Public Policy Debate Research Articles

Theorising Bounded Rationality in EU Policy‐Making

AbstractThis article proposes a theoretical framework combining multi‐level governance (MLG) with bounded rationality. MLG theories have become increasingly popular to understand European Union (EU) policy‐making and interactions between national, sub‐national and EU levels. At the same time, principles of bounded rationality are entering the public policy debate, highlighting the role of cognitive biases in policy formation. However, these two developments have been separate, as bounded rationality has been little used in EU studies. The article therefore proposes a framework integrating the two lenses. This sheds new light on the optimal allocation of tasks between EU and national levels, given the prevalence of different cognitive biases at each level. Findings are that EU‐level policy‐making can be hampered by availability heuristics and undefined preferences, whilst national policy‐making is prone to zero‐sum bias and myopia. Insights are applied to research policy as an example, helping to explain obstacles to EU integration in this area.

The Complex Dynamics of Indigenous Education in Mid-Twentieth-Century: Ecuador as a Theater for Political Debate

Abstract Activists in Ecuador established in the 1940s what have come to be remembered as the country's first Indigenous-run bilingual schools. Or at least this is the image that their founders presented when reflecting back on their achievements years later, and what has become fixed in the minds of subsequent educators. Archival records, however, present a more complicated picture. Rather than as “Indigenous” or “bilingual,” the recently formed Federación Ecuatoriana de Indios (Ecuadorean Federation of Indians) had created them as “syndicate” schools to mobilize against the racial discrimination and economic exploitation that agricultural workers faced on government-owned haciendas. In the process, organizers came into conflict with government policies that mandated the creation of public schools in rural communities and on haciendas. The competing school systems became an arena in which public policy debates were carried out with ramifications that extended to rival notions of how society should be properly organized.

Artificial intelligence and public administration: Understanding actors, governance, and policy from micro, meso, and macro perspectives

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the most prominent topics in public policy and administration studies over the last years. Despite the attention to AI in this field isn’t entirely new, the universality of these group of technologies has radically increased the attention of scholars around the globe. This expansion of AI in the public sector entails the exploration of renovated foundations of analysis, not only to understand the novelty of these technologies, but also to connect these processes of adoption and implementation with other debates in public policy and administration. To do so, in this article we debate the need of an analytical framework of AI in the public sector based on the three levels of public administration: macro, meso, and micro. Also, we review the state-of-the-art in the field using the articles presented in the special issue on Artificial Intelligence and Public Administration: Actors, Governance, and Policy. Form here, we propose studying AI using a combination of macro, meso, and micro levels of public administration. We assume this will help to broadly apprehend how and why people, policies, and institutions interrelate with AI in public sector settings, and which effects can be expected from these processes in public administration.

Debate: More, not less social media content moderation? How to better protect youth mental health online.

This article challenges Zhang etal.'s claims that social media content moderation is proving detrimental to youth mental health and asserts that greater emphasis on the systemic risks posed by social media platforms is required. This commentary draws on my lived experience as a bereaved parent, empiricial evidence and ongoing public policy and regulatory debates. Greater attention should be paid to the effects of algorithmic recommendation systems, which can result in teenagers becoming rapidly exposed to large amounts of harmful content on social media sites such as Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.

The Power of the Powerless: Constructions of Self‐Employment in Czechia

This article examines the construction of self‐employment in public policy debates, focusing on how political actors define self‐employment and on the moral implications of these categorisations. Employing critical discourse analysis and the social construction of a target population, the authors examine verbatim transcripts of parliamentary debates in the Czech parliament between 2021 and 2023. These debates reveal how legislators perceive the value of self‐employment as a part of the economy. The study explores the underpinnings of such public policy debates, as well as the moral consequences of categorising self‐employment. We argue that by foregrounding some morally loaded argumentations and, in particular, discursive constructions, politicians (as both discursive and policy actors) make some parts of the experience of self‐employment invisible and neglected by policy; as a result, this contributes to the precarity of the self‐employed.

Electric Vehicles Charged with Solar-PV: A Brazilian Case Study for 2030

Electric vehicles and photovoltaic power stations can play an important role in replacing fossil fuels. This article presents a case study on the placement of charging stations powered by photovoltaic energy along an important highway in Brazil. A demand model was adopted to elaborate three scenarios for 2030 with different participation levels of electric vehicles in the Brazilian market. An optimized allocation model was used to derive the location and number of charging stations required to meet the charging demand. The results provided a list of adequate locations for installing the charging stations and offered insights into the consumed electricity and greenhouse gas emissions that could be mitigated by these actions. A financial analysis was conducted, and it was determined that the charging costs, based on the Internal Rate of Return calculation, were 10%. These costs were compared to the fueling costs of other traditional vehicles. The results showed that the costs can be 72% lower than the cost of refueling current conventional automobiles. The results of this study can serve as a reference in the public policy debate, as well as for investors in fast charging stations.

Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Financial Crisis: A Critical Review

The analysis of the financial crisis is crucial for the growth of the world economy, particularly given the complicated economic environment that COVID-19 is currently experiencing and the war in Ukraine. This paper will discuss the most significant financial crisis that happened in 2008, which was brought on by the financial authorities' shoddy implementation and upkeep of their policies. The collapse of several major banks and financial institutions, high unemployment, government bailouts, the collapse of the real estate market, regulatory reforms, and economic recession were the main consequences of the crisis. It is essential to research and examine the factors that led to the financial crisis of 2008 and its consequences. First, research of this kind enables us to comprehend the underlying causes of the financial catastrophe. Secondly, financial crisis research helps to identify early warning signs of impending crises. Third, the study of financial crises can provide valuable insights into the behavior of financial markets and financial institutions. Fourth, research on financial crises can help inform public policy debates. Finally, research on financial crises can help improve transparency and accountability in the financial sector. Such research can inform public policy, promote transparency and accountability, and help ensure a more stable and sustainable global economy.

Pro- and Anti-Tax Framing in News Articles About California Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax Campaigns from 2014-2018

Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) contribute to illness, especially among marginalized communities and children targeted by the beverage industry. SSB taxes can reduce consumption, illness burden, and health inequities, while generating revenue for health programs, and as one way to hold the industry responsible for their harmful products and marketing malpractices. Supporters and opponents have debated SSB tax proposals in news coverage – a key source of information that helps to shape public policy debates. To learn how four successful California-based SSB tax campaigns were covered in the news, we conducted a content analysis, comparing how SSB taxes were portrayed. We found that pro-tax arguments frequently reported data to expose the beverage industry’s outsized campaign spending and emphasize the health harms of SSBs, often from health professionals. However, pro-tax arguments rarely described the benefits of SSB taxes, or how they can act as a tool for industry accountability. By contrast, anti-tax arguments overtly appealed to values and promoted misinformation, often from representatives from industry-funded front groups. As experts recommend additional SSB tax proposals, and as the industry mounts legislative counter-tactics to prevent them, advocates should consider harnessing community representatives as messengers and values-based messages to highlight the benefits of SSB taxes.

The TrustWorkers Project: Challenges and Methods of Building Trust into Public Scholarship

This article grapples with a critical question in public humanities work: How should academics think of trust as a theoretical problem in current public health, policy, and academic debates but also as a practice of engagement with local communities and collaborators outside the academy? We recount our experience of the TrustWorkers project at Columbia University in 2022—a project focused on the critical role of Community Health Workers as trust builders during the pandemic—to illustrate our thinking on this matter and contribute new impulses to publicly engaged scholarship.

Italy in Front of the Challenge of Infrastructure Maintenance: Existing Issues and Promising Responses

It is puzzling how the optimal maintenance of infrastructure gets so little attention in the public policy debate and in national strategic infrastructure investment plans. In the case of Italy, an information deficit, inadequate strategic planning and governance, and unpreparedness for macro changes affecting infrastructure emerge as critical root causes of neglect. Despite the increasing attention to sustainability (at national, EU and international level), it is not consistently implemented along the life cycle of infrastructure assets, which would entail adequate funding to operate and maintain existing assets. Public administration plays a critical coordination role and must tackle the excessive normative complexity and consequent lengthiness of the authorization processes. Despite some unmet challenges, several ongoing interventions show Italy’s commitment to address some of the issues. Notably, the creation of an integrated repository tracking all the country’s infrastructure projects, or the national guidelines recently issued to rank and prioritize bridge safety interventions.

The goods (and bads) of self‐employment

The goods (and bads) of <scp>self‐employment</scp>

Impact of textile raw material access on CAFTA-DR members’ apparel exports to the United States: a quantitative evaluation

This study quantitatively evaluated the impact of textile raw material access on Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) members’ apparel exports to the United States. Results from the computable general equilibrium (CGE) model show that improving CAFTA-DR garment producers’ textile raw material access would significantly enhance the price competitiveness of their apparel exports to the United States and increase the export volume. However, improving CAFTA-DR garment producers’ textile raw material access would primarily benefit Asian textile suppliers but result in CAFTA-DR members’ reduced dependence on the U.S. textile raw material supply. The study’s findings provided new insights into the textile and apparel trade patterns in the Western Hemisphere and offered valuable inputs contributing to the public policy debate on expanding U.S. apparel sourcing from CAFTA-DR members from a unique supply chain perspective.

The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890–1940

The American Pipe Dream: Performance of Drug Addiction, 1890–1940

Resistance, hegemony, and critical accounting interventions: Lessons from debates over government debt

Reflecting on how critical academics intervene in the public sphere, this paper explores how accounting is mobilized to reinforce and counter neoliberal hegemony in a public-policy debate over the role and size of government debt. The paper draws on the work of Gramsci, Laclau, and Mouffe to analyze case-data derived from three decades of media articles, research reports, and government financial documents in the Canadian province of Québec. The study finds that hegemonic actors seek consent from the population by exciting emotions (esp. fear and guilt), referencing the common sense, and aligning their arguments with people’s everyday experiences. While counter-hegemonic actors initially relied on conceptual reason and logic in their arguments, positioning accounting as an ‘ammunition machine’, they too came to adopt an approach aimed at exciting emotions, translating accounting concepts into non-economic fields, and rearticulating hegemonic signifiers, in an effort to refine and reshape the common sense. Highlighting the limitations of purely rational modes of argumentation, the study has implications for the manner in which accounting academics intervene in the public sphere and how they need to be skilled translators and re-articulators of hegemonic discourse.

Book Review - Public Policy Argumentation and Debate: A Practical Guide for Advocacy

Book Review - Public Policy Argumentation and Debate: A Practical Guide for Advocacy

The hammer and the nail: The triple lock of methods, realities and institutional contexts in Australian research on nightlife violence.

There is considerable public and policy debate in Australia about measures to reduce violence associated with alcohol and young people in the night-time economy. Though overrepresented in violence, the role of men and masculinities is rarely explicitly addressed in policy responses to such violence, which rest on a narrow range of mainly quantitative research and recommendations favouring blanket alcohol restrictions. Drawing on John Law and colleagues' account of the 'double social life of methods' (2011), we analyse interviews conducted with Australian quantitative researchers about the role of gender in such violence. According to Law etal., methods inhabit and reproduce particular ecologies and reflect the concerns of those who advocate them. From this 'triple lock' of methods, realities, and institutional advocacies and contexts emerges particular modes of knowing. Participants described a research ecology in which the authority of quantitative research methods emerged in relation to an imperative to respond in a 'timely' and 'pragmatic' fashion to public policy debates, and prevailing governmental and policy priorities and public framings of violence. Though participants frequently acknowledged the role of men in violence, these arrangements sustain taken-for-granted assumptions about the properties and effects of alcohol while displacing men and masculinities from policy attention. The political consequences of these arrangements demand the development of innovative policy responses and new modes of knowing that make visible the gendering of violence.

Perceptions of policy problems and solutions: Climate change and structural racism.

Public policy debates in the United States about how to respond to complex issues like climate change and structural racism are often portrayed in polarized terms. Progressives are seen as advocating for transformational responses to major problems, while conservatives are portrayed as denying these problems' existence. However, such depictions obscure the presence of a third bloc that acknowledges these problems' existence but does not support drastic approaches to solving them. Using survey experiments, we examine the relationships between problem belief and solution support in these two issues areas. We find overlap between those who acknowledge the existence of these problems and those who oppose large-scale policy solutions. Furthermore, we observe that the solution proposed may influence attitudes toward the problem. Our results suggest that political scientists and policy activists overestimate the extent of denial of these problems and mistarget persuasive efforts by focusing on problem belief over solution support.

How China’s Online Nationalists Constrain Policymaking – the Case of Foreigners’ Permanent Residency Reform

ABSTRACT Popular nationalism increasingly dominates public debate in mainland China. This article examines the impact of this trend on Chinese policymaking by looking at the public consultation procedure for new regulations on foreigners’ permanent residency in February 2020. Following an unexpectedly large online outcry of anti-immigrant sentiment in response to the draft regulations, government actors shelved the proposal, which constituted a long-delayed step towards a more comprehensive immigration framework. Drawing on textual analysis, expert interviews, and survey data, the article analyzes elite-public interactions before, during, and after the controversy, asking what factors contributed to this miscalculation of public sentiment, and what the P.R. debate can tell us about the role of public opinion in Chinese policymaking today. It argues that popular nationalists can play a bottom-up politicizing role on previously marginal policy issues such as immigration, surprising and constraining the state. Such politicisation further limits both public and elite policy debate, impairing state information gathering and exacerbating the tension between Chinese policy actors’ desire to both control and understand public sentiment. In addition, the permanent residency debate demonstrates the relevance of public opinion to China’s non-democratic immigration policymaking, which displays a trajectory of gradual politicisation similar to other early-stage immigrant-reception contexts.

Public Acceptance of COVID-19 Related Location Tracking Technology While in Quarantine: Evidence from South Korea

Introduction: Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, public policy debate has been increasingly focusing on developing and implementing new disease prevention measures based on tracking of geographical location, in particular during the quarantine period. Limited studies have so far investigated possible public acceptance of such measures. Methods: We analyzed a sample data of 1,000 respondents from the 2021 Korean Social Science Data Center using descriptive statistics and logistic regression modelling. The outcome variable was the binary variable measuring the public acceptance of COVID-19 related tracking devices for people subjected to quarantine, explanatory variable included socio-economic characteristics and subjective perception measures. Results: The results suggest that subjective factors, such as perceived likelihood of virus contraction (OR=1.78) and severity of the disease (OR=2.21), rather than socio-economic factors, are key determinants of public acceptance of COVID-19 related location tracking technology. Elderly participants in the middle socio-economic class have shown the highest acceptance rate for tracking device implementation Conclusion: Although the use of location tracking devices has been increasing exponentially, there is still limited understanding in terms of public acceptance of such devices. The results of this study contribute to identifying such determinants, this contributing to policy design related to COVID-19.

Cyber Security and Securing Subjective Patient Quality Engagements in Medical Applications: AI and Vulnerabilities

Public policy arguments about the appropriate valuation of life in public policy have generally moved on from accounting resource costs to recognizing and including revealed preference valuations. In medical and public health, the valuation of the “quality” life experience over time (a very different concept) has focused on equivalents to an unconstrained life experience. The user perspective on these valuations is largely missing and has substantial implications for both individuals and organizations. As these summary measures are fundamental to current triage and assessment processes, they have considerable importance for individuals. Recognizing this, requires consideration of the number of different channels that can bias the assessment of individuals in specific circumstances when AI support is used, as a wide range of inferences from diverse data are then brought to bear and amplifies health data security scope and importance. These intermediate aggregate channel security vulnerabilities have not previously been highlighted, in spite of the importance attached to these summary measures in public health. The collision of totally individualized assumed impacts and end-user consequences are amplified rapidly by AI methods in support of decisions, and the security and privacy-if any is left—of individual medical AND life data are thus jointly at cyber risk. This article is a preliminary—largely gedanken- exploration of the results of combining these very different technical views and perspectives, and is intended to stimulate work that takes all these aspects into account.