Form Of Policy Analysis Research Articles

The use of alternatives assessment in chemicals management policies: Needs for greater impact.

Alternatives assessment is a methodology used to identify, evaluate, and compare potential chemical and nonchemical solutions with a substance of concern. It is required in several chemicals management regulatory frameworks, with the objective of supporting the transition to safer chemistry and avoiding regrettable substitutions. Using expert input from symposium presentations and a discussion group hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Alternatives Assessment, four case examples of the use of alternatives assessment in regulatory frameworks were evaluated and compared: (1) the US Environmental Protection Agency Significant New Alternatives Policy (USEPA SNAP), (2) authorization provisions in the EU REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals) regulation, (3) the California (CA) Safer Consumer Products (SCP) Program, and (4) the Safer Products for Washington (WA) Program. Factors such as the purpose of the alternatives assessment, the timeline of actions, who completes the assessment, the role of stakeholder engagement, and the regulatory response options for each policy are outlined. Through these presentations and expert discussions, four lessons learned about the use of alternatives assessments in regulatory policy emerged: (1) the goal and purpose of the regulatory framework significantly affects its ability to result in safer substitution, (2) existing frameworks struggle with data access and insufficient stakeholder engagement, (3) some frameworks lack clear decision rules regarding what is a safer and feasible alternative, and (4) regulatory response options provide limited authority for enforcement and do not adequately address options where alternatives are unavailable or limited. Five recommendations address these lessons as well as how the application of alternatives assessment in regulatory settings could have greater impact in the future. This synthesis is not meant to be a comprehensive policy analysis, but rather an assessment based on the perspectives from experts in the field, which should be supplemented by formal policy analysis as policies are implemented over time. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2024;20:1035-1045. © 2023 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC).

Policy Studies Yearbook Annual Review 2022–23: Note from the editor and call for papers

<i>Policy Studies Yearbook Annual Review</i> 2022–23: Note from the editor and call for papers

Studying Problematizations: The Value of Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) Methodology for IR

Critical approaches to IR have often been criticized for lacking methodological rigour. Especially, authors informed by the works of Michel Foucault have faced challenges to justify their methodology, given that Foucault did not provide scholars with a methodological blueprint. This article argues that Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach provides a robust critical methodology for policy analysis. WPR is a method that facilitates the critical examination of public policies to analyse ‘how the “problem” is represented within them and to subject this problem representation to critical scrutiny’ (Bacchi, 2012b). This way of questioning differs from other forms of policy analysis in that it shifts the focus of analysis from policy as a ‘problem-solving’ exercise towards seeing policy as an act which is constructive of ‘problems’. Policies are therefore not analysed from a problem-solving perspective, but from a problem-questioning perspective. By making the ‘problem’ itself the focus of analysis, it becomes possible to uncover the political, epistemological and historical contexts which are constitutive of the problem representation. I demonstrate the value of this approach by subjecting the Cure Violence Global NGO to a WPR analysis.

Economic tradeoff between domestic well impact and reduced agricultural production with groundwater drought management: Tulare County, California (USA), case study

Formal policy analysis can aid resource management where groundwater is used intensively. Approaches for developing equitable and effective pumping allocations for drought are evaluated in the context of the 2012–2016 drought in Tulare County, California, USA. Potential economic impacts of policy alternatives on two user groups with conflicting interests are considered. Tradeoffs between losses of agricultural profit and response costs for domestic wells that run dry are estimated for various maximum groundwater depth policies. A welfare maximizing approach for identifying policies that limit depth to groundwater is evaluated and found to be ineffective because agricultural opportunity costs are much larger than domestic well costs. Adding a fee for additional drought groundwater pumping is proposed as a more impactful and balanced management policy approach. For the case study presented, a fee range of $300 to $600/acre-foot ($300–$600/1,233 m3) yielded an effective groundwater management policy for reducing domestic well impacts from drought and balancing agricultural impacts of drought with the need to replenish additional drought pumping in wetter years. Recent management policies enacted in the study area agree with this finding. These results may provide a useful perspective for analytically examining and developing groundwater management policies near the study area and elsewhere.

THE REVITALIZATION MODEL OF WAN ABDURRAHMAN FOREST PARK AS A COMMUNAL FORESTRY CONSERVATION AREA

Purpose of study: This study aimed to develop a model of social planning and legal perspectives on forest park revitalization program. Which in this study forest park that will be examined is Abdurahman Wan forest park in Lampung province, Indonesia as communal-based nature conservation programs are guided by the principles of participation, utilization, harmonization, and sustainability?&#x0D; Methodology: This study is a qualitative study using juridical and sociological perspectives by evaluating and comparing the Top-down and Bottom-up plans that have been done before. The SWOT analysis has been done for analyzing the data.&#x0D; Result: The results of the study show that the "Top-down Planning" that has been done so far is not sufficient. This is because the legislature is not only limited to a basic concept but must also play a role in developing all strategic arrangements. Therefore, in this case, the government is not merely a member of parliament but oversees the course of the program. Also, the community must have broad access to fight for its communal values. In short, the study found that the "Bottom-Up Planning" model was more suitable for implementation because through this approach the community could participate and exchange ideas together in all policies.&#x0D; Implications: This research is very useful for stakeholders because it can provide academic illustrations in the form of policy analysis and is able to force public participation and ensure that all policies are shared values ​​and collaborative in nature that provide so many assets related to the form of public policy in implementing activities in the park communal forest.&#x0D; Applications of this study: This research can be used for the universities, managers, and policymakers.&#x0D; Novelty/Originality of this study: In this research, the model of forest park conservation programs using communal-based based on participation, utilization, harmonization, and sustainability.

Inside the behavioural state

A ‘Behavioural Insights’ movement has entered the global policy scene. Drawing from the behavioural sciences, this movement has been pushing novel forms of policy analysis and design, particularly promoting the use of ‘nudges’ and field experiments. Despite Behavioural Insights’ apparent popularity, its contribution to state and society has been appraised divergently. Some see a promise of radical evidence-based government, others a looming manipulative technocracy, and again others a trivial fad. In light of the puzzle posed by these clashing appraisals, this study has explored Behavioural Insights from up close. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Dutch government, it asks what Behavioural Insights experts actually do, how they are professionalizing and how they ‘see’. The result is a rich account of the emerging ‘behavioural state’, with a sharper understanding of its varieties, tensions and ambiguities.

Studying democratic innovations: toward a problem-driven approach to case study research

ABSTRACTHajer and Wagenaar (2003. Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xiv, 16) advanced a conception of policy analysis – “Deliberative Policy Analysis” – that “rests on three pillars: interpretation, practice and deliberation.” This form of policy analysis, they argued, supports “more direct, participatory forms of democracy” involving “democratic deliberation on concrete issues” (xv, 29). Since their writing, empirical research on such initiatives – “democratic innovations,” for short – has blossomed. However, while deliberative policy analysis is itself post-positivist in orientation, many researchers bring a (quasi-) positivist orientation to their work on democratic innovations. A key challenge for deliberative policy analysts is, then, how to participate in this field of inquiry while maintaining a post-positivist orientation. Pragmatist philosophy, I submit, can help them to meet this challenge. Pragmatism rejects a number of positivist assumptions about the nature of empirical inquiry. Relatedly, it supports the claim that policy analysis should be interpretive, practice-oriented, and deliberative. Indeed, it suggests that policy analysis cannot avoid being so. By way of illustration, I indicate how pragmatism points to an approach to case study research that rests on the three pillars.

The use of indicators in environmental policy appraisal: lessons from the design and evolution of water security policy measures

ABSTRACTDrawing up environmental policy options is a complex activity which involves defining and weighing the merits and risks of various alternative courses of action governments could pursue. In its modern version, this task typically involves formal policy analysis or ‘policy appraisal’, that is, policy work specifically undertaken to generate and evaluate policy options in order to address problems or issues on a policy agenda. Indicators play a powerful but under-investigated role in this process. To shed light on this issue, the paper conducts a case study of the design and evolution of policy indicators in water security policy formulation, examining both their utilization and impact. The paper documents the origins of water security policy indicators; assesses their relevance and influence in policy formulation and identifies the reasons for the emergence of certain preferred indices, despite their having several well-known limitations. In particular, the discussion flags the significance of the political advantages surrounding their ease of use and interpretation, rather than their technical merits, as a key factor affecting the continued utilization and influence of specific indicators in environmental policy and planning.

Deliberative Policy Analysis and Policy-making in Urban Stormwater Management

The Philadelphia Water Department is the first US water utility to propose a ‘green stormwater infrastructure’ (GSI) approach to managing urban stormwater. Given that many actors individually make decisions regarding the surface texture of urban watersheds, planning and installing an urban-scale GSI programme is both complex and uncertain. Whether and how water utility officials interact with watershed stakeholders introduces important questions about methodologies for participation, both in the policy process and the analysis thereof. We critically examine a participatory process employed in a Philadelphia neighbourhood in terms of Deliberative Policy Analysis (DPA). Informed by interpretive methodology, our analysis is two-fold: (1) we examine the potential as well as the challenges of using DPA in the analysis and practice of policy-making and, at the same time, (2) we consider the use of DPA under adverse circumstances, including extreme inequality and distrust. We outline some ways in which DPA is better suited than more traditional forms of policy analysis to address the complexity and uncertainty inherent in environmental issues as well as some ways in which DPA is particularly challenging. We heed a call for a reorientation of policy analysis that brings empirical and normative inquiry into closer interaction.

Pointing Towards Policy Success?: Water Policy Indicators in Practice

Drawing up policy options is a complex activity which involves defining and weighing the merits and risks of various alternatives. In its modern version, this usually involves formal policy analysis or “policy appraisal”; that is, policy work specifically undertaken to generate and evaluate policy options or alternative course of actions to address problems or issues on a policy agenda. Indicators have been demonstrated to have powerful influence on policies and societies in general. In this light, the current research aims to conduct a case study of the role of policy indicators in water policy formulation with the end in view of determining their utilization and impact. The paper document the level and type of actual use of water policy indicator; assesses the relevance of the use and influence of indicators in policy formulation and identifies issues surrounding the use of indicators in policy formulation. In particular, it looks into the role of various water policy indicators such as water poverty index, water scarcity index, index of drinking water adequacy, Falkenmark indicator, and water footprint, among others. The research addresses whether indicators influence policy formulation in this sector, how they do so and under which circumstances.

Recovery in mental health policy: good strategy or bad rhetoric?

This article explores current positions on ‘recovery’ in Scottish mental health policy and the practical limitations of these positions from a rhetorical perspective. It is not our intention to conduct a formal policy analysis but rather to open up an argumentative space for thinking critically about recovery. In adopting a rhetorical perspective, we are concerned not with the quality of evidence in support of recovery per se, but with the quality of the arguments and the manner in which these have been produced, reproduced and promulgated to support recovery in terms of its adoption in policy and practice within the Scottish context. We sketch the background to the ‘case for’ recovery in Scotland by drawing upon key policy documents, referring to the public mental health focus in Scotland's mental health policy, and indicate how policy and practice on recovery have been evaluated in that context. We then explore the value of critical dialogue by exploring the potential limitations of the case for recovery by considering hope and the medical model as examples of themes in recovery policy and practice. In light of this analysis, we argue that while the policy and its implementation might be understood as a good strategy for addressing major issues in mental health, it is bad rhetoric to the extent that it limits argument, and therefore practical deliberation, about recovery. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of our argument for mental health practitioners, for whom a critical stance on health policy is a necessary resource.

Re-Visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

Over thirty-years ago Meltsner (1976) observed in the case of the U.S. that analysts undertook a number of roles in the policy-making process, most of which did not involve neutral technical information processing. Contrary to the picture of carefully-recruited analysts trained in policy schools to undertake specific types of micro-economic-inspired policy analysis, investigators have continued to find little evidence of a predominance of ‘technicians’ employed in public policy bureaucracies. Page and Jenkins (2005) and Fleischer (2009) for example provided some empirical evidence that British and German policy-making typically features a group of ‘policy process generalists’ who rarely, if ever, deal with policy matters in the substantive areas in which they were trained and who had, in fact, very little training in formal policy analysis techniques such as cost-benefit analysis or risk assessment. However only very weak and partial, usually anecdotal, information exists on the situation found in most countries (Colebatch and Radin 2006) and taxonomies as a result remain thought-provoking but lacking empirical referents (see for example, Mayer, Bots and van Daalen 2004). This paper draws on a large-scale survey of provincial and territorial policy analysts in Canada to re-examine the duties and nature of professional policy analysts and analysis and reveals a complex and multi-sided set of practices which constitute contemporary policy work.

Health technology assessment in cancer: A personal view from public health

Health technology assessment (HTA) poses three main questions: does it work? at what cost? is it worth it? Since funds for health care are always finite, it will not be possible to provide every form of care that may do some good for some people. Hard choices have to be made. HTA is a form of policy analysis that helps decide what to fund and what not to fund. Tensions arise mainly when a new intervention is clinically effective but not cost-effective, usually because the benefit is small and the cost high.

Agents, Cells, and Cities: New Representational Models for Simulating Multiscale Urban Dynamics

New forms of representation at a fine spatial scale, in which units of space are conceived as cells and populations as individual agents, are currently changing the way we are able to simulate the evolution of cities. In this paper I show how these new approaches are consistent with traditional urban models that have gone before, with the emphasis no longer being on spatial interaction but on development dynamics and local movement. I first introduce ideas about urban simulation based on spatial evolution as reaction and diffusion, showing how problems conceived in terms of cells and/or agents enable new implementations of this generic model. I sketch the rudiments of cellular automata which emphasise rules for development transition, and agent-based models which focus on how individuals respond to environmental attributes encoded in cellular landscapes. I illustrate these exemplars through models of residential location. Three applications are then presented at very different spatial scales: pedestrian movement at the building scale, the evolution of systems of cities at a regional scale, and urban growth at the city scale. I conclude with proposals that formal policy analysis in this domain should always be informed by more than one approach.

“Fix the Law” Project: An Innovation in Students' Learning to Affect Change

Objectives. Create a long-term assignment in a required pharmacy law and ethics course that would help students to learn how to positively affect change while learning about the pharmacy practice regulatory and policy analysis processes. Methods. In groups, students identified a law impacting the practice of pharmacy in need of “fixing,” then they proceeded through a formal policy analysis process to “fix it.” As the course progressed, students turned in consecutive pieces of their projects that corresponded with the steps in the policy analysis process, and were provided with constructive, developmental feedback from the course master. Results. At the end of the quarter, student groups gave a 10-minute presentation about their project to the rest of the class. The 4 projects of highest quality were selected by a panel to be presented by the students at a Washington State Board of Pharmacy meeting. Student projects have led to changes in certain pharmacy laws in Washington State. Implications. This assign...

Welfare Reform as History

Welfare Reform as History Edward D. Berkowitz (bio) Joel F. Handler. The Poverty of Welfare Reform. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ix + 177 pp. Notes and index. $13.00. Visiting St. Louis in August, 1995, President Clinton praised the welfare reform initiatives of the summer before. “I heard all the reasons that people said it wouldn’t work, but a year later I think it’s fair to say that the debate is over. We now know that welfare reform works,” the President asserted. 1 Although Joel Handler wrote his book before the final passage of the welfare reform bill lauded by Bill Clinton, he would nonetheless disagree with the President’s upbeat assessment. In this insightful primer, Handler argues that welfare reform represents an exercise in symbolic politics, complete with myth and ceremony. The myth is that welfare has been reformed; Handler believes that the truth is “for the vast majority of mothers and their families, life will go on much as before, unless dramatic changes take place in America’s labor markets and the larger environment” (p. 112). President Clinton’s visit to St. Louis illustrates the ceremonial nature of welfare reform. In place of any firm evidence of pervasive success, a few, far from typical people, are trotted out on the stage. In this manner, anecdotes masquerade as analysis. Handler’s general approach to welfare reform owes much to the work of David Ellwood. In an influential book that appeared in 1988, Ellwood, then a faculty member at Harvard’s Kennedy School and later an official in the Clinton administration, argued that policy should focus on “making work pay.” People unable to find work that allowed them to support themselves naturally fell back on welfare. If the nation wished to eliminate welfare, then Congress needed to raise the minimum wage, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and assure adequate and affordable supplies of medical and day care. The Clinton administration failed to persuade Congress to do these things. Instead, it fell back on the age-old strategy of blaming the victim. “Majoritarian society affirms its norms by stigmatizing others,” as Handler nicely puts it (p. 148). What distinguishes Handler’s book from those of other liberal commentators, such as Ellwood, is a reliance on history as a form of policy analysis. [End Page 452] Handler disdains much of the empirical social science research that has accompanied welfare reform or, better put, the uses that politicians have made of this research. Evaluations of generations of workfare programs have shown only marginal gains, yet politicians continue to return to workfare as the solution to the welfare program. In a sense, they are immune to the influence of historical precedent. The appeal of workfare is so great that even evidence of its past failure does not deter policymakers from recommending it. Obviously, something larger than program evaluation is at work here. In a broad sense, politicians want to punish welfare recipients for being poor, to assure their constituents that everything possible is being done so that no one in this society gets a free ride or receives an award for immoral behavior. Floating on this ideological appeal, welfare reform drifts along, unconstrained by the empirical evidence that shows, for example, that welfare recipients already work very hard to make ends meet. Welfare reform therefore faces the daunting task of finding jobs for people who already work through mechanisms that have produced little success in the past. Indeed, Handler suggests that nothing much has changed in this regard since the medieval Statute of Artificers and Apprentices. It seems pretty clear to me that, as Handler argues, welfare will remain a persistent problem, despite President Clinton’s satisfaction over its solution. Full employment remains an illusory ideal in most modern societies, and those at the bottom of the labor market will invariably remain hard-pressed. To maintain order in the labor market and in the general society, the state will need to pay subsistence wages to those whom the labor market is unable to absorb, and taxpayers will continue to grumble about money spent for this purpose. That was the case when political economists David Ricardo and Karl Marx wrote about...

Policy decisions on improving science education: A cost‐effectiveness analysis

AbstractA form of policy analysis, cost‐effectiveness analysis, is described and applied to the question of the probable impact of a large number of actions advocated in professional and political circles for improving science education. After identifying the objectives sought, the costs and probable effectiveness of 69 widely advocated interventions were estimated. Because of the highly systemic nature of the situation, analysis of the 69 individual actions was only an intermediate step. Models of the interconnections among these actions were developed based on the research on effective schools and educational change. Clusters of interventions were identified which could be extended to recommendations for policy makers at various levels, e.g., local, state, and federal.

Social Policy and the Dual-Career Family: Bringing the Social Context Into Counseling

Although most counselors who work with dual-career families are not involved in formal policy analysis and development, their clients are inevitably affected by a broad array of social policies. Values analysis is presented as a tool for counselors to explore the impact of policies on the family. We argue that predominant social values—independence of families, minimal government intervention, separation of home and workplace, and the sex-typed division of labor—lead to policies that create dilemmas for dual-career families. We present and illustrate a counseling process that traces dual-career family dilemmas to discrepancies between family values and the values underlying social policies that affect the family. An alternative set of values based on community and human development is presented as a framework for evaluating current social policies and guiding the formulation of new policies.

The Plowden Report Twenty Years on

Abstract This paper considers the membership, terms of reference and assumptions governing the work of the Plowden Committee. It evaluates criticisms made since of its proposals and findings. It relates the Committee's conclusions to possible change models and to forms of policy analysis that might have been used.

Model assessment in the context of policy analysis

Model assessment grew into an industry with the advent of large, complex energy policy models. This paper places model-based analysis in the context of other forms of policy analysis and relates model assessment to the scientific method. Experiences with energy model assessment are described and recommendations for improving the assessment process are presented.