European Policy Analysis最新文献

{"title":"What determines effectiveness in the policy process?","authors":"Nils C. Bandelow, Johanna Hornung, Fritz Sager, Ilana Schröder","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1227","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Public policies should ideally be formulated to address a societal problem and being effective in solving it, both in what regards the effectiveness of the process of their development and in their effect on the target population (Bali et al., <span>2019</span>; Huber et al., <span>2020</span>; Knill et al., <span>2020</span>). Thereby, effectiveness can concern different aspects: It can be related to the coordination or collaboration between policy actors, it can refer to the effectiveness of the policy itself, or the subsequent governance arrangements that result from it (Lubell, <span>2003</span>; Mei, <span>2020</span>; Mizrahi et al., <span>2021</span>; Navarro et al., <span>2012</span>; Nicholson-Crotty & Carley, <span>2016</span>; Peters et al., <span>2018</span>; Steinebach, <span>2019</span>, <span>2022</span>; Visintin et al., <span>2021</span>; Wagner et al., <span>2023</span>). This issue of European Policy Analysis (EPA) brings together research articles that deal—one way or the other—with effectiveness, but from different perspectives.</p><p>Wiget (<span>2024</span>) investigates how beliefs shape the formation of advocacy coalitions among key stakeholders using the example of Swiss pesticide policy. The research is grounded in a survey conducted with 54 key actors, achieving a high response rate of 85%. The survey assessed both core beliefs—related to problem perceptions and policy objectives—and secondary beliefs—concerning support for specific policy measures. The findings reveal that actors’ beliefs significantly influence their positions and interactions, suggesting that agreement and disagreement among stakeholders often reflect deeper ideological divides. Wiget's analysis aligns with previous studies that emphasize the importance of shared beliefs in coalition formation. For instance, Weible and Sabatier (<span>2005</span>) highlighted how policy networks are shaped by the beliefs of actors in marine protected areas, demonstrating that shared values can facilitate collaboration. Similarly, Zafonte and Sabatier (<span>1998</span>) discussed how shared beliefs and imposed interdependencies influence ally networks in overlapping subsystems, reinforcing the notion that belief systems are crucial in understanding policy dynamics. It will be interesting to see, how this study will relate to the rising body of research on emotions in advocacy coalitions (Fullerton et al., <span>2024</span>; Gabehart et al., <span>2023</span>) The study also contributes to the broader literature on environmental policy, echoing findings from Ingold and Varone (<span>2011</span>) who argued that policy brokers play a significant role in mediating conflicts and fostering cooperation among diverse stakeholders. By situating the Swiss pesticide policy debate within this framework, Wiget underscores the necessity of recognizing the ideological underpinnings of policy disagreements, which can inform more effective governance strategies.</p><p>Focusi","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"482-487"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1227","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737403","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is open strategy a good fit for Public-Private hybrid organizations?","authors":"Christian Rosser,&nbsp;Sabrina A. Ilgenstein,&nbsp;Claus D. Jacobs","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1221","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates whether the systematic application of open strategy can align goals in emerging public-private hybrid organizations, which face the challenge of integrating different identities, forms, and rationales from both public and private stakeholders. We develop an evaluative framework, addressing three crucial issues for a public-private hybrid's early development: What is the public-private hybrid's purpose? Who are the strategic actors involved? What knowledge and skills are needed? By applying the framework to a qualitative case study from the field of Swiss innovation policy, we learn that inclusiveness and transparency largely depend on the timeline of a hybrid's emergence. Public-private hybrids can either choose an inclusive, transparent but gradual, and slow strategy process or a speedy process characterized by the traditional ‘management at the top’ approach. This study offers both empirical and theoretical insights into strategy development in public-private hybrid organizations and its significance for public policy implementation.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"604-625"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Triggering policy learning via formal EU evaluation requirements in the case of Cohesion Policy","authors":"Nicola Francesco Dotti,&nbsp;Louis Colnot,&nbsp;Julia Walczyk,&nbsp;Tomasz Kupiec,&nbsp;Julie Pellegrin","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1226","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The European Union (EU), especially in the context of Cohesion Policy (CP), has played a crucial role in developing and promoting policy evaluation practices across its Member States. Evaluation systems across the Member States have been established to assess CP investments. Remarkably, the use of evaluation research and its contribution to stimulating policy learning has remained a “black box.” To address this issue, this article aims to develop a novel framework centered around four conditions for evaluation-based policy learning, namely: (1) policy relevance, (2) resources and organizational settings, (3) quality of evaluation, and (4) evaluation culture. These conditions are retrieved from the existing literature on policy evaluation and applied to the six-country cases across the EU. The findings suggest how loosening the formal EU evaluation requirements could affect policy learning in the Member States.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"515-531"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1226","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142724205","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Between institutions and narratives: Understanding collective action in innovation policy processes","authors":"Giovanni Esposito,&nbsp;Gaia Taffoni,&nbsp;Andrea Terlizzi,&nbsp;Nathalie Crutzen","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1224","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Explanations for collective action focus on both institutions and narratives. On the one hand, institutional approaches emphasize the role of rules that guide human behavior. On the other hand, accounting for the narratives through which policy actors make sense of their actions helps in understanding strategic behavior. However, applying institutional and narrative perspectives together is daunting, in part because there has not been a common way to integrate the two approaches. In this article, we draw from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to elaborate a novel analytical approach that combines ANT with the Institutional Grammar Tool (IGT) and the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). We use IGT's and NPF's analytical categories in a processual perspective to examine how policy-makers strategically use institutions and narratives to create and stabilize a network of actors in innovation policy processes. We illustrate our approach through an in-depth analysis of the development of a smart city.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"532-558"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The ladder of disproportionate policy","authors":"Moshe Maor","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1225","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1225","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Disproportionate policy responses—policy over- and underreaction—are ubiquitous in policy affairs, yet detecting their full spectrum remains uncharted territory. To this end, I developed a descriptive-analytical framework centering on a novel conceptual tool, the <i>Ladder of Disproportionate Policy</i>, based on assessing the gap between the scope of the audience that the policy ostensibly serves and the degree of policy (mis)fit, that is, how the policy tools are set and adjusted to serve the actual audience. This scale assumes that policymakers can “game” these two policy dimensions before and during policy implementation. Political executives can climb up and down this conceptual <i>Ladder</i> and ascend or descend one dimension independently of the other in addition to moving from one side to the other. The case of the 2021 food voucher policy in Israel illustrates the feasibility of the <i>Ladder</i>.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"559-574"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1225","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Networks and perception in European policymaking","authors":"Nils C. Bandelow,&nbsp;Johanna Hornung,&nbsp;Fritz Sager,&nbsp;Ilana Schröder","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1218","url":null,"abstract":"&lt;p&gt;Summer is the time for conferences and the release of new journal rankings. For the editorial teams of journals specializing in policy process research, including European Policy Analysis (EPA), both are interconnected. Ideally, they both help to increase the chances of attracting more high-quality submissions and special issues, while also promoting the journal among readers and reviewers.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The citation scores for 2023 remained very high for EPA. Both in the Web of Science and Scopus, the journal is ranked in Q1 of the political science category. Our new Impact Factor (IF) is 2.7, which positions us at 56/317 in Political Science and 23/91 in Public Administration. In Scopus, we have an outstanding CiteScore of 9.7, placing us at 9/706 in Political Science and International Relations, and 11/232 in Public Administration. These figures are, of course, situational and will fluctuate frequently; they likely say little about the actual quality of the journal. However, we hope they contribute to attracting more interest in the journal, thereby helping us to firmly establish EPA as a leading journal for European perspectives in policy process research.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Relevant conferences in both political science and public policy are also very helpful in this regard. We engage in regular exchanges with the editorial teams of other journals to discuss new challenges. These include formal developments such as open access, the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, and possible reactions from commercial publishers and professional associations, all of which we must address. Simultaneously, there are exciting substantive developments in our field. These include new approaches and methods for understanding networks in policymaking, which are particularly intriguing in the diverse European countries and the European Union (EU) multi-level system. Are there European perspectives and knowledge from which the international policy process community can benefit? The freely submitted contributions in this issue make important contributions in this regard and will hopefully generate significant interest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Capano et al. (&lt;span&gt;2024&lt;/span&gt;) investigate a question of fundamental importance to current policy process research: What constitutes political networks? What are the motives for cooperation between policy actors, and what role do coalitions between actors play in policy-making? Policy process research has developed and tested a variety of perspectives on specific cases of collaboration (Guo, &lt;span&gt;2022&lt;/span&gt;; Ingold et al., &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;; Möck, &lt;span&gt;2021&lt;/span&gt;). This paper draws on three perspectives and examines their explanatory power through the example of two networks of administrative reform in Italy. What do we find in these networks? Are they more akin to policy communities, which are stable coalitions of heterogeneous actors with a common interest to frame the policy discourse (Jordan, &lt;span&gt;1990&lt;/span&gt;; Miller &amp; Demir, &lt;span&gt;20","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 3","pages":"306-310"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-08-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1218","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141980169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Does (dis)agreement reflect beliefs? An analysis of advocacy coalitions in Swiss pesticide policy","authors":"Milena Wiget","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1219","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Agricultural pesticide use is a wicked sustainability challenge: Trade-offs exist between health, environmental, agro-economic, and socio-political objectives. Various actors involved have diverse beliefs regarding these trade-offs and policies to address the challenge. But to what extent does the agreement or disagreement between actors reflect belief similarities or differences, and thus, the formation of advocacy coalitions? To answer this question, the study draws on the advocacy coalition framework and investigates data from 54 key actors in the case of Swiss pesticide policy. The study explores the relationship between the actors' (dis)agreement relations and their beliefs using Random Forests. Coalitions are identified through block modeling and beliefs based on multi-attribute value theory. The study shows that the two relations are a good proxy for identifying coalitions with conflict lines concerning beliefs and presents an approach to exploring ideological reasons behind (dis)agreement relations that supports identifying conflicting beliefs relevant to future policy solutions.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"488-514"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1219","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142737604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing policy capacity and policy effectiveness: A comparative study using sustainable governance indicators","authors":"Rameen Khan,&nbsp;Fiaz Hussain","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1217","DOIUrl":"10.1002/epa2.1217","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Policy capacity is vital for a nation's prosperity and sustainability, enabling governments to fulfill diverse responsibilities, such as security, economic growth, and accountable governance. This study evaluates policy capacity across countries from 2014 to 2020 using Sustainable Governance Indicators by the Bertelsmann Foundation. Focusing on executive capacity, which encompasses policy capacity's analytical, managerial, and political aspects, we gauge governments' ability to implement sustainable policies. Executive capacity is further classified into steering capability, policy implementation, and institutional learning. Findings show that policy capacity significantly influences policy effectiveness in all countries, with high-capacity countries demonstrating more impact. Enhancing policy capacity through efficient steering, implementation, and learning can improve policy effectiveness and foster responsive governance for sustainable development. This research provides valuable insights for policymakers seeking to bolster governance capacities and achieve positive policy outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 4","pages":"575-603"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141799788","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is who they are, what they prefer? Understanding bureaucratic elites' policy preferences for European integration of government accounting","authors":"Pascal Horni","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1215","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1215","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Bureaucratic elites and national public administrations' experts play a key role in the preparation of supranational policies and in shaping global governance instruments. However, we know surprisingly little about what factors drive their preferences and support for supranational solutions. Drawing on the results of a vignette and conjoint experiment and the case of the European Commission's policy initiative to develop European Public Sector Accounting Standards, this study analyzes the effect of the communicative framing of a policy's objective and how experts' attitudes influence their preferences for policy outcomes. The study shows that the communicative framing of a policy's objective based on functional needs rather than on normative grounds increases support among national administrations' experts. Moreover, the study finds evidence that experts who internalized a public service motivation and those with a supranationalist collective identity are more willing to give up national sovereignty in favor of supranational policy solutions.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 3","pages":"449-475"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1215","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141980343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Explaining differences in policy learning in the EU \"Fit for 55” climate policy package","authors":"Fredrik von Malmborg","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1210","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1210","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Through learning, policy actors can maintain, reinforce, or revise their beliefs and positions about the design and outcomes of policies. This paper critically analyzes factors influencing policy learning by comparing policy processes of two EU laws of the recent “Fit for 55” climate package: (i) revised provisions on increasing energy efficiency in companies included in the recast Energy Efficiency Directive and (ii) the new FuelEU Maritime regulation provided for decarbonizing maritime shipping. Learning across coalitions with competing beliefs was encountered in the first case but not in the other despite similar institutional settings. The difference is attributed to a more politicized debate on decarbonizing shipping, leading to consensus through bargaining instead of deliberation, and a circumscribed leader of one coalition, with a less flexible negotiation mandate. The paper adds to the theory on policy learning, suggesting that levels of politicization and polarization, as well as the mandates of the coalition leaders, influence cross-coalition learning.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 3","pages":"412-448"},"PeriodicalIF":2.7,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1210","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141980460","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}