Policy Style Research Articles

Policy consultation and political styles: Renewable energy consultations in the UK and Denmark

There is a discussion among political scientists about the extent to which there are differences in policy styles between western European states, including in particular whether they share common means of consulting and deciding policy through policy networks. This article studies the differences in policy consultation approaches between Denmark and the United Kingdom in the case of renewable energy. It further examines whether consultation patterns differ in the policy formation and policy implementation phases. It is found that while in both Danish and British cases there is decision making through policy communities, there are still some clear differences in the ways in which consultation takes place and decisions are made at the levels of both policy formation and policy implementation.

Does globalization drive interest group strategy? A cross-national study of outside lobbying and social media

Social media offer a new outside lobbying tactics for interest groups, yet many examinations of social media use by interest groups have been case studies or single-country studies. While much can be learned from those approaches, national-level factors – such as the style of policy making and globalization – cannot be fully addressed. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship between globalization and the use of social media as an outside lobbying strategy with cross-national data. Controlling for other factors, I argue that globalization creates isomorphic pressure on interest groups to adapt new lobbying tactics, thereby increasing the likelihood of using social media and using it in certain ways. Specifically, based on data collected from interest groups operating in 13 countries, the analysis shows that globalization is associated with more internationally-bounded social media strategies, but also with lower social media resonance. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Unanimity, Consensus and Peripheral Parties as Determinants of EU Policy Coordination in Federal Member States

EU scholars have long argued that regions can shape the integration process, but there is no agreement on why this is so. While some authors consider constitutional powers, intergovernmental relations, or differentiated regional elites as independent variables, those interested in Europeanization argue that the ‘transformative power of Europe’ enticed both central and regional governments to adopt consensual policy styles, akin to those prevailing in the EU. Accordingly, new territorial arrangements would have made effective participation in the integration process possible. However, scholars have failed to pay due consideration to a crucial factor: the decision-making rule employed in the coordination mechanisms. In this article, I argue that cooperation among regions actually depends mostly on whether decisions are taken by consensus or unanimity. Common regional positions and impacts on EU decisions become unlikely if peripheral parties increase the levels of conflict. The arguments build on theoretical warrants taken from actor-centered institutionalism.

One cheer for Jordan and Cairney: Taking the governance literature seriously

In a recent contribution to this journal, Jordan and Cairney have helped focus attention on the concept of policy style. Here, we examine their arguments critically to make four points. First, their treatment of the extant policy networks literature is problematic in various ways. Second, the policy styles literature needs to engage more directly with the governance literature. Third, while the literature on governance suggests that there are three modes of governance – hierarchy, markets and networks – it is generally the ‘mix that matters’. Consequently, there are both similarities and differences between countries’ policy styles. Fourth, the policy styles literature, like the network governance literature, plays down the importance of the role that citizens, as distinct from experts, can, and to an extent do, play in policymaking.

After Governance: A Normative Re ection on Civil Society Participation in Policy Processes

This paper discusses the normative implications of a political vision that aims to integrate civil society into new governance mechanisms, pragmatic governance in particular, by virtue of the funding of civil society organisations. is vision has led to a marked increase in both funding for civil society and in the assignment of governance tasks to civil society organisations that are normally performed by the public sector. However, some of the crucial aspects of these normative, ontological perspectives are either counter-factual or limited by at least two major factors: 1) the prevailing technocratic style of policy making used in pragmatic govern- ance, and 2) the proliferation of managerialism, i.e. the idea that any kind of social organisation must be administered by managers and that the public and civil society sectors should use of corporate/business sector professional management techniques and tools. Both pragmatic governance and managerialism a ect, and re-de ne, the traditional conception of civil society as autonomous, authentic, voluntary organisations that act as a check and balance on the excessive use of power by the state.

Intellectual iconoclasm as modernizing foreign policy: the cases of Mahathir bin Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew

This article attempts to engage in a preliminary twinned study of the foreign policy styles of Mahathir bin Mohamad and Lee Kuan Yew within the framework of ‘modernizing Southeast Asian foreign policies’. Modernization is a process of immense multidimensional displacement in economy, society, political system, attitudes towards politicians, identities, work, and consumption. As such the onus falls upon their leaders to either mitigate change or productively awaken their followers to embrace a new mode of thought. Both Lee and Mahathir have however chosen to engage in the foreign policy of intellectual iconoclasm featuring the narrative of ‘productive shock’, manufactured nationalist logics, elitist policy-making and elaborate self-propaganda.

Too little, but not too late? Health reform in rural China and the limits of experimentalism

This article provides a preliminary evaluation of health care reforms in rural China, with particular focus on villagers’ perceptions of the quality of care and the rural health insurance programme. Based on semi-structured interviews and an original survey of villagers in three provinces, this study suggests that, although recent reforms may have somewhat reduced the out-of-pocket cost of catastrophic illness, rural health systems continue to suffer from serious deficiencies. By examining villagers’ perceptions of health care, this article argues that initial conditions and incentive structures interact with local policy styles to impede effective health care reform in rural China.

‘Modi'fications in Indian Foreign Policy

Indian foreign policy is ideologically dominated by Nehruvian model that emphasises on non-alignment. But the emergence of Mr. Narendra Modi in India's political horizon has been significantly transforming the emphasis and style of Indian foreign policy. Projecting his own uniqueness is the characteristic of Mr. Modi, which clearly reflected when he invited SAARC leaders in his swearing-in ceremony. His fast track diplomatic visits of neighbouring countries and meetings with the leaders of most of the major countries alongwith US President Barack Obama in less than a year have obviously given him a lead over his predecessors. Modi's new initiatives like, ‘Make in India’, ‘Digital India’, etc showcase his departure from the tradition. Though, former Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was also no different, but he was careful to dress his policies like a continuum of the legacy of Nehruvian model. But Modi's emphasis is to project all his initiatives as departures. Hence, there are unprecedented expectations that the Modivian era has now been started in India's foreign policy to meet the demands of new geopolitical realities those were not emphasised earlier. Thus, the aim of this paper is to explore and investigate those modifications which came into the Indian foreign policy since Mr. Modi became prime minister of India. It examines the strategic initiatives and endeavours of new government, and discusses how the style and substances of Modi's foreign policies are different from his predecessors? This paper also makes an effort to analyse––to what extent will Modi's foreign policy be effective in accelerating the pace of India's rise as a global power? In particular, the paper exclusively focuses on India's foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Hybridity at the heart of contemporary risk governance: the example of the safety of the food chain in Belgium

What are the changes and challenges facing the public regulator in a context of risk governance? Through the analytical prism developed by Jacques Chevallier, this article proposes to examine the changes in the role of the public regulator by focusing on the style of public policy and governance tools. In the light of the hybridity observed in the study of the system regulating the safety of the food chain in Belgium, the contribution focuses on a double source of instability reflecting the tensions at the heart of the public values structuring the regulation system. A deconstruction of this hybridity reveals the negotiated and conflicting nature of the values underlying the action of the public regulator and its evaluation. Notes for practitioners Based on an inventory of the situation at the heart of the system regulating the risks to the safety of the food chain in Belgium, the contribution identifies the challenges faced by the public regulator in the context of risk governance. Observing the hybrid nature of their involvement, it highlights two sources of tension related to their policy style and their use of regulatory instruments. By considering the possible stabilization measures that could be taken to overcome tensions, three approaches have been identified as a means of adjusting the role of the public regulator, stressing the transversal importance of the findings.

Two Legacies, Two Presidents, Father and Son

The foreign policy legacy of the United States in the post-Cold War world is one of conflicting visions, as four presidents have embarked on different strategies and different ways of using American power. George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush had remarkably divergent ways of approaching foreign policy, and yet each was president as turbulent world events enveloped their presidencies. There have been many books and academic articles written about Bush I's response to the end of the Cold War and actions during the first Gulf War and Bush II's response to the events of 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the actions during the global war on terror. But there have been few scholarly treatments that look at both Bush legacies and offer a leadership and foreign policy take on why their foreign policy decisions were so different. In The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East, Michael Cairo addresses these two legacies through the filter of the Persian Gulf, and how that region has been central to contemporary American foreign policy. In the first part, Cairo sets out the fundamental differences between father and son. Here, he tells a familiar narrative and discusses a number of the reasons why George W. Bush, whose foreign policy bona fides were not well honed, did not follow the worldview of his father's administration, despite the inclusion of many of Bush I's closest advisors in his inner circle. Cairo develops this through a chapter on early experiences that shaped both presidents' lives, before proceeding to compare and contrast their beliefs and styles. In the second part of the book, he analyzes both foreign policy legacies thematically by focusing on the buildup to confrontation in the Gulf, the two Gulf wars and their aftermath, and the search for Middle East peace in each era. Cairo concludes with a comparison of their legacies. He relies on archival research conducted in the immediate post-Bush I years, and on new research during the Obama years. In short, Cairo offers a very good and very well-reasoned analysis of how both presidents have been defined by their foreign policy styles.

Singapore’s policy style: statutory boards as policymaking units

Statutory boards represent an important feature of Singapore’s effective and efficient model of public administration. Despite their autonomy and separation from the rest of Singapore’s civil service, statutory boards represent policymaking units in their own right, developed and utilized by the government in the achievement of its policy objectives. Based on first-hand interviews and other primary data, this paper provides an analysis of two Singaporean statutory boards: the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Land Transport Authority, focusing in particular on their roles as policymaking units. In doing so, this paper attempts to sketch out and understand Singapore’s unique policy style. This contributes to a better understanding of Asian policy styles in the process, a topic which has thus far received scant attention in the existing policy styles literature.

The Territorialisation of Interest Representation in Scotland: Did Devolution Produce a New Form of Group-Government Relations?

The Scottish Government represents an important new ‘venue’ for group influence and provides a strong incentive for interest groups to engage. A large number have exploited this new opportunity. The devolution of powers to a Scottish Parliament in 1999 followed a century of administrative devolution in areas such as health, education, local government and justice. Many Scottish groups have long histories, and there is evidence of distinct territorial policy communities before 1999 in some areas—but devolution provided a new frame of reference for policy-making and a strong impetus to organise at this level. Factors such as Scotland's size, and the Scottish Government's limited policy-making capacity, have produced a ‘Scottish Policy Style’, in which groups and government interact in distinctive ways. However, this development is complicated by the multi-level nature of policy-making, producing the need for many groups to organise and lobby at local, Scottish, UK and/or EU levels. The devolution of economic policy, and the prospect of territorial corporatism, is limited. The picture varies markedly from issue to issue, from areas such as compulsory education producing Scotland and local-level relationships to agriculture and environmental policy in which key decisions are made by the EU for the UK and Scotland to implement.

Institutional opportunity structures and the Catholic Church: explaining variation in the regulation of same-sex partnerships in Ireland and Italy

ABSTRACTOver recent decades, factors such as religion and, specifically, Catholicism have emerged as key variables in the explanation of policy outputs and dynamics with regard to so-called morality issues. However, the standard theoretical arguments do not capture the whole story, as a comparison of same-sex partnership policies in Italy and Ireland shows. Based on existing approaches, we would not have expected that the more religious Ireland would move faster than Italy in adopting an act recognizing homosexual couples in social, tax and inheritance law. A closer examination of the policy process in the two countries reveals that the success and duration of decision-making in morality policies is affected by the institutional opportunity structures of the political system. They define the scope conditions for the Catholic Church to act as veto power and determine the government's policy style for resolving value conflicts.

Training vouchers, local employment agencies, and policy styles

This paper analyzes how the policy style of local employment agencies is correlated with the award intensity of training vouchers for the unemployed—an important instrument of Active Labor Market Policy (ALMP) in Germany. We define the policy style of agencies on the basis of caseworkers’ and managers’ assessments regarding the voucher system and information on internal organization, cooperative and communicative behavior. We use unique survey data in combination with data on training voucher awards from the Federal Employment Agency. Our results suggest that cooperative behavior and communication have a positive influence on the intensity of training voucher awards after we control for regional and labor market characteristics.

Streams and stages: Reconciling Kingdon and policy process theory

AbstractUse of metaphors is a staple feature of how we understand policy processes – none more so than the use of ‘policy stages’/'cycles’ and ‘multiple streams’. Yet even allowing for the necessary parsimony of metaphors, the former is often criticised for its lack of ‘real world’ engagement with agency, power, ideology, turbulence and complexity, while the latter focuses only on agenda‐setting but at times has been utilised, with limited results, to understand later stages of the policy process. This article seeks to explore and advance the opportunities for combining both and applying them to the policy‐formation and decision‐making stages of policy making. In doing so it examines possible three, four and five stream models. It argues that a five stream confluence model provides the highest analytical value because it retains the simplicity of metaphors (combining elements of two of the most prominent models in policy studies) while also helping capture some of the more complex and subtle aspects of policy processes, including policy styles and nested systems of governance.

PEMILIHAN PRESIDEN INDONESIA 2014 DI MEDIA ASING (Studi Kasus New York Times)

The increasing intensity of international relations and globalization has spurred interests in local events of not only domestic audience but also foreign audience. Some events have become the interest of the public in other countries that the foreign media publish news about the events. The media cover events in a foreign country because the events will influence the government’s foreign policy toward that country. Presidential election leads to the replacement of a country’s leader. Meanwhile, a country’s international relations and foreign policy are influenced by decision making individual such as state and government leader. Personalities, perceptions, activities, and leadership style of the leader influence foreign policy of a country, therefore different leader will make different foreign policy. Indonesian presidential election is covered by foreign media particularly those in countries with good relations with Indonesia. Some Americans pay attention to Indonesian presidential election because it will affect the two countries’ bilateral relation. The New York Times, the most referred print and digital media by American foreign policy makers, also covered the election. Covering the two presidential candidates’ background, the New York Times encouraged the American government to cooperate fully with whoever would be elected, and continue good relation with Indonesia.Key words: foreign media coverage, foreign policy, Indonesia presidential election

Regional Economic Resilience: Policy Experiences and Issues in Europe

Accordingly, research on regional economic resilience is still in an infant stage. Nevertheless, statistical reports and policies, in particular in countries severely hit by the “great recession”, already carry the label “resilience”. The range of possible directions indicated by the discourse on resilience is still wide. On the one hand, new forms of civil participation are realised in regional governance with stronger communities and new, revived or adjusted forms of social and economic interaction like sharing economies or developing self-sufficient communities. On the other hand, the focus on adaptability and constant awareness of change as a means of achieving resilience is seen as an additional stressor and further step towards social and economic segmentation and disparities. Against this background, the papers in this special issue take a look at current policies and policy debates from different perspectives and with various spatial foci. The aim is to understand: what is already happening in practice to foster regional economic resilience; what are common features in European regions despite differences in economic shocks, allocation of competencies among the spatial governmental levels and policy styles; how these observations fit to theoretical explanations; and which influence on regional economic policies might finally emerge from the focus on resilience. Several papers were developed based on research in a project funded by the European Spatial Observatory Network (ESPON) on “Economic crisis: resilience of regions (ECR 2)” illustrating the interest on the political level to look for experiences and approaches to integrate regional economic resilience as a strategic objective into regional policies on different spatial levels. The issue opens with two conceptual papers. The first paper by Rudiger Wink looks at current debates and open questions on regional economic resilience as a theoretical concept and strategic policy guideline. The author takes up Crises seem to be a familiar phenomenon nowadays. Terror attacks, natural catastrophes like floods, thunderstorms, tsunamis or landslides, technological breakdowns like the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster or increased awareness of the negative impact on human physical and mental health of various stress factors of modern life – in all cases, resilience as the capacity to avoid, withstand or adapt to crises has become a catchword to describe the capabilities to cope with negative shocks and adverse conditions. It comes as no surprise that resilience has also found its way into the discourse on regional economic development. The increased number of macroeconomic crises in many developed and emerging regions during the last two decades and, in particular, the “great recession” with its origin in banking failures and financial crisis has caused increasing interest in the potential causes of disparities in regions’ capacities to cope with these shocks. In 2010, the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economies and Society published a special issue on “The Resilient Region” to discuss the state of research on regional economic resilience. In 2013, Ron Martin and Peter Sunley, however, still stated in a discussion paper, which was also submitted to the Journal of Economic Geography (Martin/Sunley 2013: 3):

Puzzling about problems: the ambiguous search for an evidence-based strategy for handling influx of health technology

This paper focuses on problem frame differences among actors (members of an advisory body, senior administrators and clinical unit managers) who are concerned with the introduction of new health technology at the regional level in Sweden. It explores issues related to problem framing, puzzling, powering, participation and the various rationales articulated in the ambiguous search for an evidence-based strategy to handle the influx of new technologies. The Health Technology Advisory Committee (HTAC) was established in one Swedish county council in 2004 with the intention of controlling both the introduction of health technology and supporting policy decision and clinical practice by promoting the use of best evidence. The HTAC followed a scientific rationality dominated by one problem frame, although the problematic situation, as it was framed by all the actor groups, was highly complex and not solely a matter of evidence. This paper illustrates how problem frame differences shape the puzzling of a policy problem and how the different distinguishable policy styles are dependent on who is participating and who is not participating in the puzzling.

Salience and approval in transatlantic perspective

This paper focuses on issue salience and the approval of specific foreign policies and asks whether shifts in public attention are linked to specific political attitudes concerning the use of military force. It examines the role of salience of foreign affairs in the USA and Germany and links the cognitive dimension (what is important) with the attitudinal dimension (what is your opinion on a specific issue). Although the two countries differ in foreign policy style and military involvement, their publics tend to disapprove of military interventions when they perceive them as the country's most important problem. In times of high overall salience, however, public judgement tends to be less negative because event-induced peaks in salience work according to a different logic than problem-induced salience.

The Dynamics of Involuntary Commercial Banks’ Reserves in Trinidad and Tobago

This paper examines the dynamics of excess liquidity in a small open energy producing economy, namely Trinidad and Tobago. The banking system in that country has persistently recorded high excess liquidity. For example, during 2010, excess reserves increased by six times what it was three years earlier. This has posed serious challenges for the Central Bank given the market based style of monetary policy adopted. We argue that an accumulation of excess reserves beyond prudential levels can be offsetting to monetary policy. To estimate the dynamics of involuntary excess reserves we use a two-step procedure. The first step employs Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to examine how liquidity needs impact on the holding of precautionary excess reserves. The GMM model reveals that commercial banks hold excess reserves for precautionary purposes. Second, we employ impulse response functions to explore the dynamic effects of increased government expenditure on involuntary reserves held by commercial banks. The generalized impulse responses, obtained from a Vector Error Correction (VEC) model, show that government expenditure leads to sustained elevation of involuntary reserves.