{"title":"Defining artificial intelligence as a policy problem: A discourse network analysis from Germany","authors":"Nicole Lemke, Philipp Trein, Frédéric Varone","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1203","DOIUrl":"10.1002/epa2.1203","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Scholars agree that digital technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) pose a political challenge. In this article, we study empirically how different actors in the German political system define AI as a policy problem. We use an original data set of 6421 statements by representatives of political parties, interest groups, scientific experts, and public officials in parliamentary debates, government consultations, and quality newspapers. Through Discourse Network Analysis and quantitative text analyses we show that most actors define AI as technology (innovation) policy and link it to government operations, international cooperation, and macroeconomics. Although they are present, consumer protection, labor, and education seem to be less important policy issues concerning AI. The results imply that the capacity of the national government to reduce problem definition uncertainty and to steer the political agenda is difficult and that most actors focus on technological innovation rather than civil rights-related aspects.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 2","pages":"162-187"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139857434","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":"Infringements of European Union law at the local and regional level across Member States","authors":"Peter Clinton, Javier Arregui","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1201","DOIUrl":"10.1002/epa2.1201","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper investigates variations in infringements of EU rules by substate authorities. The paper tests the effect of structure and actor level variables. First, we test structural factors in terms of the autonomy that substate authorities hold. Second, we test some actor level factors that may also increase transaction costs: autonomy of substate actors, public opinion on the EU and administrative capacity. The results indicate that there is a relationship between the increased autonomy of substate authorities and higher number of infringements. The results also provide support that preference to exercise this autonomy correlates with higher infringements. In addition, the results show that negative public opinion on the EU is strongly correlated to higher numbers of infringements. This suggests that transaction costs associated with multilevel policy implementation and attitudes to the EU are determinants of substate infringements.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 2","pages":"188-205"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1201","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139439502","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":"The cost of participation: An analysis of the financial dimensions of participatory budgets in Portugal","authors":"Rodrigo Sartori Bogo, Roberto Falanga","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1200","DOIUrl":"10.1002/epa2.1200","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Participatory budgeting (PB) is a democratic innovation that allows citizens to deliberate about a share of the public budget. Portugal was one of the most influent countries in this field in the last decade, as PB was implemented at multiple levels. However, few studies have made in-depth research on the financial dimensions of PB, which raises interest as to whether and how citizens' voice has had a significant impact on policy-making. To fill in this gap, this article considers the financial asset of local, regional, and national PBs in Portugal up to the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our methodological approach relies on both quantitative data analyzed through Geographical Information Systems and descriptive statistics, and qualitative data retrieved from document analysis. Findings are discussed through four different stages of dissemination in the country, and show that despite significant advancements in this field, impacts in the financial dimensions lay behind expectations.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 2","pages":"279-299"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138948189","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}
Kristin Taylor, Rob A DeLeo, Elizabeth Albright, Elizabeth A. Koebele, T. Birkland, Deserai A. Crow, Manli Zhang, Elizabeth A. Shanahan
{"title":"Estimating the effect of policy entrepreneurship on individual vaccination behavior during the COVID‐19 pandemic","authors":"Kristin Taylor, Rob A DeLeo, Elizabeth Albright, Elizabeth A. Koebele, T. Birkland, Deserai A. Crow, Manli Zhang, Elizabeth A. Shanahan","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1198","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1198","url":null,"abstract":"Most studies of policy entrepreneurship seek to understand how entrepreneurs influence the behavior of policy‐makers in the agenda‐setting or decision‐making phases of the policy process. Recent scholarship has sought to understand what role entrepreneurs might play in policy implementation by focusing on their ability to influence bureaucrats' discretion and behavior. However, these studies overlook the potentially critical influence of policy entrepreneurs during the implementation of “opt‐in” policies that require voluntary compliance by individuals to be successful. Here, we consider whether and how a visible policy entrepreneur can impact opt‐in policy implementation, focusing on their credibility—or ability to gain public trust—as a potential driving factor of their influence. Using the empirical context of COVID‐19 vaccination recommendations, we identify Dr. Anthony Fauci as a highly visible policy entrepreneur and assess his influence on individual vaccine intention and uptake. Drawing on data from a novel panel survey of the American public on attitudes about the virus, risk, politics, and vaccination during the first several months of the COVID‐19 vaccine rollout in the United States, we test the relationship between respondent trust in Dr. Fauci and changes in reported intention to vaccinate and vaccination uptake across time. We find that trust in Dr. Fauci is an important predictor for influencing individuals' intention to vaccinate and actual vaccination behavior.","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"8 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138596885","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 game of energy transition: A game theoretical perspective on public participation procedures in infrastructure planning","authors":"Eva Ruffing, Viktoria Brendler","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1199","DOIUrl":"10.1002/epa2.1199","url":null,"abstract":"<p>For energy transition, infrastructure construction is often indispensable but also contested and potentially problematic for social cohesion. Through a game theoretical lens, we examine the basic configuration of infrastructure conflicts. Informed by the empirical example of German electricity grid planning, we discuss three approaches to resolve multilevel infrastructure conflicts, (1) technocratic decision-making, (2) participatory decision-making, and (3) redistribution and compensation, as well as the conditions under which we can expect them to mitigate conflicts. Each of the three approaches has been tried out in German grid planning over time, which allows us to analyze whether the respective conditions were met and why the approaches were (not) able to resolve existing conflicts. We demonstrate that enduring conflicts in German grid expansion are not caused by a fundamentally ill-defined decision-making procedure but rather by a particularly “wicked” conflict structure that can hardly be resolved within planning procedures.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"10 1","pages":"39-60"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1199","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139210465","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":"Why we need to study street-level policy entrepreneurs\u0000 为何我们需要研究街头政策企业家\u0000 Por qué necesitamos estudiar a los emprendedores políticos a nivel de calle","authors":"Nissim Cohen, Gwen Arnold, Evangelia Petridou","doi":"10.1002/epa2.1195","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1195","url":null,"abstract":"<p>An emerging literature argues that street-level bureaucrats can develop and advocate for policy innovations that change policy in meaningful ways, calling this phenomenon “street-level policy entrepreneurship.” This argument is at the heart of the present special issue, which features contributions to developing the theoretical underpinnings of street-level policy entrepreneurship and empirically examining evidence for this phenomenon. While the traditional understanding of street-level bureaucrats views them as administrative functionaries, lacking motivation or resources for innovation, this new perspective recognizes that street-level officials' deep knowledge of a given policy domain and involved stakeholders uniquely positions these officials to advocate for policy innovations affecting the domain and its constituents. We urge scholars to take street-level policy entrepreneurship seriously and to examine questions at the frontiers of our knowledge about these entrepreneurial officials, including what motivates them, what strategies for policy advocacy they find most effective, and how their behaviors are shaped by different institutional contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":52190,"journal":{"name":"European Policy Analysis","volume":"9 4","pages":"342-355"},"PeriodicalIF":5.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/epa2.1195","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138432409","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}