Policy Design Framework Research Articles

Living review framework for better policy design and management of hazardous waste in Australia

The significant increase in hazardous waste generation in Australia has led to the discussion over the incorporation of artificial intelligence into the hazardous waste management system. Recent studies explored the potential applications of artificial intelligence in various processes of managing waste. However, no study has examined the use of text mining in the hazardous waste management sector for the purpose of informing policymakers. This study developed a living review framework which applied supervised text classification and text mining techniques to extract knowledge using the domain literature data between 2022 and 2023. The framework employed statistical classification models trained using iterative training and the best model XGBoost achieved an F1 score of 0.87. Using a small set of 126 manually labelled global articles, XGBoost automatically predicted the labels of 678 Australian articles with high confidence. Then, keyword extraction and unsupervised topic modelling with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) were performed. Results indicated that there were 2 main research themes in Australian literature: (1) the key waste streams and (2) the resource recovery and recycling of waste. The implication of this framework would benefit the policymakers, researchers, and hazardous waste management organisations by serving as a real time guideline of the current key waste streams and research themes in the literature which allow robust knowledge to be applied to waste management and highlight where the gap in research remains.

Privacy and personal information protection in China’s all-seeing state

Abstract The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled facial recognition technology (FRT) in the provision of vital services that depend on accurate identification of individuals within China’s public and private sectors prompted an urgent need to foster discussions regarding regulatory, societal, and ethical concerns. While there are safety and efficiency gains to be obtained through the use of FRT where establishing identity is necessary, these result in potential trade-offs against the individuals’ fundamental rights, most notably, the violation of the right to privacy, and personal information where individuals are neither informed of nor consented to the collection, use, or storage. To address such concerns, China has put in place laws. The adequacy of which in addressing the concerns remains. This paper argues that, while significant progress has been made with the promulgation of several legislations, much more needs to be undertaken in terms of ensuring transparency in decision-making on public uses and obtaining prior mandatory authorization before the deployment of FRT. The paper further suggests the engagement of a multi-disciplinary team of experts to support and guide research, development, and deployment of AI-enabled FRT and other biometric technology as a positive step forward together with the possible adoption of adaptive governance as a framework for future policy design.

A Policy Design Framework on the Roles of S&T Universities in Innovation Ecosystems: Integrating Stakeholders’ Voices for Industry 4.0

In the digital transformation era, especially university-based innovation ecosystems (IEs) play an essential role in linking science and technology universities with industrial firms, including startups and enterprises. However, establishing a productive collaboration between these actors has many challenges. In this context, we primarily aim to explore the roles of universities as strong IE actors in Industry 4.0 technologies domain from the view of startup companies in these ecosystems. This article devises an integration matrix framework that links the I4.0 technology domains and their adoption challenges with the universities’ roles and obstacles for contributing to I4.0 adoption and digital transformation. The proposed framework considers and integrates the opinions of different stakeholder groups for prioritizing issues to select high-impact policy areas for universities. We collect data on the prioritization and links between the framed technologies, their challenges, universities’ roles, and obstacles by performing two different Delphi studies with 59 cofounders of Industry 4.0 startups and 15 experts on IEs in Turkey, as a case from developing country context. The integration matrix indicates high-impact and priority areas for policy development from a complex dataset, reflecting the voices of IE stakeholders in a structured way. The study also discusses the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings, highlighting potential research.

Empowering local arts organizations and governance: The case of Gordon Square Arts District in Cleveland, Ohio

This study argues for the significance of the network governance model in bottom-up cultural district development aimed at neighborhood revitalization. This study, employing a multi-level policy design framework in a case study of the Gordon Square Arts District in Cleveland, Ohio, found that having a formalized governance structure and ongoing technical assistance empowered local arts organizations to succeed in advocating and bargaining for their organizational interests and needs as well as the broader needs of their community. Both network governance and technical assistance created more opportunities to achieve a relatively balanced power of cultural and non-cultural actors in decision-making on policy objectives, mechanisms, implementation tools, and solutions against the issue of marginalization caused by displacement via market-driven overdevelopment.

The right to the city and contemporary housing policy in Ecuador

This article analyzes how the right to the city has been implemented in Ecuadorian housing policy after it was recognized in the 2008 Constitution, focusing on the link between this right and the right to housing. Based on the policy design framework, the study seeks to explore to what extent the set of policy instruments developed in the period 2009–2020 have been consistent with the right principles proposed in Constitution. Some limitations are identified, such as the prevalence of a housing policy model that disregards social production as an alternative and is disconnected from broader strategies of equitable urban development. The absence of indicators that account for the right to the city, and the lack of strategies that facilitate the articulation between the housing and land management competencies of the central and municipal governments are other fundamental constraints.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the right to health of people who use drugs

Context: According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) people who inject drugs (PWID) make up a significant part of the population that needs to be looked after to eliminate infectious diseases such as those caused by HIV and HCV. This situation has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As COVID-19 rapidly spread across the globe, governments implemented various prevention measures which not only caused an increase in problem drug use (PDU) because of their negative impact on mental health and socioeconomic conditions but also prompted a decrease in drug services provided. Therefore, new challenges appeared, such as increased demand for drugs and diversification of clients, and new needs. Nevertheless, in clear contradiction to what was needed, the EMCDDA’s initial reports suggested that there was a decline in European drug services both in providing treatment and harm reduction interventions. COVID-19 increased the need to access drug services, healthcare, and support services creating an increased demand for opioid substitution therapy and other medication. Thus, comprehensive, and sustainable policies are needed to combat the public health threats associated with these challenges and to ensure the continuity of care. Policy Options: The challenging circumstances brought by the COVID-19 pandemic require policymakers need to take action to build capacity and resiliency for those facing drug-related health and social problems. These should include the adoption of integrated strategies that combine drug consumption rooms, substance-specific therapies, provision of free needles and naloxone, primary healthcare, and social support. Recommendations: The creation of an integrated drug policy framework addressed to European Union member states is necessary to create robust drug services capable of surviving a crisis. This is guided by a relevant policy design and implementation framework, alongside tangible action principles in line with low-threshold service provision.

Ghana's Adherence to PASCAR's 10-Point Action Plan towards Hypertension Control: A Scoping Review.

The continuous increase in the prevalence of hypertension in Ghana has led to various interventions aimed at controlling the disease burden. Nonetheless, these interventions have yielded poor health outcomes. Subsequently, the Pan-African Society of Cardiology (PASCAR), established a 10-point action plan for inclusion in policies to aid control of hypertension. This scoping review assessed the adherence of health policies to the 10-point action plan towards hypertension control/reduction in Ghana. Eight health policies met the inclusion criteria and were assessed. The programme evaluation and policy design framework were used for synthesis and analysis of extracted data. Overall, there was poor adherence to hypertension control observed in the policies. Specifically, there were low levels of integrating hypertension control/reduction measures, a poor task-sharing approach, and poor financial resource allocations to tackle hypertension control/reduction in most of the policies. There was also low support for research to produce evidence to guide future interventions. For Ghana to achieve the global target of reducing hypertension by the year 2025, its health policies must adhere to evidence-based interventions in hypertension management/control. The study recommends a follow-up study among hypertension patients and healthcare professionals to evaluate the factors militating against hypertension management/control in Ghana.

The Nexus between Financial and Investment developments and State Capacity. The case of G-20

On this paper we examine the relationships between state capacity, approximated by the Composite Index of National Capabilities, and certain macroeconomic and financial variables. Particularly, we study the nexus of their interactions by focusing on the G-20 economies from 1980 to 2020 by applying a robust GMM panel VAR model. Our results capture a negative and lasting impact of ‘domestic credit to private sector’, a negative short-term impact of market capitalization, along with a positive impact of inward and outward FDIs, and of gross capital formation, on state capacity. State capacity, in its turn, enhances in the short-term market capitalization, consumes credit to private sector, and substantially boosts gross capital formation in the medium-term. Trade openness enhances state capacity and is enhanced by state capacity as well. The presence of financial crises, such as the Asian Financial Crisis or the Global Financial Crisis, affects negatively state capacity. Conversely, the absence of financial crises has a positive impact on state capacity, leading to its amelioration. Furthermore, the specific case of the Second Oil Crisis is found to strengthen state capacity. These findings shed light to the mechanisms that impact national power and provide a framework for policy design and conduct.

Policy designs for adaptive governance of disruptive technologies: the case of facial recognition technology (FRT) in China

Recent regulations introduced by the Chinese government regarding big data technologies are welcome to those long concerned about the risks associated with their rapid deployment. However, these changes are not sufficient to safeguard privacy and data security. More importantly, these policies may not have fully accounted for the disruptive nature of these technologies. In this paper, we examine the need and the potential of new approaches in policy design regarding disruptive technologies by examining the case of facial recognition technology (FRT) in China. We argue that adaptive governance provides a useful framework for future policy design. Regulatory sandbox approach, policy mix and stakeholder engagement are among key policy measures to overcome regulatory challenges.

Geographical Pattern Evolution of Health Resources in China: Spatio-Temporal Dynamics and Spatial Mismatch.

(1) Background: The rational allocation of limited medical resources is the premise of safeguarding the public health. Especially since the outbreak of COVID-19, the evolution dynamics and spatial mismatch of medical resources have been a focal and frontier issue in academic discussions. (2) Methods: Based on the competitive state model and spatial mismatch index, this paper uses GIS and Geodetector spatial analysis methods and three typical indicators of hospitals, doctors, and beds to conduct an empirical study on the evolutionary characteristics and degree of mismatch in the geographic pattern of health resources in China from 2010 to 2020 (the data are from official publications issued by the National Bureau of statistics in China), in two dimensions of resource supply (economic carrying capacity) and demand (potential demand or need of residents). (3) Results: The spatial pattern of health resources at the provincial level in China has been firmly established for a long time, and the children and elderly population, health care government investment, and service industry added value are the key factors influencing the geographical distribution of health resources. The interaction between the different influence factors is dominated by bifactor enhancement, and about 30–40% of the factor pairs are in a nonlinear enhancement relationship. Hospital, doctor, and bed evolution trends and the magnitude and speed of their changes vary widely in spatial differentiation, but all are characterized by a high level of geographic agglomeration, heterogeneity, and gradient. Dynamic matching is the mainstream of development, while the geographical distribution of negative and positive mismatch shows strong spatial agglomeration and weak spatial autocorrelation. The cold and hot spots with evolution trend and space mismatch are highly clustered, shaping a center-periphery or gradient-varying spatial structure. (4) Conclusions: Despite the variability in the results of the analyses by different dimensions and indicators, the mismatch of health resources in China should not be ignored. According to the mismatch types and change trend, and following the geographic differentiation and spatial agglomeration patterns, this paper constructs a policy design framework of “regionalized governance-classified management”, in line with the concept of spatial adaptation and spatial justice, in order to provide a decision making basis for the government to optimize the allocation of health resources and carry out health spatial planning.

The AI Economist: Taxation policy design via two-level deep multiagent reinforcement learning.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and reinforcement learning (RL) have improved many areas but are not yet widely adopted in economic policy design, mechanism design, or economics at large. The AI Economist is a two-level, deep RL framework for policy design in which agents and a social planner coadapt. In particular, the AI Economist uses structured curriculum learning to stabilize the challenging two-level, coadaptive learning problem. We validate this framework in the domain of taxation. In one-step economies, the AI Economist recovers the optimal tax policy of economic theory. In spatiotemporal economies, the AI Economist substantially improves both utilitarian social welfare and the trade-off between equality and productivity over baselines. It does so despite emergent tax-gaming strategies while accounting for emergent labor specialization, agent interactions, and behavioral change. These results demonstrate that two-level, deep RL complements economic theory and unlocks an AI-based approach to designing and understanding economic policy.

Policy Design for Non-normative Gender Identities. The Construction of the Trans Subject in Uruguay

We analyze institutions and social constructions as constituent parts of the policymaking process. We use Ingram and Schneider’s policy design framework, which suggests that, in degenerative contexts, policymakers distribute burdens and benefits to the population based on social constructions and using instruments that maintain or exacerbate some groups’ positioning to the detriment of others. However, we take a different path; we carry out a case study of the trans people policy in Uruguay, a context that could be considered progressive. Through category analysis, we identify social constructions and both formal and informal institutions that shape the issue context and its effects on policy formulation. The results indicate shifts in the social construction of trans people driven by a political strategy for agent coordination around the notion of diversity in a context of institutional opening towards more inclusive policies.

Maritime Policy Design Framework with ESG Performance Approach: Case of Estonia

In policy-making, the design of a policy is considered to be one of the most significant steps. A well designed policy will be able to solve sectoral problems across stakeholders as well as support the competitive development of the entire economy. Enterprises of the maritime sector have been influenced by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) changes with the push coming from financiers, insurers, regulators, and customers. To meet the ESG challenges and utilize the benefits ahead, they need to be addressed in the new policy design processes. The specificities of a maritime sector as well as science-based policy-making framework are the fundamentals of successful maritime policy development. Estonia is located on the eastern border of the EU, and has always aimed to be a maritime state. National maritime policy has been adopted (2012–2020) and currently, the Estonian Transport and Mobility Master Plan incorporates maritime aspects. Actors of the maritime sector have remained dissatisfied and advocate the reinstatement and redevelopment of Estonian maritime policy. The aim of this study was to present a framework for the design of maritime policy that uses maritime economics, ESG performance goals, and policy design analyses as inputs. As a result, a maritime policy design framework is proposed.

Evaluating Diuretics in Normal Care (EVIDENCE): a feasibility report of a pilot cluster randomised trial of prescribing policy in primary care to compare the effectiveness of thiazide-type diuretics in hypertension

BackgroundObtaining evidence on comparative effectiveness and safety of widely prescribed drugs in a timely and cost-effective way is a major challenge for healthcare systems. Here, we describe the feasibility of the Evaluating Diuretics in Normal Care (EVIDENCE) study that compares a thiazide and thiazide-like diuretics for hypertension as an exemplar of a more general framework for efficient generation of such evidence. In 2011, the UK NICE hypertension guideline included a recommendation that thiazide-like diuretics (such as indapamide) be used in preference to thiazide diuretics (such as bendroflumethiazide) for hypertension. There is sparse evidence backing this recommendation, and bendroflumethiazide remains widely used in the UK.MethodsPatients prescribed indapamide or bendroflumethiazide regularly for hypertension were identified in participating general practices. Allocation of a prescribing policy favouring one of these drugs was then randomly applied to the practice and, where required to comply with the policy, repeat prescriptions switched by pharmacy staff. Patients were informed of the potential switch by letter and given the opportunity to opt out. Practice adherence to the randomised policy was assessed by measuring the amount of policy drug prescribed as a proportion of total combined indapamide and bendroflumethiazide. Routinely collected hospitalisation and death data in the NHS will be used to compare cardiovascular event rates between the two policies.ResultsThis pilot recruited 30 primary care practices in five Scottish National Health Service (NHS) Boards. Fifteen practices were randomised to indapamide (2682 patients) and 15 to bendroflumethiazide (3437 patients), a study population of 6119 patients. Prior to randomisation, bendroflumethiazide was prescribed to 78% of patients prescribed either of these drugs. Only 1.6% of patients opted out of the proposed medication switch.ConclusionThe pilot and subsequent recruitment confirms the methodology is scalable within NHS Scotland for a fully powered larger study; currently, 102 GP practices (> 12,700 patients) are participating in this study. It has the potential to efficiently produce externally valid comparative effectiveness data with minimal disruption to practice staff or patients. Streamlining this pragmatic trial approach has demonstrated the feasibility of a random prescribing policy design framework that can be adapted to other therapeutic areas.Trial registrationISRCTN Registry, ISRCTN46635087. Registered on 11 August 2017

Level of Inclusiveness of People with Disabilities in Ghanaian Health Policies and Reports: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Globally, persons with disabilities (PWDs) face numerous challenges including access to healthcare. This scoping review sought to assess the level of inclusiveness in Ghanaian health policies and reports for PWDs; (2) Methods: An extensive search and scoping review of health policies/reports in Ghanaian government websites and Google was conducted. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for scoping reviews were followed in selecting and reporting the policies/reports. The program evaluation and policy design framework was employed for content analysis; (3) Results: Fifteen policies and reports with political recognition, objectives, and specific resources needed to execute stipulated plans were included. Although these policies and reports had collaborative partnerships with various institutions and organisations in development and implementation plans, the level of inclusiveness of disability issues was very low. Only eight out of the fifteen policies/reports (53%) reviewed considered PWDs, indicating a low level of inclusion. The definition of disability was also limited.; (4) Conclusions: To achieve the sustainable development goal of ‘leaving no one behind’ in line with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities and the Disability Act 715 of Ghana, it is recommended that subsequent health policies should have an in-depth engagement with PWDs from the conceptual design stage right through to implementation and evaluation.

The importance of policy design fit for effectiveness: a qualitative comparative analysis of policy integration in regional transport planning

Policy design has returned as a central topic in public policy research. An important area of policy design study deals with effectively attaining desired policy outcomes by aligning goals and means to achieve policy design fit. So far, only a few empirical studies have explored the relationship between policy design fit and effectiveness. In this paper, we adopt the multilevel framework for policy design to determine which conditions of policy design fit—i.e., goal coherence, means consistency, and congruence of goals and means across policy levels—are necessary and/or sufficient for policy design effectiveness in the context of policy integration. To this end, we performed a qualitative comparative analysis of Dutch regional transport planning including all twelve provinces. Outcomes show no condition is necessary and two combinations of conditions are sufficient for effectiveness. The first sufficient combination confirms what the literature suggests, namely that policy design fit results in policy design effectiveness. The second indicates that the combination goal incoherence and incongruence of goals and means is sufficient for policy design effectiveness. An in-depth interpretation of this counterintuitive result leads to the conclusion that for achieving policy integration the supportive relationship between policy design fit and policy design effectiveness is less straightforward as theory suggests. Instead, results indicate there are varying degrees of coherence, consistency, and congruence that affect effectiveness in different ways. Furthermore, outcomes reveal that under specific circumstances a policy design may be effective in promoting desired policy integration even if it is incoherent, inconsistent, and/or incongruent.

The AI Economist: Optimal Economic Policy Design via Two-level Deep Reinforcement Learning

AI and reinforcement learning (RL) have improved many areas, but are not yet widely adopted in economic policy design, mechanism design, or economics at large. At the same time, current economic methodology is limited by a lack of counterfactual data, simplistic behavioral models, and limited opportunities to experiment with policies and evaluate behavioral responses. Here we show that machine-learning-based economic simulation is a powerful policy and mechanism design framework to overcome these limitations. The AI Economist is a two-level, deep RL framework that trains both agents and a social planner who co-adapt, providing a tractable solution to the highly unstable and novel two-level RL challenge. From a simple specification of an economy, we learn rational agent behaviors that adapt to learned planner policies and vice versa. We demonstrate the efficacy of the AI Economist on the problem of optimal taxation. In simple one-step economies, the AI Economist recovers the optimal tax policy of economic theory. In complex, dynamic economies, the AI Economist substantially improves both utilitarian social welfare and the trade-off between equality and productivity over baselines. It does so despite emergent tax-gaming strategies, while accounting for agent interactions and behavioral change more accurately than economic theory. These results demonstrate for the first time that two-level, deep RL can be used for understanding and as a complement to theory for economic design, unlocking a new computational learning-based approach to understanding economic policy.

Resilience and policy design in the emerging bioeconomy – the RPD framework and the changing role of energy crop systems in Germany

ABSTRACT The resilience of social-ecological systems (SES) has become a major concern in environmental policy. The ongoing transition towards a bio-based economy essentially aims to address resilience challenges of the fossil-based economy. Its success depends on the resilience of the SES and bio-based production systems (BBPS) on which the bioeconomy rests. This paper introduces the Resilience Policy Design (RPD) framework to analyse and assess how bioeconomy policies address the resilience challenges of SES/BBPS. It combines resilience thinking and the ‘new’ policy design perspective, aiming at comparative research across countries, sectors and policy levels. It comprises five steps: determining relevant context conditions and the policy design space, characterizing bioeconomy policy mixes, identifying affected SES/BBPS and their resilience challenges, assessing the orientation of the policy mix towards different resilience capabilities (robustness, adaptability or transformability) and its resilience-enabling or -constraining elements, and overall assessment. An exemplary application focusing on energy maize in Germany finds a layered policy mix, addressing different resilience concerns over time. It demonstrates the inherently political nature of SES/BBPS resilience that requires inclusive, deliberative policy-making, the importance of policy feedback for adaptive and transformative governance with a long-term perspective, and the need for inter-/transdisciplinary collaboration to develop and assess resilience policies.

Civil Society Associations’ Efforts to Influence Post-Uprisings Governmental Policymaking in Three Arab States: A Regimes-Triad Approach

ABSTRACT This article sets out to test an all too frequently undisputed assumption: contested politics and policy process theories or frameworks from the West, particularly the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) and the Social Construction in Policy Design Framework (SCPDF), can be plausibly ‘transported’ to the Arab world, without misleading biases. It describes and reflects upon practices of civil society associations (CSAs) to influence post-Uprisings public policymaking in three Arab states: Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia. The policy issues dealt with are domestic violence against women, and wage policy in Lebanon; dealing with NGOs in Egypt; and transparency of the state in Tunisia. This assumption, of course, is far from self-evident. Concepts like ‘advocacy coalition’, ‘problem stream’, or ‘policy entrepreneur’ describe role patterns in contested politics and policymaking practices in the context of consolidated Western liberal democracies; a context hardly applicable to post-Uprisings Arab states. Rather, we argue that public policymaking in post-Uprisings Arab states could be understood through a ‘regimes-triad approach’; i.e., a mutually dependent set of three strategic action fields—a domestic issue logic, and the logics of a national political regime, and a transnational or international geopolitical or geo-economic regime —around any policy issue. The regimes-triad context intends to correct the biases in western-canon theories of the policy process when applied to Arab states.

Beyond catch-up: could China become the global innovation powerhouse? China’s innovation progress and challenges from a holistic innovation perspective

Over the past century and a half, global technological leadership has shifted from Europe to the United States, while scholars argue that the world has seen that it is now shifting from the United States to China due to China’s extraordinary catch-up in the past four decades, in which the public policy-oriented national innovation system development plays a critical role that might provide an alternative way for innovation-driven development especially for emerging markets. Even though encountering many challenges ahead, China is positioning itself to take over the global innovation leadership in the next few decades. Here in this article, we introduce a serious yet underexplored question: could China go beyond catch-up and become the global innovation powerhouse? Specifically, drawing from the holistic innovation perspective, which is an original theoretical paradigm for the mission-oriented innovation policy change, this article critically reviews, both qualitatively and quantitatively, China’s remarkable innovation progress and main drivers in comparison with G7 countries plus South Korea and India, trying to provide a comprehensive and critical view of state-of-the-art research on China’s innovation catch-up. We further explore the five major challenges that China must take seriously when marching toward the global innovation powerhouse. Finally, we propose a mission-oriented holistic STI policy design framework for both China and other emerging economies to go beyond catch-up in a competitive dynamic world. This article provides a new and holistic perspective to access China’s innovation progress and challenges, also generates novel insights for scholars and public agencies to contribute to global innovation development, with a shared goal of achieving global sustainable development in the post-COVID-19 pandemic world.