union constitutes an extraordinary piece of ‘Social Europe’. This chapter examines the integration of national social security schemes that has taken place in the European Union through Community Regulation 1408/71, which has recently been substantially reformed with the adoption of Regulation 883/2004. The chapter seeks to demonstrate that a dimension of European social security has for long been a material fact, patched up by judicial activism and political compromises. A more general description will be drawn of how intra-European welfare has been extended to all citizens of the Union in parallel with the extension of the free movement principle to persons. The focus of the chapter is, however, on the question of exportable welfare between Member States; it describes how the tension between the Community principle of exportability and national principles of territoriality has over time intensified, been reconciled, and reappeared.

Teacher, Researcher and … Policy Actor? Social Work Academics’ Involvement in Social Policy

AbstractThis cross‐sectional quantitative study expands the knowledge on the level of involvement of social work academics (SWAs) in social policy formulation processes, and the factors associated with this. SWAs are an interesting case for exploring the academia–policy nexus because they are affiliated with a profession in which the discourse regards social policy as a target of intervention. The study took place in Israel, where social work is strongly embedded in academia and enjoys relatively high professional status. The study drew upon a sample, which consisted of 57 per cent of all SWAs in Israel, and employed questionnaires developed specifically for the study. The findings show that the highest levels of involvement were in activities characterized by more active, public sphere routes of influence within the policy arena that were undertaken in conjunction with traditional social work partners. Social work scholars engaged in these activities more during the initial stages of the policy process. These forms of policy involvement reflect the dual impact of academia and the social work profession upon SWAs. Associated with level of involvement were individual factors, which included academic rank, perception of the social role of academia, perceived individual policy role, and perceived policy competencies. By contrast, factors linked to institutional support for policy engagement were not found to be associated with policy involvement.

Dynamics of Policy Networks. The Case of Organic Farming Policy in the Czech Republic

To better understand the potential for successful and long-term establishment of environmental policy, the aim of this paper is to explore the network dynamics of a policy field that has become well established in the EU: organic farming. We look at the dynamics of the organic farming policy network in the Czech Republic over a period of 10 years by applying a comparative formal network analysis. We focused in particular on the distribution of power between actors and how capacities of policy actors have evolved between 2004 (its year of accession to the EU) and 2014. We conclude that the organic farming policy network in the Czech Republic has been highly dynamic and has changed from one that was decidedly influenced by organic sector organizations to a network centralized around the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the organic farming organization managed to maintain its good reputation for competence in organic farming policy, which creates opportunities for the organization to remain active in the policy debate.

Modeling the Impacts of Tides and the Virtual Arrival Policy in Berth Allocation

To quantify the impacts of tides on seaside operations in container ports, this study reformulates the berth allocation problem by modeling their impacts on the entrance/exit of vessels into/from ports. Furthermore, to mitigate the tidal impacts, we borrow the so-called virtual arrival policy, whose potential for reducing bunker fuel consumption and vessel emissions is widely recognized by the shipping industry, and accordingly retrofit the berth allocation model. In the latter model, the state-of-the-art technique of second-order cone programming is adopted to handle the nonlinear intractability involved. We conduct extensive numerical experiments to evaluate the impacts of tides on the seaside operations in a tidal container port, and also to verify the competence of the virtual arrival policy in delivering win–win economic and environmental benefits for both the port and shipping lines. It is also intriguing to observe that the virtual arrival policy would be an applicable substitute for the costly approach of deepening the navigation channel in a tidal port.

A qualitative study of an international social work course in Germany: Using the EPAS core competencies and practice behaviors as the coding scheme

This article discusses the methodology and findings of a qualitative study on the impact of an international social work course in Germany on four American undergraduate social work students. These students participated in a 2-week study abroad experience at a host university located near Berlin in what was formerly East Germany. The authors examined how the 10 core Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) competencies and their associated professional behaviors of the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards were exhibited in the students’ journals. This was done by having two independent coders review the journals and code the professional behaviors exhibited. Summative data were tabulated on the basis of frequencies of each respective professional behavior included in the study. Results were reported and implications discussed.

Seeing Clearly: Measuring Skill Sets That Address the “Blurred Boundaries” of Nonprofit Management Education

This article offers advice to programs that seek to emphasize the nonprofit management skill sets necessary for working across the increasingly blurred boundaries of public service delivery. Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Master of Public Policy (MPP) programs embracing the key role of nonprofits may benefit from adding a competency related to nonprofit skills to their core program competencies. We propose a list of key nonprofit skills that could be integrated into MPA/MPP program curricula, and describe an approach for how these skills could be incorporated into program-level learning and assessment plans. This could be accomplished by adding a new nonprofit competency to the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) core competencies, by incorporating the key nonprofit skills into assessments of student learning in nonprofit courses, or by including such skills in the program’s required core courses for assessment of student learning outcomes.

Policy capacity: A conceptual framework for understanding policy competences and capabilities

Although policy capacity is among the most fundamental concepts in public policy, there is considerable disagreement over its definition and very few systematic efforts try to operationalize and measure it. This article presents a conceptual framework for analysing and measuring policy capacity under which policy capacity refers to the competencies and capabilities important to policy-making. Competences are categorized into three general types of skills essential for policy success—analytical, operational and political—while policy capabilities are assessed at the individual, organizational and system resource levels. Policy failures often result from imbalanced attention to these nine different components of policy capacity and the conceptual framework presented in the paper provides a diagnostic tool to identify such capacity gaps. It offers critical insights into strategies able to overcome such gaps in professional behaviour, organizational and managerial activities, and the policy systems involved in policy-making.

Tecnici al governo e governi tecnici: alcune riflessioni comparative sull'Italia

The article discusses the role of technocrats in contemporary western democracies. Although Italy is one of few cases with recurrent experiences of fully technocratic governments, the role of technocrats has increased in all European democracies, in particular in Eurozone countries. Europeanization and monetary integration have led to a decline of traditional party governments due to their inability to deal with the complex issues of transnational and supranational interdependency. In a regular democracy, a party government cannot be substituted by a technocratic one, yet the former is no longer able to act effectively without the support of technocratic personnel (particularly in economic ministries). An appropriate combination of technocratic policy competence and political capacity to generate consent is far from having been achieved.

The Oregon Public Health Policy Institute: Building Competencies for Public Health Practice.

The Oregon Public Health Policy Institute (PHPI) was designed to enhance public health policy competencies among state and local health department staff. The Oregon Health Authority funded the College of Public Health and Human Sciences at Oregon State University to develop the PHPI curriculum in 2012 and offer it to participants from 4 state public health programs and 5 local health departments in 2013. The curriculum interspersed short instructional sessions on policy development, implementation, and evaluation with longer hands-on team exercises in which participants applied these skills to policy topics their teams had selected. Panel discussions provided insights from legislators and senior Oregon health experts. Participants reported statistically significant increases in public health policy competencies and high satisfaction with PHPI overall.

Going 'Belt and Braces': Domestic Effects of Euro-Crisis Law

This paper considers the effect of the recent EU measures relating to strengthened economic governance both at the EU level and the level of national (constitutional) law. We first explain the scope of EU competence in economic policy and its effects on Member State competence. We will then examine how this competence has been exercised during the past few years, in particular from the point of view of the domestic effects of the six-pack and two-pack, which constitute the ‘Belt’ needed to maintain stability in the euro area and thus hold the ‘trousers’ (economic policy decision-making) up. We then turn to the Fiscal Compact and the budgetary framework directive and their effects at national level, constituting the ‘Braces’ intended to ensure healthy national budgetary policies. The relevant question remains to be whether the current 'belt and braces' rules are the appropriate approach for preventing new crises. There are both legal and political reasons for reconsidering some of the solutions made during the crisis. Maybe the trousers are just too loose?

The Stamina of the Bosman Legacy

The article argues that athletes' right to take decisions from sports governing bodies and specialized sporting bodies to court for judicial review and redress is a cornerstone of the ‘Bosnian legacy’ which can be said to have been produced by the CJEU (then ECJ) Bosnian ruling. The article makes an empirically grounded assessment of this legacy by drawing on the four contributions made by the EU to the revision of the World Anti-Doping Code (WADC) 2009 (2011–2013) to show how the EU used this opportunity to defend athletes' right to challenge sporting decisions in court, and how the new post-Lisbon sports policy competence granted in Article 165 TFEU (a merely supporting and coordinating competence) has been used in this regard.

Conflict of Law Rules in Company Law after Überseering : An Economic and Comparative Analysis of the Allocation of Policy Competence in the European Union

Starting from the latest decision of the European Court of Justice on the freedom of establishment for companies that are active in the European single market, this article develops an economic and comparative framework to answer the question which level (federal or national) should have competence to decide conflict of law rules for companies operating in the entire single market.