Domestic Policy Process Research Articles

Reliable Contributors? Leadership Turnover, Regime Type, and Commitments to Peacekeeping

Abstract While studies have investigated why states contribute personnel to peacekeeping operations, little consideration has been given to how domestic political factors influence state contributions. We argue that changes in executive power that involve a shift in the domestic source of leadership support cause fluctuations in troop deployments, leading to inconsistent contribution behavior. However, we argue that this effect is attenuated in more democratic states since greater overlaps in the preferences of domestic groups are present and political institutions exist to constrain major policy shifts. Analysis of state troop commitments to UN peacekeeping from 1991 to 2018 supports this argument. This research highlights the often overlooked role of domestic policy processes in peacekeeping contributions while moving beyond considering why some states contribute relatively more personnel to address variation within countries. The findings indicate that while democracies typically contribute fewer peacekeepers, they tend to be more consistent contributors in the face of leadership turnover.

Tempering and enabling ambition: how equity is considered in domestic processes preparing NDCs

The considerations of how Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to global climate action under the Paris Agreement are ambitious and fair, or equitable, is expected to guide countries’ decisions with regards to the ambition and priorities of those contributions. This article investigates the equity aspect of the NDCs of four cases (Canada, the EU, Kenya, and South Africa) utilizing a combination of document analysis and expert interviews. It interrogates both the NDC documents themselves and, uniquely, the role of international and domestic equity considerations within the domestic policy processes that led to the formulation of the NDCs. For this, 30 participants and close observers of these processes were interviewed. We find countervailing effects of equity on ambition, with an enabling, or ambition-enhancing, effect resulting from international equity, in that these four Parties show willingness to do more if others do, too. In contrast, tempering effect appears to result from domestic equity concerns, for example with regards to real, perceived, or anticipated adverse distributional impacts of climate action across regions, sectors, and/or societal strata. Political cultures differ across the four case studies, as do the key actors that influence domestic policies and the preparations of NDCs. This paper also demonstrates that research on equity in NDCs can benefit from expanding its scope from the contents of NDC submissions to also examine the underlying decision-making processes, to generate insights that can contribute to future NDCs being both equitable and ambitious.

Відродження Ісламського Емірату Афганістан в контексті повернення «Талібану» до влади

There were analyzed preconditions of forming radical movement “Taliban”, as well as its returning to power with the aim of revival of Islamic Emirate Afghanistan. It has been defined that today Taliban is recognized as terroristic organization by UNO which formation has been caused not only by domestic policy processes of Afghanistan but by the influence of external actors, in particular Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It has been analyzed the composition of Taliban in the context of its social classes and it defined that the biggest share of Taliban are the representatives of marginal classes of Afghanistan and Pakistan. There was proved, that at the beginning, in 1994 the emergence of Taliban in Afghanistan was kindly perceived by the biggest part of population. The emigrants’ press, which published papers to support Taliban, played the active role in supporting Afghan Taliban. It was defined that later in Afghan society the processes of confrontation and polarization grew and as a result there was the split on two groups by political and ethnic features: anti-Taliban (mainly non-Pashtun) and Taliban (Pashtun). It has been defined that the ideology of Taliban is religious nationalism. The official religion of Taliban is Sunni Islam. Afghanistan was under the control of Taliban till 2001, however the USA with help of North alliance after the situation on 11 September began antiterrorist operation against Taliban and destroyed it. It was defined that in 2021 the USA got the troops out from Afghanistan, what let Taliban to make the revolution and take almost the whole territory of a country under control. It has been proved that modern Taliban uses the religion to have the power in a region as well as to persuade recognition of the global community of it as legal power which has good intentions for saving Islamic traditions and laws of shariah for recovering and peace development of Islamic Emirate Afghanistan. It has been defined that values that Taliban has declared in the Constitution do not correspond to the real situation which is today in Afghanistan: the rights of women to study and work are violated, entertainments are banned in the other words promises and real actions of Taliban today differ.

Populism in the political culture of Turkey: The foreign policy dimension

The paper analyses the phenomenon of populism and its impact on Turkish foreign policy in three dimensions: institutional, instrumental and ideological. The research scrutinizes a wide selection of party manifestos and public speeches of Turkish politicians with primarily focus on Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statements during his incumbency as the prime-minister and the president. The embeddedness of populism in political culture of Turkey provided it with ideological flexibility and made populism almost a universal instrument for engaging with electorate. Starting from Turkey’s transition to multiparty system the majority of political actors have resorted to populism in one or another way. Erdoğan has not only continued this tendency but mastered the populist rhetoric. The character and content of Erdoğan’s populism fluctuated following the changing domestic and international environment. In the 2000s it was hinged on the loose concept of conservative democracy. At the turn of the 2000s and 2010s the dreams for the EU membership gave way to ideas of ‘civilizational expansionism’ which had the concept of Islamic/Ottoman civilization as its core. From the mid-2010s ultra nationalism has come to the forefront of the populist rhetoric. Eventually, the populist binary opposition of ‘us’ and ‘they’ took a definite shape of global confrontation between Turkey as a defender of Islam and the ‘adverse’ West. Populist rhetoric helped Erdoğan to justify his almost two-decades-long incumbency and evade direct responsibility for economic hardships of the 2010s. Populism has become an effective instrument to monopolize the foreign policy in the hands of Erdoğan. Utilizing negative rhetoric against Turkish professional diplomats within the last decade Erdoğan has managed to cement his clout over the foreign-policy making. Institutionally the expansion of populism in the sphere of foreign policy led to its ‘domestication’ and ‘nationalization’ while its impact on the foreign policy discourse manifested itself in the spread of civilizationism. Making both domestic and foreign policy process more personalized Erdoğan has reinforced ‘personal authoritarianism’ at the expense of the state institutions. Thus their decline led to the ‘Erdoğanization of the Turkish politics’. The declarative pursuit of Turkey to get more independent and autonomous position in the international system resulted in the strategy of development with primarily focus on the bilateral relations with different states. Consequently Turkey, previously known as a consistent advocate of regional cooperation and integration, in many respects has become a regionally isolated state.

Human capital, risk and the World Bank’s reintermediation in global development

This article examines an attempt to reconstitute global development governance in a context of growing influence for private finance. We focus on the World Bank’s Human Capital Project (HCP) and Human Capital Index (HCI), which have stated aims of promoting economic growth and accelerating progress towards achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Informed by a review of publicly available World Bank materials, we argue that, through its HCP and HCI, the World Bank is responding to its own institutional sidelining in development financing and governance with a strategy of reintermediation. Its leaders have pursued a system of governance in which the World Bank creates and instrumentalises knowledge on human capital – an asset to be accumulated through judicious investments in markets for self-betterment. Through its HCI the World Bank has expanded its global benchmarking practices, encompassing new domains and quantified predictions of future productivity, in the hope of shaping domestic policy processes. Its leaders propose to use HCI scores to signal risk to investors and political leaders, triggering political shocks that will spur policy reform. Crucially, these efforts seek to reassert the World Bank’s epistemic authority and financing clout as the influence of its own lending wanes. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2021.1953980 .

ЎЗБЕКИСТОННИНГ ЭНГ ЯНГИ ТАРИХИНИ ТУРКИЯДА ЎРГАНИЛИШИ

During the years of independence, the interest in foreign historiography has sharply increased in the context of a global approach to history, the possibility of diversity of opinion, the observance of objectivity.The study of the recent history of Uzbekistan on the basis of foreign historiography allows an objective assessment of historical processes. This article provides a comparative analysisof the socio-political processes of Uzbekistan in the years of independence, achievements in the field of culture and enlightenment, domestic and foreign policy processes in Turkey, research centers, periodicals and provides the necessary scientific conclusions

Trusting relationships, learning bureaucrats: International organizations and early-stage policy diffusion

This article examines the diffusion of the conditional cash transfer (CCT) model to Turkey and Indonesia, and the role of World Bank bureaucrats in these cases of early-stage diffusion. The article finds that learning, and not coercion or emulation, is the primary mechanism of policy diffusion in both cases. This learning was mediated by the World Bank bureaucrats even before the CCT model gained mainstream acceptance inside the World Bank. The findings from these two cases suggest World Bank bureaucrats to be engaging in domestic policy processes not by ‘powering’ but by participating in the national bureaucrats’ ‘puzzling’. The findings also underline the importance of trusting relationships between international and national bureaucrats in these policy processes. More broadly, the article makes the case for conceptualizing international organizations (IOs) as organizations with heterogeneous staff who play more nuanced and contingent roles in policy diffusion processes than is commonly conceived.

The EU and China: policy perceptions of economic cooperation and competition

Both the EU and China agree on the importance of their bilateral economic relationship, but there are differences in how the relationship is perceived. The gap is reflected in statements from officials, policymakers, business leaders and in the media as well as in policy documents from both the EU and China. While trade and investment flows that are central to the economic relationship generally occur through exchanges between economic actors, the state or polities such as the EU remain an important element in the relationship. This paper analyses the perceptions by the EU of China, the EU itself, the relationship between them, and also its wider global context, and the changes which occur in all of these. The analysis of the development of perceptions in the EU is based on official policy documents. In trade and investment policy, such documents may be considered to represent the positions of the EU based on its domestic policy process and its perceptions of the relationship based on an aggregation of interests. The paper argues that these perceptions have changed in significant ways reflecting developments in the EU and China, the relationship between them and its global context, as well as the interests and goals of the EU.

The Influence of Russian Propaganda on the EU’s Interstate Relations With the Eastern European Countries (Case of Poland-Ukraine)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the influence of Russian propaganda on relations between the European Union member states and its eastern neighbors in the case of Poland and Ukraine. The analysis is related to an issue that can be formulated as the following research question: how exactly does propaganda affect domestic and foreign policy processes in countries? A multidisciplinary approach to the study of the impact of political propaganda enabled the use of such methods as: systemic, institutional, structural-functional, content analysis, and descriptive. The article gives definition and main characteristics of the concept of propaganda in political context. Special attention is paid to reasons for the successful use of propaganda by Russia in fanning the conflict in Ukraine, which is presented in the article. The complex of means and methods used in Russia’s information policy to influence Western countries is denoted. The author presents the main narratives of Russian propaganda, and identifies the features of its pressure on interstate relations between Ukraine and Poland by analysing articles in pro-Russian periodicals of Poland and Ukraine. Conclusions are drawn on the need for strong international resistance to Russian propaganda, and to define the shortcomings of the system for countering Russian information aggression in general and propaganda in particular.

Trump’s Trade Revolution

AbstractThe Trump administration has reversed a 70-year consensus and transformed both the substance of trade policy and the postwar role the US has played in its global management. It has also reconfigured the role of the president in the domestic trade policy process. Armed with the power and influence the US amassed during its long run as leader of the post-war liberal world economy, the Trump administration has used trade as its principle coercive weapon in foreign policy. It has achieved some success, albeit at high diplomatic cost and by putting at risk America’s long-standing structural advantages in the world economy. Given that domestic discontent with the liberal world economy has increased significantly, it is likely that the core aspects of Trump’s trade revolution will endure, even if subsequent administrations soften Trump’s provocative execution of it.

The Trump foreign policy record and the concept of transformational change

ABSTRACT While there has been debate about the extent to which US foreign policy has been transformed since President Trump first took office in 2017, the concept of transformational policy change has not been defined with any degree of precision. The purpose of this article is, primarily, to establish such a definition. It does this by drawing upon a number of the literatures that address domestic policy processes, in particular the work of Karl Polanyi, to suggest that transformational change rests upon paradigmatic shifts, the reconfiguration of interests, large scale institutional re-ordering and changed logics. Application of the definition to the Trump foreign policy leads us to conclude that while the Trump foreign policy owes much to the militant internationalism of the Bush years its understanding of nations and “globalism” and abandonment of a defining moral purpose represent, although incipient, partial and variegated, the beginnings of transformational change.

Malaysia’s China Policy and the South China Sea Dispute Under the Najib Administration (2009–2018): A Domestic Policy Process Approach

The past explanations of Malaysia’s policy responses to China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea centered on systemic, economic, and ideational factors. I adopt a different approach by looking into the decision‐making process of Malaysia’s China policy during Najib Razak’s administration (2009–2018). I explain that the China policy decision‐making process under Najib was divided into two channels, one focusing on nonsecurity matters and the other on security matters, with the prime minister seated at the top of the two channels, while there were very little interactions between the two channels. These characteristics could partially explain the nature and outcome of Malaysia’s South China Sea policy posture.

Compliance forces, domestic policy process, and international regulatory standards: Compliance with Basel III

AbstractThis article contributes to our understanding of how and why developing countries would comply with international banking regulatory standards, Basel standards. The article demonstrates the interplay between opportunity structures constituted by transnationalization of public policymaking and domestic institutional setting, and how forces of compliance resonate in the domestic politics of compliance. The empirical findings are based on Turkey's compliance with Basel standards. It relies on fieldwork that involves semi-structured qualitative interviews with senior regulators and bankers, which are complemented with analysis of secondary data. The article shows that a capable and willing regulator could capitalize on the top-down policymaking style which restricts the regulatee's access to international negotiations, and sets the terms at the domestic level. Direct access to international negotiations, resource asymmetry in favor of the regulator, and superior “negotiation knowledge” helped the regulator pacify a critical, skeptical regulatee, and drive the compliance process. The article also shows that the compliance process takes place at three stages: policy formulation at the international level, an “interpretation stage” in between the international and the domestic levels, and finally the domestic policy process.

Compliance Forces, Domestic Policy Process, and International Regulatory Standards: Compliance with Basel III

This article contributes to our understanding of how and why developing countries would comply with international banking regulatory standards, Basel standards. The article demonstrates the interplay between opportunity structures constituted by transnationalization of public policymaking and domestic institutional setting, and how forces of compliance resonate in the domestic politics of compliance. The empirical findings are based on Turkey’s compliance with Basel standards. It relies on fieldwork that involves semi-structured qualitative interviews with senior regulators and bankers, which are complemented with analysis of secondary data. The article shows that a capable and willing regulator could capitalize on the top-down policymaking style which restricts the regulatee’s access to international negotiations, and sets the terms at the domestic level. Direct access to international negotiations, resource asymmetry in favor of the regulator, and superior “negotiation knowledge” helped the regulator pacify a critical, sceptical regulatee, and drive the compliance process. The article also shows that the compliance process takes place at three stages: policy formulation at the international level, an “interpretation stage” in between the international and the domestic levels, and finally the domestic policy process.

Policy transfer in a corporatist context: Agents, adjustments and continued innovation

This article examines a case of collaborative policy transfer from Australia to Sweden involving a three-year project of structured analysis, piloting and system modification. The influential role of agency and the manner in which formal mechanisms established to manage engagement impact upon policy analysis and transfer are explored. The analysis finds that agency mobilised with the supplementation of institutional resources becomes a highly motivating and powerful force underpinning collaborative policy transfer processes. The nuances and challenges of policy transfer from a predominantly neoliberal administrative domain into a characteristically corporatist environment are analysed demonstrating that domestic policy processes are critical for defining avenues for actor participation and the manner through which policy adjustments are progressed. A key finding of the work is that policy transfer is more than the one-way transmission of ideas, systems and practices from one jurisdiction to another but can also act as an iterative process, more evidently linked into each jurisdictions’ domestic policy cycles of problem analysis, action and review. Under collaborative policy transfer the resources and interest from two distinct locations are mobilised around a policy concern and this effectively enhances the level of critical thinking and reflective practice that contributes to problem solving and solution development. The findings of this study confirm that cross-country collaboration and transfer is an increasingly important pathway in the ongoing development of policy reform and innovation.

Social Protection in an Electorally Competitive Environment (1): The Politics of Productive Social Safety Nets (PSSN) in Tanzania

Social protection has become a more important part of social service delivery in Tanzania over the last couple of decades. This paper analyses the politics behind the making and implementation of the Productive Social Safety Nets (PSSN), a cash transfer scheme that became part of a broader, existing scheme aimed at poverty reduction and rural development, TASAF I-III. We trace the interrelationship between the domestic policy process and the shifting influence of transnational ideas. We argue that the introduction of TASAF and later PSSN was strongly influenced by international trends, driven by a policy coalition of bureaucrats and development partners, but that it was sanctioned by the country’s political elites, who at times used the programmes for electoral purposes. This happened for instance by influencing the scale and speed of PSSN’s implementation prior to the national elections in 2015, despite a tradition of scepticism towards cash transfers within the ruling CCM party. Recently, President John Magufuli’s more productivist ethos, emphasising the importance of work, poses a threat to the programmes’ continuation. This may also reduce the targeting of the poorest of the poor, which constitutes a major element of PSSN as we know it.

Information Exchange and Transnational Environmental Problems

This paper analyzes information exchange in a model of transnational pollution control in which countries use private information in independently determining their domestic environmental policies. We show that countries may not always have an incentive to exchange their private information. However, for a sufficiently high degree of predictability of domestic environmental policy processes, the expected welfare from sharing information is greater than the expected welfare from keeping it private. The minimum degree of policy predictability for which information sharing occurs increases with the level of environmental risk. Intuitively, information exchange can help mitigate the perception of global uncertainty (both political and scientific) that surrounds transnational environmental problems and potentially improve welfare if policymaking processes are sufficiently aligned with evidence-based approaches (predictable).

Understanding the motivations behind the Myanmar-China energy pipeline: Multiple streams and energy politics in China

Why exactly did China decide to construct the Myanmar-China energy pipeline? While important for China's long-term energy strategy, very few studies have yet analyzed the project from the standpoint of China's domestic policy process. This paper fills the gap by illuminating the broader historical context and presenting how this pipeline fits into energy politics in China. The policy-making process is fleshed out by using the multiple streams framework (MSF). Analysis of this case using MSF shows that, first, local governments and scholars played a key role in facilitating the project, especially in raising the proposal to the government agenda. Second, a “policy window” remains an important element in China's energy policy decisions, in light of the China-Myanmar pipeline idea was not taken seriously in the 1990s when it was first proposed. Third, although this cross-border energy project is part of a national strategy of energy security, domestic political considerations such as promoting investment in China's underdeveloped southwest were also at work. These conclusions are useful for understanding not only the motivations behind such transboundary pipeline projects but also China's energy decisions at large.

Policy Conditionality, Structural Adjustment and the Domestic Policy System. Conceptual Framework and Research Agenda

Policy conditionality has been a frequently used tool in the context of the Euro zone crisis management. By linking the disbursement of loan installments to specific policy requirements the macro-economic adjustment programmes used conditionality as leverage to promote structural reforms. How does conditionality induce policy change? This central question is examined by considering conditionality as a ‘mega’ policy instrument that seeks to guide the domestic policy system and define its reform trajectory. Policy conditionality thus determines the areas of reform and prescribes their direction while also defining the means and timeframe within which they have to be implemented. Conditionality impacts on domestic governance and transforms the policy making system into a compliance and implementation mechanism. The paper argues that the reform potential of conditionality relies on its interaction with the domestic political system and policy process. A public policy lens can help to better understand the dynamics inherent in this process as well as highlight the strengths and limitations of conditionality. Following the conventional stages of public policy, the contribution focuses on the political challenges involved and sketches out a prospective empirical research agenda.

The Mexican Experience of the NAPAPI Revision Process

In 2007, Mexico, the USA and Canada signed the North America Plan for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (NAPAPI). During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, the plan was implemented for the first time. After the emergency, the three countries decided to review their response, and update the plan. This study analyses the trinational negotiations towards the amended NAPAPI of 2012. More specifically, it focuses on the intergovernmental synergies and intersectoral dynamics in Mexico's domestic policy-making process relevant to the negotiations. The general research questions guiding this analysis were: how do domestic intergovernmental processes and intersectoral dynamics in Mexico affect the crafting of foreign policy? And how does international cooperation affect the domestic public health agenda? The study seeks to answer these questions by examining the H1N1 pandemic, the challenges facing Mexico in the course of the pandemic, and its experience of NAPAPI. It also examines the domestic policy process in Mexico for revising this trinational plan.