Public Consultation for Sustainable Development Policy Initiatives

Involving the public in government decision making regarding sustainable development is a complex and difficult problem. This article suggests that weak public consultation, occurring at the operational planning level, is in part responsible for the lack of policy innovation in this realm. A case study technique considers approaches to public consultation in the development of sustainable development policy in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Using document reviews and qualitative interviews, two specific periods of policy development are traced with the outcomes of each being measured against creative consultative approaches established in the literature. It is revealed that using more complex consultative approaches at the normative policy planning level results in a number of positive implications, including mutual education and learning, participant satisfaction, policy innovation that has broad-based support, and results that have lasting implications on consultative proceshes.     

Political Decoupling: Private Implementation of Public Policy

Where policy goals can be achieved through regulation of private firms, private provision of public services allows governments to separate public policies from their political costs by shifting those costs to the private sector. Over the past three decades, financial decoupling has emerged as a regulatory strategy for promoting conservation, especially in the energy sector. Decoupling refers to the separation of a firm’s revenues from the volume of its product consumed, which allows companies to pursue resource efficiency free from financial risk. Similarly, when private firms provide public services, they separate public policies from their political costs. This political decoupling allows governments to pursue controversial policies while avoiding their attendant political risks. Applied to environmental policy, this theory implies that potentially unpopular conservation policies are more likely to be adopted and succeed when implemented through private firms. As an initial test of the theory, we analyze California water utilities and their responses to that state’s drought from 2015–2017. Analysis shows that, compared with those served by local government utilities, private utilities adopted more aggressive conservation measures, were more likely to meet state conservation standards, and conserved more water.     

Public and Private Policy Change: Pension Reform in Four Countries

This article offers a comparative, qualitative analysis of the changing nature of—and relationship between—public and private old age pensions in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Japan. Stressing the impact of institutional legacies on policy change, the article explains why these countries have taken contrasting paths toward the restructuring of public and private pension policies. The study finds that the four countries fall into two distinct clusters. On the one hand are Canada and the United States, which have essentially witnessed policy drift toward a greater reliance on private savings. On the other hand are Britain and Japan, which have reshaped their pension systems largely through legislative revision. The last section explains the differences between and within these two country clusters. The article concludes that institutional forces explain the distinctive policy patterns between the two country clusters but that it is necessary to bring in other factors (i.e., demographic aging, union density, and the role of ideas) to account for differences within each of these clusters.     

The Journey of Infertility from Private Sphere to Public Domain: From Cosmetic Surgery to Disability

This study explores the process by which the treatment of infertility, which has been in the hands of the private sector, has been taken over by the state as a matter of public health. It argues that this shift stems from the pro-natalist policies of the state to help increase the population. Infertility treatment, using assisted reproductive technologies and its legitimization by the Islamic jurists, is used as a lens through which to examine the state's body politic. The frequent reversals of policies, since the late nineteenth century to the present, are shown to be directly linked with the nation-building goals of the state, expecting the citizens to readjust their reproductive behavior to meet the state’s policies.     

The Quadrivium of Online Public Consultation: Policy,Culture, Resources,Technology

Concerned by declining interest, trust, and participation by citizens in democratic politics, governments and political institutions worldwide are turning to the internet in attempts to revitalise democracy through online public consultation and citizen participation, referred to as e-democracy or ‘government 2.0’. This paper reports research into the planning and conduct of a series of online public consultation trials launched by the Australian federal government in late 2008, and it compares and contrasts Australian experiences with international e-democracy developments, including the Obama presidential campaign and findings of the Digital Dialogues review of online technologies to enhance citizen engagement in the UK, the UK Power of Information Task Force review, and experiments conducted as part of the MIT Deliberatorium. This paper presents qualitative analysis of findings in 10 areas, which it argues can be further grouped into four main areas of management focus of which technology, often the major topic of discussion, is important but less significant than policy, culture and resources.     

Private Politics,Public Strategies: White Advisers and their Aboriginal Subjects

This paper investigates the working relationships that have emerged between Aboriginal and non‐Aboriginal people involved in the governmental project of ‘Aboriginal self‐determination’. I argue that these partnerships developed into significant sites of administrative and cultural mediation, both delineating and channelling the aspirations of Aboriginal people and government. As such, they facilitated the formation of various strategic forms of Aboriginal cultural and political subjectivity and thus helped operationalise the policies of Aboriginal self‐determination.     

Public Policy Issues and Campaign Strategies: Examining Rationality and the Role of Social Media in a Legislative Election Within a Middle Eastern Context

While most studies from western countries emphasize rationality in electoral behavior, the present study proposes that rationality is also a driver of candidates’ behavior in a non‐Western context. The purpose of the present study is to map campaign content as well as campaign strategies of 214 candidates in the 2015 United Arab Emirates legislative elections. The qualitative analysis showed rational consideration drove the selection of both campaign strategies and public policy positions. Candidates decided to include patriotism and social and economic policy issues in their campaigns to attract votes. In addition, while candidates utilized social meda in their campaigns hoping to maximize their voter outreach, doing so was not necessarily decisive in garnering more votes. Thus, juxtaposed with social meda channels like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat, and GooglePlus, traditional campaigning strategies remained very potent.     

Policy Diffusion and Strategies for Promoting Policy Change: Evidence From California Local Gun Control Ordinances

Recent research efforts on policy innovation and diffusion largely have focused upon policymaking at the state government level. In this article we seek to develop an understanding of the ways momentum for policy change can be generated among receptive local governments. We use gun control policymaking within California to illustrate how local government characteristics, the presence of regional associations, and the establishment of interest groups may lead to policy development and diffusion. We also identify linkages between interest groups, focusing events, and the successful use of a new image of gun violence as a public health problem, yielding insights into strategies that may be used successfully to promote policy change.     

Review Article: British Foreign Policy from Salisbury to Blair

JOHN W. YOUNG. Britain and the World in the Twentieth Century. London: Edward Arnold, 1997; dist. New York: St Martin's Press. Pp. xi, 250. $19.95 (us), paper; DOUGLAS NEWTON. British Policy and the Weimar Republic, 1918–1919. New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. x, 481. $135.00 (CDN); RICHARD S. GRAYSON. Austen Chamberlain and the Commitment to Europe; British Foreign Policy, 1924–29. London: Frank Cass, 1997; dist. Portland, Oreg.: ISBS. Pp. xviii, 318. $49.50 (us); DAVID DUTTON. Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation. London: Edward Arnold, 1997; dist. Don Mills: Oxford University Press. Pp. xiv, 576. $40.50 (CDN), paper; PETER JONES. America and the British Labour Party: The ‘Special Relationship’at Work. London: I. B. Tauris, 1997; dist. New York: St Martin's Press. Pp. 252. $59.50 (us).     

From Zero-Sum to Value-Added Strategies: The Emergence of Knowledge-Based Industrial Policy in the States of the United States

State science policy is industrial policy, shaped by local research and industrial strengths or, conversely, lack of same. States with research strengths relevant to local declining industries attempt to link them in an effort to revive the latter; states lacking research strengths attempt to develop them, especially in areas relevant to local natural resources that have the potential to be the basis of new high-tech industries. Such knowledge-based industrial policies supplement, even if they do not replace, traditional strategies focused upon: (a) creating economic activity based upon natural resources such as harbors or mineral deposits, (b) improving the business climate by lowering taxes, or (c) attracting industry to relocate by offering subsidies. The role of the federal government in science-based industrial policy is still controversial even as it is widely accepted in the states as part of traditional responsibilities for their citizen's economic welfare.     

Private Benefits and Public Costs: Policies to Address Suburban Sprawl

The uneven development and disparities that exist in most metropolitan regions are the consequence of a combination of private decisions and public policies. Public policy can also redress some of these inequities and redirect the pattern of growth. The article discusses individual policies—ranging from congestion pricing to regional governance—in detail. Each policy is assessed in terms of its contribution to slowing metropolitan deconcentration, its feasibility of implementation, and its power to redress inequities. Four policies appear most promising: the utilization.of impact fees, especially on a supra-local level; reverse commuting programs; special taxing districts for regionwide amenities; and continued revitalization efforts in the central city