Symbolic Policy Research Articles

Commemoration of Historical Events as Instrument of Symbolic Policy: Possibilities of Comparative Analysis

Commemoration of Historical Events as Instrument of Symbolic Policy: Possibilities of Comparative Analysis

Customizing elements of the International Forest Regime Complex in Poland? Non-implementation of a National Forest Programme and redefined transposition of NATURA 2000 in Bialowieza Forest

The International Forest Regime Complex consists of a number of institutional elements aiming to regulate forests. Among them the main line of conflict runs between production-oriented and conservation-oriented elements. Voluntary National Forest Programmes as well as biodiversity conservation policies, such as the Convention on Biodiversity and the EU Natura 2000 policy, reflect the main institutional elements of the forest regime complex. The implementation of such individual regime elements as well as the resulting domestic political customizations and consequences in countries, however, so far received little scrutiny. Before this background, this article aims to analyses the political influence of implementing important production- as well as conservation-oriented elements of the International Forest Regime Complex in Poland alongside with important customizations in both processes. Theoretically, we draw on the framework of four pathways of international influences and combine it with bureaucratic politics theory. Empirically, the current study focuses on qualitative in-depths insights into the so far failed implementation of a National Forest Programme in Poland, as well as the implementation and transposition of the EU NATURA 2000 policy, using Bialowieza Forest as an exemplary case. Our results indicate that the Polish Ministry of Environment has driven both processes. Both regime elements were clearly customized by bureaucratic action during the implementation process. While Nature 2000 triggered international support for protection-oriented interests, the dominant production-oriented bureaucracy overweighed it. The forestry bureaucracy offered to accept additional restrictions of forestry for nature protection, but only because they were linked to a gain in territorial authority over Bialowieza National Park and reduced political expectations about Natura 2000 sites all over the country. This re-definition of a formerly conservation-oriented element into a useful tool for production interests can be seen as an intentional, strategic customization of a regime element. In contrast, the process of creating the National Forest Programme so far failed once and since then is under conflictive negotiation. It was drafted as a detailed, nation-wide management plan, rather than a vague and general symbolic policy document as in most other countries. This exceptional customization of the NFP element in the tradition of management planning eventually threatened the dominant forestry interests and, hence, is seen a case of policy non-implementation.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Understanding High Conflict and High Ambiguity as Core Policy Dimensions Through Field-Level Leaders’ Perspectives

ABSTRACTThe study’s target is to analyze how field-level coalition leaders, namely, the founding principals of Israeli specialized schools, perceive a “high-ambiguity and high-conflict” symbolic educational policy that apparently opposes the basic values that underlie the foundation of specialized schools. Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews, we found that the principals perceive high conflict as supporting the establishment of new specialized schools and high ambiguity as a clear invitation for their establishment. We discuss possible explanations for this surprising policy perception.

Equity and Education: An Exploration of International Policymaking

Although many countries with high levels of economic inequality have used policymaking to pursue equity in education, inequities continue to exist. Such policies often perpetuate inequities by providing benefits to the most socioeconomically advantaged students and families, rather than groups historically disadvantaged or excluded from educational systems, due to race and/or socioeconomic status. I have investigated policymaking for equity in education by addressing three primary research questions. First, how has international policymaking for equity in education been pursued within localized contexts and global education trends in the United States, Brazil, and Chile? Second, within that context, what factors explain the failure of outcomes-based education curriculum reform in post-apartheid South Africa to result in holistic equity? Third, what are the commonalities that underpin the failures of these nations to achieve holistic equity? I found that the localized policy mechanisms used to pursue equity in education in the U.S., Brazil, and Chile have been in alignment with neoliberal global education trends such as increased privatization, school fees, and decentralization. I additionally found that the key factors that explain the failure of post-apartheid curriculum reform in South Africa to result in holistic equity are a complex policy subsystem, the formulation and implementation of symbolic policy, and the failure to properly evaluate substantive and procedural constraints. Furthermore, I have found the commonalities between researched nations to be high levels of economic inequality and poverty, de facto forms of segregation, and a failure to meet the holistic equity standard of equal education opportunity.

The Gap Between Text and Context: An Analysis of Ontario’s Indigenous Education Policy

This paper analyzes the 2007 Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework, alongside its 2014 Implementation Plan. Content analysis is used to determine what specific actions are prioritized in each document, first through a quantitative analysis of the various strategies put forth, then a qualitative analysis of what larger purpose these strategies might indicate. The findings suggest a significant shift in the 2014 document away from substantive action and toward data management, specifically in regard to encouraging Indigenous student self-identification. Coming just two years before the 2016 target date for the original plan laid out in the Framework, it seems unlikely that this belated emphasis on self-identification is for the originally stated purpose of establishing baseline data to implement and evaluate specific programs, but could instead be used as a type of symbolic policy, to obscure the absence of substantive change. Conversely, it is suggested that the Ministry of Education should establish a new baseline and strategy, beginning in 2016, to implement specific, targeted programming for Indigenous students.Keywords: Indigenous education; educational policy; content analysis; document analysis; Ontario

Adaptive Management for Oil and Gas Development on Public Lands: An Innovative Approach to Resource Protection, or Symbolic Placation of Public Interests?

AbstractEnergy development on public lands in the intermountain west is often contentious due to concerns over detrimental impacts to wildlife. To mitigate harm to ungulates and other species, federal agencies often utilize adaptive management, a structured decision‐making framework predicated on “learning while doing.” But in the context of recent energy development, does adaptive management represent an innovative approach to conservation, or is it a largely symbolic policy used to contain the scope of conflict? This article, rooted in the agenda‐setting literature, applies Sarah Pralle's (2006) framework to strategies of conflict containment used by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and industry in three contentious energy development projects in Wyoming. The findings indicate that the BLM's use of adaptive management can be understood as a strategy for conflict containment, rather than as a substantive policy change in public lands oil and gas development.

Participatory mechanisms as symbolic policy instruments?

Over the last 10 years, the European Union has been talking a lot about citizens’ participation, not least in its 2001 white paper on governance. But has there really been a participatory turn in the European political system, or is this simply a rhetorical change, without concrete implications? This article aims to answer the question on the basis of a research on the first participatory experiments conducted at the European level (citizens’ conferences, deliberative polls and consultations of citizens) and on European citizens’ initiative introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. As will be shown, such experiments or tools have been scarcely used, and they have failed to involve ‘ordinary’ citizens and to produce significant outputs. In short, they seem more important at the discursive level than in practice. This suggests that more attention should be given to the symbolic dimension of policy instruments.

The symbolic politics of ballistic missile defense: seeking the perfect defense in an imperfect world

Ballistic missile defense (BMD) politics present an interesting evolution in how the USA, especially Congress, has come to think about BMD both as operational reality and as a symbolic policy. The argument here is that BMD's operational reality is increasingly overshadowed by its symbolic aspects. Such a status arose from rapidly changing international and domestic politics. The end result is a situation in which BMD policy in a sense floats above the question of its actual combat effectiveness. Its primary mission in part is sustaining US capacity to remain a global power and support its allies.

Blasphème politique et «religion royale» sous la Restauration (France, 1814-1830)

This article is intended to revisit the “symbolic policy” of the French Restoration, whose knowledge has been greatly enriched and renewed for the last twenty years. Without aiming at “rehabilitating” the regime, recent historiography has highlighted its efforts to find a solution for the political conflict resulting from the French Revolution, and to rebuild a power capable of perpetuating itself. The republican system being widely rejected, the country’s stabilization involved reinventing an acknowleged and accepted “royalty”. Not only should it be supported by strong institutions, but also enjoy consensual respect. This demanded some form of “monarchical religion” (or royal religion) whose loss Chateaubriand would mourn during the July 1830 revolution. Recent research is thus revised in the light of the Bourbons’ “self-introduction” between 1814 and 1830, and the hostility loudly expressed against the regime, which was considered as ambiguous “political blasphemy”.

Theoretical aspects of the research to the capacity of the security system from the symbolic approaches

The Symbolic Approach to Security System Reform (SSR Symbolic Policy Capacity Building) is a set of ideas and concepts that sends a clear message to the environment that Serbia has broken with authoritarian regimes and their corresponding security systems of the past. As an illustration of the epochal meaning of this approach, the laborious and, based on the latest events, largely incomplete reform of the security services in Pakistan can be used. One of the tasks of social science is making a global assessment on the situation of Human Security. The United Nations has to address it, but our nation needs a serious reconsideration of Common Values (the general security values to be protected) and Public Interest (so - called policy of persecution). Why? Because the interest of the citizens is generally neglected by the bureaucracy by prioritizing the interests of various collectives from the state itself to the interest groups, political parties across the country (that same bureaucracy). Concept of the Economic Security is weak (although the most important, including freedom of the market, environment protection, protection of consumers etc.) because we have no long-term Development Strategy, which would be the basis of good Security Culture. If we consistently consider a system and security as such, we note that something is missing in the list of protected property, as priorities, the lack of protection of certain human rights in the corpus iuris of Human Rights (specifically the right to equal access of citizens to private property and private enterprise). But if you believe in such a generally accepted definition of protected resources, and just think of the national economy and finance, from this we can conclude that certain political parties, when they were in power, made decisions that were detrimental to national security with impunity.

Not ‘Dead Letters’, Just ‘Blind Eyes’: The Europeanisation of Drinking Water Risk Regulation in Estonia and Lithuania

This paper draws on a detailed empirical study of the implementation of the EU's Drinking Water Directive in Estonia and Lithuania in order to understand the factors shaping the Europeanisation of risk regulation regimes in Eastern accession states. Adopting a ‘whole-regime’ methodological approach, the paper explores the key drivers and constraints shaping the transposition as well as the practical implementation of the law. The study shows how ‘conditionality’ pressures to adopt the EU acquis in order to access European economic and financial support networks have reinforced, rather than overcome, historically entrenched regulatory cultures. Going beyond well-known typologies of Europeanisation, the paper identifies a distinctive ‘blind-eye’ style of Europeanisation in which conditionality pressures have favoured selective compliance with ill-suited EU rules at the expense of tackling significant drinking water risk problems. The paper shows how such symbolic policy practices have been shaped through a combination of the countries’ shared Soviet legacies of elite-centred and legalistic governance cultures, the active coping strategies of street-level inspectors, as well as wider sociopolitical contexts that have limited the impact of civil society actors such as scientists, NGOs, and the general public in strengthening risk regulation in the Baltic states. The paper also shows, however, that the different post-Soviet ideological orientations and administrative reform programmes of Eastern European accession states can override their common Soviet legacies and lead to significant national variation in risk regulation processes and outcomes.

Biodiversity offsetting: what are the challenges, opportunities and research priorities for animal conservation?

[Extract] Governments, businesses, financial institutions and local communities are increasingly using biodiversity offsets, also known as compensatory mitigation, as a putative mechanism to achieve 'no net loss' (NNL) of biodiversity as a result of specific development projects (McKenney & Kiesecker, 2010; Quetier & Lavorel, 2011; Gardner et al., 2013). The Business and Biodiversity Offsets Programme (BBOP), an international collaboration for the development of offset methodologies, defines biodiversity offsets as 'the measurable conservation outcomes resulting from actions designed to compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from project development after appropriate prevention and mitigation measures have been taken. The goal of biodiversity offsets is to achieve no net loss and preferably a net gain of biodiversity on the ground with respect to species composition, habitat structure, ecosystem function and people's use and cultural values associated with biodiversity' (BBOP, 2009). Proposals are already proceeding in the European Union (EU) for a NNL initiative as part of the 'EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020' – with possible operational principles that include offsetting schemes (see http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/nnl/index_en.htm). Madsen et al. (2011) identified legislation mandating compensatory biodiversity conservation mechanisms (including offsets) in 45 countries, with a further 27 under development and this number is likely to have grown since.

Economists and Public Opinion: Expert Consensus and Economic Policy Judgments

How do citizens view economists, and how do they respond to consensus in the profession? We examine the responsiveness of the American public to information regarding the distribution of opinion among economists on five economic policy issues. We also examine the extent and role of citizens’ trust in economists. We find that trust is tepid and find correspondingly small-to-moderate changes in public opinion when citizens are given information about expert opinion. Indeed, we provide evidence that responsiveness is larger when the consensus is attributed to a generic sample of people than when it is attributed to economists. We also find heterogeneity in responsiveness across issues, such that opinion change is smaller on symbolic policy issues than technical ones. Further, on the former, but not the latter, we find that citizens use judgments of trust in economists in a motivated fashion, to reinforce prior opinions.

Symbolic Meta-Policy: (Not) Tackling Climate Change in the Transport Sector

This paper seeks to understand how the UK government's headline climate change targets are translated into action at the local level in the transport sector drawing on the findings of research in two English regions. In doing so, these headline targets are identified as a symbolic meta-policy that results in little action on the ground and which challenges established conceptions of policy implementation. Both the ‘meta’ and ‘symbolic’ aspects of the policy offer part of the explanation for the lack of substantive action on the ground. As a meta-policy, the headline targets across government require the elaboration of other policies at other levels such as targets for government departments and local authorities, but these are largely absent, leaving the meta-policy without teeth. Over time, these headline targets have developed into a symbolic policy, serving political goals but having little practical effectiveness.

Economists and Public Opinion: Expert Consensus and Economic Policy Judgments

Given an increasing presence in the public sphere, what role do economic experts play in shaping public opinion on economic issues? In this paper, we examine the responsiveness of American public opinion on five economic policy issues to real information regarding the distribution of opinion on these issues among economists. We also examine the extent and role of trust in economists within the public. On average, we find meaningful changes in public opinion in the direction of expert consensus when citizens are given explicit information about expert opinion. However, we also find heterogeneity in citizen responsiveness across issues, such that aggregate opinion change is smaller on symbolic policy issues relative to technical ones. Further, on symbolic (but not technical) issues we find that citizens use judgments of the trustworthiness of economic experts in a motivated fashion, as a means of reinforcing prior opinions.

Building an Agenda for Regulatory Change: The New York Times Investigates Drug Abuse in U.S. Horse Racing

This article addresses how The New York Times, through an investigative series on drug use and catastrophic breakdowns in U.S. horse racing, influenced policy initiatives across a 6-month period. Beginning with the March 25, 2012, exposé “Mangled Horses, Maimed Jockeys,” the article analyzes how the newspaper helped define policy conversations at both the state and national levels. The article also addresses how the Interstate Horseracing Improvement Act of 2011, a fledgling piece of legislation, became what Kingdon described as a “solution in search of a problem” and thus a political lever in policy deliberations. Long recognized for its capacity to influence the content of other news outlets, the article concludes, The New York Times can also play an important role in legislative arenas, informing lawmakers of salient issues, as well as opportunities for substantive and symbolic policy actions.

Book Review: Governing Narratives: Symbolic Politics and Policy Change

Book Review: Governing Narratives: Symbolic Politics and Policy Change

Assessing South Africa's New Growth Path: framework for change?

The New Growth Path (NGP) is the symbolic policy document of South Africa's newly formed Department of Economic Development. It marks an intended break with the growth path of the first two decades of the post-apartheid era. But does it do so in principle and is it likely to do so in practice? This paper suggests otherwise because of its failure to address, let alone remedy, the key determining features of the post-apartheid economic landscape. These are the (international) financialisation of (domestic) conglomerate capital especially associated with (illegal) capital flight, the complicity of a newly formed black elite, and the continuing reliance upon how these interact with South Africa's longstanding minerals–energy complex (MEC). Without breaking with these features, the NGP in particular, and policy more generally, will seek to temper the gains and organisational opposition of better-off workers for putative benefits to those deprived of employment and basic levels of public provision. [Évaluer la nouvelle direction de croissance d'Afrique du Sud : cadre pour le changement?] La nouvelle ligne de croissance (NGP) est le document de la politique symbolique du nouveau ministère sud-africain de développement économique. Il marque une pause prévue avec la ligne de la croissance des deux premières décennies survenues après l'ère de l'apartheid. Mais est-ce que cela se confirme dans le principe et dans la pratique? Ce document suggère le contraire, à cause de son incapacité à répondre - sans parler de remède – aux principales caractéristiques qui déterminent le paysage économique de la période après l'apartheid. Il s'agit de la financiarisation (internationale) du capital conglomérat (domestique), en particulier associée à la fuite (illégale) des capitaux, la complicité d'une élite noire nouvellement constituée, et d'un appui persistant sur la façon dont ceux-ci interagissent avec le complexe de longue date des minéraux d'énergie de l'Afrique du Sud. Sans rompre avec ces caractéristiques, la NGP en particulier, et plus généralement la politique, cherchera à tempérer les gains et l'opposition de l'organisation des travailleurs plus aisés pour des avantages supposés aux personnes privées d'emploi et les niveaux de base de la prestation publique. Mots-clés: La Nouvelle trajectoire de croissance ; financiarisation ; complexe des minéraux d'énergie ; Afrique du Sud

Identifying policy change — Analytical program analysis: An example of two decades of forest policy in Bangladesh

Policy change trends are always important topics in policy analysis research. Political goals are set in accordance with the prevailing context and issues in environmental politics. Policy change claims may resonate with popular symbolic discourses. In reality, are these claims of policy change substantive or only symbolic? This article analyzes two decades of forest-sector policy programs in Bangladesh using the analytical policy program model to identify policy changes that focused on policy outcomes. The analytical policy program model consists of a relevant issue, consistent policy objectives or goals, and the implementation and expected impact of a certain policy program. Through these four analytical program model features, this article attempts to identify the substantive and symbolic policy changes that occurred during the last two decades in Bangladesh's forest sector. Content analysis with a qualitative approach was adopted as a methodology. The analytical policy program model was able to identify 25 substantive and 11 symbolic policy changes in the forest policy sector in Bangladesh during the last two decades, thereby also demonstrating the capacity of the analytical policy program model to identify substantive policy change as opposed to symbolic changes.

Parity in France: A ‘Dual Track’ Solution to Women's Under-Representation

As the world's first country to adopt a ‘parity’ quota, France could be considered an example of the growing phenomenon of quotas as a ‘fast track’ solution to the problem of women's under-representation. French universalism had impeded a more ‘incremental track’ to gender equality whilst placing a constitutional ban on quotas. The design of ‘parity’ as a means of overcoming these hurdles was both normative and pragmatic. Parity could be considered an example of a symbolic policy, where grand claims were made early on but the corresponding legislation only became effective over time. While the practical constraints on parity have delayed its impact, the recognition of the need to ‘legislate equality’ has had a more profound impact, leading to the creep of parity into other areas such as ethnic minority representation and parity in the workplace. This broader societal change is indicative of a ‘dual track’ to gender equality.