Search

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]

Background: Policymaking is quickly gaining focus in the field of implementation science as a potential opportunity for aligning cross-sector systems and introducing incentives to promote population health, including substance use disorders (SUD) and their prevention in adolescents. Policymakers are seen as holding the necessary levers for realigning service infrastructure to more rapidly and effectively address adolescent behavioral health across the continuum of need (prevention through crisis care, mental health, and SUD) and in multiple locations (schools, primary care, community settings). The difficulty of aligning policy intent, policy design, and successful policy implementation is a well-known challenge in the broader public policy and public administration literature that also affects local behavioral health policymaking. This study will examine a blended approach of coproduction and codesign (i.e., Policy Codesign), iteratively developed over multiple years to address problems in policy formation that often lead to poor implementation outcomes. The current study evaluates this scalable approach using reproducible measures to grow the knowledge base in this field of study. Methods: This is a single-arm, longitudinal, staggered implementation study to examine the acceptability and short-term impacts of Policy Codesign in resolving critical challenges in behavioral health policy formation. The aims are to (1) examine the acceptability, feasibility, and reach of Policy Codesign within two geographically distinct counties in Washington state, USA; (2) examine the impact of Policy Codesign on multisector policy development within these counties using social network analysis; and (3) assess the perceived replicability of Policy Codesign among leaders and other staff of policy-oriented state behavioral health intermediary organizations across the USA. Discussion: This study will assess the feasibility of a specific approach to collaborative policy development, Policy Codesign, in two diverse regions. Results will inform a subsequent multi-state study measuring the impact and effectiveness of this approach for achieving multi-sector and evidence informed policy development in adolescent SUD prevention and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe rapid rise in blockchain-based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) offers policy-makers and decision-makers new opportunities to automatically execute decisions and processes that help enhance transparency, accountability, participation and trust. Yet, many DAOs have a limited lifespan. There is little empirical evidence of the effect of governance elements on the viability of DAOs. Using 220 on-chain governed DAOs, this paper analyses how governance elements (accountability, decision/voting, and incentives) influence the viability of DAOs in the long-term. The findings show that DAOs without weighted decision-making and without incentive structures are more viable than those with weighted decision power and incentive mechanisms. This suggests that financial and share-like DAO governance elements do not or may even negatively contribute to the long-term viability of DAOs. Also, voting power distribution is found to have a statistically significant influence on DAOs’ viability. We further propose a preliminary theory that relates governance elements to the long-term viability of DAOs. These insights will help policy-makers in designing more viable DAOs. Future research should investigate how DAO objectives, the chosen deployment infrastructure and the type of users can impact the long-term viability of DAOs.

Relevance to practice is an open issue for scholars in public policy and public administration. One major problem is the need to produce knowledge that can guide practitioners designing and implementing public interventions in specific contexts. This article claims that investigating the causal mechanisms of policy programs—i.e., modeling why and how they produce outcomes—can contribute to such knowledge. In this regard, mechanisms offer essential information to guide practitioners when replicating, adjusting, and designing interventions. Unfortunately, not all models of mechanisms can inform practice. The article proposes a strategy for design research and practice inspired by reverse engineering: selecting successful programs, causal modeling, assessing the target context, and designing. Scholars should model mechanisms by identifying the program and non-program elements that contribute to the outcome of interest and abstracting their causal powers. Practitioners can use these models, diagnose their target context, and adjust designs to deal with context-specific problems. The proposed research agenda may enhance orientation to practice and offer a middle ground between the search for abstract, general relationships, and single-case analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers insights into the institutional arrangements established to coordinate policies aiming at the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Drawing on the literature on policy design, we highlight institutional arrangements as elements of policy design spaces and contend that they fall into four categories that either stress the political or problem orientation of this activity: optimal, technical, political, and sub-optimal. We use original data on 44 major economies and greenhouse gas-emitting countries to test this expectation. These data capture various properties of national coordination arrangements, including the types of coordination instruments in place, the degree of hierarchy, the lead government agency responsible for coordination, and the scope of cross-sectoral policy coordination. The dataset also captures the degree to which non-state actors are involved in coordination and whether coordination processes are supported by scientific knowledge. Using cluster analysis, we show that the institutional arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate policy do indeed fall into the four above-mentioned categories. The cluster analysis further reveals that a fifth, hybrid category exists. Interestingly, the political orientation dominates in the institutional arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate change mitigation, whereas the problem orientation is more important in the arrangements for the horizontal coordination of climate change adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and study in this paper the policy design improvement regarding the public procurement process for public management innovation. Public procurement is obtained transparently and efficiently at the exact cost of goods, constructions, services, among others. In addition, it has decreased the national budget and supported the national economic development. Most of the major contributions of public procurement included support for small businesses, jobs, and balanced regional development. Nevertheless, a lot of issues have become apparent during the public procurement process, thus requiring preventive measures. The aim of this study is to demonstrate an enhanced public procurement process and develop efficient policies in the future. For this reason, we investigated the issues regarding South Korea's public procurement process, and concentrated on policy improvement. It is our intention to provide a highly efficient global public procurement process that can be used as an academic paper that will help in developing South Korea's public procurement process and policy direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Effectiveness has been understood at three levels of analysis in the scholarly study of policy design. The first is at the systemic level indicating what entails effective formulation environments or spaces making them conducive to successful design. The second reflects more program level concerns, surrounding how policy tool portfolios or mixes can be effectively constructed to address complex policy objectives. The third is a more specific instrument level, focusing on what accounts for and constitutes the effectiveness of particular types of policy tools. Undergirding these three levels of analysis are comparative research concerns that concentrate on the capacities of government and political actors to devise and implement effective designs. This paper presents a systematic review of a largely scattered yet quickly burgeoning body of knowledge in the policy sciences, which broadly asks what capacities engender effectiveness at the multiple levels of policy design? The findings bring to light lessons about design effectiveness at the level of formulation spaces, policy mixes and policy programs. Further, this review points to a future research agenda for design studies that is sensitive to the relative orders of policy capacity, temporality and complementarities between the various dimensions of policy capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of policy entrepreneurs in promoting change in flood risk mitigation at the local level in Sweden through a comparative study of two Swedish municipalities with different approaches to flood risk governance; as a technical issue or a social issue. The municipality in which flood risk mitigation is addressed as a social issue exhibits a larger size of the network mitigating flood risk, more diverse actors involved, and a more central location of the politicians and senior management. Moreover, the analysis points to the salience of a bureaucratic policy entrepreneur in promoting this shift toward addressing it as a social issue, and shows how they use relational strategies to frame the issue as relating to climate change action. The article operationalizes sociability and credibility, two of the attributes of policy entrepreneurs, and thus, contributes to the theoretical and methodological discussion of policy entrepreneurs in general, and as they pertain to environmental policy in particular. Related Articles: David, Charles‐Philippe. 2015. "Policy Entrepreneurs and the Reorientation of National Security Policy under the G. W. Bush Administration (2001‐04)." Politics & Policy 43 (1): 163‐195. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12106 Shock, David R. 2013. "The Significance of Opposition Entrepreneurs on Local Sales Tax Referendum Outcomes." Politics & Policy 41 (4): 588‐614. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12028 Sidha, Zedekia, Patrick Asingo, and Justine Magutu. 2021. "Street‐Level Bureaucrats as Policy Entrepreneurs: The Nexus between Timing of Traffic Enforcement Activities and Road Safety Policy Outcomes." Politics & Policy Early View. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12386 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policies are the products of political conflict, constituted by mixes of diverse tools and instruments intended to achieve multiple goals that may change over time and not always be internally consistent or coherent. Recent studies dealing with policy robustness and resilience have theorized about the temporal development of mixes of policy instruments and the need to ensure consistency and coherence over time, yet they have generally failed to develop these insights into lessons for policymakers and practitioners. Drawing on evidence from the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the USA, this paper examines the relationship between policy mixes and policy resilience or the ability of a policy to withstand challenges to its elements and to remain effective over time, even when deliberate efforts are made to alter, adapt, or repeal all or part of its original content or intention. Although the ACA is at an early stage in its history, it provides many lessons about how, and how not, to design complex policy mixes that can survive determined political opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about stakeholders' acceptance regarding regulatory instruments in energy policy. We expect that today's introduced instruments not only correspond most to technocratic principles and what elected officials prefer, but that they correlate with the preferences of a wider number of public and private actors in policymaking. We therefore compare the already introduced policy instruments to instrument preferences of the public administration, elected officials, but also NGOs and utilities. In doing so, we contribute to the question of whether or not the instruments already introduced today correspond to technocratic or democratic principles, or to the preferences of the larger governance arrangement involving other public and private actors. We compare three cantons in Switzerland and gather data through a systematic literature review, expert interviews, and surveys. The comparison of the data suggest that the currently selected policy instruments correspond to technocratic principles, but that they also and often correspond to the preferences of public and private actors. More concretely, whereas in one canton, NGO preferences align with the introduced instruments, in another canton, this is the case for utilities. In the third canton, all different actor types display similar preferences very much in accordance with the currently employed instrument mix. We thus conclude that depending on the region, different principles and preferences are reflected in the current policy mix. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a novel method for creatively engaging citizens and stakeholders to find solutions to complex problems, co‐design holds great promise for policy makers. It has been vaunted as a way to generate more innovative ideas, ensure policies and services match the needs of citizens, achieve economic efficiencies by improving responsiveness, foster cooperation and trust between different groups, meaningfully engage the 'hard to reach', and achieve support for change. This article considers how we might determine whether co‐design has real potential to dramatically improve policy processes and outcomes. Drawing on relevant literature on participatory design, design thinking and public sector innovation, this review explores the meaning and potential of co‐design in the context of public policy. It highlights the philosophical underpinnings and normative implications of participatory design, and questions the feasibility of achieving the promised outcomes in the challenging context of contemporary policy making. Co‐design is a promising approach that offers creative and participatory methods for engaging different kinds of people and knowledge in the policy process. More documentation, analysis, and evaluation are nonetheless required to determine the extent to which co‐design can meet its innovative and transformative potential in policy making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy design has re-appeared on the scholarly agenda. This special issue investigates the assumptions of the policy design concept, questioning its theoretical coherence and relevance for practitioners. The conventional idea of policy design implies an instrumental-rational theoretical model which is out of place in contemporary governance arrangements. While the concept appeals to academic sensibilities, it has less utility in practice. It can also become caught up in the political aspect of policymaking by being used to generate legitimacy for the actions of public managers via rationalising accounts. Contributors to this issue argue that the design idea should be reconsidered from the ground up. An alternative orientation is put forward, which regards policy design as something that emerges from policymaking practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solving complex problems is a challenge faced by many governments. Academic and practical discussions on how to solve said problems look at policy integration as a solution to the negative implications that fragmented government actions have on addressing public problems or providing public services. Notwithstanding important recent contributions, we still lack a precise understanding of what policy integration is, an explanation of how it differs from other 'solutions' to complex problems, such as coordination or policy coherence, and a practical operationalization. In this paper, we argue that coordination, coherence, and integration are related but substantively different concepts. We offer a new way of understanding and observing policy integration in a manner that is theoretically distinguishable from policy coordination and coherence and empirically observable. We argue that policy integration is the process of making strategic and administrative decisions aimed at solving a complex problem. Solving this complex problem is a goal that encompasses-but exceeds-the programs' and agencies' individual goals. In practical terms, it means that, at every moment of the policy process, there is a decision-making body making decisions based on a new logic-that of addressing a complex problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]