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This systematic review and meta-synthesis assesses the effectiveness of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs) and Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Analyzing 27 studies (2014–2024) using PRISMA guidelines, the research examines impacts on financial stability, education, and health. CCTs generally outperform UCTs in achieving specific education and health targets by incentivizing behaviors, while UCTs offer greater flexibility, improving mental health and economic resilience in fragile settings. The findings stress the context-dependent nature of cash transfer programs and the need for tailored, integrated approaches. Policy recommendations emphasize designing programs based on local conditions and desired outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many policies in higher education are intended to improve college access and degree completion, yet often those policies fall short of their aims by making it difficult for prospective or current college students to access benefits for which they are eligible. Barriers that inhibit access to policy benefits, such as cumbersome paperwork, can weigh more heavily on members of marginalized communities, including racially minoritized students. Such administrative burdens can thus reinforce patterns of inequity. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for examining administrative burdens embedded in higher education policies that can negatively affect prospective and current college students, especially those who are racially minoritized. With the use of our proposed framework for addressing racialized administrative burdens, researchers can improve the understanding of ethnoracial disparities in higher education, inform policymakers' design of racially equitable policies for higher education, and enable practitioners to implement those policies to promote racial equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Foreign Policy Journal (CFPJ) is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Due to the minimal role of statutory city-regional planning in Finland, the Finnish state promotes inter-municipal, integrated planning of land-use, housing and transportation in the biggest city regions by a strategic planning instrument and a contractual policy tool called MAL procedure. MAL procedure includes MAL agreements, where the central government agrees to fund transportation infrastructure, while the municipalities in the city-regions commit to certain planning principles. MAL policy has advanced sustainability goals in planning, but it has also been argued to be prone to legitimacy problems as MAL negotiations take place behind the backs of citizens. The article discusses the structure of the MAL policy, assessing the ways in which this structure supports the legitimacy of the policy. It focuses on the interplay of strategic and communicative rationalities in the MAL procedure, starting from the observation that the theorists of strategic planning have focused predominately on communicative rationality as the legitimacy basis of planning. This paper aims to show that from a broader, structural perspective, both rationalities – and the way in which they interact – have a role in maintaining the legitimacy of planning. The article builds on theoretical studies and interviews with actors engaged in the MAL procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the call to take the analytical and theoretical values of historical institutionalism seriously, planning history research has emphasized the enduring legacies of critical moments that structure the developmental pathways of urban institutions, whose changes tend to appear incremental in the long run. Yet, most of this work is less conscious about deliberate – although not always successful – considerations by policy actors in formulating policies and conflates changes in institutional arrangements with changes in policy effects. This article fills these gaps from a policy design perspective, explaining the changing policy effects of the same institutional arrangements over time through design processes such as layering. To this end, it introduces Vienna's participatory urban renewal model, Soft Urban Renewal, highlighting its context-bound design space in which policy actors choose and rearrange existing instruments according to shifting policy objectives and circumstances. Two cases of Soft Urban Renewal from two different points in time are chosen to cross-compare their varying capacities to influence its real-world effect under different contextual constraints. It concludes with some final remarks on the ways in which a policy design perspective can contribute to the current debate on planning history research and comparative-historical analysis of cities and their institutions and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing climate change demands a varied policy toolkit, ranging from supportive measures to more assertive interventions. However, the latter, especially when impacting consumers' daily lives, often face public opposition. Current research mainly investigates personal or country-level characteristics and personal perceptions that are beyond the direct influence of policymakers, offering limited insight into enhancing the acceptability of specific policy instruments within a given societal context. Acceptability factors that policy-makers can directly influence have received less attention and mostly in single-case or single-factor studies. This perspective article critiques the current state of knowledge and calls for a surge in research on 'governable acceptability factors'. It introduces them as a key category for future research, proposes a definition, and outlines research needs and questions concerning four sub-categories of such factors: policy instrument characteristics, temporal aspects, actor involvement, and communication. Stringent climate policy measures can gain wider public support through a carefully designed policy bundle, combining highly intervening with supportive measures and consumption- with production-related measures. Inclusive participation in the policy-making process and carefully considered communication can also enhance public support. Strategic timing and coalition building as well as temporally limited policy trials or a phased policy implementation with increasing stringency also have potential for positive acceptability effects – but more research is needed on these factors. More comparative and mixed-methods research is necessary to investigate the context dependence and the interaction between acceptability factors. The results would empower policymakers to design and implement more acceptable climate policy measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Termed here as Street-Level Policy Innovation, this study shifts attention to public managers' role in policy change processes during which local street-level implementation adaptations are later formally adopted as a new policy instrument. The study develops an analytical framework drawing on the case of the Free Sidewalk program in Mexico. In summary three processes emerge such as the re-design of implementation arrangements, the accumulation of evidence, and the adoption of the experimented instrument as a formal policy change. The article contributes to understanding the role of frontline organizations as settings where managers explore, experience, and experiment with new policy instruments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new policy is needed to manage Switzerland's increasing urbanization and growing population. The second stage of the revision of the Swiss Spatial Planning Law, which has been ongoing since 2014, aims to create the legal framework to reduce or prevent the negative consequences of soil sealing, such as loss of biodiversity or urban sprawl. The revision process is characterized by substantial opposition among the actors involved; an acceptable draft revision is not conceivable. Using a structuring qualitative discourse analysis, we coded the consultation responses from the three consultation processes to date. We based our code system on acceptance factors existing in the literature and analyzed the content of the consultation responses over time and by actor. The results show that while a consensus on the instruments of the policy is emerging, there is great disagreement about the exact design and the resulting effects on the actors involved. The relative advantage of the policy and its compatibility with existing regulations are not sufficiently elaborated and presented in a comprehensible way. Ultimately, we identify several patterns of argumentation that should be considered by the policy-makers involved in the further revision, especially to address the critical arguments of the cantons and municipalities. Points of conflict and consensus during policy design were identified using QDA. Structuring the content of the policy discourse can support consensus-building. Typical argumentation patterns for opposing or accepting a policy were identified. Growing consensus entails shifts of actor conflicts from mid- to low-level topics. Relative advantage of a policy solution is key to increasing its acceptability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon border adjustment mechanism aims to level the playing field and reduce carbon leakage through import taxes and/or export subsidies based on the carbon content for products from countries with different levels of carbon policy stringency. The introduction of an EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) has triggered a lively debate on its potential impacts, especially among developing countries. In fact, introducing CBAM is not a new idea; researchers in fields of economics and law have investigated this policy over the last decade. Against this backdrop, this study conducts a literature review of the most recent economic studies of CBAM and provides an exhaustive synthesis of this literature. We employ the so-called 'Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis' approach (PRISMA), which includes an exhaustive screening of studies. Specifically, we identified 97 relevant studies on CBAM from 2004 to 31 August 2021, and conducted descriptive and content analysis of these. Our content analysis highlights the potential impacts of CBAM in terms of its effectiveness across 3 policy objectives: protecting fair competition; reducing carbon leakage; and limiting global welfare costs. We synthesize findings on how policy design and characteristics of an economy lead to different levels and types of effectiveness of a CBAM, and we contrast alternative policy designs across various objectives. Armed with this systematic review of the literature, we spell out insights and challenges in formulating effective CBAM polices. This review thus offers evidenced-based guidance for the policy design of a CBAM and a foundation for further research. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to design and implement CBAM to tackle competitiveness and carbon leakage; policy design and characteristics of the economy matter. According to the effectiveness of CBAM across the 3 policy objectives, alternative policy designs should account for the coverage of trade, of sector(s), and also the means to determine carbon content of traded commodities, the use of revenues collected through CBAM, and the adjustment price. In formulating sound CBAM policies, competitiveness, carbon leakage and welfare evaluation are central economic concerns; however, consistency with the latest international climate policy architecture and fairness issues should also be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractA key policy challenge in establishing new universities is the potential risk of lower academic standards and mission drift, which can affect policy effectiveness and outcomes. While regulation and funding tend to be preferred policy instruments for securing control of higher education expansion and achieving policy objectives, this article reports on a nation-wide reform in which various forms of legitimacy and control were actively used as measures in the design and establishment of almost one hundred new elite universities – the Institutes of National Importance (INIs) – in India. Our theoretical framework is based on the need for reinvention in policy design in higher education, that is based on the possible cross-fertilisation between the field of public administration and organisational theory. Through a mixed-method research design that included archival documents related to higher education reform and case studies of seven new INIs, this article demonstrates how ‘soft instruments’ based on legitimacy may align public policy objectives and stakeholder expectations ensuring quality and mission sustainability of new universities. We suggest that institutional and instrumental dimensions related to legitimacy and control can be integrated into a joint theoretical framework for policy implementation in higher education. We inform higher education policy by uncovering a range of legitimacy-based policy options in higher education, including the significance of reputation, national classification schemes, and organisational archetypes, that can be operationalised to minimise mission divergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between federalism and the policy design of labour market policies in two liberal welfare state regimes – Canada and the United States – addressing the following research question: How do variations in policy design intersect with federalism in both countries and how can these variations provide powerful, self-reinforcing or self-undermining feedback effects over time? Combining the literatures on the varieties of federalism, the liberal welfare regime, and policy design and feedback, the paper shows that paying close attention to federalism is necessary to understand diverse national policy designs that produce self-reinforcing feedback effects over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades, the academic literature on migration policy change suggested that migration policies in Western Europe had become overall more liberal. Yet, in an age of strong polarization, highly institutionalized policy regimes are likely to change. Adopting the theoretical lens of policy feedback literature, this paper argues that a better grasp of policy dynamics in the field of migration requires a more nuanced definition of the policy. Namely, we contend that the stability of liberal arrangements constitutes only an apparent paradox. Indeed, disentangling paradigms and instruments may enable different patterns of change and stability to emerge, as well as the role of agency. We build this argument using Italian reception policy as the case for a theory-building study on the drivers of change and stability of asylum policy regimes. Our study also suggests the benefits of applying a micro-level analysis to uncover agent-based mechanisms of policy entrenchment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of traditional, state-run media as tools for both, promoting policy, and providing feedback about non-governmental organizations (NGOs)-related policies in Egypt. It also gives insights into how media might contribute to shaping policy on NGOs in countries with similar systems of media governance. The study tests the social construction and policy design theory's “target population proposition” by conducting a thematic analysis of news articles on NGO Law 70 of 2017. It adds a new media studies perspective to Schneider and Ingram’s theory by exploring the framing effects of the media as mediators between governmental policy and target groups of that same policy. The findings confirm Schneider and Ingram’s theory in post-uprising Egypt. It delineates that state-run media variously frame policy rationales of Law 70 of 2017. Dichotomous framing was found to support the significant burdens imposed on, and the sub-rosa benefits granted to, NGOs by the new policy. Media frames also varied according to NGOs’ social construction and power level. This distinction in policy rationales draws the line between developmental NGOs and advocacy organizations whose agenda is perceived as a source of threat to the sovereignty, political independence, and national interests of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assuming that policy design can impact gender equity in caretaking, this paper examines how expectant mothers and fathers understand and respond to specific parental leave policy elements when shaping their parenting practices. Taking Germany as a case study, this research draws on semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2019 and March 2020 with 18 couples, who were expecting their first child at the time of the interview. Germany's parental leave policy has shifted substantially since 2007, most notably with the establishment of non-transferable parental leave months for fathers. Exploring the link between policy design at the macro-level and parental involvement at the micro-level, this paper focuses on how mothers and fathers make sense of their leave entitlements when dividing leave, which (policy) aspects they consider as helping or hindering an equal leave division and how mothers and fathers anticipate using parental leave benefits. Results indicate that the current parental leave policy design enables greater equity in caretaking by normalizing some leave-taking by fathers. However, by providing an option for fathers' leaves to be split and to be taken concurrently with mothers the policy limits fathers' solo parenting responsibility and consequently prevents a transformation of gendered parenting practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nature of academic appointments in Australia has changed. Given the recent emergence and growth of teaching focused academics roles across countries and contexts, in this conceptual paper we begin by parsing the language and role descriptions used for these academic appointments. Then, we consider what we know about teaching focused academics roles, and the research approaches used in these studies. We identify that teaching focused academics s struggle to understand, capture, and represent the knowledge creation component of their academic workload. We argue there is a need for research that builds a richer and holistic understanding of teaching focused roles and their workloads. We offer a solution: a learning-practice conceptual framework – combining Ann Webster-Wright's authentic professional learning and Trowler's practice sensibility with Goodyear's framework for design – to open new vistas of research and policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity decline undermines the conditions for life on Earth resulting in calls for transformative governance of biodiversity. Under the Convention on Biological Diversity, national biodiversity strategies provide the primary mechanism through which governments demonstrate their conservation efforts. With many countries due to develop new strategies under the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, it is timely to assess existing ones to identify policy design elements that could be 'ratcheted up' to meet the transformative agenda. This article analyzes and compares the policy designs of national biodiversity strategies in Australia, France and Sweden. We cover problem framing, policy goals, targeted groups, implementing agents, and policy instruments, to draw lessons on how national strategies can be designed to further support transformation of biodiversity governance. We identify elements in these strategies that can be used to inspire future ones: a negotiated framing of biodiversity and participatory processes in France, nested and integrated goals, targets and measures in Sweden, and an engagement with indigenous knowledge in Australia. However, to bring about transformative change, the analysis also shows the need for novel and fundamental re-designs to successfully target indirect drivers of biodiversity loss, shift power relations, and make biodiversity conservation a priority rather than an option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policies aim to promote the social good, but they do not always meet this goal. We argue that to improve policy and policy analysis, it is important to pay attention to the cumulative effect of policies on how people use their time. In this study, we looked at the effect of certain policies on sleep. Our exploratory study yielded intriguing findings on sleep in Israel in the specific policy context of a dual burden of work and caregiving. We surveyed 671 participants on the effect of work and care hours on sleep. The findings showed participants slept an average of 6.6 hours and expressed the desire to sleep one hour more. The desire to sleep more was higher than for all other uses of time and was evident in all employment categories. Part-time workers slept more than full-time workers and women, and younger people asked to sleep more than older ones. Long work hours and care hours led to lower sleep hours. Our findings suggest the need to be aware of possible 'side effects' in the policy design stage and are relevant to other countries with a care-work burden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everyday administrative practices are relatively understudied in research on illiberalism and authoritarianism. This article addresses this gap to account for the neoliberalist and technopopulistic motivations that support illiberal and authoritarian practices in a weak rule of law context. Using narrative analysis, it interprets the role of beliefs and desires of politico-administrative actors in facilitating such actions in the context of India's public sector digitalisation. This article elaborates how the instrumental rationalities embedded into the design of digitalised policies and their practices at various levels of analysis can erode voluntariness and privacy as well as undercut democratic accountability. This article makes a case for recentering the democratic ethos in designing and implementing digitalised policy regimes to ensure everyday administrative practices are aligned with the need to avoid the infringement of individual freedoms and democratic accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reform in higher education is on the agenda worldwide, and there is increasing political interest in the content of study programmes. This article looks at the policy process leading to the new national curriculum regulation (NCR) for kindergarten teacher education (KTE) in Norway in 2012. The following questions derived from Kingdon's Multiple Streams Theory (MST) will be posed to analyze the policy process: Who were the actors present in each of the different streams in the policy process leading to enacting a new NCR for KTE in 2012? What kind of opportunities for influence did the actors have in deciding to structure the KTE in interdisciplinary knowledge areas, and to what extent did these actors play roles as policy entrepreneurs? The data material consists of policy documents, consultation letters, and an online debate forum. The findings show that three policy windows, each representing different opportunities for impact for the participating actors, were opened during the process. Even if the process can be described as transparent and having a high degree of participation, the Ministry effectively structured it by setting rules and conditions. Nevertheless, one actor managed to take on a role as a policy entrepreneur early in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the issue of regional floodplain management in Austria from a policy design perspective. Austria has experienced a series of major floods in recent years. In response to these flood events a range of policy instruments at the land–water nexus were developed. Three policy instruments were selected as case studies to represent this policy shift toward integrated flood risk management: (a) regulatory spatial planning, (b) water associations and (c) financial compensation schemes for flood storage. The main objective of our article is to build a better understanding of the interlinkage of effectiveness and legitimacy in the process of policy formulation. The analysis draws on a review of policy documents and expert interviews with core decision-makers. Our analysis shows that the main challenge in the selection process is not the issue of effectiveness, but rather the acceptance of the policy instrument by target groups. Stakeholder participation increases the legitimacy of the instrument design and minimizes conflicts in the following implementation, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the policy instrument. In contrast to the assumptions prevailing in the current policy design literature, our empirical analysis does not support the common preposition that participatory processes result in inferior forms of policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to enhance our understanding of the complicated relationship between policy design and policy failure. In doing so, it examines whether Puerto Rico's 2011 tax reform failed to achieve one of its important policy goals – relieving fiscal stress and preventing bankruptcy – to understand how inappropriate designs of policy elements lead to policy failure. Using the synthetic control method, this study finds that the tax reform failed to relieve fiscal stress because it did not raise sufficient tax revenues while Puerto Rico needed them to give key stakeholders in the policy domain such as its lenders and credit rating agencies an assurance that Puerto Rico had sufficient capacity to repay debt. The findings further suggest that prioritizing policy goals, the timing of implementing a policy, and considering distributional outcomes and key stakeholders in the policy domain are all important when designing a policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent resurgence of interest in policy design has fostered renewed efforts to better understand how specific combinations of policy tools arise and shape policy outcomes. However, to date, these efforts have been stymied by under-theorization of the dif- ferent purposes to which tools are directed in policy mixes and a corresponding failure to acknowledge both these in conceptual work on the subject and in policy practice. Existing frameworks do not adequately recognize the complexity of contemporary policy tool mixes, especially their hybrid and multilayered features, and how procedural and substantial tools operate and interact together in priority and supportive roles. To close this gap, we propose a revised tool framework that distinguishes between first and second-order aspects of instruments used in policy mixes and highlights the particular salience of procedural tools within them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited realisation of social justice and unequal access to basic social resources place demands on social workers to take action for the shaping of good public and social policy. Previous studies have identified various challenges that limit the involvement of social workers in policy practice. These challenges have been examined to a limited extent in the context of social workers belonging to ethnic minority groups in multicultural societies. The present study examined these issues among social workers from the Palestinian-Arab minority group in Israel and revealed challenges that focus on three areas: political, cultural, and personal challenges. These challenges are closely related to the sociopolitical context of an ethnic minority coping with inequality, discrimination, and oppression, as well as the social and cultural gaps in the contexts of being a majority or a minority in a multicultural society. The implications of the findings are discussed in the contexts of policy, practice, and cultural training for policy practice in multicultural societies. IMPLICATIONS Social workers from ethnic minority groups face political, cultural, and personal challenges that limit their involvement in policy design processes. These social workers need to be supported and provided with appropriate resources and training to operate in policy arenas in cross-cultural political situations. Social work training frameworks need to provide knowledge and skills in a sociopolitical context and the support required to promote involvement in policy practice. Policies formulated by professional bodies can support the involvement of social workers from minority groups in policy practice through critical awareness of the promotion of social justice and the reduction of inequality. Increased focus on promoting equality of opportunity in the welfare system as well as in allocating resources and means can enable minorities to live better lives and prevent feelings of oppression and exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collecting kōrero tuku iho (indigenous knowledge, indigenous storytelling, traditional technical knowledge) of life on land and life under water is how this group of three kairangahau, Māori researchers, propose whānau (family/families) and hapū (family collective/s), can build governance and management practices with their whānau and hapū over their rohe whenua (tribal land area/s), rohe moana (tribal ocean area/s) and wai (water/s) today. Through a reflexive weaving of whakapapa this article shares how these hapū based kairangahau articulate ‘whakapapa’ as a practice that connects them to ‘people, place and purpose’. Whakapapa as praxis, while presenting challenges, strengthens their everyday practice as kairangahau with ‘themselves’ and ‘others’ and unfolds for them new and affirming spaces and pathways that aim to privilege and uphold their whakapapa practices of whānau and hapū decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's complex policy problems are strongly characterized by interdependencies across sectors. Such interdependencies hamper the sustainable management of natural resources such as water. The protection of water resources exhibits manifold interlinkages, often with energy and food policy. Interdependent policy problems entail trade-offs across policy sectors and therefore present decision-makers with a major challenge. In order to address this, the design of sustainable policy mixes should produce synergetic effects that contribute to both the protection of water resources and achieving the objectives of other interlinked policy sectors. However, it remains unclear why some policy mixes show significant flaws that prevent the achievement of sustainable outcomes. The contributions of this special issue step into this research gap and aim to explain variation in policy mixes and their contribution to sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nexus governance increasingly relies on using data to design policy measures. At the intersection of different policy fields, such as energy and water, data is seen to shed light on complex challenges and have the ability to measure both problems and solutions systematically. In order to analyze the challenges linked to data use in the context of nexus governance, we use a policy design lens and more specifically the perspective of organizational policy instruments to look at the Mediterranean region. We focus on how the design of organizational tools enables or impedes policy coherence and thereby the efficacy of data use. Addressing this question, we find that current efforts in the region largely satisfy one condition of coherence, which is coordination of different stakeholders, but lacks effective integration as the second component of achieving coherence. This implies that the organizational instruments outlined in the current context of the Mediterranean efforts are only a starting point for developments over time that require holistic thinking, strengthening coherence long-term as well as developing capabilities around nexus governance. Given these findings, we identify future research questions around the role of organizational policy instruments in contributing to the coordination of data-driven nexus policy mixes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the social construction of target populations (SCTP) approach to examine the social construction of naturopathic medicine in the Canadian media at a time of policy change. It uses an original dataset of newspaper articles during a period (2013–2017) that involved increased scrutiny about naturopathic medicine due to a high-profile criminal trial. It finds that naturopathic medicine was far more likely to be portrayed negatively than positively, and that the trial increased the frequency of negative stories of the profession. This demonstrates that naturopathic medicine has not been able to withstand a negative social construction in Canada in spite of concrete public policy gains in many provinces. It further demonstrates the need for scholars using the SCTP approach to emphasize the role of the media in influencing target populations' social constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a typology of policy design and non-design, with special attention to a category of policy making which we term, "anti-design". We argue that contrary to the established literature, the opposite of design is not politics, but rather, a disconnect between problems, interventions, and outcomes. This disconnect can be caused by political forces but also by non-political factors such as incompetence, corruption, or global economic trends. We use an attempt by the government of Indonesia to regulate e-cigarettes to illustrate a scenario in which design activities are virtually absent. Making the distinction between design and the various forms of non-design is an important step in understanding the conditions that enable or impede rational mechanisms in the policy process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do policies change? The article argues that dominant public policy theories overemphasize the stage of adoption of new policies and disregard the discrepancies that often take place between formal and substantive change. But can we really speak of change if formal changes do not trigger change in actors' behaviour? And how can policy-makers achieve substantive change? Building on the comparative political economy literature, the article conceptualizes policy change as the interaction between rule-makers and rule-takers. It is argued that (i) rule-makers can use policy design strategically to minimize reliance on non-compliant rule-takers and (ii) the scope for rule-makers to side-line non-compliant rule-takers is greater if non-compliant behaviour produces negative policy feedback. Systematic process analysis of reform of German higher education over two decades lends support to the proposed approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Public Money & Management is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores how applying psychological and cognitive theories in nudge design can increase the effectiveness of nudging in public space. Nudges are those policy instruments that alter human behaviour by exploiting cognitive biases/heuristics, without limiting the choice set. Based on interviews with Dutch urban planners, barriers in applying such behavioural theories are identified. These barriers relate both to urban planners' inexperience with nudging and to the organisational and societal context in which nudges are designed. A design framework is presented to optimise the design of nudges by helping planners to identify when and where nudging is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, political candidates and elected policymakers have advanced a wide variety of publicly funded tuition-subsidy programs to improve college access and -affordability. These college-aid programs employ different subsidy instruments, target different types of students, draw from different funding sources, and come with different strings attached. This study assesses Americans' preferences over the multidimensional design of such higher education subsidies using a conjoint survey experiment with randomized policy proposals that vary in their subsidy instruments, target populations, eligibility requirements, and funding arrangements. The results suggest that fiscal tradeoffs loom large in Americans' support for higher education programs, but elements of subsidy design matter as well: respondents (particularly Republicans) prefer aid packaged as tax credits; strongly means-tested programs receive greater support than broader, income-based aid (an effect driven by Democrats); and subsidies targeted to community college students enjoy substantial, bipartisan support. The study's results shed light on differences in extant tuition-subsidy programs' popular support and provide empirical grounding for debates over the prudent design of college aid by estimating tradeoffs that programs confront between efficiently targeting marginal students and securing broad popular support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under which conditions is EU Cohesion Policy effective? Which are those 'conditioning factors' that help in explaining where, when, and how the Cohesion Policy is effective? This article adopts an Hirschmanian approach to argue that that the institutional characteristics of domestic authorities involved in the management of funds, as well as the decisions of policy makers, represent the key factors for understanding the effects of the Cohesion Policy in European regions. By using Cohesion Policy implementation in Italy and Spain as a pilot study, this article empirically investigates the interaction of three different types of factors (institutional, strategic [related to the types of investments made], and administrative), and elaborates an original framework for comparing different Cohesion Policy implementations, and existing studies analyzing the impact of the Cohesion Policy. The framework presented in this article could be extended to other European countries by political scientists who are interested in studying the Cohesion Policy as a case of development policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy formulation refers to how problems identified in the agenda-setting phase transform into government programs. As the process of designing policy alternatives expresses and allocates power among different interests, policy formulation affects both implementation and outcomes. This paper examines the Swedish moose policy of 2010, revealing that the policy portrays the issue of moose as an ecological problem, while motivations for adopting policy measures are largely described in economic terms. Because of this incongruity, the policy may not achieve its goals. Furthermore, implementation principles stemming from different design strategies clash in the attempt to incorporate both local and ecosystem-based levels of management into a single system, leaving the policy implementation with many uncertainties and tensions. To deliver the policy's goal, the government could consider clarifying the operationalization of the ecosystem-based management approach and identifying the prerequisites necessary for building capacity, dealing with strong stakeholders, and ensuring fair representation of key actors. Future research should further explore the consequences of policy imbalances in relation to intended goals, the importance of understanding the rationales and design strategies underpinning implementation principles, and the need to discuss operationalization of EBM in relation to different types of objects of management and to issues of scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ageing populations have been identified as a looming fiscal threat to many developed nations across the world. However, in Japan, both the scale of the problem and the institutional context is such that it represents a rather desperate predicament. Within the next 25 years it is projected that over a quarter of Japan's local governments will have the majority of their population composed of senior citizens. This is problematic because as populations age, needs increase but revenue capacity simultaneously decreases. We apply a commonly employed success framework with a view to demonstrating how it can be used to guide implementation of some of the most prominent policies thus far canvassed in Japan to mitigate these fiscal challenges. We conclude with some comments regarding the importance of good policy design to successfully navigate the age of the aged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States' response to COVID-19 has been predominantly led by state governments. To understand if, why, and how state governments include enforcement language in their executive order response, this article conducts an analysis based on 1,357 coded executive orders. It is found that decisions to include enforcement language are influenced by a governor's political circumstances and perceived risks associated with the crisis. This paper offers insight into how these findings are important for future research and an explanation of the distinct ways that US state governments are choosing to address COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although understanding initial responses to a crisis such as COVID-19 is important, existing research on the topic has not been systematically comparative. This study uses topic modeling to inductively analyze over 13,000 COVID-19 policies worldwide. This technique enables the COVID-19 policy mixes to be characterized and their cross-country variation to be compared. Significant variation was found in the intensity, density, and balance of policy mixes adopted across countries, over time, and by level of government. This study advances research on policy responses to the pandemic, specifically, and the operationalization of policy mixes, more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with an increasingly complex policy environment, policymakers have sought to leverage upon non-state resources and expertise to supplement their policy efforts. What have emerged are collaborative efforts at policymaking, founded upon close relations between public and private actors. This paper focuses on policy co-creation in Singapore's financial sector, differentiating between formal and informal processes of policy co-creation. In doing so, it aims to provide a policy-oriented approach to understanding government-business relations that can both expand on and contribute to existing corporatist studies of economic development in Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Innovation policy in Ecuador is an exceptional case study that explores how knowledge used to inform design is socially embedded in relationships of political authority. In this case, it was possible to unfold the range of values and conflicts that policy actors confront in order to incorporate the innovation imperative to policy design. By opening the black box of policy design, we studied the formulation of the innovation policy problem from a bottom-up strategy led by nongovernmental actors, where innovation has become a framing device to formulate policy problems as problems of innovation. As a result, innovation has become a policy paradigm based on the hierarchization of knowledge, where expert knowledge is superior to lay knowledge. Therefore, experts can provide concrete remedies to tackle innovation deficits. This paper explains how innovation policy is driven by traveling imaginaries that once they are highly shared, they work as programmatic ideas in the policy design process. We use the innovation deficit model and policy networks to unravel the relations established by actors and institutions during the problem framing, and the negotiations of influence and domination that they exercised in order to position their programmatic ideas under the innovation imperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge utilization depends on how well the scientific community communicates knowledge to its target audiences' needs. We argue that policy-relevant science communication can increase the real-life impact of scientific evidence by moving beyond political agenda-setting and providing concrete advice to policy drafters. Agenda-setting seeks to raise politicians' and the wider public's awareness of a problem (problem advice). However, for scientific evidence to translate into effective policy interventions, the scientific community and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) must also provide policy drafters with advice on policy design and implementation (policy advice). Political attention is volatile, and – except for particularly policy-driven and solution-focused actors – politicians have little incentive to address long-term issues such as climate change if voters do not punish short-term thinking. In contrast, the public administration (government agencies) carries out long-term expert work. Government agencies are therefore the primary recipients of evidence-based knowledge transfer that aims to create concrete policy solutions. We develop hands-on recommendations for tailoring scientific advice to the needs of policy drafters through a six-point checklist. Based on utilization-focused evaluation research, we argue that scientific evidence should not only address the causes of public problems but also the effectiveness of proposed policy solutions and the consequences of policy decisions. We also highlight the need to assess the political feasibility of a given policy proposal (potential oppositions and stumbling blocks) and its practical implementability (likely reaction of the target groups). Ensuring effective policy advice requires transdisciplinary dialogue between natural, social, and policy scientists, as well as dialogue between research and government agencies. Key policy insights There is a gap between public and political awareness of climate change issues and effective policy solutions. Due to their respective roles within the policy process, politicians and government agencies have different knowledge needs. In addition to providing politicians and the general public with problem advice, a specific form of policy advice, that is, policy-prescriptive evidence-based information, should be developed and provided for policy drafters within government agencies. Natural, social and policy scientists must team up to provide policy advice that is not only evidence-based but also utilization-focused. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As tuition-free college policies spread rapidly across the states, an increasingly important policy debate has emerged regarding the optimal policy design of tuition-free college. However, existing scholarly evidence has focused almost exclusively on student outcomes, leaving the political decision-making processes among the public and policymakers unexamined. In this article, I leverage a nationally representative survey experiment and policy design theory to explore the power of social constructions of target populations in shaping a cornerstone of politically feasible tuition-free college—public opinion. In line with theoretical expectations, the analysis reveals that including a minimum high school GPA requirement increased support for tuition-free college, while targeting benefits to low-income families reduced perceptions of fairness, relative to a universal policy design. The findings also reveal that the effect of policy design on public perceptions of tuition-free college is moderated by region and age. Together, these findings reveal how a nationally representative sample of the public view the key policy design debates on tuition-free college and demonstrate the importance of social constructions of target populations for the study of higher education policy processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functional pressures shaping policy design may be disrupted in salient policies and politicised contexts, according to recent postfunctionalist/new intergovernmentalist theories. We contrast these expectations with those derived from liberal intergovernmentalism and neofunctionalism by analysing the reforms of the European Union economic governance. Its Council-centred enforcement, which has been a dominant feature until the euro crisis, despite noncompliance, does not sit comfortably with traditional theories but can be explained by policy salience and implementation uncertainties. Instead, the emphasis that traditional approaches assign to noncompliance, commitment problems, threats of exclusion and veto, issue linkages, path dependencies and supranational decision-making, allows to adequately account for the overall direction of reforms toward more tightening and delegation, notwithstanding the pooled enforcement in recent ancillary measures. Postfunctionalist theories overall fall short in highly politicised contexts, exactly where they should do most of the explaining. We conclude discussing politicisation as a strategic elite response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant research neglects to examine how policymakers make decisions regarding funding allocations to higher education institutions. This case study analyzed the policy process surrounding the development of one model for funding higher education in Colorado. The study is anchored in a theory of policy design, which considers how groups targeted by a policy are socially constructed, as well as their levels of political power. Drawing on interviews with 19 policy actors involved in funding-model development and 144 documents, findings reveal that institutions' levels of political power are critical, but not deterministic, in explaining allocations under the new model. Access institutions benefited most from the state's new funding model, primarily due to one policy entrepreneur's interest in linking funding more tightly to higher education institutions' enrollments. Research institutions used their political power to repel burdens that would have been imposed through the funding-model bill. Finally, racial/ethnic minority students were ultimately denied explicit funding benefits. This outcome resulted from legislators' overt efforts to avoid addressing race in this policy process. This study contributes to literature on higher education finance, policy, and politics by illuminating how target groups' political power and social constructions influence decisions surrounding state funding for public colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theory, by establishing a price for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, an Emissions Trading System (ETS) promises to encourage a shift away from carbon-intensive electricity supply. It is generally assumed that this decarbonization effect requires the liberalization of electricity markets. However, amongst the more than 40 jurisdictions throughout the world that are now implementing, planning or considering an ETS to decarbonize electricity supply, few have adopted the electricity market liberalization textbook model. Economic agents are constrained in how they can respond to an ETS through various forms of electricity market regulation but, given the political sensitivity of electricity market reform and the urgency to decarbonize the electricity sector, it is unrealistic to advocate liberalization as a prerequisite to the introduction of an ETS. Building from regulatory theory on the design of electricity and environmental markets, we develop a conceptual framework to understand the interaction between ETS and electricity market regulation under different regulatory settings. Our analysis challenges the general assumption that the introduction of an ETS depends on electricity market liberalization. We argue that the ETS can be adjusted to the electricity market reality of many jurisdictions where governments limit price discovery, restrict price pass-through or place constraints on investment decisions, and discuss regulatory alternatives to address the efficiency losses that may emerge from specific forms of power sector regulation. Key policy insights Although an ETS will be most effective when it is implemented within a liberalized and competitive electricity market, it can also be introduced in a regulated electricity market environment, albeit with some efficiency losses. Where an ETS is implemented under power sector regulation, it is important to understand where barriers to mitigation exist, how much mitigation potential will be lost, and which other policies can target these areas of the economy. A proportion of the efficiency loss might be restored through innovative emissions trading policy design that overcomes the barriers to mitigation put in place through power sector regulation. This is a topic that deserves more academic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of effective vertical policy coordination between the policy makers at the "top" and the implementers at the "bottom" is an important source of deficits in both policy design and policy implementation. Yet while the link between policy production and implementation seems vital to explain and prevent policy failure, so far the conceptual tools to assess and compare systematically the barriers to effective vertical coordination are lacking. This paper attempts to address this gap by adopting a "transaction cost perspective" and proposing a novel concept to assess and compare the difficulty of vertical policy coordination between different policy sectors and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While they are often lumped together as one sector, nonprofit organizations represent diverse activities and objectives in the policy process. It is surprising that given this diversity, there are limited studies about the "multiple realities" that exist within a "nonprofit sector". This article examines the multiple realities found among nonprofit organizations. It explores how government creates regulatory policy targeting nonprofit organizations and how nonprofit organizations interpret and respond using the case of Ecuador in South America. The article asks: What do regulatory policies do and what target populations do they create? How do different nonprofit organizations interpret these policies? Given the answers to these questions, what are the political and social consequences for the development of civil society? Through an interpretive framework, the article contributes to the literature about how government creates target populations through policy, how policies act upon different nonprofits in different ways and how they interpret and respond to policy. The research considers what this might mean for organized civil society and development in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper frames the idea of design spaces in policy formulation identifying three types (strong, weak, and non-design) and describing their characteristics on the basis of a three-folded analysis: an exploration in the design literature to understand how scholars are reporting on the connection between design and policy and identifying a debate mainly focused on policy outputs (public services) and policymakers' capacities; an exploration of policy literature to analyse design in policy formulation and depict a focus on processes of policy development; a connection with practitioners' points of view through a small series of interviews with policy experts covering different roles. The notion of formulating better policies through establishing optimal design spaces is built upon to result in the description of three spaces where design impacts policy formulation, establishing a meso-level of reflection that provides a link between design and policy as theoretical reference for further empirical experimentations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) is an important and relatively recent innovation in policy theory and analysis. It is conceptualized to empirically operationalize the insights of the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. In the last decade, political scientists have offered a number of applications of the IGT, mainly focused on disclosing and scrutinizing in-depth the textual configurations of policy documents. These efforts, involving micro-level analyses of syntax as well as more general classifications of institutional statements according to rule types, have underpinned empirical projects mainly in the area of environmental and common-pool resources. Applications of IGT are still in their infancy, yet the growing momentum is sufficient for us to review what has been learned so far. We take stock of this recent, fast-growing literature, analyzing a corpus of 26 empirical articles employing IGTs published between 2008 and 2017. We examine them in terms of their empirical domain, hypotheses, and methods of selection and analysis of institutional statements. We find that the existing empirical applications do not add much to explanation, unless they are supported by research questions and hypotheses grounded in theory. We offer three conclusions. First, to exploit the IGT researchers need to go beyond the descriptive, computational approach that has dominated the field until now. Second, IGT studies grounded in explicit hypotheses have more explanatory leverage, and therefore, should be encouraged when adopting the tool outside the Western world. Third, by focusing on rules, researchers can capture findings that are more explanatory and less microscopic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An industrial cluster is an important link in the process of industrialization. The existing research is mainly based on the market economy. Our paper considers external policy design for cluster innovation based on the transition from planned economy to market economy in China. This paper finds some enterprises in the cluster are transferred from micro-enterprises to small ones, but does not find clustering from the small enterprise to middle or larger enterprise. Furthermore, our paper explained why such a cluster occurs by applying a semi-parametric counterfactual approach. The results indicate that building cluster zones as upgrading the enterprise structure policy and implementing VAT tax systems as the tax benefit policy has the most proponent role in industrial clustering, whereas increasing the loan/financing as the credit policy has a minor impact, which is not negligible either. Overall, this study explains why clusters shift to high output valued with a high interpretation of up to 97%. The contribution of this paper is not only to describe the time process of micro-to-small enterprise clustering but also to give the policy design how to achieve rapid micro-to-small enterprise clustering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses policy developments concerning the structure, operation and performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Papua New Guinea. Of particular significance are reforms since 2014 which have highlighted important tensions between the country's constitutional imperative of self-reliance and governance initiatives aimed at ensuring SOEs have a considerable degree of operational autonomy suited to their commercial objectives. The result of the reforms is a confused and contradictory set of institutional arrangements that have increased rather than reduced the possibility of direct political control over SOEs. While there are efforts to operate SOEs as efficiently as possible within current constraints, the political will to implement those parts of the reforms that have the greatest likelihood of improving the financial performance of SOEs appears to be lacking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]