This study is a critical overview of the Lithuanian system of arts-based education, which provides conditions for the development of creativity in children and young people. The aim of the study is to provide an analysis of the ongoing transformations, changes, and tensions that are emerging in the field of an arts-based education in Lithuania. The authors analyze the particular case of arts-based education with reference to several theoretical public policy frameworks. Insights gained from the historical institutionalist approach illuminate the path dependency that favors institutionalized, centralized, elitist forms of traditional arts-based education, such as music and fine art schools. This system maintains centralized funding that allocates money from national and local authorities to long-established institutions of arts-based education. The punctuated equilibrium framework developed by Baumgartner and Jones (1993) in their book Agendas and Instability in American Politics has highlighted the reform of the national curriculum, the neoliberal education policies, the diversification of providers and services, the increased emphasis on client choice and their financial participation, administrative and fiscal decentralization with the introduction of student baskets in general, non-formal and higher education as turning points, and critical junctures that fundamentally changed the entire structure of the education system in Lithuania. Based on the multiple streams framework developed by John W. Kingdon in his book Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (originally published in 1984), the analysis revealed that the Lithuanian arts-based education system has unfortunately not gained new momentum but rather operates under the influence of general education and cultural policy decisions. The advocacy coalition framework developed by Paul A. Sabatier and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith in their book Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach revealed how heterogeneous groups of actors (i.e., students and parents, art teachers and educational administrators, and entrepreneurs in the educational market of arts-based education) participated in the process of implementing neoliberal policies, changes in educational funding, and the commodification of education.

ABSTRACT Influenced by the public policy literature, we introduce a first-ever community energy co-operative policy index that this literature suggests could help put citizen-funded, owned and democratically governed renewable energy projects on the policy agenda. Combining qualitative and quantitative data into a single measure, our index counts and assigns weights (based on a review of the relevant literature) to, the full suite of community energy policy instruments currently being used by Canada's 10 provincial energy jurisdictions. We argue the index can help move community energy on the policy agenda by equipping policymakers with a tool kit of relevant policies, effectively helping spread policy ideas from innovative to laggard jurisdictions. For community energy policy entrepreneurs, the index helps them focalise scarce policymaker attention, initiate conversations, shift policy debates and ultimately create the conditions for a “punctuated equilibrium” that could foster the kinds of policies that would help RECs exit their niche and become major contributors to net-zero objectives. While developed in the Canadian context, we suggest it could be used anywhere with suitable modifications.

Students are adept at memorizing definitions and examples of key evolutionary concepts but struggle with interpreting evidence of evolution due to common misconceptions. We developed drawing activities to address their misunderstandings and present two examples, one that is about homologous structures and one that covers punctuated equilibrium. Students complete a sequence of drawings before engaging in classroom discussions where they share their work. Subsequently, students have improved comprehension. Instructors are encouraged to use our two examples and explore a wider range of evolutionary topics that students can draw to help them identify misconceptions.

Purpose: This paper aims to identify which phases of the budgetary process are, according to the predictions of punctuated equilibrium theory, more prone to punctuations; to determine the factors influencing the occurrence of punctuations in these phases; and to test these assumptions using Czech regional data from 2005 to 2023.Design/methodology/approach: The study utilises data on Czech regional current expenditure from 2005 to 2023, disaggregated into 113 functional budget lines. A two-sample Z-test is employed to determine whether the number of large annual changes in a functional budget line differs across the approved, amended, and executed budgets. A binary logit model is applied to assess whether external shocks, electoral changes, or budget complexity increase the likelihood of punctuations in the different budget phases.Findings: The analysis reveals that punctuations occur more frequently in budget allocation than in actual spending, and that greater complexity in the budgeting process leads to an increased number of punctuations. The number of punctuations rose during the rebudgeting phase in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and the influx of Ukrainian refugees in 2022. Elections and changes in government leadership were found to have no significant impact. Academic contribution to the field: This paper offers a novel application of punctuated equilibrium theory by linking it to the distinct phases of local government budgeting. It traces the evolution of punctuations across the stages of approved, amended, and executed budgets, and evaluates the influence of external shocks. The study demonstrates the theory’s adaptability in analysing the effects of unprecedented events on public policy and budgeting. Originality/significance/value: The research recognises the differentiation between local government budgeting phases in terms of institutional costs and exogenous shocks affecting decision-making and implementation. This segmentation of the budgetary process makes a significant contribution to both the theoretical understanding and practical application of the punctuated equilibrium theory.

Purpose To explore the configurations of the central government’s core and non-core financial management information systems (FMIS) interoperability and e-service delivery, highlighting the role of FMIS as a strategic backbone for broader digital transformation efforts. Design/methodology/approach Using cluster analysis on data from the World Bank’s 2022 GovTech Maturity Index, we examine a sample of 105 countries with a high coverage of core and non-core FMIS functions. We examine the coexistence of different levels of FMIS interoperability and e-service delivery to map prevailing configurations across central governments. Findings Our findings point to a diverse configuration of FMIS interoperability and e-service delivery in different economies. Each configuration represents a distinct arrangement of how central governments have implemented and connected their financial management systems with digital service platforms. Four distinct configurations emerge from the analysis, reflecting combinations of interoperability and e-service development, allowing for a nuanced view of the role of FMIS towards broader digital transformation. Research limitations/implications The study adopts a cross-sectional design, focusing on central governments only. It does not address causal mechanisms or the role of regional/local FMIS, and contextual factors influencing e-service effectiveness remain outside its scope. Future longitudinal and qualitative research is needed to trace transitions between configurations and test the conditions that trigger them. Practical implications The findings highlight the relevance of a proper strategy for FMIS interoperability to support a sustainable e-service programme, informing international development organisations about this current Achilles’ heel for digital governance. Social implications The findings reinforce the role of accounting-related digital transformation in enhancing the overall effectiveness of public sector governance, benefiting society as a whole. Originality/value This is among the first empirical studies to systematically analyse the configurations of FMIS interoperability and e-service across a large global sample. It reframes FMIS not only as a back-office tool but as a strategic enabler of digital government, advancing the literature on digital transformation by applying a punctuated equilibrium perspective to highlight non-linear development trajectories.

Abstract Efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries often face structural, political, and institutional barriers. This article analyzes a case of rapid national health reform that expanded coverage across an entire population, despite limited fiscal resources. Drawing on Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework alongside Punctuated Equilibrium Theory as organizing frameworks, this analysis examines how problem recognition, technical policy development, and political alignment converged to enable transformative health policy change. Key contributors to success included long-standing work by health system reformers, supportive civil society mobilization, and strategic engagement by political actors. The case offers broader lessons for advancing health reforms elsewhere, including the value of early technical preparation, coalition-building across sectors, and seizing policy windows when conditions align. It also underscores the importance of balancing rapid implementation with system capacity and stakeholder engagement to ensure reform sustainability.

Paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould introduced punctuated equilibria (PE) to the scientific community in 1972 (Eldredge and Gould 1972). Since then, the concept has been debated and tested, misunderstood and clarified, applied, extended, and integrated into evolutionary thought. To celebrate PE’s semicentennial, we and Paleobiology ’s editors have produced this special issue. Our goal has been to bring together paleontologists, evolutionary biologists, and historians of science to reflect on the concept of PE, how it has been tested, the underlying mechanisms for stasis and punctuated change, and the broader impacts of PE for paleontology, biology, and macroevolution. In this introduction, we highlight the key components and implications of PE, briefly review the history surrounding its emergence and reception, and outline how PE expands evolutionary theory. We explain the organization of the papers included in this special issue, providing brief summaries to guide the interested reader. Finally, we conclude with a call for paleobiologists to “rediscover” PE and consider how the concept and its implications can be applied to their own work. In this endeavor, we are aware that a great many authors have contributed significant data, insight, and perspective to these issues over the years. As our purpose in this introduction is not to provide a comprehensive review, we do not cite and recognize them all individually, but we applaud all of those who have weighed in on this important topic.

Abstract The recent proliferation of quantitative models for assessing anatomical character evolution all assume that character change happens continuously through time. However, the punctuated equilibrium model posits that character change should be coincide with cladogenetic events, and thus should be tied to origination rates. Rates of cladogenesis are important to quantitative phylogenetics, but typically only for establishing prior probabilities in the tree model component of phylogenetic analyses. Here, we modify existing character-likelihood models to use the local cladogenesis rates from Bayesian analyses to generate amounts of character change over time dependent on origination rates, as expected under the punctuated equilibrium model. In the case of strophomenoid brachiopods from the Ordovician, Bayesian analyses strongly favor punctuated models over continuous-time models, with elevated rates of cladogenesis early in the clade’s history inducing frequencies of change despite constant rates of change per speciation event. This corroborates prior work proposing that the early burst in strophomenoid disparity simply reflects elevated speciation rates, which in turn has implications for seemingly unrelated macroevolutionary theory about whether early bursts reflect shifts in intrinsic constraints or empty ecospace. Future development of punctuated character evolution models should account for the full durations of species, which will provide a test of continuous change rates. Ultimately, continuous change versus punctuated change should become part of phylogenetic paleobiology in the same way that we currently test other models of character evolution.

This study analyzes the repeated cycles of maintenance and abolition in the Autonomous Private High School policy through the perspective of Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET). The research examines the trajectory of the policy-from its introduction and expansion to its abolition and reinstatement-based on key PET concepts such as policy image competition, policy monopoly, punctuation, and equilibrium (including its failure). The analysis finds that strong presidential commitment and the structure of policy image competition were major drivers of policy change. In particular, the Moon Jae-in administration’s decision to abolish the policy and the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s reversal represent typical cases of policy punctuation and equilibrium failure. This study contributes theoretically by applying PET to the field of education policy, offering insights into the political and institutional factors that drive policy change.

Abstract While punctuated equilibrium is foundational to modern paleobiology, the degree to which paleontologists and evolutionary biologists understand its claims and implications is not clear. Many critiques of punctuated equilibrium are based on misinterpretations of the model, and these misconceptions are likely to be common in classrooms. To begin to understand how the paleontological and evolutionary biology communities, including students, educators, researchers, and museum staff, perceive punctuated equilibrium, we distributed a preliminary exploratory survey to assess how respondents use punctuated equilibrium in their research and teaching and how well they comprehend its core ideas. This pilot study was undertaken to identify possible areas for future research, as well as to assess initial patterns in the data that might indicate the need for a more rigorous follow-up investigation, for example, with a formal validated survey instrument. Among this exploratory sample of 122 respondents, a strong consensus emerged that punctuated equilibrium is important to both paleontology and evolutionary biology and should be included in textbooks. However, while punctuated equilibrium is taught in both introductory and upper-level courses, most instructors in the sample spend 1 week or less on the topic. Survey items designed to explore respondents’ understanding of core ideas within punctuated equilibrium revealed internally inconsistent responses, with a notable lack of consensus on many items. Response data suggest that both empirical (e.g., anagenesis is a common phenomenon) and conceptual (e.g., punctuated equilibrium states that morphological change occurs within just a few generations during speciation) misconceptions may be common. These potential misconceptions are held by the surveyed paleontologists and evolutionary biologists alike, in all career stages. Despite 50 years of discussion, our survey results suggest the lack of a shared understanding of punctuated equilibrium within this scientific community. We therefore provide some initial guidance and concrete strategies to improve teaching and learning about punctuated equilibrium and propose areas for further investigation.

China has established the largest higher education system in the world and made great efforts to find an effective quality assurance mechanism through a series of policies and reforms. This article focuses on the external quality assessment (QA) schemes of higher education in China. It illustrates the evolution of Chinese QA policies and explores the dynamics behind the policy evolution using the theoretical lens of punctuated equilibrium theory. Based on policy text analysis and in-depth interviews with policy implementers and consultants, it finds that the QA policies in China went through long periods of stability and two rapid changes. The policy evolution was driven by the changes in both policy image and policy venue. The change from a positive policy image to a negative one, accompanied by the transfer of policy venue, led to the collapse of previous policy stability and drove the emergence of new policies. As a result of continuous methodological experimentation, diverse QA instruments have been established.

Abstract Punctuated equilibria (PE) was presented 50 years ago as an alternative to the widespread assumption that most evolution proceeds by gradual phyletic change within lineages. Unfortunately, PE has been widely misunderstood, misrepresented, and unfairly dismissed since this first publication. We argue that much of this misunderstanding centers around a misinterpretation of the meaning of “mode” in evolution, and its significance, properly understood, for how we understand macroevolutionary processes. PE proposed that most morphospecies do not show significant anagenetic trends through their stratigraphic ranges, and that most new morphospecies that are recognized arise via cladogenesis. To the degree that this is true, most exploration of disparity space must be associated with cladogenesis. We surveyed a sample of the recent paleontological literature to assess the frequency with which new morphospecies appear in the fossil record via anagenesis versus cladogenesis using a persistence of ancestor criterion and found the overwhelmingly dominant mode of species origin to be cladogenesis. This is a valuable but underutilized approach to this problem, which could be exploited with more studies of species-level phylogenies of fossil taxa. Combined with the conclusions of other studies that stasis or nondirectional change is common, this finding of the dominance of cladogenesis affirms that PE is very much alive and of substantial significance for understanding macroevolutionary patterns.

Current studies state that budget dynamics in many developed countries have followed the assumptions of the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. However, the budget dynamics of developing countries remain inadequately examined. This research, which concentrates on public health spending in Thailand’s local government, serves as a theory-testing case study to confirm the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory’s external validity. Integrating with the focusing events of the Multiple Streams Framework, this study examines whether and how the COVID-19 pandemic punctuated public health spending among sixty-eight Thai local governments at the provincial level during 2013–2023, covering three timeframes—up until the first year of, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The descriptive statistics portraying the data’s leptokurtic distribution confirm that, over a lengthy period, the local public health spending followed the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and featured a policy stasis which was occasionally interrupted by budget punctuations or large-scale departures from the past. Meanwhile, the results from the Chi-Square test and ANOVA underscore the statistically significant association between the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surge in the number of positive punctuations. These findings reject the default assumption that budget dynamics are incremental, especially for long-term policy analysis. Instead, they urge local policymakers to be actively aware of focusing events and to constantly (re)build fiscal competency to guarantee a smooth and effective response and recovery plan when a locality faces crises or impactful occurrences.

Computational multi-scale pandemic modelling remains a major and timely challenge. Here we identify specific requirements for a new class of models simulating pandemics across three scales: (1) pathogen evolution, often punctuated by the rapid emergence of new variants, (2) human interactions within a heterogeneous population, and (3) public health responses which constrain individual actions to control the disease transmission. We then present a pandemic modelling framework satisfying these requirements and capable of simulating feedback loops between dynamics unfolding at these different scales. The developed framework comprises a stochastic agent-based model of pandemic spread, coupled with a phylodynamic model that incorporates within-host pathogen evolution. It is validated with a case study, modelling the punctuated evolution of SARS-CoV-2, based on global and contemporary genomic surveillance data, which captures a large heterogeneous population. We demonstrate that the model replicates the essential features of the COVID-19 pandemic and virus evolution, while retaining computational tractability and scalability.

ABSTRACT This paper examines U.S. human trafficking policy development within the punctuated equilibrium theory and policy diffusion frameworks. Using a policy scan approach, the analysis includes 710 pieces of legislation from all 50 states enacted between 2003 and 2023, coded across 27 policy indicators. Each policy is categorized using the 3Ps framework (Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution) and employs the concept of “punctuated diffusion.” The findings suggest that while some policies originate from federal punctuations and diffuse to states, others emerge at the state level and influence federal or other state policymaking. The research highlights how punctuated diffusion has led to a prioritization of prosecution policies over protection and prevention, offering critical insights into policymaking dynamics.

Cultural evolution is driven by how we choose what to consume and share with others. A common belief is that the cultural artifacts that succeed are the ones that balance novelty and conventionality. This “balance theory” suggests that people prefer works that are familiar, but not so familiar as to be boring; novel, but not so novel as to violate the expectations of their genre. We test this idea using a large dataset of fanfiction, a unique data source that mitigates many common critical shortcomings in the study of creative works. We apply a multiple regression model and a generalized additive model to examine how the recognition a work receives varies with its novelty, estimated through a Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic model, in the context of existing works. We find the opposite pattern of what the balance theory predicts—overall success declines almost monotonically with novelty and exhibits a U-shaped instead of an inverse U-shaped curve. This puzzle is resolved by teasing out two competing forces: sameness attracts the masses whereas novelty provides enjoyment. Taken together, even though the balance theory holds in terms of expressed enjoyment, the overall success can show the opposite pattern due to the dominant role of familiarity to attract the audience. Under these two “forces”, cultural evolution may have to work against inertia—the appetite for consuming the familiar—and may resemble a punctuated equilibrium, marked by occasional leaps.

This study delves into the electoral practices within the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) of the Philippines, specifically examining Abra, Kalinga, and Mountain Province. It employs Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to understand how political institutions and decision-making processes shape election outcomes, with a particular emphasis on fostering peaceful elections. The research assesses the awareness, observance, and performance of key electoral participants: COMELEC officials, candidates, and voters, while also evaluating the government's handling of election-related challenges. The findings reveal that stakeholders across all three provinces generally possess a high level of awareness regarding principles that support peaceful elections, such as the significance of voter education. However, the observance of these principles is often inconsistent. For instance, respect for voter choice and adherence to the directives of traditional elders are less consistently practiced, indicating a disconnect between knowledge and action. Although the performance of electoral stakeholders is generally rated positively, challenges persist in mobilizing voters, frequently due to security concerns. This highlights the critical need for enhanced security measures and initiatives aimed at building trust. Furthermore, government responses to election problems do not always align with the perceived severity of the issues, suggesting a need for more strategic and responsive interventions. In Abra, which remains an election hotspot, respect for candidates is high, yet adherence to traditional elder guidance is low, reflecting the ongoing tension between modern electoral practices and traditional norms. Kalinga and Mountain Province, no longer categorized as hotspots, exhibit similar patterns: high awareness but persistent challenges concerning voter choice and traditional norms. Socio-cultural factors, such as respect for elders and clientelism, continue to influence electoral practices, even amidst modernization and institutional reforms. The study recommends strengthening voter education, improving electoral security, enhancing government accountability, and promoting collaborative governance. It proposes replacing the term "election hotspot" with "province of interest" to mitigate negative connotations and suggests rotating COMELEC and security personnel to prevent undue local influence. Future research should investigate the impact of social media and misinformation and explore voter experiences in greater depth.

ABSTRACT We examine the influence of COVID-19 and federal responses to it on budget dynamics of local governments in the US. While it is commonly and implicitly assumed that budgetary difficulty primarily results from deep budget cuts, managing large increases also raises the uncertainty local leaders face. Situated in the logic underpinning Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, we assess the degree of volatility and expansion in local budgets in the wake of the federal response to the pandemic. We use an original dataset of 21,918 changes in local budgets in the state of West Virginia, spanning a decade of spending across 55 counties and 162 sub-categories. Standard measures of change indicate that federal aid provided stability to local budgets, yet new methods we implement reveal more frequent and drastic shifts in spending as well as a positive shift in the value of changes. When assessing counties individually, we report substantial differences in volatility and expansion of budgets between the pre – and post-COVID periods that we show are associated with economic distress. Our findings have implications for the future of local-level budget and expenditure studies and the empirical research on the complexity of policy change in the US, Europe, and elsewhere.

Abstract A primary tenet of punctuated equilibria (PE) is that stasis, that is, little to no net morphological change, characterizes the histories of species. In the past ~50 years since PE was proposed, stasis has been recognized in the evolutionary histories of many species, but consensus has not been reached concerning its causes. One unresolved issue is whether viable ecological mechanisms for stasis exist. We argue that a promising potential ecological explanation for stasis is coevolutionary alternation, which addresses how antagonists (e.g., predators or parasites and their groups of victims) coevolve over eco-evolutionary time across broad spatial scales. Coevolutionary alternation predicts different patterns of predator preferences and prey defenses within different populations and alternation of high and low levels of prey defenses as predator preferences evolve. The geographic structure of populations experiencing different environmental pressures and coevolutionary dynamics can yield stasis in such traits on the scale of entire species. We suggest that predator–prey coevolutionary alternation could be modeled using coupled stochastic differential equations (SDEs), which have been used to study correlative and causal connections among time series. SDEs can handle irregular sampling intervals, measurement uncertainty, and feedback loops between time series and can incorporate environmental proxies and time series from multiple geographic locations. We advocate developing this approach further to test the role of coevolutionary alternation in stasis and make recommendations for how SDEs might be used to model the coevolutionary feedback of predator(s) and multiple prey populations evolving in response to one another across space in a constantly changing environment.

On July 23, 2003, Salvadoran President Francisco Flores introduced a punitive and militaristic gang-prevention measure, Plan Mano Dura (Plan Iron Fist), in an attempt to solve the gang phenomenon plaguing El Salvador. Although it turned out to be an abject policy failure, its future effects and significance would far outweigh its intended impact, essentially dictating how El Salvador would combat gang violence for the next 20 years and beyond. As such, it is essential to better understand how such an ineffective policy could arise as a policy approach. This paper examines whether Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) can account for the distinctive policy process that led to the implementation of Plan Mano Dura. In the end, this paper finds that although Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) provides a satisfactory explanation for the initial rise of the plan, other theoretical frameworks may help explain the rise and application of Plan Mano Dura (e.g., innovation diffusion) and shed light on the persistence of punitive approaches on subsequent policy approaches to gang violence in El Salvador (e.g., Path Dependence Theory).