{"title":"Malignity in policy sciences: a theory and framework","authors":"Tim Legrand, M Jae Moon","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf016","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces and conceptualizes the notion of malignity in policy sciences, examining how public policies can become misaligned with the public interest—whether by design or through the dynamics of the policy process. The special issue underscores the urgent need to reintegrate normative and ethical considerations into policy design, analysis, and implementation. In the context of democratic backsliding, administrative misuse, and technocratic drift, we call for greater attention to the “dark side” of policymaking, where policies are co-opted and distorted to serve marginal or private interests at the expense of democratic values and public interests. The issue advances a theoretical framework that defines malignity as the intentional diversion of state mechanisms away from the public interest. The contributions explore the features and mechanisms of malign policymaking and offer strategies for identifying, mitigating, and responding to its occurrence.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898331","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}
Michael Howlett, Maria Tullia Galanti, Andrea Migone, Giulia Vicentini
{"title":"Management and quality: third-generation research into policy advisory systems","authors":"Michael Howlett, Maria Tullia Galanti, Andrea Migone, Giulia Vicentini","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf023","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, we argue that in order to better understand how Policy Advisory Systems (PAS) have evolved during the 21st century, we need to reframe consideration of their nature. This requires recognizing that what could previously be relatively precisely described as a highly institutionalized system of advice provision is now often a hybrid, where the weight of institutionalized sources of advice is declining, and more agile and fluid interconnections between the state and non-governmental organizations exist within a more varied and expanded ecosystem of brokers and producers. These developments have sparked a third wave of advisory system studies, which focus greater attention on the quality of advice provided by PAS and their managerial aspects in this new, and other more traditional, contexts. The findings and research agendas of this third wave are the subject of the essays contained in this special issue.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898400","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}
{"title":"Malignity in decentralization of natural resource governance in India","authors":"Satyajit Singh","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf022","url":null,"abstract":"Many perspectives have been offered on what induces policy failures, which have been numerously called malignity, policy volatility, ill-intentioned policy behavior, abuse of public authority, prioritizing the interests of specific influential or identity interests, subverting policy goals and targets, and rent-seeking. Such a dark side of policy design is seen in India’s rollout of decentralization for natural resources. A discussion on malignant policy designs across states and sectors highlights the importance of understanding the political economy of institutional designs. This article points out that failing to account for the political economy of policy design for decentralization results in malignant designs. It also provides insights into developing policy designs to mitigate the influences of the erstwhile beneficiaries of centralization. The article brings insights from decentralization designs within a political economy framework and discusses mechanisms to mitigate malignant decentralization designs. It points to key policy design and implementation moments that create malignant behavior. It shares comparative instances where policies have been adapted to curb such behavior and strengthen devolutionary decentralization. It details how well-intended national policies towards devolutionary decentralization are intertwined with state and sub-state-level micro-politics of institutional design and decentralization.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898401","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}
{"title":"Change is inevitable, quality is optional, and context matters: dynamics influencing the development of an optimal policy advisory system","authors":"Bernadette Connaughton","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf017","url":null,"abstract":"Developments in the policy advisory systems (PAS) literature demonstrate how the traditional models designating key roles for internal public service actors have given way to include a greater diversity of external nongovernmental actors in advice provision. This is reflected in how sustained politicization and externalization trends impact PAS organization and actors’ influence, resulting in a more complex national PAS architecture and functioning. This pronounced hybridity of PAS, both in structure and logic, presents challenges for ensuring relevant and quality advisory content and managing its supply and dissemination effectively. In this article, Craft and Howlett’s model on features of policy advice content and the types of actors supplying it is used to observe the implications of PAS adaptation and change dynamics across different political-administrative contexts. The presence of different types of advice under the conditions of short-term/reactive (e.g., purely political or crisis advice) and long-term/anticipatory (e.g., protocol and routine steering, evidence-based advice) is a useful rubric for surveying how good governance standards and openness have been applied in developing quality policy advice content in both Westminster and non-Westminster contexts.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144898411","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}
{"title":"An instrument constituency of data science—the case of Data for Good initiatives in the UK nonprofit sector","authors":"Ville Aula","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf019","url":null,"abstract":"Data science is a new link in the long chain of quantitative measurement in public policy. The article analyses the promotion of data science as a tool of public policy by operationalizing the instrument constituency framework. The article expands research on instrument constituencies to two new areas: measurement instruments and the nonprofit sector. The empirical analysis focuses on “Data for Good” initiatives in the UK nonprofit sector and is based on 37 interviews with nonprofit data professionals participating I the initiatives. The analysis focuses on actors, instruments, and promises. The findings show that the innovative potential of digital data and data science is central to the initiatives, but the actual practices promoted by the participants are much more varied. The analysis shows blurred boundaries between different promotional coalitions and underscores the collaboration and competition between initiatives. The article confirms that the instrument constituency framework is applicable to the analysis of measurement techniques in the nonprofit sector. It invites further empirical and conceptual work on the unique elements of instrument constituencies that focus on promoting measurement techniques.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144766126","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}
{"title":"Policy advisory system actors or policy entrepreneurs? An analysis of policy advice quality in Kenyan anticorruption policymaking","authors":"Justa Mwangi","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf004","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores PAS actors and policy advice quality dynamics within anticorruption policymaking processes in Kiambu and Nairobi City counties, which are two devolved systems of government in Kenya. It is based on empirical research that sought to determine the level of policy advice quality provided by three critical PAS actors—the state, business, and civil society. These actors were of particular interest as they were mentioned in corruption scandals, linked to sycophancy as they sought to curry favor, and exhibited signs of disengagement, due to frustrations within the policymaking process. The study was framed within the multiple streams framework (MSF) and interrogated policy advice quality through the SERVQUAL model of reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness. The analytical strengths of MSF and SERVQUAL were considered suitable in Kenya’s context where corruption is systemic, in an effort to overcome the limitations of previous approaches that have looked at corruption as a principal-agent problem. Two focus group discussions with key stakeholders were held in each county. Sixty-three respondents from 10 strategic functions, 12 members of the public, and 24 suppliers from each county were interviewed. The results demonstrate the analytical capacity of MSF and SERVQUAL, and provide a theoretical framework within which to ground third-generation policy advice research. The paper addresses the main research problem of inadequate data from the global south, and the lack of measurements for policy advice quality. It also contributes conceptual tools that deepen our understanding by presenting MSF and SERVQUAL as useful models for consideration.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144066106","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}
{"title":"Policy advisory system quality under multilevel governance: the German COVID-19 experience","authors":"Johanna Hornung, Philipp Trein","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf005","url":null,"abstract":"Policymakers frequently seek scientific expert advice to navigate new and complex policy challenges, but the decisions that must be taken to address these problems often require the cooperation of different levels of government as well as state and non-state actors. While existing literature has acknowledged that the political context influences the processes of scientific policy advice, it lacks the formulation of specific expectations or mechanisms on how such multilevel structures affect scientific policy advice. This article explores the key challenges that scientific policy advice faces in multilevel settings and specifies how multilevel structures can both support and hinder effective problem-solving. The study highlights that while the inclusion of diverse governance levels can enrich policy debates with scientific evidence, it can also lead to fragmented advisory structures that question the hierarchy of scientific evidence and hinder science-policy transfer processes. We underpin this argument with empirical evidence from COVID-19 crisis management in Germany, a country that is exemplary for multilevel governance structures both within its domestic context (federalism) and beyond (as a member of the European Union). The findings underscore the challenges for scientific policy advice in contexts that span across multiple scales.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143945677","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}
{"title":"How can governments respond to policy bubbles driven by dysfunctional emotions?","authors":"Moshe Maor","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf008","url":null,"abstract":"People sometimes experience intense emotions with maladaptive behavioral consequences (i.e., dysfunctional emotions) that impair their judgment regarding policy problems, policy tools, and/or target populations, leading to the emergence of policy bubbles (i.e., sustained policy over-investment). In this article, I elaborate on three strategies that governments can implement when faced with policy bubbles driven by such emotions: the wait-and-see approach, the emotional containment approach, and the bubble-pricking approach. Based on studies of policy bubbles as well as financial and asset bubbles, I elaborate on the conditions under which each of these policy options may be the appropriate path to follow when encountering such policy bubbles. I conclude that the case for a wait-and-see approach is strong, among other instances, when such bubbles cannot be detected with a reasonable level of confidence while they are still in the initial overinvestment phase; the case for emotional containment is strong when policymakers are interested in preventing such bubbles from getting out of hand, yet they are politically constrained to better calibrate the level of policy investment to the severity of the policy problem; and the case for the bubble-pricking approach is strong when (i) the growth of policy bubbles driven by dysfunctional emotions causes significant harm and (ii) governments do not have at their disposal the necessary tools to keep the harmful effects of such policy bubbles and their burst at a manageable level. An in-depth understanding of context is critical in determining the best course of action.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143940200","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}
{"title":"The divide in the EU green taxonomy: how conflict impacts the quality of policy advisory systems","authors":"Edoardo Esposto, Tiziana Nupieri","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf007","url":null,"abstract":"The second wave of research on Policy Advisory Systems (PAS) dynamics has induced scholars to rethink the received knowledge about the insider–outsider and technical–political divides in policy advice, leading to more nuanced descriptions of PAS configurations. The long-term structural change of PAS has been the focus of this research agenda. In contrast, a research gap exists in analyzing the role of disagreement and conflict in shaping the configuration of advisory systems and their interactions with policymakers. We analyze a case of conflict in the policy advisory system supporting the European Commission in defining the EU Green Taxonomy, i.e., the classification of economic activities that underpins the new EU regulation of public and private sustainable investments. The dynamic effect of conflict is particularly evident in the case of the EU Green Taxonomy, where opposing values and interests have shaped the advisory process, raising questions about how policymakers navigate and utilize contested advice. Our findings contribute to understanding the relationship between pluralistic and conflictual advisory systems and government management of PAS.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"74 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143841242","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}
{"title":"Environmental impact assessments as a mechanism of regulatory intermediation: the case of Israeli wind energy","authors":"Avri Eitan, David Levi-Faur","doi":"10.1093/polsoc/puaf006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/polsoc/puaf006","url":null,"abstract":"The environmental impacts of infrastructure projects are widely assessed through a procedure known as environmental impact assessments (EIAs). In many regulatory systems, EIAs are carried out by third-party intermediaries. However, their roles and effectiveness within public policy and regulatory governance remain understudied. This study addresses this gap by examining 24 wind energy projects deliberated in Israeli planning committees between 2003 and 2024. Specifically, we ask: (1) What intermediary roles do EIAs and those responsible for their implementation play? (2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of EIAs as an intermediation mechanism? (3) How do these strengths and weaknesses shape their effectiveness? Our analysis identifies five key intermediary roles: two formal roles, which are legally defined—providing advisory services and facilitating enforcement and compliance—and three informal roles, which extend beyond strict regulatory mandates—interpretation, dialogue facilitation, and advocacy. The formal roles ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines and advance environmental expertise, thereby meeting regulatory requirements and contributing to high procedural effectiveness. However, challenges persist, particularly regarding informal roles, which are often influenced by intermediaries’ alignment with developers’ interests. These challenges contribute to relatively low substantive effectiveness, as planning committees frequently find EIAs insufficient for informed decision-making, leading them to seek external consultants for validation. The gap between EIAs meeting regulatory requirements and planning committees’ inability to fully rely on them highlights weaknesses in EIA governance as a mechanism of regulatory intermediation. We argue that formalizing informal intermediary roles with clearer guidelines could improve EIA effectiveness, enhance objectivity, and strengthen decision-making in the EIA framework.","PeriodicalId":47383,"journal":{"name":"Policy and Society","volume":"27 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":9.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143824876","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}