Influential Policy Actors Research Articles

RESPONSIVENESS AS A DEFINING PRINCIPLE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN THE MODERN CONDITIONS OF STATE-BUILDING

The article deals with responsiveness as a defining principle of public administration in the modern conditions of state-building in Ukraine. The author emphasizes the need to study responsiveness as a methodological tool for analyzing modern public administration. Responsiveness is defined as receptivity to the opinions, complaints and suggestions of users of management services by introducing and implementing changes in the organizational structure, culture and model of management services. Responsiveness is also the ability of the institutional management system to respond promptly to the challenges of the social environment, to the demands of internal and external influential policy actors. It is proved that the democratization of all processes of public life depends crucially on the effectiveness of the dialogue between the state and society, which is specified primarily as the relationship between people and authorities. This is where the question of whether and to what extent the government hears the voice of the people becomes most acute. The authors identify certain features of the responsiveness of the public administration system in Ukraine in the form of a set of contradictions and problems of social development. The authors emphasize that ensuring the principle of responsiveness requires harmonization of domestic reforms with world and European events and taking into account current global trends. The analysis suggests that responsive governance creates a reservoir of goodwill that is formed through support, and this reservoir facilitates the adoption of difficult and sometimes unpredictable decisions. The reservoir of goodwill creates space for responsible decision-making and constructive cooperation at different levels of government, as citizens who are satisfied with the political system are more likely to accept that government sometimes has to make decisions based on long-term responsibility rather than short-term reactions.

Policy influence and influencers online and off

AbstractSocial media is an important arena for policy contestation. Although online social media debates can yield notable power over political processes offline, little research has examined the relationship between policy actors' influence in offline policymaking and social media policy arenas. We explore the relationship between four types of influence: reputational and formal‐institutional influence offline, and broadcasting and boosting influence online. We ask (1) are influential policy actors better able than others to broadcast their own messages on social media? and (2) are they better able than others to boost the broadcasting influence of other policy actors in social media? Using exponential random graph models on survey and Twitter data from the Finnish climate policy domain, we find that actors with high reputational influence in offline policymaking are also influential online, when measuring influence as the ability to broadcast one's own message. The pattern does not hold for those with formal‐institutional influence offline. Additionally, offline influence does not translate to the ability to further shape online influence by making boosting other actors' visibility. Our results suggest that although online influence partially corresponds to influence in policymaking, influence varies across arenas of policy contestation.

Research-policy engagement activities and research impact: nursing and health science researcher perspectives

Background: Strategies to help researchers use the research evidence they (co)produce to inform policy should be tailored to the context. Yet there is little guidance on research-policy engagement activities in nursing and health sciences disciplines. Aims and objectives: We explored the experiences and perspectives of nursing and health sciences researchers at different career stages, regarding research-policy engagement activities and their impacts on policy. We also explored researchers’ understanding of terminology and theory regarding research-policy engagement. Methods: We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 17 researchers, at various career stages, and conducted content and thematic analysis of the data. Findings: ‘Disseminating and communicating research’, and ‘building professional partnerships’ were the most common types of activity, with senior researchers favouring the latter. Early and mid-career researchers favoured the former, citing the need to build credibility and track record before engaging with policy actors. We identified individual and contextual factors that influence policy impact and researchers’ capacity to engage in such activities. Researchers’ conceptions and understanding regarding evidence-informed policymaking theory and process varied. Terminology also varied, with ‘knowledge translation’ the most common term. Discussion and conclusions: Despite evidence indicating the limited effectiveness of dissemination activities on policy, researchers pursue such efforts, to enable the formation of relationships with influential policy actors and policy impact in the longer term, and because of academia’s drive for research outputs. Researchers would benefit from supportive organisational contexts and greater knowledge of research-policy engagement theory, evidence and practice, through tailored workshops addressing relational and political considerations, as well as structured mentoring.

Philanthropic Foundations and Higher Education: The Politics of Intermediary Organizations

ABSTRACT Intermediary organizations (IOs) are influential policy actors in higher education. Yet, little is known regarding the role of philanthropic foundations in sponsoring IOs for policy promotion. By relying on longitudinal analysis of grants, semi-structured interviews, and social network analysis, this study examined the most central IOs within foundation-sponsored networks, documenting rationales behind this grantmaking strategy. Data included nearly 7,000 grants from 2004 to 2014, representing nearly $3b in postsecondary funding. Results demonstrated that over a decade, the field of higher education philanthropy has shifted, with a decrease in traditional forms of grantmaking and an increase in field-building efforts. Specifically, grants flowing to IOs focused on policy advocacy and completion purposes, or what can be described as a high-leverage approach to educational philanthropy. Furthermore, the most influential voices within philanthropic-sponsored networks were linked to the college completion agenda, a powerful reform movement seeking to increase national degree productivity. By emphasizing philanthropic organizations and their relationships with IOs, this study extends postsecondary policy analysis from a state-centric approach to one that considers non-state actors’ role in policy advocacy and educational reform.

Navigating the politics of evidence-informed policymaking: strategies of influential policy actors in Ontario

Policy studies suggest that evidence-informed policymaking (EIPM) requires framing and persuasion strategies, and an investment of time to form alliances and identify the most important venue. However, this advice is very broad and often too abstract. In-depth case studies help make this advice more concrete. To understand the engagement strategies of influential policy actors, this case study examines the Ontario Poverty Reduction Strategy, a large-scale provincial policy touted as “evidence-based.” The study is based on interviews with elite policy advisors (n = 19) serving in different stages of the policymaking process. It shows that the elite advisors effectively used persuasion tactics, networking and longevity strategies to counteract a volatile political context and competing policy priorities. In light of the findings, this paper provides practical recommendations on how evidence producers can emulate such success in different contexts: understand formal and informal processes, master and exercise political acuity, and strategically establish networks with a diverse group of policy actors in order to effectively frame and communicate evidence.

Tensions in constructions of quality in Australian early childhood education and care policy history

ABSTRACTIn pronouncements of early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy the importance of quality appears as a seemingly irrefutable concept. Yet, attention to ECEC policy history reveals tensions between discourses that construct quality in ways that endure whereas other ways are ostensibly forgotten. Drawing on a Foucauldian-influenced post-structuralist framework this article problematises three prominent discourses – of community, markets and investment – that construct quality in diverse ways across 40 or so years of Australian ECEC policy history. Data are drawn from key government policy documents and interviews with influential policy actors engaged in policymaking circles between 1972 and 2009. Utilising Bacchi’s ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to policy analysis reveals tensions between prominent discourses that identify instances of policy forgetting as important sites for policy learning. The article argues that examinations of policy history provide valuable insights about complex explanations of quality in contemporary ECEC policy.

With|out a Partner. The Idea of Cooperation in Higher Education Discourses

We are guided by ideas - but we do not recognize them. That is why we have to take ideas and discourses seriously for explaining change (Schmidt 2010).Especially in the 'global university system' (Pfeffer 2013) of a world society (refer to Stichweh 2000, Luhmann 1997), analysing the power of ideas may contribute to a better understanding of change in governance patterns. In the case of my research: why is the idea of cooperation of universities so present in the actual German 'Hochschulreformdiskurs' (discourse of university reform) and how does this idea influence the behaviour and the governance of universities?First observations and empirical evaluations reveal the focus of cooperation of most universities characterized by the partnership of science and education with the economy. However, this 'structural coupling' may turn out as a 'false friend' for both sides: Neither the real functions of the systems 'science' and 'education' nor of the 'economy' can be achieved. The thesis assumes that cooperating with actors outside of their functional systems might be perceived as an 'ideological challenge' for universities. Nevertheless this idea of cooperation in the German higher education system is promoted extraordinarily by influential policy actors ('Wissenschaftsrat', 'Stifterverband'), exposing the university actors to a new (economic) behaviour and thus to new elements of governance. The imaginations of the 'entrepreneurial university' are coming true... Based on the discursive institutionalism, the thesis supposes institutional and policy changes of university governance expressed by a 'realignment' - or a new 'reform' - symbolized by the new term 'regional university cluster'. Out of this two main theses are derived: The first these will show that German universities are overwhelmed by the idea of cooperation (as opposed to universities in the US, UK or Switzerland). The second these will combine the standing of universities in national and international rankings with the intensity of regional cooperation. In relation to the 'value' of regions, the second thesis opens a gap within the theory of world society: This global theory is based on a top-down-perspective. Within systems theory the understanding of regions turns out to be not sufficiently elaborated for the research intentions. The theoretical construction of 'regional university clusters' helps to clarify the importance of regions in the theory of world society with an empirically grounded 'bottom-up-perspective'.The dissertation uses the 'Discourse-Network-Analyser' (DNA-Software by Philip Leifeld, 2011) to observe the idea of cooperation in the German 'Hochschulreformdiskurs'. The 'DNA' allows to connect the networks of actors and concepts, representing the idea of cooperation, in an affiliation network. The use of 'DNA' represents an interesting venture because it will be the first application of this method in researches on 'higher education'. It symbolizes the first step and a chance to embed the foci of discursive institutionalism in this research field.The dissertation reinforces the latest scientific developments in relation to discursive institutionalism by focussing regional moments in the German higher education system. It will help to underline and examine the influencing power of ideas and their dynamics to the multi-level governance of knowledge politics and policies.

Conceptualizing the policy work of partisan advisers

A growing corpus of empirical findings suggests that appointed partisan advisers are established and influential policy actors within the executive. Their policy work has long attracted concerted attention with respect to issues of accountability and politicization. Less attention however has been cast to concept and theory building, to link empirical findings with extant policy theory. This article presents careful analysis of the leading conceptual approaches to the study of these policy workers. It offers a critique of these approaches but suggests they share common logic and identify common attributes that can usefully be synthesized into a new framework. A framework is then advanced through the elaboration of four key concepts: buffering, bridging, moving, and shaping to focus on the substantive and procedural nature of partisan advisers’ policy work. Combined with additional criteria, these are used to develop two subsidiary frameworks focusing on partisan advisers’ policy advisory and policy process participation. The study of these actors is argued to not only benefit from improved linkages with policy theory, but that policy theory itself may be improved through focused study of these unique, politically appointed, policy workers.

Policy network mapping of the universal health care reform in Taiwan: an application of social network analysis

Understanding the relationships and dependencies among policy elites in the development and implementation of health care reform is essential to the effective management of reform promotion. This paper examines multiple types of ties between policy elites and power distribution, that have evolved in the crucial policy events of the National Health Insurance’s (NHI’s) financial reforms between 1998 and 2010. Data sources include official documents and 60 social network interviews that were held with government officials and related unofficial policy participants. Degree centrality index and core/periphery model are used to determine the major participants and network structures in the NHI domain, as well as the influential policy actors, based on information transmission and resource exchange relationships in Taiwan’s current political situation. By doing so, this paper aims to illustrate comprehensive power maps in Taiwan’s NHI policy domain and provide recommendations for the NHI’s sustainability governance.

Governing the design of national REDD +: An analysis of the power of agency

This paper investigates how three aspects of governance systems, namely the policy context, the influence of key agents and their discursive practices, are affecting national-level processes of policy design aimed at REDD+, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries; and the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries. We conducted analysis in six REDD+ countries (Brazil, Cameroon, Indonesia, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Vietnam). The paper combines three methods: policy analysis, media-based discourse analysis and policy network analysis. The paper shows that policies both within and outside the forestry sector that support deforestation and forest degradation create path dependencies and entrenched interests that hamper policy change. In addition, most dominant policy coalitions do not challenge business-as-usual trajectories, reinforcing existing policy and political structures. No minority policy coalitions are directly tackling the root causes of deforestation and forest degradation, that is, the politico-economic conditions driving them. Instead they focus on environmental justice issues, such as calls for increased participation of indigenous people in decision-making. Only in two of the six countries are these transformational change coalitions vocal enough to be heard, yet to exercise their agency effectively and to support more substantial reforms, these coalitions would need the participation of more influential policy actors, particularly state agencies that have the authority to make binding decisions about policy. Furthermore, discourses supporting transformational change would need to be reflected in institutional practices and policy decisions.

A network approach for researching political feasibility of healthcare reform: The case of universal healthcare system in Taiwan

This study evaluates the political feasibility of healthcare reform taking place in Taiwan in the past decade. Since Taiwan adopted National Health Insurance (NHI) in 1995, it has provided coverage for virtually all of the island's citizens. However, the imbalance between expenditure and revenue has resulted in a cycle of unsustainable spending which has necessitated financial reforms and political confrontations. By applying social network analysis, this paper examines multiple types of ties between policy elites and power distribution that have evolved in crucial policy events of the NHI's financial reforms between 1998 and 2010. Data sources include official documents and 62 social network interviews that were held with government officials and related unofficial policy participants. Blockmodeling and multidimensional scaling (MDS) are used to determine the major participants and network structures in the NHI domain, as well as the influential policy actors, based on information transmission, resource exchange, reputation attribution and action-set coalition networks in Taiwan's current political situation. The results show that although both public actors and all medical associations are the leading actors in the NHI reform, without good communication with societal actors, the promotion of reform proposals ends in failure. As a tool of political feasibility evaluation, social network analysis can map the political conflict between policy stakeholders systematically when policy makers pursue the result of policy adoption.

Paradox of rural development in Bangladesh

PurposeThis paper is about the dynamics of rural development in Bangladesh. The purpose of this paper is to epitomize the scenario of manipulative design in the presence of three influential policy actors, such as bureaucracy, political leadership and tycoons.Design/methodology/approachPolitical economy approach has been followed, by and large, to epitomize the dimension of exploitation and manipulation at the micro level. Secondary data were used for the purpose. Also, the author used his understanding of the dynamics of rural development.FindingsUnder the circumstances, it seems difficult for the incumbents on the supply side to break the “political vicious circle” protecting the rights of the peasants through projected safety nets against the domineering political and economic forces. When such forces coalesce to render distribution process all but skewed, the market as a socially construed mechanism functions to drain the surplus from the rural to the metropolitan areas. A similar situation exists in India, where sweeping changes of the social action by action from above were squandered, despite repeated ideological assertions of the policy makers for developing a socialistic pattern of economy. This is due largely to the lack of explicit political commitment and the domination of the propertied class over political leadership. Elitist orientation of bureaucracy, with its close linkage with the local elite, is responsible for making things worse. On the one hand, the hidden subsidies on food and other inputs are phased out in rural Bangladesh. On the other hand, a major percentage of aid funds earmarked for poverty alleviation is absorbed in paying high salaries to project consultants – both local and foreign – and defraying the cost of contracting the project/sub‐projects through underhand deals with bureaucratic incumbents. Only a small percentage is spent on the target beneficiaries.Originality/valueThe research is original, intended to address the issues that have not been addressed before. The author has tried to fill the gap in the state of knowledge about rural socio‐political formation, with emphasis on what is wrong with malfeasance in governance, which accounts for much triangular manipulation and corruption.

The Regulation of Government Advertising in Australia: The Politicisation of a Public Policy Issue

In Australia, there is a laissez faire approach to regulating government advertising but, over the past ten years as accusations of misuse for partisan purposes have grown, many external policy actors have tried to achieve a change in policy. This article traces the history of these (failed) reform attempts. This case study is of interest because it is an example of a government demonstrating long‐term resistance to reforms that are quite modest by international standards and despite attempts by usually influential policy actors to propel reform. This article draws particular attention to the role of the Auditor‐General and demonstrates the growing politicisation of the issue in an environment where those who seek to investigate and comment upon government advertising are severely discouraged.

Is Consultation Everything? The Influence of Interest Groups on Parliamentary Working Bodies in Slovenia

Empirical data gathered from surveys of MPs and interest groups in Slovenia reveal that the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia is a rela- tively powerful and accessible political institution. Parliamentary working bod- ies are perceived by MPs and interest groups as the focal point of their contacts. While MPs find interest groups to be both valuable sources of input into the leg- islative process and relatively influential policy actors, interest groups are rela- tively happy with how accessible MPs are, though they are less happy with their own impact on parliamentary decision-making. Despite the direct exchange be- tween MPs and interest groups, political parties still play an important gate- keeping role. The identified factors of the impact of interest groups on the leg- islative process include the formally defined roles and competencies of parlia- mentary working bodies, policy sector variations, European interest-group net- working, and the leadership styles of those who chair the working bodies. Sociologický casopis/Czech Sociological Review, 2005, Vol. 41, No. 3: 401-421

Evaluating the public information: Shaping news coverage of the silicone implant controversy

Public information officers work to develop and transmit policy actors' frames through the media to the public. We examined their effectiveness during the 1991–1992 silicone breast implant controversy, which involved a major corporation, the medical community, and citizens' activist groups. After determining policy actor frames via press releases, we analyzed their occurrence in six major newspapers. This study used a computer-assisted content analysis program that allowed the authors to examine the relationship among the policy actors' and media frames rather than merely counting occurrences of key terms. The medical community's frame occurred most frequently and centrally in news coverage, while activists remained on the margin of discourse. The findings suggest that news media tend to rely on frames that the most influential policy actors provide, which will often render large institutions the most influential policy actors. Public information officers should seek innovative ways to transmit frames regarding health and policy issues in order to enhance the public's understanding.