Policy Elites Research Articles

Public opinion on government funding of the arts in the United States: demographic and political factors

ABSTRACT I examine associations between demographic and political factors and attitudes regarding government funding of the arts in the United States. I also generate dynamic, state-level estimates of public opinion on governmental support the arts from 1990 to 2016. While elite rhetoric and policy proposals sometimes call for major reductions in government funding for the arts, I find no evidence of majority support for cutting arts spending at the national level during this period. At the state level, majorities supported reducing government funding for the arts only rarely. I find that partisanship and ideology are associated with support for government funding to a modest extent. While ideologically conservative members of the public were more likely than others to want to cut arts spending, majorities of Republicans favoured maintaining or increasing government spending on the arts in three of the four survey years analyzed. Overall, proposals to substantially reduce public funding of the arts in the United States were not well-aligned with public opinion.

Elites in transnational policy networks

AbstractIn this framing article for the special issue we contrast the aims and ambitions of three core approaches to elites in transnational policy networks and highlight where they have productive overlaps. The core approaches employ three distinctive theoretical lenses in their investigations: fields, hegemony, and institutions. We discuss how these approaches trace elites in transnational policymaking and associated methods, such as network analysis, sequence analysis and field theory, which highlight different aspects of how elites in transnational policy networks operate. Most of the contributions are concerned with mapping out elite careers and why career trajectories matter for field and network positions in transnational policymaking. While the contributions share this in common, we highlight the different ways in which the approaches can be used to dissect the same issues. Our contributions include pieces on the Trump administration, the professional ecologies of transnational policy elites, the treatment of transboundary political problems, the characteristics of technocratic elites, the racial and gender composition of transnational elites, and professional competition over transnational policy issues.

The Politics of Microcredit Facilities as Pro-poor Intervention in Solving Gender Inequality in Ghana: the Political Settlement Perspective

Poverty is ubiquitously chronic in Sub-Saharan Africa. Interventions to reduce the entrenched inequality by several government regimes have received mixed results as political elites spearhead many of these programs-cum-institutions hence moderate their full manifestation. Using the political settlement theory, the study interrogates the management of microcredit interventions in Ghana. In-depth interviews from multi-stakeholder groups reveal that Ghana’s political climate adversely impacts the full expression of the pro-poor intervention in empowering women and reducing poverty. The study again reveals that the continuous politicisation of the pro-poor scheme has resulted in high-interest rates and crony lending. The situation reflects the short-term policies of political elites that do not culminate in the general wellbeing of women, thereby creating gender imbalances. Nonetheless, access to the facility has improved the lives of women inter alia, business startups, expansions, savings, reduced domestic violence, and reduced perception of the traditional roles of women. The study, therefore, concludes that an all-inclusive approach to development and a system-based model that connects state and non-state actors provide a possible leeway to fully implement the pro-poor scheme.

Whither Security Cooperation in the BRICS? Between the Protection of Norms and Domestic Politics Dynamics

AbstractThis paper argues that the BRICS are status quo powers concerning two core norms of the international society: sovereignty and hierarchy, what conditions both the scope and depth of their security cooperation. On the one hand, this enables cooperation, as they can use the group to protect these norms and reinforce state control on transnational flows. In addition, this facilitates the formation of ties among foreign policy and bureaucratic elites across the BRICS who share a preference for protecting these norms. On the other hand, the importance attached to these norms constrains cooperation: differences of regime type are associated to higher levels of distrust; and intragroup power asymmetries raise fears of potential unequal agreements. The paper then applies these ideas to indicate the potential for cooperation on anti‐drug and cybersecurity policies. On the one hand, different regime types and power inequalities are likely to hinder cooperation. On the other hand, interests from foreign policy, political and bureaucratic elites in protecting norms, as well as in increasing state control on transnational flows and expand repression against new threats are likely to facilitate cooperation.

The Programmatic Action Framework: An empirical assessment

AbstractThis article starts with a discussion of the analytical issues of the Programmatic Action Framework (PAF); based on the hypothesis that small groups of individuals, sharing a similar analysis of a policy problem sustaining a common policy change program (including orientations, arguments, and instruments) giving them a collective identity, and behaving strategically as a collective actor, can be main drivers of policy change. We then present the methodological implications of the empirical analysis of such programmatic groups and policy change programs. The methodology of the Programmatic Action Framework combines tools coming from the sociology of elites (positional analysis, analysis of professional trajectories, relational analysis) and the sociology of the policy process. It was first applied in empirical researches on health insurance reforms in France and the United States since the 1980s, shedding the light on the key role of specialized policy elites (specialized senior civil servants in France, long‐term insiders in the United States). We conclude by stressing that, because of its systematic and encompassing empirical methodology, the Programmatic Action Framework can be used in a comparative way, in other policy sectors than health care.

Climate Policy and Industry Elite Perceptions of Risk and Uncertainty: A Cross-National Study

There has been a growing focus on uncertainty as a distinct concept in the risk literature. This paper is concerned with how those involved in the design and implementation of climate change policy conceptualize risk and uncertainty. Based on interviews with policy and industry elites in Australia, China and the UK, it finds that participants did not distinguish between “risk” and “uncertainty” in their conceptualization of climate threats. For the majority of them, politics was the most significant source of risk and uncertainty in climate policy, but delegation of otherwise political decisions to the market was seen as the best solution. The conclusion suggests that the conceptual distinction between risk and uncertainty is less important, for policy and industry elites, than the need to develop mechanisms that account for both persistent scientific uncertainties as well as interpretive and moral ambiguities in climate policy design and implementation.

Just Not in the Neighbourhood: China's Views on the Application of the Responsibility to Protect in the DPRK

AbstractMuch has been written about China's active engagement and progressive approach to the “responsibility to protect,” a norm that reframes state sovereignty not as a right but as a responsibility. China's response to the “Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK),” which invokes the norm, however, challenges existing literature. China flatly refuses to uphold the responsibility to protect in the case of the DPRK, despite using previously supported standards to invoke the norm elsewhere and the report's dozens of consensual recommendations. This article is the first to systematically investigate how China has responded to the report. It shows that China's responses are shaped by its exceptionalism and concerns that the responsibility to protect could lead to regime change. I conclude with implications for the broader question of China's engagement with international norms in its near abroad. In my discussion, I draw on interviews with Korean and Chinese foreign policy elites, UN and US officials and DPRK human rights advocates, as well as primary and secondary documents.

Whither Security Cooperation in the BRICS? Between the Protection of Norms and Domestic Politics Dynamics

This paper argues that the BRICS are status quo powers concerning two core norms of the international society: sovereignty and hierarchy, what conditions both the scope and depth of their security cooperation. On the one hand, this enables cooperation, as they can use the group to protect these norms and reinforce state control on transnational flows. In addition, this facilitates the formation of ties among foreign policy and bureaucratic elites across the BRICS who share a preference for protecting these norms. On the other hand, the importance attached to these norms constrains cooperation: differences of regime type are associated to higher levels of distrust; and intragroup power asymmetries raise fears of potential unequal agreements. The paper then applies these ideas to indicate the potential for cooperation on anti‐drug and cybersecurity policies. On the one hand, different regime types and power inequalities are likely to hinder cooperation. On the other hand, interests from foreign policy, political and bureaucratic elites in protecting norms, as well as in increasing state control on transnational flows and expand repression against new threats are likely to facilitate cooperation.

Evaluation of Health Policy Governance in the Introduction of the New DRG-Based Hospital Payment System from Interviews with Policy Elites in South Korea.

The study provides evidence of the governance and its context according to the introduction of the New Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs)-based payment system in Korea. In-depth interviews with 14 core policy elites from four health areas were conducted. As governance is a multidimensional concept, interviewees were asked to evaluate different dimensions based on the World Bank’s five elements (Coherent decision-making structures, Consistency and Stability, Stakeholder participation, Supervision and Regulation, and Transparency and Information). Overall, the new payment system was perceived as poorly governed. Since its introduction, it has not offered a new governance perspective because it used a conventional top-down approach, while political windows for cooperation were not wide open. Of the five governance dimensions, the scores were lowest in Stakeholder participation. There was a large perception gap between physicians and government officers here. Participants from academia perceived Consistency and Stability as ineffectively governed. In the meantime, the government has mainly created health policy in Korea. As a result, stakeholder participation, especially the participation of medical personnel, has been insufficient in the process of health policy formulation. The study suggests that the decision-making process in health policy needs to be more participatory and reliable, with governance regarded as a high priority.

Protecting Democracy from Disinformation: Normative Threats and Policy Responses

Following public revelations of interference in the United States 2016 election, there has been widespread concern that online disinformation poses a serious threat to democracy. Governments have responded with a wide range of policies. However, there is little clarity in elite policy debates or academic literature about what it actually means for disinformation to endanger democracy, and how different policies might protect it. This article proposes that policies to address disinformation seek to defend three important normative goods of democratic systems: self-determination, accountable representation, and public deliberation. Policy responses to protect these goods tend to fall in three corresponding governance sectors: self-determination is the focus of international and national security policies; accountable representation is addressed through electoral regulation; and threats to the quality of public debate and deliberation are countered by media regulation. The article also reveals some of the challenges and risks in these policy sectors, which can be seen in both innovative and failed policy designs.

Peacemakers or Iron Ladies? A Cross-National Study of Gender and International Conflict

Conventional wisdom suggests that when women attain high political office they are more likely to act as peacemakers than their male counterparts. In contrast, this article argues that women political leaders may be more likely to initiate conflict than their male colleagues. The theory draws on insights from feminist theory, particularly the notion that gender is performative, to argue that the effects of a leader’s gender on foreign policy decision making vary with social and institutional context. To gain and maintain status in elite policy in-groups, female leaders are incentivized to perform gender by signaling their toughness and competence through initiating conflict. Statistical tests and qualitative case studies of the tenures of Turkish prime minister Tansu Çiller and Chilean president Michelle Bachelet provide evidence that female heads of government in democracies are more likely to initiate conflict than their male counterparts and that this effect is conditioned both by domestic political constraints and overall levels of women’s political empowerment.

GEOCULTURAL APPROACH OF THE WORLDOUTLOOK RESEARCH PROGRAM: ON THE PROBLEM OF INTERACTION OF LIBERAL AND TRADITIONAL STANDARDS

The reсonsidering of the methodological foundations of modern theoretical jurisprudence includes both the search for new approaches and the identification of the limits and conditions for their adequacy. At the same time, the needs for studying the interaction of the value-worldoutlook nature and the spatial conditionality of the state and law, considered in the logic of an open system, correspond with the geocultural approach. This approach is based on the multi-valued category “geoculture”, that allows one to comprehend the cultural codes and meanings of the transformation of reality and space (world projects), including those that exist as ideas about ideal forms of public power and social regulation. The geocultural approach may be part of such methodological phenomena as the worldoutlook research program, world-system analysis and geomeasurement. At the present stage, the geocultural approach of the worldoutlook research program is most suitable for analyzing the conflict of geocultures, allowing to take into account the replacement of geocultural standards, the crisis of the modern capita list world economy, legitimized by liberal geoculture, and the search for new mo dels of world order, carried out in the framework of the conflict of liberal and traditional values. The importance of understanding this conflict is due to the critical attitude of liberalism towards traditional statehood, its fulfillment of the role of an instrument of “controlled chaos” and an instrument of dominance of the West. The reсonsidering of liberal geoculture is permissible on the basis of the doctrines of traditional religious faiths, among which the Russian Orthodox Church is dominant in the post-Soviet space. Liberal geoculture is a multidimensional phenomenon, which at the same time puts forward the idea of protecting human rights and freedoms, and is an instrument for implementation of an elitist policy, characterized by excessive criticality in relation to the state and government, as well as any categories reflecting collective soli darity. Moreover, human rights, which are an integral part of liberal geoculture, initially stem from the Christian idea of a man as an ontologically free human being, the image and likeness of God, whose status metaphysically extends to anyone, but only his own. Substantially there are three interdependent problems in the phenomenon of human rights, the answer to which predetermines the practice of legal regulation: who is a person (in a particular geoculture), who is recognized as the ontological subject of human rights violations, who is recognized as the relevant subject of human rights protection. The complexity of the attitude of traditional Christianity to human rights, including denial (due to historical reasons for using human rights to marginalize Christianity), understanding, and recognition, is confirmed by the historical practice of the Russian Orthodox Church, which positively interprets this phenomenon in its conceptual documents at the present stage. The foregoing makes it expedient to use the canonical positions and official documents of traditional religious faiths in lawmaking and lawenforcement practice, which are the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches for Belarus.

Revolving doors in international financial governance

Abstract‘Revolving doors’ is a well‐suspected phenomenon of skills and knowledge transfer between the private and public sectors. It is thought to be especially notable among elites in transnational policy networks, where mobility can accrue status. In this article, we investigate revolving doors in the area of international financial governance. We target policymakers linked to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Monetary Fund's Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP). We test for revolving doors by examining the career histories of those working with the BCBS on the development of the Basel II accord, and staff on policy teams for financial systems monitoring via FSAP missions. Using sequence analysis, we trace career histories between 1971 and 2011 to observe the extent of revolving doors. Revolving doors are observed in club‐like elite policy communities but are less prevalent in policy teams in intergovernmental organizations. We find that revolving doors are important in establishing intellectual capture in how an issue is treated within transnational policy networks.

Gender, Events, and Elite Messages in Mass Opinion on Foreign Relations

AbstractDo women respond in different ways to foreign policy events and elite messages compared to men? This article integrates the literature on gender and conflict with that on public opinion to examine how gender matters for the effect of elite messages and national security events on public opinion regarding a foreign adversary. We theorize that women’s opinions of an adversary are more likely than men’s to be influenced by national security events because of the higher value they attach to the costs of conflict. Our empirical analysis takes advantage of the natural setting of inter-Korea relations, which includes unpredictable, thus plausibly exogenous, real-world national security events instigated by North Korea and contrasting messages regarding North Korea by South Korea’s elites during this timeframe. Using annual survey data from a nationally representative sample of South Koreans about attitudes toward North Korea from 2003 to 2016, we find that foreign policy events of high consequence for national security have a greater negative impact on women’s opinions. This is the case even in the face of positive elite messages that contradict those events.

Understanding Australia-Indonesia relations in the post-authoritarian era: resilience and respect

ABSTRACT Attributing the tempestuous nature of Australia-Indonesia relations to marked cultural differences is almost an article of faith in Australian foreign policy analysis. Indeed, policy and media commentary tends to depict the bilateral relationship as frequently in crisis and at risk of irreparable damage. This article contends that constructs which characterise Australia-Indonesia relations as especially fragile overlook powerful strategic imperatives as a basis for ongoing cooperation. The article examines two key variables shaping Australia-Indonesia relations in the post-authoritarian era—resilience and respect. A perceived lack of consultation by successive Australian Governments on policy announcements of vital national concern to Indonesia has been a catalyst for repeated bilateral tensions in the post-authoritarian era. This has been compounded by important shifts in Indonesia’s post-authoritarian polity and the state’s rising significance in international economic and political terms. The article concludes that in spite of periodic bilateral tensions, Indonesia-Australia relations have remained surprisingly resilient. Such resilience is based on an appreciation by foreign policy elites in both states about the relationship’s utility for maintaining stability and prosperity in a transitional Indo-Pacific order.

Reduce the Multi Party for the Stability of National Development

This paper tries to discuss the problems of multiparty systems in Indonesia. The main doctrine in a democratic system is the people, the people and the people. These three points can be interpreted (1) power originating from the hands of the people, (2) exercising by representatives representing the people, (3) aiming for the prosperity of the people. The political objectives in Indonesia as stated in the opening of the 1945 Constitution are essentially the prosperity of the people. So that the national development goals are in line with the legal basis in Indonesia. But in fact political practices in Indonesia are not appropriate even contrary to the formulation in the Basic Law. As a continuation of these deviant political practices, the direction of development has become biased because policy makers in this country use deviant political practices. This paper discusses the practice of political deviations that have an impact on the occurrence of national development goals in Indonesia. The author examines political issues and their impact on development with a social science approach, including; Sociology, History and Anthropology. The sociological approach looking at various socio-political events that are the impact of the implementation of multiparty in Indonesia. Historical approach looking at the development of the political system in Indonesia time to time. The last approach is Anthropology taking Clifford Geertz's work on trichotomy (Priayi, Santri, and Abangan) in Indonesian society as a form of community group classification. This analysis related to community groups (Priayi, Santri, Abangan) is then used to provide a normative picture elite policy makers in limiting and controlling the number of parties in Indonesia. The analysis is used because it sees that political parties that are currently developing are no longer proportional based on ideology or representation of community groups, but are based on material interests and tend to be transactional. Political parties are no longer the backrest of the ideology of their constituents, who are always close and feel educated to continue to gain political understanding, but nowadays, political parties have turned into hordes of political people to gain and maintain power.

Focus group interview regarding the accessibility of health information for people with disabilities and means of improving this accessibility in the future.

This study concerns the accessibility of health information for people with disabilities. More specifically, by interviewing policy elites who have backgrounds in this area, we seek to obtain their opinions regarding the type of information people with disabilities require, and people with disabilities overall awareness of such information. Based on the information obtained, we also aim to identify methods of improving this accessibility.A focus group interview was conducted involving policy elites who had previously participated in decision-making processes for health policy. These elites were sourced from the fields of academia, medicine, and government. Content analysis was performed using NVivo 10, which is a computer-assisted/aided qualitative data-analysis software.The focus-group participants felt that relevant information for people with disabilities is provided in a fragmentary manner through several channels that have relatively low reliability, which creates difficulties for a significant portion of the target recipients. Discussions regarding the type of health information required by people with disabilities yielded the following topic clusters: information regarding health-care providers who specialize in specific disability types and regarding health behaviors for certain lifecycles, and information that helps people with disabilities return to society. Further, the focus group recommended 2 means of providing essential health information to PWDs in the future. As short-term strategies, the participants proposed simplifying the existing, fragmented information channels and the creation of a comprehensive web-based information portal with an associated call center. As a long-term strategy, they proposed the development of smart-device-based information services that are tailored to the needs of individuals.Efforts to reduce the disparities in health information for people with disabilities are essential for addressing the existing inequality regarding the availability of health information.

Strategy and Law in the South China Sea Disputes: Workshop Report

The South China Sea dispute is one over the Chinese claim to rights within the nine-dash line it has drawn in the South China Sea. Within this line China has two objectives. First, it wishes to exercise control, or at least a veto, over resource exploitation, including both fisheries and oil and gas exploration. Second, strategically, China wishes through its island-building to push its defensive perimeter out, secure its sea lines of communication, and achieve area-denial capability. These ambitions cut deep into the rights of neighboring coastal states over their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs). The mood within Chinese foreign policy elites appears, however, to have hardened on these questions. Chinese interests in the South China Sea and now framed in terms of asserting and defending Chinese claims rather than maintaining regional stability. Nonetheless, Chinese foreign policy scholars see the South China Sea largely as a diplomatic dispute, and see a greater risk of conflict in the East China Sea. The South China Sea disputes are deadlocked. There is no reasonable prospect of China modifying its claims to special historic rights within the nine-dash line in the near future. There is also little likelihood of other coastal states relinquishing their own claims under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. In each case, national constituencies and domestic politics will make modification of adopted positions very difficult.

US Imperialism, the Korean Peninsula and Trumpian Disruption

ABSTRACTDonald Trump has disrupted US imperialism and fractured the cultural hegemony of the foreign policy elite. His incompetence has produced Russiagate and Ukrainegate as the establishment attempts to remove him from office fearful that he will further diminish American power. He essentially continues US policy but in an incoherent and disjointed fashion. His use of military, economic and financial power is relatively conventional but his deployment of the various aspects of soft power—where America’s greatest advantage lies—is severely dysfunctional. In particular, he mishandles the imperial alliance system and its concomitant control over civil and military elites through much of the world, and the dominance of global media and international bodies. Trump does not realise that he is running an empire with the constraints and overwhelming advantages that entails. His administration’s policy towards North Korea is basically the same as that of his predecessors but more maladroit. Ostensibly an attempt to force unilateral disarmament but also an acceptance that the current state of tension on the Korean peninsula is an essential component of the wider strategy of containing China and Russia and locking South Korea and Japan into the imperial power structure.

Till Death(s) Do Us Part?: Policy “Design Trace” of the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drug Campaign

The many political forces in support for and against Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs present a key challenge in drug policy analysis. As a highly politicized issue, drug policy concerns include questions of economic development, security, human rights, and public health. How has the policy evolved in the last two-and-a-half years of implementation given these different concerns? What can policy tracing contribute in understanding the policy? The article examines the policymaking process pertinent to the Philippine anti-drug campaign through a policy tracing technique. The study employed a qualitative research design using multiple sources such as chronological media review, informant interviews with policy implementers, elites, and experts, as well as document review of legislations and official documents. The policy design trace of the Philippine anti-drug campaign reveals policy characteristics that are neglected. First, the policy has evolved into four distinct stages—and these policy iterations are largely responses to numerous implementation crises. The rebranding of policies was used to legitimize policies than improve policy values and learning. Second, changes in policy were only seen in the reorganization of police and supplementary guidelines for Oplan TokHang operations. Finally, the campaign operates within a police-centric framework despite interagency and whole-of-government approaches. These findings provide an explanation as to why the campaign has been highly punitive and will continue to be so in the next years, despite the presence of alternative drug control interventions and policy positions.