Policy-making Practices Research Articles

The interrupting capacities of knowledge co-production experiments: A sociology of testing approach

Knowledge co-production is increasingly referred to as a means to reorganise expert work and generate policy support. Co-production processes bring together diverse expertise to explore environmental problems beyond epistemic or administrative silos. This re-orchestration of knowledge production is seen as critical for the attainment of sustainability transformations. However, little attention has, so far, been given to the ways in which co-production experiments entangle with the settings to which they are introduced. Drawing from the new sociology of testing, we suggest that knowledge co-production experiments can be fruitfully analysed as tests of established policymaking practices. This approach highlights the role of co-production processes as collaborative forms that intervene by re-orchestrating the analysis of policy-relevant relationships. Interviews of actors engaged with two transition arenas shows that the experiments qualified as new forms of expert involvement, sources of ontological disturbance, and as interruptions in policymaking that oscillates around project-based regional development and an environmental conflict. The methodology provides a relational sensitivity to analyse the interplay between co-production experiments and their settings.

Eco-ELT for environmental research and praxis in ELT

Global environmental catastrophes affecting present planetary ecosystems necessitate immediate and coordinated actions from all sectors and disciplines, including English language teaching (ELT). ELT shares the responsibilities with other disciplines to address ecological crises like climate change and biodiversity loss. However, environmental research and praxis in ELT lack of movement due to lack of unifying concept. An existing related concept, Eco-ELT, focuses solely on ecocriticism approach in ELT, limiting its scope. In fact, environmental research and praxis in ELT can take many forms, approaches, and models. For that reason, this conceptual article extends the Eco-ELT by elaborating on its philosophical standpoints: ontology, epistemology, and axiology. It also presents the Eco-ELT principle and framework of practice for English teachers, curriculum designers, and policymakers to implement the Eco-ELT intervention in English education. Finally, it elucidates the Eco-ELT research principle and area. These complete elaborations of the Eco-ELT aim to enhance and organize the structure of environmental movement in ELT and advance the contributions of ELT in decolonizing the Earth.

Grassroots policymaking in practice: including heritage languages in the critical connections project through agency, activism, and alternative voices

ABSTRACT This article examines the Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling Project through the lens of Language Policy and Planning (LPP) and considers the situation of heritage language learning within the policy on language education. We present our project as grassroots policymaking in practice and demonstrate how, through deep and meaningful collaboration, researchers, teachers, parents/carers, and students can exercise bottom-up agency to address key issues in learning languages and developing multilingual literacy. Our interdisciplinary approach embeds interculturality within all stages of the language learning process creating spaces that foster empathy, activist citizenship, and possibilities for a more sustainable future. We interrogate our Critical Connections Project and argue that this approach to LPP provides an alternative model of interculturally oriented critical cosmopolitan education which validates multilingual identities. We show how digital technology, virtual communities, and a growing concern for social justice have shaped the project and discuss how we adopted a critical ethnographic approach. In looking at purposes, principles and means in our project, the digital stories themselves are analysed and presented as vibrant data. To conclude, we engage specifically with the implications of our research for heritage languages and LPP. Finally, we make a series of recommendations for heritage language planning and policy.

Do Incentives Matter in Persuading Companies to Embrace Advanced Reporting Standards Voluntarily?

Using the evidence from Malaysia this study aims to investigate how incentives for Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) affect the relationship between the intention to use and user behavior when it comes to filing submissions. In this regard a survey was implemented among company employees who are involved in the preparation and submission of filings to Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia (SSM). Results indicate that incentives strengthen the positive relationship between XBRL filing intention to use and usage behavior. The study also discovered that intent to use significantly impacts XBRL filing behavior. Compared to perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use was found to have a greater influence on XBRL filing intention. Perceived ease of use was also found to be a significant indicator of XBRL filing perceived usefulness. The result of this study provides guidelines for incorporating XBRL technology into the practices of government authorities and policymakers. The study’s findings can also be used to develop strategies to encourage filers to submit voluntary filings using the XBRL platform.

Developing sustainable power systems by evaluating techno-economic, environmental, and social indicators from a system dynamics approach

The transition from fossil fuel-based energy systems to renewable energy systems (RES), especially in fossil-fuel-rich countries, is a challenging process requiring consideration of numerous factors, including technological feasibility, cost-effectiveness, and public acceptance. As governments play a crucial role in determining energy and environmental policy, developing practical policymaking tools encourages them to stimulate the adoption of renewable energy technology. This study proposes a novel framework to model an energy system transition focused on the power generation and its dynamic behavior of fossil-fuel-rich countries using the System Dynamics (SD) approach and then assesses the techno-economic and environmental impacts of various economic, technical, and environmental policies using the Multi-Criteria Decision-Analysis technique (MCDA). This study aims to compare the development of renewable technologies development versus improving the current technology efficiency under three different “business as usual,” “basic development,” and “advanced development” scenarios by assessing economic, environmental, and social indicators over the horizon of 2016–2040 in fossil-rich-fuel countries. The proposed framework was applied to Iran, a fossil-fuel-rich country. According to the case study results, in all of the defined policies under three scenarios, the improvement of fossil fuel technologies received the highest score indicating that improvement in the efficiency of the current energy system by utilizing combined cycle systems is an inevitable step. Taking into account the water shortage in Iran, the second crucial stage is the implementation of water-efficient renewable technologies.

Data-centric public services as potential source of policy knowledge. Can “design for policy” help?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, through selected case studies, to provide an overview of how non-traditional data from digital public services were used as a source of knowledge for policymaking. Secondly, to argue for a design for policy approach to support the successful integration of non-traditional data into policymaking practice, thus supporting data-driven innovation for policymaking. Thirdly, to encourage a vision of the relation between data-driven innovation and public policy that considers policymaking outside the authoritative instrumental logic perspective.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative small-N case study analysis based on desk research data was developed to provide an overview of how data-centric public services could become a source of knowledge for policymaking. The analysis was based on an original theoretical-conceptual framework that merges the policy cycle model and the policy capacity framework.FindingsThis paper identifies three potential areas of contribution of a design for policy approach in a scenario of data-driven innovation for policymaking practice: the development of sensemaking and prefiguring activities to shape a shared rationale behind intra-/inter-organisational data sharing and data collaboratives; the realisation of collaborative experimentations for enhancing the systemic policy analytical capacity of a governing body, e.g. by integrating non-traditional data into new and trusted indicators for policy evaluation; and service design as approach for data-centric public services that connects policy decisions to the socio-technical context in which data are collected.Research limitations/implicationsThe small-N sample (four cases) selected is not representative of a broader population but isolates exemplary initiatives. Moreover, the analysis was based on secondary sources, limiting the assessment quality of the real use of non-traditional data for policymaking. This level of empirical understanding is considered sufficient for an explorative analysis that supports the original perspective proposed here. Future research will need to collect primary data about the potential and dynamics of how data from data-centric public services can inform policymaking and substantiate the proposed areas of a design for policy contribution with practical experimentations and cases.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a convergence, yet largely underexplored, between the two emerging perspectives on innovation in policymaking: data for policy and design for policy. This convergence helps to address the designing of data-driven innovations for policymaking, while considering pragmatic indications of socially acceptable practices in this space for practitioners.

Intergenerational narratives and identity development: A qualitative exploration of Chinese college students

ABSTRACT Previous research suggests that intergenerational narratives impact young people’s sense of self. Little knowledge, however, has been accumulated regarding what and how Chinese youth experience identity development in intergenerational storytelling. This qualitative study presented 149 Chinese college students’ experiences of identity development who collected their grandparents’ life stories. Findings suggest that the student participants reproduced their interviewees’ grand narratives about Chinese history and social changes, and embraced values such as endurance, diligence, and family cohesion which are transmitted across generations. Some students were burdened when hearing about their grandparents’ traumatic past and experienced negative feelings such as anger and guilt, while most of them elaborated gratitude toward people in the previous generations, and expressed a willingness to pay back and contribute to society. Drawing on existing theories, a preliminary model was constructed to capture the dynamic of intergenerational narrative identity among Chinese college students. We discussed how these findings contribute to research on intergenerational narratives and college students’ development. Recommendations for future research and practices for educators and policymakers to enhance family welfare were provided.

The EU and the invasion of Ukraine: a collective responsibility to act?

Abstract Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has upended Europe's security order, with many observers calling it a turning point for the European Union. This article contends, however, that the EU's response has been less a turning point and more of an epiphany, providing a reality check for the EU and its member states about how far European foreign policy cooperation has evolved in recent decades. It suggests that an understanding of the EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine requires consideration of the member states' foreign policy co-operation, which has intensified over the past half-century, and its underpinning norm which we term a ‘collective European responsibility to act’. In emphasizing this norm, we identify core ideas about the functioning of collective European foreign policy. We re-examine three key preoccupations of the EU foreign policy-making practice and assessment through the lens of the collective European responsibility to act and show how it enables a different and novel re-reading of the added value of EU foreign policy cooperation. The EU's response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine thus serves as a timely focusing event that demands a rethink of the premises that have underpinned our analysis and understanding of collective European foreign policy-making over decades.

Regulation under administrative guidance: The case of China's forcing interoperability on digital platforms

Whether policy-makers should mandate that various digital platforms be made interoperable with others and how to achieve it has sparked much controversy, while there is less discussion on the implementation and effectiveness of interoperability on digital platforms in specific contexts and given settings. This article examines the practice and outcome of Chinese policy-makers and regulators in promoting interoperability on digital platforms in the field of social media and mobile payment scenarios. China's practice shows that mandatory interoperability of platforms brings very limited convenience to consumers, and it hardly facilitates entry of small operators but rather facilitates expansion of other competitive platforms. The interoperability promoted by administrative forces unfairly provides a competitive advantage to state-owned enterprises and reduces the willingness of existing platforms to innovate and expand. These results corroborate international criticisms and concerns about mandatory interoperability, reflecting the very limited effect of mandatory interoperability on cracking the network blocking effect of internet platforms.

Cerebral Palsy classification based on multi-feature analysis using machine learning

Cerebral Palsy (CP) is an umbrella name for disorders caused by abnormal brain development or damage to the developing brain. It affects the child's ability to move and maintain balance and posture. CP is the most common cause of motor disability in childhood. CP has various classification systems based on body structure and function, such as the topographic classification into quadriplegia, diplegia, and hemiplegia, or based on activities such as the gross motor function classification system (GMFCS). Classifying children with CP is challenging for clinicians due to the homogeneous nature of the clinical presentations of children with CP. Classifications of CP can guide the planning of services that enhance the quality of life of children and their families. There are a few studies about children with CP in Jordan. Data about children with CP in Jordan are also lacking. This study, therefore, aims to compile a comprehensive, concise, and fully annotated national dataset for Jordanian children with CP and to provide a benchmark for related studies in the field of pediatric rehabilitation medicine (PRM). This work presents the methodology implemented to compile and analyze the dataset and the experiments conducted on this dataset. We evaluated the dataset using a set of five commonly used machine learning classification algorithms, namely, K-Star, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), Naïve Bayes (NB), Random Tree (RT), and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The MLP classifier successfully classified CP-type cases with an accuracy rate of 84% and GMFCS cases with an accuracy rate of 53%. The obtained results were promising and encouraging to put the compiled CP dataset into practice for clinicians, researchers, and policymakers working in the field of PRM.

“Tellin’ the Truth in Their Own Words”: A Critical Race Qualitative Analysis of Ethnic Minority Law School Students’ Experiences

<i>The purpose of this study was to explore the law school experiences of underrepresented racial minorities (URMs) enrolled at predominantly white institutions (PWIs), paying close attention to the nature of their racialized academic and social lives on campus. Drawing upon one-on-one and group interviews with 29 ethnic minority law school students at three PWIs, I identify the myriad factors that law school students of color consider when choosing, enrolling, and/or persisting through law school. In consonance with the beliefs and standards of phenomenological research, I use information from these extensive interviews to describe the essence of their law school experiences, paying close attention to any racialized challenges, supports, or opportunities using critical race theory (CRT) as a lens. Verbatim quotes from participants are presented to illustrate the depth, meaning, and context of the findings <i>in their own words</i></i>.<i> Results from the present study hold promise for informing the future decisions, programs, and practices of law school administrators, legal educators, diversity officers, policymakers and enrollment management staff more generally.</i>

Physical Activity of Middle School Students from Cluj-Napoca during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Physical activity has numerous health benefits, including better cardiorespiratory fitness, skeletal health, psychological health and reducing obesity. However, more than 80% of adolescents worldwide are not active enough, failing to meet the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity, and due to COVID-19 restrictions, the percentage might be even higher. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the level of physical activity and its influencing factors in a sample of 333 middle school students (mean age = 12.93, SD = 1.20) from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted and two instruments were used to assess interest variables, the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children and the Cues, Perceived Benefits and Barriers to Physical Activity Questionnaire. Results showed a low level of physical activity in our sample for both male (M = 2.76, SD = 0.76) and female (M = 2.62, SD = 0.63) adolescents. The most commonly reported cue to physical activity was “encouragement from parent(s) to exercise”, the most prevalent perceived benefit was “to stay in shape”, and the most powerful barrier was “wanting to do other things with personal time”. Conclusion: Understanding adolescents’ cues, perceived benefits and barriers to physical activity could help teachers and coaches to provide suitable programmes, and parents or peers to support adolescents. Discussion includes implications for practice and guidelines for policymakers and participants.

An energy future beyond climate neutrality: Comprehensive evaluations of transition pathways

Many of the long-term policy decisions surrounding the sustainable energy transition rely on models that fail to consider environmental impacts and constraints beyond direct greenhouse gas emissions and land occupation. Such assessments offer incomplete and potentially misleading information about the true sustainability issues of transition pathways. Meanwhile, although decision-makers desire greater access to a broader range of environmental, material and socio-economic indicators, few tools currently address this gap. Here, we introduce ENBIOS, a framework that integrates a broader range of such indicators into energy modelling and policymaking practices. By calculating sustainability-related indicators across hierarchical levels, we reach deeper understandings of the potential energy systems to be derived. With ENBIOS, we analyse a series of energy pathways designed by the Calliope energy system optimization model for the European energy system in 2030 and 2050. Although overall emissions will drop significantly, considerable rises in land, labour and critical raw material requirements are likely. These outcomes are further reflected in unfavourable shifts in key metabolic indicators during this period; energy metabolic rate of the system will drop by 25.6%, land requirement-to-energy will quadruple, while the critical raw material supply risk-to-energy ratio will rise by 74.2%. Heat from biomass and electricity from wind and solar are shown to be the dominant future processes across most indicator categories.

New prospects for harm reduction in the UK? A commentary on the new UK drug strategy.

The special section Practising recovery: New approaches and directions aims to shed light on the variety of epistemological, methodological and policy-making practices that emerge in empirical studies of recovery from the use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD). ‘Recovery’, as a concept and policy orientation, has received significant attention in sociological research and other disciplines. However, recovery understood as a practice that is crafted daily by service-users and workers reveals infinite manifestations that sociological research has yet to explore. Shifting from the study of recovery from AOD as a specific drug policy, to a practice-oriented study of recovery as a complex process of healing that unfolds in diverse social contexts, has the potential to advance the contribution of sociology to matters of illness and wellbeing. The articles collected for this special section begin to examine the complexity of recovery with a focus on the framing of recovery as a social, temporal, spatial and affective practice . In Practising Recovery, our aim is to focus on the routine aspects that accompany recovery as both a practice and policy object, emphasising the ambivalences, rather than the polemics of empirical engagements with recovery. In what follows, we describe our thinking about, in, and with the notion of ambivalence as an attempt to expand the meanings of recovery into unchartered terrain, before exploring some of the ways the articles in this special section serve to render visible the ambivalences that accompany the practice, as well as the methods, of researching recovery.

Socially Connected Cities by Design: A Design Toolkit for Evaluating Social Impact

The UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development acknowledges the role of creativity and cultural diversity in reconciling economic progress and social inclusion. Social innovation leads to social change and emanates from people's everyday interactions, reshaping the ways in which communities deal with social, economic, or environmental challenges. Co‐production and community‐led consultation have emerged as ways of working in partnership to inform and improve the delivery of public services. This positional paper is exploratory in how design led innovation can support the evaluation of community led projects which in turn lead to policy changes that endorse and support cultural and creative regeneration strategies. Adopting a Participatory Action Research (PAR) methodology, workshops were facilitated to scope the requirements for the development of a pilot design‐led toolkit for social innovation interventions underpinned by an evaluation model for impact. Findings from the research highlight opportunities for building capability and capacity in place‐based knowledge exchange partnerships with community stakeholders to support participatory place‐making in cities. The paper closes with recommendations for the adoption of design‐led tools to embed creative practice in local and regional policymaking to help move from critique to creation, techniques that encourage deep collaboration and a process that enables ideas to grow in real‐life settings.

Sport policy in Finland

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to provide a description and create an understanding of public sport policy, the key actors within the sports system, and the political sphere in Finnish sport. The development of sport policy in Finland has been characterised by a relatively long-lasting, polarised, and highly politicised sports sector and a series of structural reforms. The contemporary sports system in Finland represents a mixed model, in which the state has a strong role in directing sport policy (especially through resource steering), while the role of sports organisations is implementation. Further, municipalities play a central role in creating conditions for sport and physical activity, and all sport policy actors have high autonomy in their operations. In particular, the population’s increasing physical inactivity and lack of elite sport success in Finland have driven the central government to seek new solutions, such as centralisation, a cross-administrative approach, and evidence-informed policy-making practices. Sport policy is also impacted by international trends and agreements, such as sustainable development, in which Finland’s ambitious goals affect the sports sector. In the future, the unclear roles of different actors and a lack of leadership could cause further challenges to the adoption of effective sport policies.

How more data reinforces evidence-based transport policy in the Short and Long-Term: Evaluating a policy pilot in two Dutch cities

Data have played a role in urban mobility policymaking for decades. Especially since the emergence of big data, many researchers have shown how to advance data use to improve understanding transport policy effects, but there is hardly insight in how this is adopted in policy practice. This study aims to address this gap by answering two questions: (1) how is data currently embedded in urban mobility policy- and decision-making; and (2) what are the advantages and limitations of more data use in these processes?We chose two Dutch cities -Maastricht and Groningen-that were both involved in a national programme (BeterBenutten) that trialed (and funded) a more evidence-based policymaking approach. We did ten semi-structured interviews with the people work in the mobility department and analyzed the twenty-one most relevant policy reports to understand how more data reinforces/impedes transport policymaking in practice. We found that data use differed in long-term and short-term policy cycles. In the long-term policy cycle, data was regarded as less important than political and societal trends and developments; in the short-term cycle, data played a major role in prompting traffic regulations and policy adjustments.Policy insights can be derived from this research on how data can be better embedded in policymaking practices (1) The support from national/regional level (i.e. BeterBenutten program): could provide extra opportunities for local governments to do ex-post policy assessments, which has been regarded as valuable resources for evidence-based decision-making by policymakers. (2) Survey data can still play a significant role in urban mobility planning by typically providing more insights in the ‘why’ of traveler behaviors than big data. (3) Transport policymakers need to strength their abilities in selecting suitable data (out of a much larger set) and having more (competent) personnel capacity to interpret data. (4) Promoting sustainable mobility is a strong driving force for the local governments to enhance data use.

Family and Relationship Quality among Young Adults with Different Sexual Orientations in Urban China: The Mediating Effects of Life Satisfaction and Self-Esteem

ABSTRACT This study explored the ambivalent effects of family on the close relationship quality of Chinese young adults. From a national estimate of the urban population across mainland China, 5,089 participants aged 20–39 were recruited for this study. A three-dimensional conceptualization was applied to identify three groups with different sexual orientations in this study. Group A comprised participants who identified as sexual minority people; Group B comprised participants who identified as heterosexuals but were not exclusively attracted to one sex and/or individuals who had had same-sex sexual experiences; Group C comprised participants who identified as heterosexuals. Groups A and B reported lower close relationship satisfaction and psychological well-being than Group C. Life satisfaction and self-esteem partially mediated the association between family and close relationship satisfaction for all groups. However, this relationship was weaker for Group B, and closeness to family benefitted Group B’s life satisfaction to a lesser extent, indicating that the nuanced relationship with family influenced the sexual minority people with heterosexual identities. We recommend future directions and practices in local research and policy-making.

Practising recovery: New approaches and directions.

The special section Practising recovery: New approaches and directions aims to shed light on the variety of epistemological, methodological and policy-making practices that emerge in empirical studies of recovery from the use of alcohol and other drugs (AOD). 'Recovery', as a concept and policy orientation, has received significant attention in sociological research and other disciplines. However, recovery understood as a practice that is crafted daily by service-users and workers reveals infinite manifestations that sociological research has yet to explore. Shifting from the study of recovery from AOD as a specific drug policy, to a practice-oriented study of recovery as a complex process of healing that unfolds in diverse social contexts, has the potential to advance the contribution of sociology to matters of illness and wellbeing. The articles collected for this special section begin to examine the complexity of recovery with a focus on the framing of recovery as a social, temporal, spatial and affective practice . In Practising Recovery, our aim is to focus on the routine aspects that accompany recovery as both a practice and policy object, emphasising the ambivalences, rather than the polemics of empirical engagements with recovery. In what follows, we describe our thinking about, in, and with the notion of ambivalence as an attempt to expand the meanings of recovery into unchartered terrain, before exploring some of the ways the articles in this special section serve to render visible the ambivalences that accompany the practice, as well as the methods, of researching recovery.

The impact of government subsidies on build-operate-transfer contract design for charging piles in circular economy

PurposeBuild-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts are widely used in the construction and operation of charging piles for new energy vehicles worldwide and stipulate that governments grant charging pile operators franchises for a certain period of time to invest in the construction and operation of the charging piles. The charging piles are then transferred to governments when the concession expires. To encourage charging pile operators to build and operate charging piles, governments usually provide two kinds of subsidies, namely construction and operating subsidies.Design/methodology/approachThe authors establish a typical game model to study the optimal BOT contract between a government and a charging pile operator and their preferences for the two kinds of subsidies.FindingsFirst, the authors show that there are substitution and complementarity effects between the concession period and the subsidy level. Second, the operator prefers the construction subsidy (operating subsidy) when the additional operating cost is low (high). The government prefers the operating subsidy (construction subsidy) when consumer sensitivity to the number of charging piles is low (high) and the concession period is short or long (moderate). Finally, the adjusted joint subsidy can not only improve social welfare but also that the charging pile operator can obtain the same profit as under the operating subsidy at a lower subsidy amount.Originality/valueThis work develops the first analytical model to study two subsidies in the construction and operation of charging piles and investigate the optimal BOT contract and subsidy preferences. The insights are compelling not only for the charging pile operator but also for policymakers in practice from a circular economy perspective.