Motivations Of Policymakers Research Articles

The Art of Blending Stakeholders: Bootlegger & Baptist Coalitions in Corporate Constituency-Building

Constituency-building is an important yet underappreciated corporate political strategy. In contrast to conventional strategies, such as lobbying and campaign contributions involving direct interactions with policymakers, constituency-building expands the scope of conflict by mobilizing stakeholders to pressure policymakers. Although prior studies of constituency-building have highlighted how enlisting stakeholders in political battles creates unique opportunities and risks, what has often been overlooked is the importance of blending “strange bedfellows” of economically- and morally-motivated constituents, sometimes called bootlegger-and-Baptist coalitions. Drawing on theories developed in political science, regulatory economics, and corporate political strategy, we advance a theoretical framework to examine (a) the motivations of policymakers and stakeholders, which constitute the theoretical basis for constituency-building strategies; (b) the tradeoffs of creating blended coalitions consisting of parties who have distinct motives for moral legitimacy or economic interest; and (c) how blended coalitions may take distinct overt, covert, or tacit forms. We also differentiate between campaigns that take place at the firm- versus industry-level. We develop propositions to advance theory development on constituency-building, linked to stakeholder mobilization and social movement approaches. We offer wide-ranging real-world examples to provide guidance to empirical research.

The Cornerstone of Economic Nationalism: National Self-image

The focus of this article is Estonia’s post-socialist economic transition and the reasons behind the liberal nature of the country’s economic policies. I argue that the self-image of a nation plays a significant role in shaping its economic policies. Objectives associated with economic nationalism can be achieved through various means that can include strategies of economic liberalism as well. Thus, the concepts of economic nationalism and economic liberalism are not a dichotomy. I examine the construction of the Estonian self-image through the discourses of radical individualism and industriousness, historical suffering, desire for freedom and return to Europe and sense of abandonment. By showing how these discourses interact with the liberal paradigm, I claim that Estonian policy-makers chose liberal economic policies because they perceived them to most effectively serve their objectives. When economic policies are examined in view of the national self-image and motivation of policy-makers, the incongruence between economic nationalism and liberal policies disappears.

Limitations of the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure for providing a conservative estimate of landfilled municipal solid waste incineration ash leaching

ABSTRACTLimitations of the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) for simulating pollutant leaching from wastes disposed of in full-scale landfills are well understood in the waste management profession; the TCLP solution has a lower pH and greater organic acid content than typical landfill leachate. The TCLP serves its intended regulatory objective, however, as long as a conservative estimate of leaching is provided. Here, we examine TCLP’s ability to represent worst-case leaching conditions for monofilled municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) ash. A critical examination of TCLP’s applicability to MSWI ash is especially relevant, as ash management at MSWI facilities often centers on passing TCLP, regardless of environmental risk posed by the ash or its recyclability. Multiple batch leaching tests were conducted on different MSWI ash streams: mixed ash, fly ash, and different size fractions of bottom ash. Batch-test results were compared with leachate simulating MSWI ash monofills. The TCLP did not consistently provide the most conservative estimate of leaching, supporting the need to consider alternative methodologies in future regulatory development.Implications: This paper analyzes the existing hazardous waste regulatory testing requirement for municipal solid waste incinerator (MSWI) ash management to evaluate whether the TCLP serves its intended purpose in providing the most conservative estimate of landfilled MSWI ash. The results will serve as guidance and motivation for policy makers and the regulatory community to reevaluate the TCLP’s application for characterizing MSWI ash leaching in certain disposal scenarios and could promote consideration of alternative testing procedures based upon results of this study. This study serves to promote representative and accurate quantification of leaching risk from MSWI ash.

Bojkot igrzysk olimpijskich w Moskwie jako przykład politycznego wykorzystywania wydarzeń sportowych

<p>Celem artykułu jest analiza bojkotu igrzysk olimpijskich w Moskwie w 1980 r. oraz jego ocena, z uwzględnieniem jego przyczyn oraz motywacji przywódców zaangażowanych państw. Podjęto próbę weryfikacji hipotezy dotyczącej braku zrozumienia dla funkcjonowania ruchu olimpijskiego przez administrację amerykańską, co stało się przyczyną niepełnego sukcesu bojkotu, oraz zakładającej, iż w Związku Radzieckim nie przewidywano bojkotu igrzysk w Moskwie jako następstwa interwencji w A fganistanie.</p>

The Politics of International Testing

In recent years, an increasing number of countries have participated in cross-national assessments in education (CNAs), but their impact remains underexplored. We argue that CNA participation increases the capacity and motivation of policymakers to implement improvements in education through mechanisms at the elite, domestic, and transnational levels. We find evidence consistent with our propositions using a mixed-method approach, utilizing: 1. a panel dataset covering all CNAs and all countries in the international system; 2. an original survey of 77 education officials directly responsible for the planning and implementation of CNAs in 46 countries; 3. personal interviews with 48 officials in target states, assessment agencies, and donor agencies. Even after accounting for potential self-selection, CNA participation is associated with increases in net secondary enrollment, particularly for girls, and education aid inflows. Qualitative and quantitative evidence also suggests that CNA participation accelerates education reforms. The empirical results consistently support our prediction that CNA participation has a meaningful impact on education policy and outcomes.

Pricing Carbon Consumption

Nearly every carbon price regulates the production of carbon emissions, typically at midstream points of compliance, such as a power plant. Over the last six years, however, policymakers in Australia, California, China, Japan, and Korea implemented carbon prices that regulate the consumption of carbon emissions, where points of compliance are further downstream, such as distributors or final consumers. This article aims to describe the design of these prices on carbon consumption, understand and explain the motivations of policymakers who have implemented them, and identify insights for policymakers considering whether to price carbon consumption. We find a clear trend of policymakers layering prices on carbon consumption on top of prices on carbon production in an effort to improve economic efficiency by facilitating additional downstream abatement. In these cases, prices on carbon consumption are used to overcome a shortcoming in the price on carbon production: incomplete pass-through of the carbon price from producers to consumers. We also find that some policymakers implement prices on carbon in an effort to reduce emissions leakage or because large producers of carbon are not within jurisdiction. Because policymakers are starting to view prices on carbon consumption as a strategy to improve economic efficiency and reduce emissions leakage in a way that is compatible with local and international law, we expect jurisdictions will increasingly implement and rely upon them.

On the Confluence of Freedom of the Press, Control of Corruption and Societal Welfare

This paper employs data from 135 countries to investigate the role a free press plays in controlling corruption and the extent to which this may lead to greater national income and enhanced societal welfare (as measured by self-reported life satisfaction). Results suggest that freedom of the press, through enabling the control of corruption, is associated with increased real GDP per capita and (independently) higher life satisfaction. This provides further motivation for policy makers to give greater recognition to the aspects of societal welfare not readily encapsulated within conventional measures of national income.

Penal Populism and the Folly of “Doing Good by Stealth”

Abstract This article evaluates what Drakeford and Vanstone (2000) have called “doing good by stealth”—the quiet embrace of progressive penal policies, often twinned with contradictorily punitive rhetoric—in order to critically examine both the motives of policymakers under the pressures exerted by the “penal populism calculus” and the consequences for penal policymaking processes and outcomes. It offers a typological model of penal policymaking strategies and outcomes based on two polar dimensions: covert (quiet) vs. transparent (loud), and fair/effective (high-roading) vs. unfair/ineffective (low-roading). It provides examples of each strategy, examines the arguments for and against each one, and proposes alternative ways to achieve the legitimation goals of penal populism, informed by theories of public deliberation and participatory democracy.

The impact of government-funded programs on enhancing the internal capabilities of firms and universities

Firms consider the acquiring of external knowledge as an important element to increase their internal capabilities and enable them to become more innovative in the globally competitive market place. External knowledge can be sought through various approaches, but most of these have negative implications and are difficult to implement. This study investigates the impact of special government–funded programs that focus on building collaborative research and development projects between universities and firms. Results show that such programs can help industrial firms access new knowledge, attract highly qualified personnel, establish networks with academia and share financial risk. In contrast, academic researchers at the university realise other benefits from such programs, including opportunities to conduct reputable research and publish the findings, explore new research areas and increase the focus on applied research. Engaging in various means of informal communication is an important factor in building firms' internal capacities. Research findings create an important motivation for policy makers to increase innovative capacity of firms.

Time to Focus on Improving ED Value Rather Than Discouraging ED Visits

Time to Focus on Improving ED Value Rather Than Discouraging ED Visits

Pierre Bourdieu and the Birth of European Defense

This paper uses an analytical framework derived from Pierre Bourdieu's sociology to explain the genesis of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). Long-term social and institutional processes at work in the making of ESDP are addressed through an emphasis on the institutionalization of social fields, the impact of structural crises, and the socialization of policy makers into specific schemes of perception and action (habitus). Two arguments follow from this framework. First, the paper shows that the creation of ESDP after 1998 would have been impossible without the prior institutionalization of two transgovernmental arenas: (1) the European foreign policy field, wherein EU diplomats vie for influence over EU policies; and (2) the international defense field, centered upon military relations within NATO. Second, ESDP results from the strategies of a number of diplomats and military leaders who, following the end of the Cold War, perceived that they faced important organizational crises in their respective fields. This sociological framework provides a more nuanced account of ESDP's creation than that proposed by the two dominant explanations in international relations theory—realism's balancing and constructivism's strategic culture convergence. Combining structural and ideational factors, it elucidates three empirical puzzles: the lack of opposition to ESDP when it was launched, the motives of policy makers who proposed ESDP, and the disappearance of alternative options for the European security architecture.

The quest for ‘wriggle room’: Australia and the Refugees Convention, 1951–73

The extent to which the Pacific Solution and other refugee policy developments under the Howard government were contested within Canberra circles will not be known until cabinet files are opened many years hence. However, if recent research into the White Australia policy is anything to go by, the files may shed unappreciated nuance on the context and reasoning behind such developments. We cannot pre-empt this research, but we can explore documents to which we do have access to deepen insight into Australia's refugee policy foundations, and to prepare the ground for more informed assessments of recent developments. Using archived policy files, this article examines the internal debates that surrounded Australia's accession to the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. The picture that emerges challenges simplistic assessments as to the motives of policy makers of the time. It also shows how different government departments—in this case Immigration and External (now Foreign) Affairs—can support policy changes for different reasons, at different speeds, and not always in the order that might be expected.

FACTORS INFLUENCING LEGISLATORS’USE OF POLICY INFORMATION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PROMOTING GREATER USE

Despite a tremendous growth in the volume of policy analysis in the past decade, recent research indicates governmental decisionmakers make little direct use of such research; at best, policy‐oriented research alters a decisionmaker's conceptualization of the policy problem over the long term. Previous efforts to explain policymakers’limited use of policy research have generally not considered the opportunities and constraints presented by specific decisionmaking contexts. To a large extent, the research utilization literature has focused on attitudinal and demographic characteristics of decisionmakers and has adopted as a central focus the “two‐communities” theory which asserts that frequent, direct use of policy research by policymakers is unlikely because of the competing worldview and belief systems of policy researchers and policymakers. While the two‐communities theory may partially explain the limited use of policy research, it ignores the institutional incentives motivating decisionmakers. More specifically, this earlier research does not consider the different motivations of policymakers and their relative impact on use of policy information. To expand the explanation of decisionmakers’use of policy information, I postulate a model of legislators’use of policy information that includes four types of factors that influence legislators’propensity to use policy information. These factors‐worldview and attitude toward social science, perception of the way policy issues are considered in the legislature, perception of the legislative structure, and legislative orientations‐combine two‐communities type of independent variables and perceptions of the legislative environment. In this way, policymakers’use of policy information can be examined more realistically and comprehensively.

Explaining Policymakers' Use of Policy Information

Previous efforts to explain policymakers' limited are of policy rescarch gerieraly have not considered the opportunities and constraints presented by specific decision-making contexts; more specifically, this earlier research does not consider the different motivations of policymakers and their relative impact on use of policy information. This analysis of policy information use by a specific set of policymakers—Indiana state legislators—considers the relative importance of legislators' job-images compared to the importance of their basic worldview and personal attitudes and attributes. This article contains five parts. First, a general causal model of legislators' use of policy information consisting of four rival hypothesis is presented. Second, the definition and measurement of "policy information use" is discussed. Next, the two-communities theory is presented and the results of previous research are briefly reviewed. Fourth, legislators' objectives, job-images, and attributes considered in the causal model are defined and measured. The last section formulates and estimates a causal model of legislators' use of policy information.

Britain and the H-bomb, 1955–1958

Britain's decision in 1955, reaffirmed by policy and action through 1958, to manufacture its own hydrogen bomb has raised important questions about the effectiveness of joint Anglo-American defense arrangements. That the British development of massive retaliatory weapons involved a costly and unnecessary duplication of the American program has been persuasively argued by Henry Kissinger. Like many others, Kissinger would have preferred Britain to have concentrated on the conventional and tactical nuclear means of waging limited war. Indeed, from a joint Anglo-American point of view, Kissinger's argument is so persuasive that an altogether different point of view, much more exclusively national, is required to explain Britain's H-bomb development. This may be discerned in the way in which the policy was presented to the British public. Granting that such presentation does not necessarily reveal the actual motivations of policy-makers, nevertheless the public justifications for Britain's H-bomb illuminate the image which Englishmen have of their nation's status in world affairs, particularly in relation to the United States.