Policy and Society最新文献

Street-level partnership: making collaborative service delivery work against the odds 基层伙伴关系：克服困难，协同提供服务

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2026-03-27 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puag007

Anka Kekez, Anat Gofen

{"title":"Street-level partnership: making collaborative service delivery work against the odds","authors":"Anka Kekez, Anat Gofen","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puag007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puag007","url":null,"abstract":"Collaborative governance is widely promoted as a way to address complex social challenges, yet collaborative service delivery often operates in environments where enabling conditions are weak, fragmented, or inconsistently institutionalized. How collaboration persists under such constraints remains insufficiently understood. This study examines how frontline actors sustain cross-sector service delivery when formal coordination mechanisms, stable mandates, and institutional supports are limited. Drawing on a qualitative study of five social services for families at risk in Croatia, the analysis is based on interviews, focus groups, and practitioner workshops involving more than 100 professionals across public and third-sector organizations. The study proceeds in two steps. First, it identifies and conceptualizes the mechanism through which collaboration remains workable in an unfavorable setting. This mechanism is termed street-level partnership, defined as a patterned configuration of adaptive practices through which frontline professionals recalibrate routines, maintain cooperative ties, coordinate direct work with clients, and generate embedded learning and informal accountability. Second, a comparative analysis across service-delivery modes assesses the variation and stability of this mechanism. While street-level partnership appears across all five services, its configuration and durability vary with contractual form, operational longevity, and degree of institutionalization. By shifting attention from ideal design conditions to everyday practice, the article offers a grounded account of how collaborative governance is stabilized in constrained environments. Collaboration persists not because enabling conditions are optimal, but because frontline actors actively assemble workable partnerships, although their durability remains shaped by structural context.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147524139","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The rise of Big Tech as super policy entrepreneurs 大型科技公司作为超级政策企业家的崛起

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2026-03-26 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puag005

Shaleen Khanal, Hongzhou Zhang, Araz Taeihagh

{"title":"The rise of Big Tech as super policy entrepreneurs","authors":"Shaleen Khanal, Hongzhou Zhang, Araz Taeihagh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puag005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puag005","url":null,"abstract":"Large technology companies (Big Tech) are becoming ever more powerful in modern societies. While concerns have been raised about their political, economic, and social implications, the policy implications of their rise remain underexplored. We utilize Kingdon’s concept of the policy entrepreneur, alongside the broader policy entrepreneurship literature, to examine Big Tech’s expanding role in the policy process. We conceptualize the super policy entrepreneurs as an ideal type capturing a distinctive configuration of roles across streams, stages, and subsystems, and analyses Big Tech as an empirical approximation of this ideal. We argue that Big Tech displays three distinguishing features: they are prominent entrepreneurs across all streams in the multiple streams framework; they exert influence across all stages of the policy cycle; and they operate across multiple policy subsystems and the broader policy universe, thereby able to influence cross-sectoral and transboundary policies. Together, these features enable Big Tech to emerge as super policy entrepreneurs, commanding unprecedented levels of influence in the policy process. We further highlight that Big Tech as super policy entrepreneurs can reconfigure how policy windows emerge and are exploited, while recognizing that the effects of such entrepreneurship remain contingent and mediated by institutional and political constraints.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147518832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

From active collaborators to source of new regulatory politics: regulatory intermediaries in India 从积极的合作者到新监管政治的来源：印度的监管中介机构

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-11-09 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf033

Aviram Sharma

{"title":"From active collaborators to source of new regulatory politics: regulatory intermediaries in India","authors":"Aviram Sharma","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf033","url":null,"abstract":"In the policy literature, the regulatory intermediary’s role has been analyzed to understand how they help achieve normative regulatory goals, like knowledge sharing, capacity building, and effective coordination. Yet, the “politics of” and “politics by” intermediaries are under-theorized. Drawing from the bottled water regulations debate in India, this article theorizes the complex relationship between regulators, intermediaries, and regulatory targets in delivering a contested commodity (bottled water) for mass consumption. Employing an interpretative approach, the article politicizes the roles of intermediaries. Intermediaries emerge as “knowledge brokers” and crucial political actors, and do not merely remain rational economic agents fulfilling the interests of regulators. Intermediation by different intermediary actors does not always reduce information asymmetry and generate coherent outcomes, in terms of agenda setting and effective enforcement. Regulatory intermediaries do create new politics around regulations, which may or may not benefit the regulatory beneficiaries, different kinds of regulatory takers, or serve regulatory objectives. More socio-political studies are needed to understand the effect of intermediation in different regulatory spaces and regimes (especially when informality is conceived as a regular feature and a norm rather than a state of exception) and their broader influence on society and policy-making.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145472941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Explaining regulatory intermediaries’ compliance through the accountability regimes framework 通过问责制框架解释监管中介机构的合规情况

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-10-11 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf029

Eva Thomann

{"title":"Explaining regulatory intermediaries’ compliance through the accountability regimes framework","authors":"Eva Thomann","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf029","url":null,"abstract":"This article assesses how accountability relations between intermediaries, regulators, and regulatory targets affect intermediary non-compliance. Regulatory intermediary theory (RIT) maps how intermediaries, who are given responsibility but often lack hierarchical accountability to regulators, have multiple roles in the process of regulatory compliance. Intermediaries need to comply with the tasks that they have been delegated to perform. However, beyond acknowledging the importance of complex actor relations, RIT lacks a clear theory of how these relationships may affect the realization of regulatory intentions during policy implementation. This article introduces the accountability regimes framework (ARF) to model the multiple formal and informal roles of intermediaries, identify accountability dilemmas, and theorize the conditions under which they trigger intermediary non-compliance. The ARF is applied to study “Prevent Duty,” an anti-radicalization policy which requires social science lecturers in British universities to report students deemed at risk of radicalization to the Home Office. Semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with intermediaries in May 2021 (N = 19) are analyzed using crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results support the ARF’s core claims: in a politicized context of mandated, interpretive intermediation, the presence of multiple accountability dilemmas can trigger non-compliance, while their absence is related to compliance. Institutions can mitigate this intermediary non-compliance by providing training to intermediaries. Results additionally show that the mandated, politicized intermediaries may informally appropriate the regulator’s role of risk assessment. The ARF allows RIT scholars to understand intermediaries’ compliance as a problem of accountability.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"339 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145261589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Policy termination as a strategic practice: insights from the Flemish provinces 作为战略实践的政策终止：来自佛兰德省的启示

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-10-11 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf031

Inke Torfs, Ellen Wayenberg, Corneel De Vos

{"title":"Policy termination as a strategic practice: insights from the Flemish provinces","authors":"Inke Torfs, Ellen Wayenberg, Corneel De Vos","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf031","url":null,"abstract":"Deliberately terminating outdated, inefficient, or redundant policies has become increasingly important for governments operating under persistent challenges and constrained resources. Despite its growing relevance, policy termination remains undertheorized and empirically underexplored, particularly when considered as a strategic practice. As such, this research aims to advance a more comprehensive understanding of policy termination by explicitly examining its underlying strategy. It focuses on the five Flemish provinces, subregional entities in Belgium currently facing both withdrawal of competences and institutional pressure concerning their existence. The research design combines a document analysis of provincial council meeting reports with semistructured interviews conducted with provincial chairs and clerks. All data were systematically coded using established typologies of both policy termination and strategy. The findings show that while policy termination accounts for only a modest share of provincial decision-making, its occurrence across a wide range of policy domains suggests a degree of structural embeddedness rather than mere exceptionality. Furthermore, they reveal that policy termination is only occasionally pursued with strategic intent, yet a clear misalignment between aspirations and capabilities prevents it from functioning as a strategic governance practice at the provincial level. Theoretically, these findings reaffirm policy termination as a legitimate area of inquiry and establish connections between the fields of policy studies and strategic management. They also raise critical questions about the continued applicability of classical approaches to policy termination in today’s complex governance contexts. Practically, the findings offer actionable insides for provincial policymakers seeking to deploy a suitable strategy for policy termination.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145261588","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

What needs to be (un)ambiguous to construct a coalition for policy change? Evidence from South Korea’s “childcare publicness” reforms 要构建一个政策变革的联盟，需要（不）模棱两可的是什么？来自韩国“儿童保育公共性”改革的证据

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-10-06 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf034

Sunwoo Ryu

引用次数: 0

Calibrations and compliance: the role of motivations in policy instrument design 校准和遵从：动机在政策工具设计中的作用

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-09-29 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf028

Panchali Guha, Ishani Mukherjee

引用次数: 0

Modes of involvement: citizen participation in the Norwegian health and planning sector 参与方式：公民参与挪威卫生和规划部门

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-09-23 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf026

Eva Krick

{"title":"Modes of involvement: citizen participation in the Norwegian health and planning sector","authors":"Eva Krick","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf026","url":null,"abstract":"This study explores the varying patterns and dynamics of citizen engagement across policy fields and participation formats. It zooms in on the Norwegian context and focuses on those two fields where citizen involvement is most pronounced, that is the health sector and the planning field. Based on in-depth empirical analysis, it identifies three distinct modes of public involvement that differ in terms of key actors, influence channels, state–society relations, citizens’ roles, and the normative status of their claims. The study finds that the traditional corporatist mode is still prevalent in both health and planning, but complemented by the peer support worker-mode in health, and one-sided information exchange between civil servants and citizens in urban planning. It uncovers the underlying logics shaping the different participation patterns and examines the preconditions and interrelations between social diversity and policy impact in each mode, thereby addressing two of the most persistent shortcomings of citizen engagement. The empirical analysis draws on interviews with civil servants, stakeholders, and researchers, as well as documents like laws, policy guidelines, and committee reports. It builds on existing research on participatory governance, policy development, and knowledge-based policy-making, and it engages with and refines democratic theory with a focus on participation, representation, and inclusion.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145127717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Malignity in policy sciences: a theory and framework 政策科学中的恶性：理论与框架

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-08-20 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf016

Tim Legrand, M Jae Moon

引用次数: 0

Management and quality: third-generation research into policy advisory systems 管理与质量：政策咨询系统的第三代研究

IF 9.3 1区社会学

Policy and Society Pub Date : 2025-08-18 DOI: 10.1093/polsoc/puaf023

Michael Howlett, Maria Tullia Galanti, Andrea Migone, Giulia Vicentini

引用次数: 0