Dealing with bad guys: actor- and process-level determinants of the “devil shift” in policy making

Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift at two levels. On the actor level, interest groups, political parties and powerful actors suffer more from the devil shift than state actors and powerless actors. On the process level, the devil shift is stronger in policy processes dealing with socio-economic issues as compared with other issues. Finally, and in line with previous studies, there is less empirical evidence of the power dimension of the devil shift phenomenon than of its evilness dimension.

Policy Change in Comparative Contexts: Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework Outside of Western Europe and North America

The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) is one of the most frequently applied theories of the policy process. Most applications have been in Western Europe and North America. This article provides an overview of the ACF, summarizes existing applications outside of Western Europe and North America, and introduces the special issue that features applications of the ACF in the Philippines, China, India, and Kenya. This article concludes with an argument for the continued application of the ACF outside of Western Europe and North America and a research agenda for overcoming challenges in using the ACF in comparative public policy research.

Institutions and coalitions in policy processes: a cross-sectoral comparison

Actors with joint beliefs in a decision-making process form coalitions in order to translate their goals into policy. Yet, coalitions are not formed in an institutional void, but rather institutions confer opportunities and constraints to actors. This paper studies the institutional conditions under which either coalition structures with a dominant coalition or with competing coalitions emerge. It takes into account three conditions, i.e. the degree of federalism of a project, its degree of Europeanisation and the openness of the pre-parliamentary phase of the decision-making process. The cross-sectoral comparison includes the 11 most important decision-making processes in Switzerland between 2001 and 2006 with a fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis. Results suggest that Europeanisation or an open pre-parliamentary phase lead to a dominant coalition, whereas only a specific combination of all three conditions is able to explain a structure with competing coalitions.

The direct-democratic challenge to evidence-based policy making: Questioning the governmental PISA narrative in Swiss school policy

The democratic deficit of evidence-based policymaking and the little attention the approach pays to values and norms have repeatedly been criticized. This article argues that direct-democratic campaigns may provide an arena for citizens and stakeholders to debate the belief systems inherent to evidence. The study is based on a narrative analysis of Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) reports, as well as of newspaper coverage and governmental information referring to PISA in Swiss direct-democratic campaigns on a variety of school policy issues. The findings show that PISA reports are discursive instruments rather than ‘objective evidence’. The reports promote a narrative of economic progress through educational evidence that is adopted without scrutiny by governmental coalitions in direct-democratic campaigns to justify school policy reforms. Yet, the dominant PISA narrative is contested in two counter-narratives, one endorsed by numerous citizens, the other by a group of experts. These counter-narratives question how PISA is used by an ‘expertocracy’ to prescribe reforms, as well as the performance ideology inherent to. Overall, these findings suggest that direct-democratic campaigns may make more transparent how evidence is produced and used according to existing belief systems. Evidence, on the other hand, may be a stimulus for democratic discourse by feeding the debate with potential policy problems and solution. Thus, direct-democratic debates may reconcile normative positions of citizens with the desire to base decisions on empirical evidence.

Does a reference to evaluations contribute to discourse quality? The case of Swiss direct-democratic campaigns on school policy: a conceptual framework

This article examines how references to evaluations in school policy debates contribute to discourse quality. The article consists of two parts: First, it presents a descriptive overview of the references to evidence in direct-democratic campaigns. These results are based on a quantitative content analysis of the newspaper coverage and governmental information documents of 103 direct-democratic Swiss school policy votes. In a second step, it discusses these findings in view of the question of whether the incorporation of evaluation results in policy debates contributes to discourse quality. It presents a conceptual framework, including hypotheses and a research design to answer this question.

State Capture from Below? The Contradictory Effects of Decentralisation on Public Spending

This study analyses the contradictory effects of decentralisation on public spending. We distinguish three dimensions of decentralisation and analyse their joint and separate effects on public spending in the Swiss cantons over 20 years. We find that overall decentralisation has a strong, significant and negative effect on the size of the public sector, thus confirming the Leviathan hypothesis. The same holds for fiscal and institutional decentralisation. However, the extent to which political processes and actors are organised locally rather than centrally actually increases central and decreases local spending. This suggests that actors behave strategically when dealing with the centre by offloading the more costly policies. The wider implication of our study is that the balance between self-rule and shared rule has implications also for the size of the overall political system.

'Reform' of the British national health service after the election of a labour government: Understanding the policy development process

The policy development process leading to the Labour government's white paper of December 1997—The new NHS: Modern, Dependable—is the focus of this project and the public policy development literature is used to aid in the understanding of this process. Policy makers who had been involved in the development of the white paper were interviewed in order to acquire a thorough understanding of who was involved in this process and how they produced the white paper. A theoretical framework is used that sorts policy development models into those that focus on knowledge and experience, and those which focus on politics and influence. This framework is central to understanding the evidence gathered from the individuals and associations that participated in this policy development process. The main research question to be asked in this project is to what extent do either of these sets of policy development models aid in understanding and explicating the process by which the Labour government's policies were developed. The interview evidence, along with published evidence, show that a clear pattern of policy change emerged from this policy development process, and the Knowledge-Experience and Politics-Influence policy making models both assist in understanding this process. The early stages of the policy development process were characterized as hierarchical and iterative, yet also very collaborative among those participating, with knowledge and experience being quite prevalent. At every point in the process, however, informal networks of political influence were used and noted to be quite prevalent by all of the individuals interviewed. The later stages of the process then became increasingly noninclusive, with decisions made by a select group of internal and external policy makers. These policy making models became an important tool with which to understand the policy development process. This Knowledge-Experience and Politics-Influence dichotomy of policy development models could therefore be useful in analyzing other types of policy development. ^

What Makes Small-City Downtowns Viable?

The paper examines the experience of Connecticut's urban centers over the past century with an eye toward informing public policy. An in-depth qualitative discussion describes the rise and characteristics of urbanism, and then its unraveling. Linear regression analysis then quantifies the impact of various contributory factors on urban economic health in Connecticut cities since 1980. The findings suggest that local policymakers are largely unable to influence economic conditions in their cities.

Identifying and removing barriers to cycling as a viable means of transportation in Houston, Texas

The citizens of Houston, Texas, spend much time commuting. It has repeatedly been named among the “Fattest Cities” by Men’s Fitness Magazine (The fittest and fattest cities in America – Men’s Fitness. ). Obesity is one of its major public health problems as Houstonians often do not engage in enough physical activity to help them maintain their ideal weights. The use of bicycles provides a healthy and ecological alternative to commuting by driving. However, because urban cyclists must often share the roads with motorized vehicles, cyclists are often exposed to high levels of emissions. As vulnerable users of the roadways, urban cyclists also face the threat of injury. Nevertheless, there are some programs that encourage the use of bicycles. Laws and ordinances not only reveal public policy relating to bicycling but are a means to develop policy which can encourage bicycling. ^

El cambio de paradigma de las Políticas de Protección Social en Chile durante los gobiernos de la Concertación (1990-2010)

El presente artículo aborda la política de protección social en Chile como una política pública, inaugurada por los gobiernos posrégimen militar, que busca cambiar el paradigma, desde la tradicional visión asistencialista coyuntural por parte del Estado, a una perspectiva que persigue reducir las vulnerabilidades de manera sustentable y con una fuerte participación social en la elaboración de las políticas basado en tres pilares: equidad, integración y cohesión social.

Impacto gerado na vida das mulheres removidas das favelas

Interventions that seek to change the areas occupied by squatters have been one of the most common forms of Urban Management Policies, trying revolver one of the major problems of Brazilian metropolises, namely the precarious living conditions of a large part of the population in the city. A Pedreira Prado Lopes, a slum located in the northwestern region of Belo Horizonte, is one of twelve local benefit program by urbanization of slums Vila Viva, a program of structural intervention in Slums at the municipal level. These interventions, which are benefiting 9,000 residents have funds of R$37,4 millions the PAC (Growth Acceleration Program) and were guided by PGE - Specific Global Plan prepared by technicians URBEL (Urbanization Company of Belo Horizonte) in 1998. This project intervention was the creation of a set of housing for former slum housing. The objective of this research is to know how this intervention impacted the lives of residents after settling in condominiums, seeking to describe the changes on the horizon of women who are in most household heads residents of these buildings, as shown by studies of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), 2011

La feria de emprendedores de la economía social La Plata : 'Cuando la calle hace escuela'

La presente investigación se realiza sobre la política pública: la Feria de Emprendedores de la Economía Social de la ciudad de La Plata, implementada a través de la Dirección General de la Economía Social, durante el periodo 2011. En este trabajo se pretende analizar cuales son sus alcances, objetivos, metodología y describir cómo funciona. Pero especialmente, se centra en el curso de formación emprendedora que tuvo como objetivo que los artesanos adquieran las habilidades de la actividad comercial y de esta manera pasen de la actividad informal a la formal. Se realiza una evaluación final, que consiste en analizar la implementación de la misma, sus resultados y formular recomendaciones para ajustar la acción presente y mejorar la acción futura

Un viraje en el diseño de las políticas públicas para la infancia : La participación social como alternativa

En el año 2005, se promulga la ley provincial No 13.298 de Promoción y Protección de los derechos de niños, niñas y adolescentes. A partir de la misma surge una nueva concepción enmarcada en el Paradigma de la 'Protección Integral' de derechos, estrechamente vinculada al impacto que tuvo a nivel local la Convención Internacional de los Derechos del Niño (CIDN). La Ley No 13.298 crea, en la provincia de Buenos Aires, el Sistema de Promoción y Protección Integral de niños, niñas y adolescentes (SPID). El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar el proceso que llevó a la adecuación, en materia legislativa, de la Argentina a la CIDN y a partir de la misma, a la conformación de uno de los órganos del SPID: el Consejo Local de Promoción y Protección de niños, niñas y adolescentes de la ciudad de La Plata a fines del año 2009. Este trabajo se propone indagar en torno al compromiso comunitario y la participación de organizaciones de la sociedad civil, en vínculo con el Estado