Operationalizing social equity in public policy design: A comparative analysis of solar equity policies in the United States

While it is widely recognized that energy injustices are prevalent in the clean energy transition process, there has been limited research attention on policy efforts aiming to mitigate these inequities. In this paper, we use solar equity policies as an empirical case study to understand how social equity considerations are conceptualized and operationalized in energy policy content. We build upon the policy design literature and code institutional statements of 54 solar equity policies adopted between 2001 and 2021 in the United States. In our comparative analysis, we focus on three levels of policy design elements that can be directly observed in written policy language: macro-policy goal construction, meso-policy instrument choices, and micro-level policy settings and calibrations. We find that the policy goal of energy justice is multifaceted, with a great emphasis on solar energy accessibility and provision of economic benefits and security for disadvantaged communities. There is a dominant preference by policymakers to use redistributive policies and community solar programs to advance energy justice-related goals. Solar equity policy instruments on-the-ground measures have also been calibrated to target specific disadvantaged populations in the energy system, which focus mostly on income-based vulnerability.     

Cultural rights and their contribution to sustainable development: implications for cultural policy

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the meaning and implications of cultural rights for cultural policies concerned with sustainable development. Although references to both cultural rights and sustainable development have become widespread within cultural policy documents in recent decades, the actual conceptual and operational implications often remain vague, as an ambitious discourse that may conceal a poverty of resources and capacities. As a result, the ideal horizon suggested by cultural rights and sustainable development may not always be achieved in practice, nor are the mechanisms to achieve it always well known. In this respect, the article aims to dissect the actual requirements posed by cultural rights and sustainable development, including their different notions and areas of synergy and intersections, in order to shed light on relevant cultural policy approaches. To this end, a range of examples taken from a variety of contexts will also be examined as areas of expressed needs or areas of possible solutions.     

从耦合到演化：环境经济地理研究范式的转变

随着人类活动对自然环境影响与改造的日益加深,人文与经济地理学者把经济地理学研究范式与环境要素相结合,形成环境经济地理学研究方向,并随着经济地理学研究范式的转变其研究主题和研究视角也随之变化。通过对1970—2020年经济—环境相关文献的计量分析和总结归纳,发现环境经济地理相关研究不断融入新内容和新思路,研究主题逐步多元;在研究范式上,区别于传统耦合研究过度注重经济—环境交互作用的结果,环境经济地理研究逐渐出现关注经济—环境互动的社会、制度要素的制度转向,关注经济—环境互动中主体的关联和网络构建的关系转向,和关注经济—环境互动的动态过程和调和机制的演化转向。集成现有的理论基础,综合多元的研究范式,环境经济地理研究仍有较大的深化空间。     

The EU integrated urban development policy: managing complex processes in dynamic places

One of the European Union’s 2014–2020 cohesion policy’s new aims is to promote integrated urban development strategies that enhance sustainable urban development. Following the emergence of the integrated urban development policy, city policies in EU show a trend in that direction but overall changes towards a sustainable integrated urban development are limited. One of the major problems for planners and implementing actors seems to be the management of complexity, which originates in three sources: the policy, the planning and implementation processes as well as the implementation place. The paper elaborates on the question: what is triple complexity and how can planning and implementing actors of the EU integrated sustainable urban development policy manage it? The paper suggests the use of a place-oriented theory and proposes a theory-guided ex-durante (ongoing) evaluation called Place Scan. I assume that the method can support planners and implementing actors to manage complexity and to improve quality of ex-durante evaluations.     

Advancing culture’s role in sustainable development: social change through cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the potential for cultural policy to shape sustainable development in the context of expectations arising from research and policy work on development. We use, as the basis of a critique, the categorisation of the relationship between culture and sustainable development proposed by a major study funded by the European Union, being emblematical of how researchers and policymakers understand this relationship. The critique highlights a need for multiscalar social change, towards revaluing relations with the natural world, and reforming social relations between producers and consumers. This paper locates cultural policy as an arm of governance, with the capacity to lead social change across several interdependent pathways (revaluing technological change; fostering an aesthetic appreciation and environmental ethical consciousness; and pro-social behaviour) alongside the development of more sophisticated governance frameworks. The paper further proposes that through (re)education, cultural policy can and should play a more active role in shaping social change.     

Understanding Technology Development

There are wide variations between the developing countries in the capabilities of their enterprises to import, utilize and improve upon industrial technologies. It is important for the purposes of industrial policy to understand why these differences exist and how industrial capabilities may be improved. This article presents the findings of recent research into the nature of capability development and the role of government policies in promoting such development. The process of becoming efficient in industry is very different from the usual textbook portrayal, in which firms costlessly access and absorb new technologies. In reality, there is a long and uncertain learning process involved, differing with the nature of the technology, the efficiency of factor and product markets, and the provision of various technological information and services from the infrastructure institutions. There is a widespread risk in developing countries that all these markets suffer from failures: the scope for technology development policies rests on the need to remedy these failures. The experience of the most successful newly industrializing economies (NIEs) suggests that well-designed interventions, both selective and functional, are needed to promote technology development. Experience clearly shows the dangers of government failure, but it is necessary to retain a large role for the government if industry is to succeed. The pattern and implementation of interventions have to be very different. This article points out the outlines of economically desirable interventions.     

The “New Urban Europe”: Global Challenges and Local Responses in the Urban Century

Modern cities in the open European space-economy are powerhouses of creative ideas, smart technologies, sustainable developments and socio-economic wealth. They play a pivotal role in the future of an urbanized Europe, but they are also confronted with grand challenges, notably far-reaching demographic transformations, environmental decay and climatological change, unequal social participation and ever-rising mobility trends. The challenges for urban environments may be turned into new opportunities, in particular, in such domains as advanced infrastructure and logistic systems, environmental and climate-neutral facilities, creative and knowledge-intensive strategies for socio-economic prosperity and well-being. Cities—and in particular metropolitan areas—may thus act as spearheads of sustainable economic growth for European countries. These observations call for appropriate long-range policy strategies for metropolitan areas—and networks of cities—in the highly diversified European space-economy. Such policy actions would need to be supported by solid, multidisciplinary and evidence-based research on the challenges and opportunities of urban environments in Europe. The main contribution of this paper lies in the systematic strategic approach to transform urban megatrends and challenges into research and policy concerns for Europe. The analytical framework employed to highlight and better understand such research and policy response in Europe from a typological perspective is built around four interconnected pillars (cornerstones) that form the focal points for identifying strategic future images that may be instrumental in mapping out the research and policy challenges for the “New Urban Europe”.     

Arts practitioners in the cultural policy process: spear-carriers or speaking parts?

This paper considers the argument that arts practitioners are rarely acknowledged by cultural policy researchers as being more than marginally involved in policy-making. Drawing on public policy analysis which pays attention to a breadth of policy actors, and on the concept of civil society, the paper examines whether these approaches can help to better investigate and understand the role of arts practitioners in the policy process. It discusses this subject in relation to cultural policy in general and in the specific arena of British arts policy, focusing on original case-study research of playwrights’ organisations and playwriting policy. The case-study evidence demonstrates that arts practitioners – through involvement in policy debate and implementation, and their own initiatives and activities – are frequently engaged in the policy process and thus more broadly in the democratic public domain. Understanding of cultural policy development is therefore considerably weakened if the role of practitioners is ignored.     

Immigrant Policy Developing in Copenhagen and Ishøj in the 1970s

This article analyses the development of municipal immigrant policies in Denmark in the 1970s through a case study of two municipalities, Copenhagen and Ishøj. The two municipalities encountered immigration in the earliest phase of Danish integration policy. In this period, national policies were limited and immigrants’ integration was primarily a municipal responsibility. As a result, the two municipalities had the opportunity and obligation to develop their own local solutions to the problems caused by migration during this period. The cases illustrate two trajectories in municipal policy-making. Copenhagen followed the national tendency to include guest workers and immigrants in the existing administrative body of the municipality and the welfare system, whereas Ishøj chose a different path with a coherent municipal immigrant policy. Through this case study of city-level policy-making in Denmark, this article contributes to research on municipal policy-making as well as research on the development of immigrant and integration policy.     

Comparing Climate Change Policy Adoption and Its Extension across Areas of City Policymaking

Public policies increasingly address complex problems such as climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation that require forging connections across existing areas of policy activity. Despite the emerging prominence of these types of policymaking challenges, more research is needed to understand policy responses to them. In this paper, I use survey responses from 287 cities and a hurdle model to comparatively examine the factors that underlie the adoption of climate change mitigation and adaptation as issues influencing city policymaking and their extension across areas of city policymaking. I find evidence that while social change, crisis, and conditions supporting nascent coalitions were associated with adoption, extension across areas of policymaking was associated with the city?s prevailing political economy as well as the resources for expanding communities of interest. In the process, I offer empirical evidence for existing similarities and differences in cities? considerations about climate change mitigation and adaptation; particularly that the number of policymaking areas influenced by mitigation was associated with financial factors while the number influenced by adaptation was associated with socioeconomic ones.     

长江三角洲区域政策强度的定量化及其演变过程——以区域开放开发政策为例

区域政策强度是政府投入影响区域经济格局的政策变量值的大小。区域政策强度的影响因素可分为政策自身内容和政策背景属性两类,前者主要考察政策工具体系,后者则主要考察区域政策的影响范围和政策实施保障能力。在此基础上提出区域政策强度定量化的指标体系,据此定量考察区域政策强度值的时空演变规律与特征。以改革开放以来长江三角洲实施的区域开放开发政策作为实证研究样本,经过区域政策强度的定量化分析发现:区域开放开发政策强度具有能级上的差异,不同类型区域政策的强度值变化特征不同,并在时间上呈阶段性和周期性,在空间上由等级梯度向扁平化转变。     

The effects of protection in cultural industries: the case of the Korean film policies

This paper assesses whether Korean film policies, particularly protectionist ones, have been instrumental in the success of the Korean film industry. The conclusion is, surprisingly at a first glance, that protectionist policies have played an insignificant role. First, the import quota regime (1956–1986) limited the number of films to be imported, but not the number of Korean audience to see these imported films. Furthermore, the import quota system strongly induced Korean filmmakers to produce bad quality movies and theaters to avoid showing Korean films. Second, the screen quota system, from 1966 until present, has not been effective because imposing a mandatory number of days for screening Korean movies does not ensure that the domestic audience will watch these movies. Finally, the subsidy policy was barely noticeable before the late 1990s and is now too late and too limited to be credited for any significant impact on the success of the Korean film industry which began from the early 1990s. The results of this paper are robust enough to suggest to policymakers in other countries to review their own policies that advocate merely protectionism as a way to make a more attractive national culture.     

Social enterprises in regional innovation systems: a review of Finnish regional strategies

The aim of modern innovation policies is to enhance the innovation capability of regions, their organizations and people. Regional innovation system (RIS) theory has been one of the most popular frameworks for realizing innovation policies. Yet, adopting the perspective of sustainable innovation policy where innovation is also seen as a solution to various societal and environmental problems has been slow. Social enterprises (SEs) are discussed here as a means to address those problems, particularly through collaboration between sectors and focusing on social sustainability. The aim of this paper is to identify whether and in what way SEs are communicated as an innovative solution and as a source of innovations for economic and development activities through regional strategies. The data consist of regional innovation and business strategies from all Finnish regions, analysed using qualitative content analysis. We argue that there is a need to go deeper and include effective support mechanisms for SEs in these documents. Better inclusion of SEs as part of innovation systems and communicating this through regional strategies would help to develop SEs and to have them perceived as potential innovators and active entrepreneurial actors in innovation systems contributing to economically, environmentally and socially sustainable development.     

Sexual trafficking in Nepal: constructing citizenship and livelihoods

Sexual trafficking is a priority issue for many governments and has increasingly become a focus for debate within the academy. Despite this, many aspects of sexual trafficking remain poorly understood. In this article we focus on an area that has received scant attention in the literature: the situation of trafficked women when they return home and, specifically, the livelihood opportunities available to them as they experience differing notions of citizenship. In addition to the fact that there has been very little attempt to document poverty alleviation strategies post-trafficking, within the mainstream development literature little attention has also been given to questions of sexuality and how they relate to development and poverty reduction strategies. The aim of this article, therefore, is to seek to highlight a new research agenda and to develop an interdisciplinary framework to understand what we have termed ‘the sexual politics of poverty’. Bringing together distinct literatures on sexual citizenship and sustainable livelihoods we develop our analysis of these themes through a focus on the livelihood opportunities and strategies of returnee trafficked women in South Asia, drawing on policy analysis at national and regional levels and qualitative research carried out in Nepal. In particular, the Nepal case study highlights problems with skills training for returnee women and examines the relationship between marriage and sustainable livelihood opportunities.     

Robustness of Social‐Ecological Systems: Implications for Public Policy

We conceptualize social‐ecological systems (SESs) as complex adaptive systems where public policy affects and is affected by the biophysical system in which it is embedded. The study of robustness of SESs combines insights from various disciplines including economics, political science, ecology, and engineering. In this paper we present an approach that can be used to explore the implications for public policy when viewed as a component of a complex adaptive system. Our approach leverages the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research that focuses on system‐wide outcomes of the policy process beyond just policy change. The main message is that building robustness can create new vulnerabilities. Fail‐free policies cannot be developed, and instead of a focus on the “right” policy, we need to think about policy processes that stimulate experimentation, adaptation, and learning.     

Sustainable Tourism Planning and Consultation: Evidence from the Project INTER.ECO.TUR

Expansion of territories targeted by travellers and growth of attendance rates make tourism sector of significant interest for the implementation of policies on environmental protection at the European Union (EU) level. The need to protect local natural heritage, to integrate tourism industry development policies with the ones pertaining to other sectors that characterize a given territory and to enhance the overall environmental performance are some of the priorities that may appear conflicting at times. This paper discusses a method of analysis and planning aiming to promote potential directives of local governance. This method, representing the outcome of a process coordinated and shared across territories, is oriented towards the sustainable development of the area and refers to the implementation of integrated policies, The Interreg Eco Tourism (INTER.ECO.TUR) project, co-financed by the European Commission under the EU's INTERREG IIIC, provided the research with a useful case study to analyse the dynamics of sustainable tourism development within the European Mediterranean area. The debate of its results offers evidences on the possibility to develop such a governance process effectively, providing insight into an assessment methodology enriched by a clear-cut analysis of its applied experiences.     

Enclavic tourism spaces: territorialization and bordering in tourism destination development and planning

ABSTRACT

Enclave tourism is a growing field of research. In general, tourism enclaves are seen as products of global capitalism and a non-locally-driven neoliberal market economy. Enclaves also manifest certain kinds of tourism planning and development modes in destination societies. The enclaves are exclusively planned spaces that usually contain the vast majority of facilities and services needed for tourists who have limited possibilities or desire to leave the enclave. At the same time, the locals' access to these spaces can be limited or otherwise controlled. Therefore, there are always power issues and processes of inequalities and uneven development involved, which calls for a further understanding of enclaves and their evolution and governance in tourism planning and development. This paper aims to discuss and synthesize the conceptual idea of enclaves in tourism and get an overview of some of the key theoretical perspectives on how enclavic spaces are produced, bordered, and governed in contemporary tourism planning and development. It is concluded that in critical situations the enclave tourism spaces with all-inclusive products can turn out to be all-exclusive for local communities in development. To understand the nature and development of enclave tourism and to guide their transformation in more sustainable directions, further research on policy and governance aspects of enclave tourism is needed.     

Sectoral Versus Territorial Regional Planning and Development in Norway

New regional policies in Norway and many other countries try to empower their regions through creating a balance between central governing with emphasis on redistribution of activities and resources, and local mobilization with emphasis on self reliance, innovation and learning by doing. In Norway municipalities and counties have for a long period had this double function, but we now see that the vertical policy of implementing national welfare policy has grown and become dominant. As a consequence, the horizontal policy of social mobilization has been neglected, and has to some extent been taken over by inter-municipal and interregional organizations. Normally, these organizations are in practice organized as regional development agencies. They seem to be vulnerable political institutions that seek legitimacy from--and need acceptance and support from--both territorial and sectoral governments. The regional planning process is regarded as an important tool in their political institution building process. In this paper I want to explain how regional planning and institution building in Norway in practice have moved towards a two-parallel system.