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Policy Arena (policy + arena)
Selected AbstractsIntroduction to climate, disasters and international developmentJOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2010Ilan Kelman Abstract This Policy Arena provides four papers exploring development policy for climate-related disaster risk reduction, including but not limited to climate change. The first two papers explore popular concepts, first ,vulnerability', ,capacity' and ,resilience' and second ,climate refugees' and ,climate conflict'. The last two papers each cover a Small Island Developing State (SIDS), Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Samoa, respectively. The key development policy lesson from the papers is a framing that places climate change within wider climate, disaster risk reduction and development perspectives. That is further highlighted here through describing the Many Strong Voices programme that learns from the past to aim for a better future by tackling climate change. Learning from the history of international development assists in addressing root causes, such as vulnerability and poverty, to achieve effective development policy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence?DRUG AND ALCOHOL REVIEW, Issue 4 2007The role of evidence in the development, implementation of the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative Abstract Issues. Evidence-based policy is promoted as the ideal in drug policy, yet public policy theorists suggest that policy-based evidence may be a more fitting analogy, where evidence is used selectively to support a predetermined policy direction. Approach. The following paper assesses the resonance of this notion to the development of the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative (IDDI), an apparently pragmatic reform adopted in Australia in 1999 through the Federal Coalition ,Tough on Drugs' strategy. It utilises interviews with key informants from the Australian drug policy arena conducted in 2005 to assess the role of evidence in the design and implementation of the IDDI. Key Findings. The current paper shows that while policy-makers were generally supportive of the IDDI and viewed drug diversion as a more pragmatic response to drug users, they contend that implementation has suffered through a selective and variable emphasis upon evidence. Most notably, the IDDI is not premised upon best-practice objectives of reducing harm from drug use, but instead on ,Tough on Drugs' objectives of reducing drug use and crime. Implications. This paper contends that policy-based evidence may facilitate the adoption of pragmatic reforms, but reduce the capacity for effective reform. It therefore has both functional and dysfunctional elements. Conclusion. The paper concludes that greater attention is needed to understanding how to mesh political and pragmatic objectives, and hence to maximise the benefits from policy-based evidence. [Hughes CE. Evidence-based policy or policy-based evidence? The role of evidence in the development and implementation of the Illicit Drug Diversion Initiative. Drug Alcohol Rev 2007;26:363,368] [source] A tale of CIN,the Cannabis Infringement Notice scheme in Western AustraliaADDICTION, Issue 5 2010Simon Lenton ABSTRACT Aims To describe the development and enactment of the Western Australian (WA) Cannabis Infringement Notice scheme and reflect on the lessons for researchers and policy-makers interested in the translation of policy research to policy practice. Methods An insiders' description of the background research, knowledge transfer strategies and political and legislative processes leading to the enactment and implementation of the WA Cannabis Control Act 2003. Lenton and Allsop were involved centrally in the process as policy-researcher and policy-bureaucrat. Results In March 2004, Western Australia became the fourth Australian jurisdiction to adopt a ,prohibition with civil penalties' scheme for possession and cultivation of small amounts of cannabis. We reflect upon: the role of research evidence in the policy process; windows for policy change; disseminating findings when apparently no one is listening; the risks and benefits of the researcher as advocate; the differences between working on the inside and outside of government; and the importance of relationships, trust and track record. Conclusions There was a window of opportunity and change was influenced by research that was communicated by a reliable and trusted source. Those who want to conduct research that informs policy need to understand the policy process more clearly, look for and help create emerging windows that occur in the problem and political spheres, and make partnerships with key stakeholders in the policy arena. The flipside of the process is that, when governments change, policy born in windows of opportunity can be a casualty. [source] Trade and associated groups in the English tourism policy arenaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 6 2001Duncan Tyler Abstract The role and influence of trade and associated groups in England's tourism policy environment is of increasing importance given recent changes in the consultative processes undertaken by the Department of Culture Media and Sport (the government department sponsoring the tourism industry in Parliament). Yet researchers working within the realm of tourism studies have paid little attention to their characteristics, objectives and tactics. This article, therefore, sets out to address these issues by drawing on the results of phase one of a two-phase research project into the influence of trade and associated groups on policy development. The article reports the findings of a survey into the objectives and tactics used by the groups in policy communications and links this to structural changes in the landscape of the tourism policy. In doing this it suggests how certain relationships have developed between government and groups, how groups collaborate on policy issues and how this may have influenced the direction of tourism policy in the England. Using the results of this research and an analysis of government policy related announcements over the past two years we hypothesise on how successful the groups have been to data, and proposes areas for future research. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Constraints to Drought Contingency Planning in Spain: The Hydraulic Paradigm and the Case of SevilleJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2000Leandro Del Moral Ituarte Spain is equipped with an extensive hydraulic infrastructure, aimed at the correction of temporal and spatial irregularities in the availability of water resources. This structural network, mainly based on surface water, is the manifestation of the traditional hydraulic paradigm, which has technical, economic, socio-political and cultural ramifications. The traditional water management perspective tends to view drought as the structural deficit between water demand and water regulation capacity. This conceptualisation of drought led primarily to a structural response, while ignoring the need for drought risk assessment and water crisis management rules. The traditional hydraulic paradigm can, paradoxically, be regarded as one of the main constraints to the development of drought contingency planning and drought management. However, a new dynamism has entered the water policy arena, which encompasses elements of both innovation and persistence of the traditional perception. This dynamism is analysed through the Seville water management system, which is often affected by drought and severe water crises. [source] Incorporating geographies of health into public policy debates: The GeoHealth LaboratoryNEW ZEALAND GEOGRAPHER, Issue 2 2007Jamie Pearce Abstract:, The restricted influence of geographers in the policy arena has been the source of some angst. This paper reports on a new initiative at the University of Canterbury, which aims to strengthen geography's contribution to health policy debates in New Zealand. The GeoHealth Laboratory is a joint initiative between the Department of Geography and Public Health Intelligence group at the Ministry of Health that seeks to provide a pathway for the integration of health geography research into policy development. This new facility aligns the expertise in health geography, GIS and other spatial analytical methods with policy-relevant research priorities. An overview of the strategic aims of the GeoHealth Laboratory is provided along with some examples of recent research activities that are contributing to understandings of the health landscape in New Zealand. It is argued that such partnerships provide important opportunities for geographers to engage with policy-relevant issues. [source] Methodology, Statistics, and Voting Error: An Exploration of 2000 Presidential Election Data in Two StatesPOLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2005Geralyn M. Miller In the wake of the voting controversy of Election 2000, along with passage of a congressional measure designed to fix what many believe is an ailing voting system, research into the impact of voting equipment on residual voting error has become a crucial question as the states prepare to replace existing voting equipment through the use of matching federal funds, to adjust existing equipment, or to face yet more lawsuits. Most existent studies into the link between voting equipment and residual voting error have concentrated on voting equipment across the states rather than within the individual states, generating results that are subject to a possible aggregation bias. Using a variety of statistical techniques, data on Election 2000 U.S. presidential and U.S. senatorial races are analyzed in an attempt to determine the impact of voting equipment on the voting error levels intrastate in those races. This study presents analysis of two sets of state data, Wyoming and Pennsylvania, and is used to argue that the infamous punch-card voting equipment may not be a significant contributor to an increase in voter error when analyzing intrastate, contrary to existing research that indicates it is significant when analyzed across multiple states. This research underscores the importance of researchers' ideological perspectives in application of statistical methodology to the American policy arena. [source] Political Resources for Policy TerminatorsPOLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002Janet E. Frantz Scholars of policy termination have long understood that there are tremendous difficulties associated with closing down public programs and facilities. This examination of one closure begins with that understanding and then, using Deborah Stone's conceptualization of politics in the policy arena, moves to categorize and analyze those difficulties. The case involves the U.S. government's policy of providing lifelong, residential care to victims of Hansen's Disease (leprosy). The investigation documents the government's decision in the 1950s to end the policy and follows the ensuing battle. The government terminators, despite the rationality of their position, were held at bay for nearly fifty years by politically savvy opponents including patients, staff, and the community that housed the leprosarium. Only when government officials reached into their own bag of political resources and skillfully employed those resources, was it possible to end the policy. [source] Workplace health and safety regulations: Impact of enforcement and consultation on workers' compensation claims rates in Washington State,AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE, Issue 5 2003James Baggs PhD Abstract Background There has been considerable debate in the public policy arena about the appropriate mix of regulatory enforcement and consultation in achieving desired health and safety behavior across industries. Recently there has been a shift in federal policy toward voluntary approaches and constraining the scope of enforcement programs, although there is little evidence that this might improve health and safety outcomes. To address this, we examined changes in lost time workers compensation claims rates for Washington State employers who had (1) no OSHA State Plan (WISHA) activity, (2) enforcement, (3) consultation, and (4) both types of visits. Methods Compensable claims rates, hours, and WISHA activity were determined for each employer account with a single business location that had payroll hours reported for every quarter from 1997,2000 and more than 10 employees. We used a generalized estimating equations (GEE) approach to Poisson regression to model the association between WISHA activity and claims rate controlling for other external factors. Results Controlling for previous claims rate and average size, claims rates for employers with WISHA enforcement activity declined 22.5% in fixed site industry SIC codes compared to 7% among employers with no WISHA activity (P,<,0.05), and in non-fixed site SICs (e.g., construction) claims rates declined 12.8% for employers with enforcement activity compared to a 7.4% decline for those with no WISHA activity (P,>,0.10). WISHA consultation activity was not associated with a greater decline in compensable claims rates (,2.3% for fixed sites and +3.5% for non-fixed sites). WISHA activity did not adversely affect worksite survivability through the study period. Conclusions Enforcement inspections are significantly associated with decreasing compensable workers compensation claims rates especially for fixed site employers. We were unable to identify an association between consultation activities and decreasing claims rates. Am. J. Ind. Med. 43:483,494, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] The governance of urban regeneration: a critique of the ,governing without government' thesisPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 2 2002Jonathan S. DaviesArticle first published online: 17 DEC 200 This paper offers a critique of the concept of governance as networks. Using the complementary concept of regime governance, it argues that networks are not the primary mode of governance in the politics of urban regeneration in the UK. Drawing on primary and secondary material, it is argued that Central Government is becoming more influential in the local policy arena. In the ,mix' of market, hierarchy and network, hierarchy is more pervasive than network. It is therefore argued that partnerships should be treated as a distinct mode of governance. These conclusions demonstrate that despite the fashion for copying urban policies from the USA, local politics in the UK remain very different. Ironically, the transfer of policies developed in the USA has tended to entrench divergent practices and outcomes. The UK does not, therefore, appear to be moving toward the US model of regime politics. It is concluded that the partnership and network/regime models of governance should be subjected to rigorous comparative studies. [source] State and Local Governance Fifteen Years Later: Enduring and New ChallengesPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 2008Frank J. Thompson This article draws on the contributions to this issue and related evidence to assay the extent to which the states and larger local governments have moved in directions endorsed by the Winter Commission in 1993. The commission's recommendations targeted (1) the political context of state and local governance, with a particular focus on executive leadership, campaign finance reform, and citizen engagement; (2) the specifics of public administration, with primary emphasis on empowering managers through internal deregulation and bolstering human resource capacity; and (3) the nature of the relationship between the national government and the states in a key policy arena. Significant changes in the fabric of state and local governance have occurred in each of these three areas over the last 15 years. Many of these modifications are consonant with the thrust of the Winter Commission report, but the evidence also points to the limits of state and local reform. Further reform initiatives should be built on systematic efforts to advance knowledge concerning the origins, nature, and outcomes of the array of institutions and processes present at the state and local levels. [source] Not by Rent Alone: Analysing the Pro-Poor Functions of Small-Scale Fisheries in Developing CountriesDEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2010Christophe Béné The dominant view in academic and policy arenas is increasingly one in which the major contribution of capture fisheries to development should be derived from the capacity of society to maximise the economic rent of fishery resources. Drawing upon empirical experience from the South, this article highlights the potentially disastrous consequences that a universal implementation of the rent-maximisation model would have in developing countries, and argues that a more gradual approach would be preferable. The welfare function of small-scale fisheries, namely, their capacities to provide labour and cash income to resource-poor households, should be preserved until the appropriate macroeconomic conditions for rent-maximisation and redistribution are fulfilled. [source] International Nonregimes: A Research Agenda,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Radoslav S. Dimitrov Why are multilateral institutions absent from some areas of international relations? Governments have not concluded regulatory policy agreements on tactical nuclear weapons and small arms control, deforestation, information privacy, and other transnational issues. The absence of regimes in such policy arenas is an empirical phenomenon with considerable theoretical and policy implications. Yet, existing scholarship on global governance largely ignores the instances in which such institutions do not emerge. This essay develops a research agenda to extend and strengthen regime theory through analysis of nonregimes. We articulate the concept, draw a typology of nonregimes, discuss the contributions that nonregime studies can make to IR theory, outline methodological approaches to pursue the proposed agenda, and highlight a priori theoretical considerations to guide such research. Six illustrative cases in the realms of arms control, environmental management, and international political economy are described and used to make preliminary observations of factors that impede regime formation. [source] The Demographics of Gubernatorial Appointees: Toward an Explanation of VariationPOLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2001Norma M. Riccucci This study examines the various factors that could potentially predict or explain demographic diversity in high-level gubernatorial appointments in state government. In particular, it identifies and analyzes a set of variables that could help answer the question: Under what conditions are governors more likely to appoint higher proportions of women and people of color to top-ranking executive branch positions? This question, not yet addressed by researchers, is particularly salient in the current climate of accelerated devolution. Decisionmakers in state governments play a greater role in determining policy across an increasingly wide range of areas than at any time in recent history. From the standpoint of representativeness, the demographic background of state policymakers increases the stakes of those who participate, particularly in terms of policy outcomes. Thus, it is especially important to identify the participants in state-level policy arenas and the factors that could predict their appointments. [source] Central-local relations in the people's Republic of China: Trends, processes and impacts for policy implementationPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2010Linda Chelan Li Abstract Central,local relations are a matter of great importance to developmentalists because they highlight an intriguing puzzle in public administration especially in large states: how policies decided at higher echelons of the formal system can possibly be implemented by the multitude of intermediary and local actors across the system. In the case of China,the most populous nation in the world, the contrast between the authoritarian façade of the Chinese regime and yet the proliferation of implementation gaps over many policy arenas adds additional complexity to the puzzle. This article reviews changes in central,local relations in the 60 years of history of People's Republic of China (PRC) as the outcome of four co-evolving processes, and clarifies the roles of each process: state building and national integration, development efficiency, career advancement and external influences. It points out the continuous pre-dominance of administrative decentralization from 1950s to present time, and the new emphasis on institutionalized power sharing in the context of new state-market boundaries since 1980s. In conclusion, the article suggests going beyond the traditional reliance on the compliance model to understand central,local interactions and the abundant implementation gaps in a context of central,local co-agency, thereby improving policy implementation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Self-Organizing Policy Networks: Risk, Partner Selection, and Cooperation in EstuariesAMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 3 2010Ramiro Berardo Policy actors seek network contacts to improve individual payoffs in the institutional collective action dilemmas endemic to fragmented policy arenas. The risk hypothesis argues that actors seek bridging relationships (well-connected, popular partners that maximize their access to information) when cooperation involves low risks, but seek bonding relationships (transitive, reciprocal relationships that maximize credibility) when risks of defection increase. We test this hypothesis in newly developing policy arenas expected to favor relationships that resolve low-risk dilemmas. A stochastic actor-based model for network evolution estimated with survey data from 1999 and 2001 in 10 U.S. estuaries finds that actors do tend to select popular actors as partners, which presumably creates a centralized bridging structure capable of efficient information transmission for coordinating policies even without any government mandate. Actors also seek reciprocal bonding relationships supportive of small joint projects and quickly learn whether or not to trust their partners. [source] Will Embryonic Stem Cells Change Health Policy?THE JOURNAL OF LAW, MEDICINE & ETHICS, Issue 2 2010William M. Sage Embryonic stem cells are actively debated in political and public policy arenas. However, the connections between stem cell innovation and overall health care policy are seldom elucidated. As with many controversial aspects of medical care, the stem cell debate bridges to a variety of social conversations beyond abortion. Some issues, such as translational medicine, commercialization, patient and public safety, health care spending, physician practice, and access to insurance and health care services, are core health policy concerns. Other issues, such as economic development, technologic progress, fiscal politics, and tort reform, are only indirectly related to the health care system but are frequently seen through a health care lens. These connections will help determine whether the stem cell debate reaches a resolution, and what that resolution might be. [source] | ||||||||||||||||