Policy Design Process Research Articles

An IAD framework analysis of minigrid institutions for sustainable rural electrification in East Africa: A comparative study of Uganda and Tanzania

Minigrids offer a viable solution for extending electricity access to underserved areas beyond the reach of main-grids. Their sustainability is crucial for rural electrification prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using Ostrom's IAD framework, we conduct a socio-cultural and institutional analysis of minigrids across their development stages. We map sector actors and their respective roles in the minigrid sector providing a framework for their interactions and choices towards sustainable outcomes. We further present a comparative institutional assessment of Uganda and Tanzania's minigrid sectors; analyzing outcomes and constructing a diagnostic framework of the causal actor interactions and exogenous contexts hindering sector sustainability. Our study reveals the inherent challenge posed by the complex interdependencies within the minigrid sector and its relationship with adjacent sectors. It further uncovers significant institutional inefficiencies in the minigrid sectors of Uganda and Tanzania. We advocate a flexible solution strategy, wherein, regulators strategically modify the adaptable components of the IAD framework considering the specific root causes of problems. This approach allows for targeted interventions through precise adjustments to effectively address underlying issues. Additionally, we emphasize the importance of policy integration mechanisms with adjacent sectors and a policy design process that incorporates the core values of sector actors.

Policy Practice in Non-profit Ethnic Minority Organisations: Tension Axes and Supportive Intra-Organisational Conditions

Abstract Despite growing interest in the involvement of social workers in policy design processes, this concept has been narrowly examined from the perspective of social workers who belong to ethnic minority groups and who are employed in non-profit ethnic minority organisations (NPEMOs) in multicultural societies. The present research sought to understand how the ethnic identity of minority social workers affects their perception to act in policy arenas within their employment in NPEMOs, and to identify the intra-organisational conditions that prompt and support this involvement. Relying on in-depth interviews conducted with social workers from the Arab minority group in Israel who operate in policy arenas, we demonstrate that this involvement is characterised by dealing with axes of tension and is supported by intra-organisational conditions, which include organisational procedures, organisational cohesion and participation in collective action. The research contributes to expanding the understanding of policy practice in social work in multicultural societies, in the organisational contexts of race, equality and social justice.

Colleagues or adversaries: Ministerial coordination across party lines

AbstractIn multiparty governments, policymaking is a collaborative effort among the different incumbent parties. Often hidden by public debates about broader government policy, the necessary coordination routinely happens at the ministerial level, where ministries of different parties jointly devise viable and equitable policy solutions. However, since coordination involves substantial transaction costs, governments must carefully gauge the potential benefits. We study the political rationales that motivate governments to make this investment. We argue that coordination during the process of ministerial policy design hinges on both a conducive ministerial structure and sufficient authority. Once these conditions are met, cross‐party coordination is more likely in policy areas where the implementation of government policy cannot be taken for granted. We investigate these claims, drawing on two new datasets. The first contains information about ministerial collaborations on all legislative projects sponsored by German governments, while the second maps the distribution of policy responsibilities among German ministries from 1976 until 2013, based on data about the policy briefs of all individual working units within the top‐level federal executive. Given that ministries imprint their own perspective on legislation, our results are beyond administrative pedantries, but have substantial implications for the type and content of policies coalition governments formulate.

Identification of the Common Type of Pesticides Used by Bee Farmers from Selected Honey-Producing Areas in Tanzania: A Case of Kijiji Cha Nyuki Co. Ltd, Singida Region

Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to identify the common type of pesticides used by bee farmers. Specifically, the study presents preliminary findings of an inquiry that examined pesticides used by bee farmers and evaluates the awareness among farmers on the negative effects of pesticides in bee products from Kijiji cha Nyuki located in Tanzania.
 Methodology: A mixed methods approach was adopted for this study and collected data both primary and secondary data were collected using physical observation and survey, interviews, and questionnaires, purposive and random sampling techniques were used in this study to select a total of 104 participants who was taken as a sample from universal populations. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed using IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Computer Programme version 25, where the statistics aspect was determined from the results obtained from both questionnaires and laboratory experiments. A preliminary investigation from Africa’s most renewed bee village in Tanzania; collected samples were analyzed at TBS & SGS laboratories.
 Findings: Based on the findings from informants comprises of two forest officers and two district agricultural officers showed despite a variety of pesticides that can contaminate bee and honey products, the widely observed are Insecticides (cynahalotrine, chlorpyrifos, clothianid), Fungicides (boscalid), and Herbicide (pendimethohele, and cyfluthrin). To mitigate the challenge posed by these pesticides, farmers always work hard to comply with pesticide regulations NBPIS, NBP, 1998, Beekeeping Act No. 15/2002; Beekeeping Regulations, 2005; NBP 2001-2010 and GCBP 2007.
 Unique Contribution to the Theory and Policy: the study suggests that participants should be guided to produce the expected outcome, and it has to start with the issue of power. In terms of the policy implementation process, the way policy regulating pesticides and policies activities are communicated should set the right tone that will encourage collaboration to ensure all participants will fully contribute. So, by paying attention to the effect of power, the fundamental principles of openness and inclusiveness can be upheld during the policy design and implementation process. It also recommends further study that will examine the perceptions of decision-makers, consumers, beekeepers, and academicians about the extended use of pesticides in Tanzania, bearing in mind the health implication of the unauthorized use of pesticides.

КОНЦЕПТУАЛІЗАЦІЯ ПОЛІТИКИ ФОРМУВАННЯ ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКОЇ ІДЕНТИЧНОСТІ: ДОСВІД ДЛЯ УКРАЇНИ

The article is devoted to the scientific substantiation of the conceptual foundations of the European identity formation’s policy. The European identity policy, in our opinion, is one of the most illustrative examples of the introduction of evidence-based policy tools and the use of science in political decision-making among all other European policies. Research projects funded by the European Commission were part of the process of intelligent policy design. We believe that it is thanks to scientific research, despite the complexity of the phenomenon of «identity» itself, its atypicality as a direction of government policies, that today not only the power of «identity» as a resource capable of solving a number of problems of social development has been proven, but also the most effective mechanisms and tools for its implementation have been identified. The political goal of forming a European identity has a complex mechanism; each of its dimensions is implemented through the EU’s cultural, educational, youth, and regional policies. The policy of European identity formation was conceptualized on the basis of the development of institutional foundations, formation of political, economic, and legal institutions, and creation of political and legal frameworks for implementing the policy of stimulating and supporting the development of European social and cultural practices.

Food-energy-water (FEW) nexus: Sustainable food production governance through system dynamics modeling

The transition challenge to sustainability is the governance of common use and property resources the commons. Climate change, as the prime mover of that transition processes, directly affects all sectors of society. Food production, and its relative resources – energy and water - is a relevant sector in the transition to sustainability, since it makes direct use of commons. Food production systems present different configurations and interrelations with the environment; however, they have as a similar character: the complexity regarding the interrelations with commons and with society. This complexity addresses the demand on understanding the dynamics of food, energy and water nexus (FEW Nexus) interrelated dimensions. In this context, this article models FEW Nexus using a System Dynamics Modelling (SDM) approach. The study was developed in the green belt of the peri-urban region of the city of São Paulo, located at the edge of the Atlantic Forest, a high-biodiversity forest in the south-eastern Brazil. The simulation of this complex system aims to support the sustainable governance policy of conventional and agroecological production systems. The innovative pattern of different food sustainable systems could be foresighted, from a set of socioeconomic and environmental multi-criteria ensemble of relevant indicators, as Water Footprint, Trophic State Index, Land Social Development Index, Carbon Footprint, Land Use Earnings. Policy tools, as Community Supported Agriculture strategies and Payment for Environmental Services are used to understand the different levels of sustainability under new innovative policies like them. The SDM tool enabled addressing predictive scenarios - seeing the interrelations and causalities of the set of indicators. The multi-criteria set of indicators modelling permits to understand the FEW Nexus sustainability level of the different food production systems. The results are strong guides to implementing strategies that lead to the dynamics of sustainable food systems, concerning FEW Nexus. SDM tool prove to be useful and effective in decision-making sustainable policy design processes and efficient alternatives in governance for sustainability and its transition process.

The causality relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth in RCEP countries

PurposeThe direction of the causality relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth is a highly controversial issue in the literature. There are two basic approaches advocating different causal directions between FDI and growth, which are called hypotheses of FDI-led Growth and Growth-led FDI. The aim of this study is to analyze the causality relationship between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries and thus make a new contribution to the discussions in the relevant literature. In addition, the results of the study are expected to provide important implications for the policies to be designed for economic growth based on FDI flows to RCEP countries. Thus, by examining the direction of causality between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries, we aim to provide a new contribution to related literature and make some implications for the policy design process of economic growth in the RCEP area.Design/methodology/approachWe empirically examined the direction of a causal link between FDI and economic growth in the context of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RPEC) countries in order to test the hypothesis of FDI-led growth and Growth-led FDI. Accordingly, as our main variables of interest, we incorporated the inward foreign direct investment stock to gross domestic product ratio (FDI) and gross domestic product per capita (GDP). Hatemi-J (2012) asymmetric causality test has been employed in the investigation of the direction of causality between FDI and GDP over the period of 1980–2020. Thus, unlike most of the studies investigating the direction of causality between FDI and growth using the linear causality analysis method, our study performed a nonlinear causality analysis.FindingsEmpirical results reveal that the causal relationship between FDI and national income in RPEC countries is non-linear or asymmetric . The results of the symmetric causality test for both from FDI to national income and from national income to FDI are statistically insignificant for all countries. Therefore, this finding obtained from the study provided an important guide to the econometric methods to be used in other studies to be conducted in the same region in the future. Concerning the asymmetric causality relationship from FDI to growth, positive FDI shocks are an important cause of national income in most RCEP countries. However, the effect of negative FDI shocks on national income is quite weak compared to positive shocks. Regarding the asymmetric causality relationship from growth to FDI, positive national income shocks do not create a significant causal relationship with FDI. Similarly, the effects of negative national income shocks on FDI are statistically insignificant. Overall, asymmetric causality test results reveal that positive FDI shocks have an important causal impact on economic growth in most RCEP countries. Thus, the results of econometric analysis mostly support the argument that the FDI-led growth hypothesis rather than the Growth-led FDI hypothesis in RCEP countries. Accordingly, policy-makers in most of the RCEP countries should continue to provide more incentives and facilities to multinational companies in order to ensure constant economic growth.Originality/valueOur study brings a significant difference in the econometric method used compared to most of the other studies in the literature. Existing empirical studies on the direction of causality between FDI and growth mostly use standard Granger-linear causality-type tests to detect the direction of causality among FDI and growth. Unlike most of the studies in the literature, our study adopted a different methodological approach, namely the Hatemi J test to detect the non-linear causality between FDI and economic growth in RCEP countries. Therefore, this paper made a new methodological contribution significantly to the literature focusing on the causal relationship between FDI and economic growth by using a non-linear causality method rather than a linear causality one.

Exploring frame conflicts in the development of a new mineral resource policy in Austria using Q-methodology

Mineral resource policy deals not only with industrial and trade aspects but is nowadays also increasingly concerned with topics such as environmental protection and social development. The tensions associated with strongly divergent opinions among various stakeholder groups cast it as a ‘wicked problem’. The process of redeveloping the ‘Austrian Mineral Resources Strategy’ allows for examination of the different frames and identification of potential frame conflicts in consultation processes at the national level. Using Q-methodology, this paper reveals four frames represented in the Austrian policy design process and unravels conflicts between economy-focused and integrated policy framings. The predominance of the first frame indicates a narrow sectoral approach favouring domestic mineral extraction and economic growth over other means (e.g. international distributional conflicts of benefits and burdens). The article also demonstrates the suitability of Q-methodology as a tool to investigate frames and to improve their understanding in policy design processes.

Identifying institutional configurations for policy outcomes: A comparison of ecosystem services delivery

AbstractThis paper employs the Institutional Analysis and Development framework across six ecosystem delivery measures in the European Union to develop a configurational explanation of (un)successful outcomes. By undertaking comparative institutional analysis, we systematically examine the effect of variation across rule types and generate insights on how different institutional configurations result in varying degrees of successful implementation of ecosystem delivery measures. We apply explanatory typology methods to identify the institutional features that best explain variation in implementation success across a number of cases. We argue that institutional rules shape outcomes in conjunction rather than in isolation. The findings show that differences in implementation success across cases can be explained by the interplay of differences in knowledge exchange, flexibility in implementation, and participation in the policy design process.

The treatment of the issue and the target group in sexual and reproductive health policy

This writing is an exercise of reflection on the way policy issues and policy target groups are addressed during the policy design process. Some theoretical approaches, from the cognitive realms of the policy studies, suggest that issues and targets’ treatment of public policies depends on a series of cognitive and socially constructed aspects that interfere in the design as it is a process handled by actors. The proposed written discusses sexual health and reproductive rights as a subfield of policies as well as on trans people as examples of a policy issue and target groups that depict the way in which social artifacts of making sense of the world and cognitive processes such as framing could affect the development of the policy and the benefits for a group of people.

Enhanced Weather-Based Index Insurance Design for Hedging Crop Yield Risk.

This study proposes an optimization-based weather-yield model to reduce the basis risk of weather-based index insurance. This weather-yield model helps us capture the growing season's monthly variation as it involves monthly explanatory weather indices. In addition, it can capture additional extreme weather effects by including extreme cooling or heating weather indices. This study presents an innovative machine learning framework incorporating optimization approaches to ensure the parsimony of weather index models and the accuracy of crop yield predictions, which can be integrated into the conventional policy design and pricing process. The advantages of this modeling approach and the effectiveness of weather index-based insurance based on this approach in reducing basis risk and revenue risk are demonstrated by applying county-level yield data for mid-season rice in the Anhui province, China.

The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Sustainability Strategy: Human Rights Governance in the Tripartite Network.

The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) has faced constant accusations of human rights violations associated with World Cup Qatar 2022, with prominent media coverage and international football team demonstrations. This study aims to analyze and discuss the approach taken by the tripartite policy network of actors, namely FIFA, Qatar's Supreme Council (SC), and the Local Organizing Committee (Q22) for the creation of the the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Sustainability Strategy (hereafter WCSS22) published in January 2020. The WCSS22 represents the first time FIFA has clearly articulated its responsibility in connection with impacts that are linked to the construction and operation of World Cup stadia and facilities, in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The strategy was also the first to be planned and delivered jointly by FIFA, the SC, and the Q22. Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA) of documents associated with the WCSS22 was performed to answer the following research questions: a) What are the recurrent features of the policy formulation and design process and what role do the UNGPs play? b) How do FIFA and the other policy actors contribute and position themselves in relation to human rights? c) What form did governance (interdependence, interactions, regulated rules, and steering) take in the policymaking process? The study establishes that there are four recurrent features of policy formulation and design: 1) a collective, systematic, and diverse policymaking approach, 2) emphasis on leveraging internal resources and external input, 3) the building foundation of best practice principles, guidelines, strategies, and existing initiatives, and 4) inconsistency on decision-making and accountability measures. FIFA contributes to policymaking primarily through their existing statutes, human rights policy, and commitments to mitigate negative human rights impacts. Furthermore, specified actions, and mechanisms for construction workers' living and working conditions and recruitment processes are articulated by the SC, who take a more prominent role in worker initiatives. Q22, although involved in collective action, and participating in workers welfare, takes a more peripheral role in the policymaking process. In conclusion, it was found that the tripartite policy network of actors represents a participant-based governance approach with cohesive policy formulation, varied resources at their disposal, inconsistencies in accountability measures and with the lead network role dependent on specific actor initiatives and commitments.

Community renewable energy’s problematic relationship with social justice: insights from Ontario

ABSTRACT A recent surge of studies from Europe has shown that membership bodies of community renewable energy (CRE) initiatives predominantly consist of affluent white men. This demographic concentration points at a disconnect between CRE activity and its often-assumed potential in simultaneously advancing decarbonisation and social justice. Through a triangulation of documentary policy analysis and interviews with leading members (N = 11) of renewable energy co-operatives (RE co-ops) in Ontario, Canada, this qualitative study sets out to identify factors driving the exclusion of marginalised and frontline communities from CRE initiatives. Findings reveal that a combination of inadequate policy support and complex preparatory activities in Ontario geared the pursuit of CRE development towards affluent, professional class groups with access to necessary practical capacities. To add insult to injury, RE co-ops responded to this precarious policy and regulatory environment by increasing their minimum investment requirements and targeting affluent individuals in their outreach activities, which rendered CRE ownership even more exclusionary for marginalised groups and resulted in the exacerbation of existing inequities between and within communities. Overall, this study reinforces the importance of marginalised groups’ engagement in policy design processes and of explicitly addressing practical capacity inequities between and within communities to ensure just outcomes of CRE policies and activity. Further, it problematises the promotion of CRE activity through competitive energy procurement policies such as feed-in tariffs (FITs) as inherently advantageous for groups with greater and more immediate access to practical capacities.

Creative and collaborative reflective thinking to support policy deliberation and decision making

Background:Co-creation in policymaking is of increasing interest to national governments, and designers play a significant role in its introduction. Aims and objectives:We discuss instances from our fieldwork that demonstrated how UK Policy Lab used design methods to gain insight into the design-oriented methods introduced to policymakers’ practices, and how these may influence conventional policy design processes. Methods:This paper reports on the learnings from a two-month participant observation at UK Policy Lab conducted in early 2019. Findings:We found that, beyond human-centred and future-oriented practices, the designers working at this unit appropriate design as a reflective practice for the context of policymaking. We discuss how the use of visual and creative methods of design are utilised by policy designers to facilitate co-creative reflective practices, and how these make a valuable contribution to policymaking practices in UK Government. Discussion and conclusions:As deliberation and decision making is influenced both by what is thought about as well as who is doing the thinking, reflective practices allow notions and assumptions to be unpicked. Moreover, when done as a group activity, reflection leads to a co-production of a deepened understanding of policy challenges. Consequently, we argue, the reflective practices introduced by Policy Lab are an essential contribution to developing a co-creation tradition in evidence-informed policymaking processes.

Dilemmas of Co-production: How Street Waste Pickers Became Excluded from Inclusive Recycling in São Paulo

ABSTRACTUnder what conditions do collaborations between informal workers and the state in public service provision lead to socially beneficial synergies, and when might they intensify inequalities? This article, based on 14 months of ethnographic research, addresses this question through a comparative case study of two attempts to co-produce recycling services in São Paulo. The first, a grassroots organizing effort in the 1980s and 1990s, improved the incomes and conditions of hundreds of waste pickers and inspired a national upsurge of waste picker organizing. The second, an ambitious overhaul of waste management in the early 2000s, generated about 1,500 jobs but functionally excluded the very population of street waste pickers it was designed to benefit. The findings suggest that co-production is most likely to lead to pro-poor outcomes if concerted efforts are made to level inequalities between poor constituents and more powerful stakeholders during processes of policy design and implementation.

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.

A call to expand disciplinary boundaries so that social scientific imagination and practice are central to quests for ‘responsible’ digital agri‐food innovation

AbstractThis editorial introduces a special issue (SI) concerning quests for responsible digital agri‐food innovation. We present our interpretations of the concepts of responsible innovation and digital agri‐food innovation and show why they can and have been productively interrelated with social science theories and methods. First, each of the articles in this SI is briefly introduced and synthesised around three themes: (1) the need for a critique of digital ‘solutionism’ in current interdisciplinary research, development and innovation settings; (2) that social science contributes value via the ideas it brings to life to challenge dominant power dynamics and (3) that social scientific imagination and practice is a valuable long‐term investment to both mitigate risk but also embrace socioenvironmental opportunities as we face ongoing sustainability crises into the future. Second, we identify future research considerations arising within the field, sitting at the intersection of social science and agricultural sociotechnical transitions. Our insights relate to challenges and opportunities to ‘do’ social science within the context of contemporary and nascent transitions such as increasing digitalisation. Researchers trained in social science theory and practice can make distinctive contributions to agri‐food innovation processes by making social stakes visible and by advancing inclusive processes of research policy and technology design.

The durability–flexibility dialectic: the evolution of decarbonisation policies in the European Union

ABSTRACT Policy makers are under political pressure to adopt policies that achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. Reaching net zero is a demanding challenge requiring durable policies that last; that is, withstand short-term turbulence. However, there is a lack of clarity in the existing literature on both the conceptual meaning of policy durability and its empirical manifestations. This paper distinguishes between three central dimensions of policy durability and uses them to shed new light on the long-term evolution of EU climate policy. It reveals that the EU has addressed the relationship between policy durability and policy flexibility by working iteratively across and between different policy elements (instruments, programmes, goals, etc.). In revealing these patterns, it addresses a greatly neglected feature of policy design processes: the dialectical relationship between durability and flexibility.

Designing synergetic and sustainable policy mixes - a methodology to address conflictive environmental issues

Environmental governance often requires fulfilling different objectives at the same time, as environmental but also economic and social objectives of different actors and on different scales. That means, it needs to address (potential) goal conflicts. This challenge of how to achieve policy coherence is currently discussed regarding the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It also touches on questions of policy design in general, on how to avoid contradiction and foster synergies between interdependent policy tools. This paper presents a new interdisciplinary methodology to design synergetic and sustainable policy mixes. It contributes a new approach for policy design processes addressing goal conflicts of sustainable development. The methodology uses cross-impact balance analysis (CIB), a qualitative form of systems analysis: A policy-interaction model is built by iterating between desk research and expert consultation regarding different objectives, policies to achieve them, and directed interactions between these policies. Analyzing the model allows identifying alternative policy mixes, which optimize different objectives at the same time, are free of internal contradictions and use synergies between policies. The methodology provides easy operationalizations for synergy and consistency and allows assessing sustainability performance and robustness of policy mixes. The methodology is suitable for both ex post evaluation of status quo and ex ante evaluation of alternative policy mixes. The methodology is applied to the water management in the Lurín river basin, Peru. We argue that the approach is transferable to further environmental issues and to SDG interactions on the policy level and supports policy coherence for sustainable development.

Support for people with dementia experiencing severe responsive behaviours: Unpacking the disconnect between policy and practice.

The Severe Behaviour Response Team (SBRT) program, which was established in 2015 to support aged care residents with dementia experiencing very severe and extreme responsive behaviours received far fewer referrals than projected during its first year. This article describes the outcomes of a brief survey to identify potential barriers to referrals and identify opportunities to improve the uptake of the service. A pragmatic, quasi-experimental study was conducted involving clinical leads working in a representative sample of care homes that had not used the SBRT. The study was part of the formative evaluation activities of an ongoing program evaluation. Of the 53 clinical leads that participated in the survey, one-third had not heard of the SBRT prior to being contacted. The remaining two-thirds (n=36) had not used the service due to the availability of existing resources and concerns regarding responsiveness of, and access to, the new service. Three themes emerged from the study relating to awareness of the service, responsiveness and the interface between local aged care and health services. Referrals increased following interventions to address the first two themes; however, they continue to remain well below the number projected. This indicates a fundamental disconnection between the policy design process and the day-to-day experience of residential aged care. The study highlights the importance of aged care clinical leads being engaged in dementia policy and program development processes to support improved targeting of resources.