An analysis of the revenue policy -making process of the Texas Legislature

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a conceptual framework which can be used to account for policy decisions made by the House Ways and Means Committee (HW&MC) of the Texas House of Representatives. This analysis will examine the actions of the committee over a ten-year period with the goal of explaining and predicting the success of failure of certain efforts to raise revenue.^ The basis framework for modelling the revenue decision-making process includes three major components--the decision alternatives, the external factors and two competing contingency theories. The decision alternatives encompass the particular options available to increase tax revenue. The options were classified as non-innovative or innovative. The non-innovative options included the sales, franchise, property and severance taxes. The innovative options were principally the personal and corporate income taxes.^ The external factors included political and economic constraints that affected the actions of the HW&MC. Several key political constraints on committee decision-making were addressed--including public attitudes, interest groups, political party strength and tradition and precedents. The economic constraints that affected revenue decisions included court mandates, federal mandates and the fiscal condition of the nation and the state.^ The third component of the revenue decision-making framework included two alternative contingency theories. The first alternative theory postulated that the committee structure, including the individual member roles and the overall committee style, resulted in distinctive revenue decisions. This theory will be favored if evidence points to the committee acting autonomously with less concern for the policies of the Speaker of the House. The Speaker assignment theory, postulated that the assignment of committee members shaped or changed the course of committee decision-making. This theory will be favored if there was evidence that the committee was strictly a vehicle for the Speaker to institute his preferred tax policies.^ The ultimate goal of this analysis is to develop an explanation for legislative decision-making about tax policy. This explanation will be based on the linkages across various tax options, political and economic constraints, member roles and committee style and the patterns of committee assignment. ^

The Policy Making Process in FTA Negotiations: A Case Study of Japanese Bilateral EPAs

This paper analyzes Japanese bilateral EPA negotiations, focusing on the areas that each country decided were most important, as well as which actors played the most important roles in each set of negotiations. The negotiations with Mexico and Thailand, which tried to increase agricultural exports to Japan through FTAs, will be discussed. Japan, one should note, still seeks to protect its agricultural sector in spite of the spread of liberalization. The Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia’s efforts to improve and compete in developing their automotive industries, in the face of the completion of AFTA in 2010, are also examined. In addition, this paper discusses whether economic cooperation, the essential Japanese strategy in EPA negotiations, alters the negotiation process in any significant way.

Assessing the potential of hybrid fossil–solar thermal plants for energy policy making: Brayton cycles

This paper proposes a first study in-depth of solar-fossil hybridization from a general perspective. It develops a set of useful parameters for analyzing and comparing hybrid plants, it studies the case of hybridizing Brayton cycles with current solar technologies and shows a tentative extrapolation of the results to integrated combined cycle systems (ISCSS). In particular, three points have been analyzed: the technical requirements for solar technologies to be hybridized with Brayton cycles, the temperatures and pressures at which hybridization would produce maximum power per unit of fossil fuel, and their mapping to current solar technologies and Brayton cycles. Major conclusions are that a hybrid plant works in optimum conditions which are not equal to those of the solar or power blocks considered independently, and that hybridizing at the Brayton cycle of a combined cycle could be energetically advantageous.

An integrated assessment of two decades of air pollution policy making in Spain: Impacts, costs and improvements

This paper analyses the effects of policy making for air pollution abatement in Spain between 2000 and 2020 under an integrated assessment approach with the AERIS model for number of pollutants (NOx/NO2, PM10/PM2.5, O3, SO2, NH3 and VOC). The analysis of the effects of air pollution focused on different aspects: compliance with the European limit values of Directive 2008/50/EC for NO2 and PM10 for the Spanish air quality management areas; the evaluation of impacts caused by the deposition of atmospheric sulphur and nitrogen on ecosystems; the exceedance of critical levels of NO2 and SO2 in forest areas; the analysis of O3-induced crop damage for grapes, maize, potato, rice, tobacco, tomato, watermelon and wheat; health impacts caused by human exposure to O3 and PM2.5; and costs on society due to crop losses (O3), disability-related absence of work staff and damage to buildings and public property due to soot-related soiling (PM2.5). In general, air quality policy making has delivered improvements in air quality levels throughout Spain and has mitigated the severity of the impacts on ecosystems, health and vegetation in 2020 as target year. The findings of this work constitute an appropriate diagnosis for identifying improvement potentials for further mitigation for policy makers and stakeholders in Spain.

Ukraine, Russia and the need for more flexibility in EU foreign policy-making. CEPS Policy Brief No. 320, 25 July 2014

After the illegal annexation of Crimea and Russia’s indirect responsibility for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine, Steven Blockmans asks what it will take before the EU is able to confront a conflict on its borders and prove to both its own citizens and third countries that it has a meaningful role to play in foreign policy. With numerous competing national interests and some member states unwilling to pay different prices for collective action, any sector-wide EU sanctions are likely to lack serious bite. In an effort to paper over the cracks, the author makes a number of recommendations for policy-makers.

Environmental Degradation, Climate Change and Migration: from Research to Policy-Making. IES Policy Brief Issue 2013/08/September 2013

Summary. In recent months, the migratory impacts of environmental degradation and climate change have gained increased worldwide attention. In response to the publication of the EC Staff Working Document on Climate Change, Environmental Degradation and Migration, this policy brief critically outlines current themes and issues that surround this global phenomenon, specifically the findings of current international research which frame the discussions on terminology and current legal, political and institutional conceptual debates. Several proposals were put forward during a Policy Forum in January 2013. Firstly, there is a need for tailored and actionable research outputs that take into account political pressures and realities on the ground. Secondly, migration and climate policies would be clearly boosted through the elaboration of a common policy-oriented research agenda of which elements were put forward at the event. Finally, efficient communication tools and channels could be developed to transfer research findings to policy-makers.

Resource Efficiency Indicators for Policy-Making. CEPS Working Document No. 415/November 2015

In the EU, resource efficiency has been high on the political agenda since 2011, when the European Commission first included it as one of the seven flagship initiatives in its Europe 2020 Strategy for “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. Resource efficiency is not only considered an environmental necessity, but also a political, economic and security opportunity. This paper first stresses the benefits and opportunities for the EU of improving its resource efficiency. It then explains the added value of the www.measuring-progress.eu web tool, which aims to improve the way policy-makers and others involved in the policy process can access, understand and use indicators for resource efficiency. It provides practical examples of relevant indicators in the form of the EU Resource Efficiency Scoreboard and a case study showing how the web tool established by NETGREEN can be used in practice. The paper concludes with a number of policy messages.

Migration and Asylum Data for Policy-making in the European Union – The problem with numbers. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe No. 89/March 2016

Among many other problems, the migration, humanitarian and policy crises in the European Union in 2015 and early 2016 have highlighted a pressing need for reliable, timely and comparable statistical data on migration, asylum and arrivals at national borders. In this fast-moving policy field, data production and the timeliness of dissemination have seen some improvements but the sources of data remain largely unchanged at national level. In this paper the author examines the reasons for some of the problems with the data for policy and for public discussion, and makes a set of recommendations that call for a complete and updated inventory of data sources and for an evaluation of the quality of data used for policy-making.

A report on planning, policy making & research activities--U.S. Department of the Interior,

Mode of access: Internet.

Information systems studies : [materials information systems for Federal policy making, report] /

Mode of access: Internet.

Government of public education for adequate policy making.

Includes bibliographical references.

Exploring innovation in policy-making within central government:the case of the UK's Highways Agency

The first and main contribution of this article is its access to the decision-making processes which drive innovation in policy-making within central government. The article will present a detailed case history of how the innovation came about and conclude by highlighting analytic possibilities for future research. The policy in focus is the UK’s Traffic Management Act 2004, which passed responsibility for managing incidents on major roads from the police to the Highways Agency (HA), and has been interpreted as a world first in traffic management. The article tracks the Traffic Management Act 2004 from problem identification to a preliminary evaluation. It is then suggested that future research could explain organizational change more theoretically. By taking a longitudinal and multi-level approach, the research falls into a processual account of organizational change. The second contribution of the article is to highlight two novel ways in which this approach is being applied to policy-making, through an institutional processualist research programme on public management reform and empirical investigations using complex systems to explain policy change.

The role of experts in policy making

As public policy issues increasingly have a technical aspect to them an interactive relationship has developed between science and policy. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the two aspects of this relationship: the influence of science on policy and the influence of policy implications on science. Most existing studies in this area treat only one or other of these aspects. Furthermore, they tend to provide interesting case study material but very little theoretical analysis. This thesis attempts to overcome these problems by dealing with both aspects of the interaction between science and policy and by providing theoretical models of this relationship. The thesis combines the theoretical development of these models with the analysis of three empirical case studies: the controversy in Britain over smoking and health; the application of educational psychology to the development of education policy in Britain; the controversy over the health effect of lead in the environment. The theoretical models are developed in Part 1. In Part 2 the empirical case studies are presented and in Part 3 the theoretical material is assessed in the light of these case studies. The main thesis of this study is that there is a fundamental mismatch between science and policy-making. Criticism is always essential in science. However, when science is involved in the policy process, either scientific claims are not subjected to a significant level of criticism or they are scrutinized so closely that no view achieves general consensus and conflicting advice results. In this situation, contrary to the traditional view, science can generate uncertainty. The role which science plays in the policy process is influenced by this level of criticism, by the context of political power and by the progress of an issue through the various stages of the policy process.

The role of science in policy making

This thesis aims to consider the role played by science in policy making. Firstly, two decision models are considered, synoptic rationality which depends heavily on formal information and comprehensive planning, and disjointed incrementalism, under which decisions are made in a fragmented and remedial manner via the interaction of interested partisans and with little necessity for formal information. Secondly, different descriptions of scientific activity are discussed and a broadly Kuhnian view of science is supported, with what is regarded as a `fact' being heavily influenced by social factors. It is suggested that scientific controversies are more likely to occur in policy related science but for reasons that are intrinsic to science rather than due to some correctable aberration. A number of case studies, including two `in-depth' studies into maternal deprivation and the relationship between hyperactivity and food additives, support this contention and also show that whilst scientific findings can raise issues they cannot aid in the resolution of these as the synoptic model suggests that they should. Instead information supports and legitimates value based policy views, with actual policy decisions arrived at via negotiation and aiming at a balancing of partisan pressures, as suggested by the incremental model. Not only does information not aid the resolution of policy disputes, it cannot do so. When policy is disputed, scientific findings are also likely to be disputed and further research merely attracts more highly destructive criticism. This is termed the over critical model. When policy is decided then there is reduced impetus to critically test scientific ideas; this is termed the under critical model. Both of these situations act to the detriment of science. The main conclusion drawn is that the belief that science is essential to decision making is misleading and may serve to mask rather than illuminate areas of dispute.