Policy feedback via economic behavior: A model and experimental analysis of consumption behavior

This article examines policy feedback via economic behavior in the mass public, with a focus on consumption behavior. Do public policies affect the consumption behavior of mass publics and subsequent policymaking processes and outcomes? If so, how? I introduce a policy feedback model of consumption behavior in the mass public. Within this model, I advance a theoretical argument on the consequences of targeted cash assistance policies (TCAPs) for consumer spending behavior and government provision of basic utilities in developing countries. Using a randomized field experiment in Mexico and pre–post analysis, I find that TCAPs boost consumer spending on private access to basic utilities in the short term and reduce government provision of basic utilities in the medium term. The study pushes policy feedback theorists to think beyond the arena of mass politics, and the findings have important implications for social policy and human development in developing countries.     

The “Science” of Policy Development During Administrative Rulemaking

The legitimacy of government agencies rests in part on the premise that public administrators use scientific evidence to make policy decisions. Yet, what happens when there is no consensus in the scientific evidence—i.e., when the science is in conflict? I theorize that scientific conflict yields greater policy change during administrative policymaking. I assess this claim using data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). I identify policy change—what I refer to as “policy development” in this article—between the FDA's draft and final rules with a novel text analysis measure of shifts in regulatory restrictions. I then go on to find that more policy development does occur with scientific conflict. Moreover, using corresponding survey data, I uncover suggestive evidence that one beneficiary of such conflict may be participating interest groups. Groups lobby harder—and attempt to change more of the rule—during conflict, while an in‐survey experiment provides evidence of increased interest group influence on rule content when scientific conflict is high.     

Broadcasting and market-driven politics in the UK and Germany: the Peacock Committee in comparative perspective

When, from the 1980s onwards, market-driven politics won widespread recognition in liberal capitalist Western democracies, processes of broadcasting marketization in the UK and Germany were decisively determined by two inquiries: the Committee on the Financing of the BBC, chaired by Alan Peacock, and the Commission for the Development of the Technical Communications System (KtK), chaired by Eberhard Witte. This article compares how both inquiries, driven by their chairmen, affected domestic communications policy-making. The research is situated within a critical political economy framework and it is argued that critiques from scholars within cultural policy depicting Alan Peacock and the inquiry he chaired as driven by a narrowly economistic understanding of broadcasting are partly unjustified. As the comparison with the radical restructuring pursued by Eberhard Witte brings to the fore, Peacock, in fact followed a moderate reform agenda of gradual change, aiming to preserve some core cultural elements within public service broadcasting.     

The end of cultural policy?1

ABSTRACT

The article discusses whether we are approaching the end of public cultural policy in Western democracies, because contemporary cultural policy is not adapted to major transformation processes in contemporary societies. I discuss seven different challenges/scenarios that public cultural policy has to confront today: (1) It appears to be very difficult to democratise culture. (2) Public authorities consistently continue to support cultural institutions that may be obsolete. (3) Professional artists are still poor, despite public support schemes. (4) Public cultural policy is still predominantly national, despite the globalisation of cultural production and distribution. (5) Public authorities increasingly justify subsidies to culture with reference to the beneficial effects that art and culture could have outside the cultural field. Therefore, one might argue that other public bodies could take better care of cultural affairs. (6) A specific public cultural sector may appear to ‘imprison’ culture in a bureaucratic ‘iron cage’. (7) Finally, one might argue that a public cultural policy has no sense in a period of stagnating public finances. In addition, I discuss several counterarguments to these challenges, without coming to a definite conclusion. I have based the analysis on available comparative research about the public cultural policies of Western democracies, predominantly Norwegian cultural policy.     

The Double‐Edged Sword of Public‐Resource Dependence: The Impact of Public Resources on Autonomy and Legitimacy in Korean Cultural Nonprofit Organizations

As governments and nonprofit organizations build close partnerships for the provision of public services, they become interdependent in many ways. In particular, nonprofits' public‐resource dependence has significant implications for their behavior and decisions. By examining Korean cultural nonprofit organizations (CNPOs), this article posits a theoretical framework for the impact of public‐resource dependence on nonprofits' organizational autonomy and legitimacy. The empirical results of national survey data of Korean cultural nonprofits suggest that public‐resource dependence has a dual effect, reducing managerial autonomy while enhancing institutional legitimacy. Korean CNPOs seem to be constrained by public funding granted by both local governments and the central government, particularly in goal setting, resource allocations, and program choices. However, public funding also helps nonprofits earn institutional legitimacy through its reputation and recognition effects.     

New technologies in cultural institutions: theory,evidence and policy implications

Publicly-funded cultural institutions such as theatre companies, symphony orchestras, museums, libraries and so on are increasingly engaging with new technologies as a means of improving their operational efficiency and extending the range of ways in which they pursue their cultural missions. For example, opera companies are broadcasting performances by satellite to cinemas, and art museums are using the Internet to show virtual exhibitions. These developments have implications for funding authorities who need to update their policy approaches to encompass a range of new technological phenomena. This paper provides a framework for assessing technological innovation in cultural institutions, and discusses the ramifications of such a framework for cultural policy. The paper is illustrated using the results of a recent research project that evaluated the UK National Theatre’s NT Live experiment and the Tate Gallery’s use of a web-based exhibition as strategies to expand their audience reach.     

Modelling the cultural industries

Alternative definitions of the cultural industries lead to the construction of different models of the cultural production sector of the economy and hence to a different array of specific industries which are contained within the sector. In turn this implies not just differing estimates of the contribution of the cultural industries to output and employment in the economy but also significant differences in the way economic analysis can be applied to the cultural sector as a whole. This paper begins by discussing the way in which an economic approach to interpreting the scope of the creative and cultural industries can lead to a reasonable basis for defining them. It then goes on to examine the content of six distinct models of these industries, asking the question: is it possible to find a common core group of industries on which all of the models agree? The paper then considers the implications of the models for economic analysis of the cultural sector, and finishes with some conclusions for cultural policy.     

INTRODUCTION: PROCESSES OF CHANGE IN URBAN SYSTEMS*

ABSTRACT The twenty‐first century will be one of intensified urbanization, on a scale never before experienced. How do urban systems and individual cities change and develop? The social sciences have many different approaches to analyzing the economic, social, and spatial dimensions of urban change. We inventory some of these approaches and their implications for public policy toward cities, urban change, and economic development.     

The Strength of Weak States? Non‐State Security Forces and Hybrid Governance in Africa

In this article, I explore the recent revalorization of non‐state forms of order and authority in the context of hybrid approaches to governance and state building in Africa. I argue for a more empirical and comparative approach to hybrid governance that is capable of distinguishing between constructive and corrosive forms of non‐state order, and sharpens rather than blurs the relationship between formal and informal regulation. A critique of the theoretical and methodological issues surrounding hybrid governance perspectives sets the scene for a comparative analysis of two contrasting situations of hybrid security systems: the RCD‐ML of eastern DR Congo, and the Bakassi Boys vigilante group of eastern Nigeria. In each case, four issues are examined: the basis of claims that regulatory authority has shifted to informal security systems; the local legitimacy of the security forces involved; the wider political context; and finally, whether a genuine transformation of regulatory authority has resulted, offering local populations a preferable alternative to the prior situation of neglectful or predatory rule. I argue that hybrid governance perspectives often essentialize informal regulatory systems, disguising coercion and political capture as popular legitimacy, and I echo calls for a more historically and empirically informed analysis of hybrid governance contexts.     

Legitimacy and Public Policy: Seeing Beyond Effectiveness,Efficiency, and Performance

Studies of failure typically assess public policies through the lenses of effectiveness, efficiency, and performance. Here I wish to propose a further dimension to the evaluation and assessment of policy failure—legitimacy. The substantive elements of public policies and the procedural steps taken by authoritative decision makers during the policy cycle affect the perception of policy legitimacy held by both stakeholders and the public. In substantive terms, policy content should align with the dominant attitudes of the affected policy community and, ideally, the broader public. Procedurally, factors such as policy incubation, the emotive appeals deployed to gain support for an initiative, and the processes of stakeholder engagement shape the legitimacy of public policies and the governments who promote them. This argument is based on a comparison of education reform in two Canadian provinces during the 1990s. Governments in Alberta and Ontario pursued common agendas of education reform, but while Alberta achieved success, the Ontario government experienced a series of setbacks and lost the support of education stakeholders and the public. The root of Ontario's failures lies in the realm of legitimacy. These findings highlight the fact that the strategies used for enacting policy change may fail to bring about the necessary consensus among societal actors to sustain a new policy direction and calls attention to our need to better understand how governments can achieve meaningful public participation while still achieving legislative success in an efficient fashion.     

Regulating commercial public service broadcasting: a case study of the marketization of Norwegian media policy

This article looks at the issues facing the regulation of commercial public service broadcasting in Norway. A document analysis of the 2010 renegotiation process to renew TV 2’s public service licence illuminates how a general marketization affects the regulation of the television sector. This process comments on Hallin and Mancini’s model of democratic corporatism in the Nordic countries regarding the power of the state to regulate private media enterprises as cultural institutions. As such, the process of commercialization should include not only the broadcasting sector, but also the political sector. As part of a solution to retain TV 2’s licence agreement, the government effectively had to re‐regulate the cable distribution sector. This case study demonstrates not only the enduring strength and value of the public service institution in a political context, but also the extent to which regulation is guided by technical and economic forces to sustain democratic considerations.     

Broadcasting the Rainbow Nation: Media, Democracy, and Nation-Building in South Africa

This paper examines the politics and economics of media reform in South Africa during the 1990s. This process has involved the transformation of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) from a state broadcaster into an independent public service broadcaster, as well as the opening of the airwaves to new entrants in order to extend the diversity of media ownership and programming. The formulation of media policies before and after the elections of 1994 is discussed, with reference to the different interests involved in this process and their differing positions on how broadcasting should be restructured in accordance with new constitutional principles of language equity. The implementation of policies from 1996 to 1998 is critically examined, revealing the contradictory political and economic factors that have shaped the transformation of broadcasting institutions and the performance of independent regulatory bodies.     

Public service broadcasting in Italy: Historical trends and future prospects

The article outlines the current structure and organization of public service broadcasting in Italy and explores various options for its future development. With moves towards digital broadcasting, RAI is set to enter a discrete next stage which will bring new challenges and will inevitably lead to a revision of its public service remit. While it is currently unclear how far Italian public service broadcasting will change, there is evidence that members of the government and senior RAI managers wish partially to privatize core elements of its public service. Focusing on the development of television, the article addresses some of the salient issues facing RAI and other public service broadcasters who have become the victims of a pervasive disenchantment with public provision of goods and services.     

The Conditioning Effects of Policy Salience and Complexity on American Political Institutions

Years ago, Bill Gormley introduced public policy scholars to a new and innovative salience- complexity typology for regulatory policies. This typology not only helps scholars catalog numerous policies into distinct categories, but also helps explain variation in political processes. Specifically, different policies provide different incentives for political actors to be involved in policymaking. Salience encourages activity on the part of elected officials; complexity often requires policymaking outside of the public sphere. In this article, I extend Gormley's salience-complexity typology to more than just regulatory policies and confirm that levels of institutional activity vary across this range of public policies. I also expand on Gormley's contribution by differentiating the distinct impacts that policy type has on the policy activities of Congress and the presidency, and propose that institutional activity differs according to the dynamics of a policy's salience.     

Modeling Issue Definitions Using Quantitative Text Analysis

Issue definitions, the way policy issues are understood, are an important component for understanding the policymaking process. Research on issue definitions has been divided between a macro level that examines collective issue definitions and a micro level focusing on the ways in which policy actors frame policy issues. This article develops a model of issue definitions that assumes issues are multidimensional, competition exists among policy actors in defining issues, and that collective issue definitions can be understood as the aggregation of individual issue definitions. This model is then estimated using quantitative text analysis. While various approaches to text analysis and categorization have been used by scholars, latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA), a specific type of topic modeling, is used to estimate issue definitions. Using LDA, witness testimony taken from Congressional hearings that occurred from 1975 to 2012 about the issue of used nuclear fuel (UNF) is examined and seven distinct dimensions of the UNF debate are estimated. The construct validity of these dimensions is checked by testing them against two major policy changes that occurred in the UNF domain. I conclude with a discussion of the strengths and weakness of topic modeling, and how this approach could be used to test hypotheses drawn from several of the major policymaking theories.     

Uncertainty as Environmental Education

Here we focus particularly upon some implications of the symposium articles for future research agendas and priorities in environmental policy. First, however, we return to the central question posed by this symposium: “How can environmental policies achieve a combination of democracy with legitimacy and adequacy with effectiveness under conditions of great uncertainty?” In different ways, all articles addressed this problem in reconciling democracy with competent environmental management under conditions of uncertainty. Together, they provide the rudiments of an answer.     

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.     

A Micro Model of Problem Definition and Policy Choice: Issue Image,Issue Association,and Policy Support of Power Plants

Past research on problem definition and public policy primarily focuses on the macro-system level. In this study, we propose a micro model of problem definition and policy choice at the individual level. We argue that while individual citizens' problem definitions and policy preferences are rooted in and filtered through their predisposition characteristics (such as socioeconomic status, political orientation, and informational base), their policy choices also strongly depend on how they define public issues, particularly how they perceive the image of an issue at hand and how they associate the issue with other public issues. Our empirical analyses, based on data from a national public survey on energy and power plant issues, support the key propositions derived from our theoretical model. Key contributions to and implications for policy studies are discussed in conclusion.     

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.     

State–Society Relations in Land Reform Implementation in the Philippines

Contrary to earlier pessimistic predictions, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP) in the Philippines has achieved significant success in land redistribution, although not quite matching the original claims of the state. The dominant public policy and land reform literature, broadly divided between state‐centred and society‐centred approaches, has difficulty in fully explaining the unexpected outcomes of the CARP process. Going beyond these dichotomous views, and using Fox’s interactive framework for analysing state–society relations, this article argues that redistributive land reform can be implemented in a politically hostile situation when initiatives by state reformists ‘from above’ positively interact with social mobilizations ‘from below’.