Renewable Energy Politics: Policy Typologies,Policy Tools,and State Deployment of Renewables

This paper investigates the competing forces driving the development of renewable energy in the American states. We formulate a framework of state renewable energy politics and develop a set of hypotheses regarding the role of politics, policies, and prices in renewable energy development. We test these hypotheses with a fixed effect vector decomposition model using a panel data set for the U.S. states from 1990 to 2008. The results indicate that renewable energy development is influenced by regulatory institutions, the party affiliations of the governor and legislators, and the professionalism of the legislature, accompanied by the effects of various policy instruments.     

Language Policy and State in Morocco: The Status of Berber

Moroccan society has had a long tradition of multilingualism. It is socially and linguistically diverse, and its cultural makeup is one of the richest in North African countries. Its strategic location at the crossroads of Africa, Europe, and the Middle East has made Morocco open to a variety of linguistic influences. Morocco has been invaded by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greek, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Spanish, and French. All these civilizations have deeply influenced Moroccan language policy and cultural diversity. The cultural and linguistic context of Morocco is characterized by the significant use of Arabic, as well as the presence of Berber, French, Spanish, and English. Berbers are the indigenous populations of Morocco and have existed in North Africa since time immemorial. Despite its complexity, the language policy of Morocco reveals an overarching monolingualism, with the hegemony of Classical Arabic as the only official language of the country. Recently, however, language education policy in Morocco has attempted to accommodate multilingualism. The linguistic situation of Berber has taken a new twist as it has been incorporated into the realm of Moroccan schools. The new Moroccan constitution also represents a historical turn in that it has acknowledged Berber as an official language, a move that has raised several questions with regard to the real motivation behind it. Berber implementation policy was based on an entirely top‐down bureaucratic model of language policy. Moroccan policymakers and the state seem to be aware of how other dramas are playing out in Morocco and around the world as theories of multiculturalism and effects of globalization are influencing their decisions. However, this language policy encounters many hurdles, from the improvisation to lack of qualified teachers. This article is an attempt to understand the intricate diversity and plurality of Moroccan language situation and the role of the state in Berber language policy. It also examines the invisible politics behind implementing it.     

China's Economic Policy Today: The New State Activism

A noted American authority and investigator of China's economy outlines the general features of the ongoing reorientation of Chinese economic policymaking toward increased state activism, which has gained momentum in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. An initial section of the paper describes the marketization and privatization initiatives of China's late reform period to provide a baseline against which to measure the subsequent shift toward increased state intervention and guidance in the economy. The author traces the shift in three critical policy arenas (social policy, state-owned enterprises, and industrial and technology policy) and demonstrates how state involvement in each intensified during the global financial crisis. He then proceeds to explore the implications of accelerated state activism in the future, identifying potential rewards as well as large risks. Among the latter are macroeconomic imbalances, a "softening" of budget constraints, difficulties in recognizing and terminating unsuccessful economic programs, and tensions with trading partners.     

The Politics of Crisis Policymaking: Chernobyl and Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy

Public policy scholars often accentuate the key role of crises in explaining policy change; however, much empirical work still remains to be done in order to explain crisis‐induced policy outcomes. This article explores the prediction of the Advocacy Coalition Framework that stable coalitions and impediments to learning reduce the likelihood for policy change after a crisis. Strategic action is emphasized as a supplementary variable focusing on the role of political motivations in post‐crisis policymaking. Sweden's decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster provides a case study to assess the utility of these explanations. Findings corroborate theoretical expectations about stable minority coalitions, cast doubts over the presumed rigidity of policy core beliefs, and emphasize strategic action and cognitive heuristics as important motivations for policy choice. The article concludes by outlining three sector‐specific variables (ideological salience, level of conflict, and previous crisis experiences) that add to the explanation of crisis‐induced policy outcomes.     

The 'Juggernaut Method': The 1966 State of Emergency and the Wilson Government's Response to the Seamen's Strike

In May 1966, in response to a strike by the National Union ofSeamen, Prime Minister Harold Wilson declared the first stateof emergency in Britain for over a decade. This article considerswhy he felt obliged to take such action and how it fitted intoa package of measures aimed at countering the strike. Thesemeasures culminated in his claims of communist influence onthe union, which helped to bring the strike to an end but triggeredhostility towards Wilson from within his party and the tradeunion movement. Furthermore, the article considers, why, giventhe immense emergency powers assumed by the government, it wasso ineffective in ameliorating the hardships caused by the strikeand what implications this had for people throughout the UK.Despite being personally content with the outcome, this wasto prove a pyrrhic victory for Wilson given the ongoing difficultiesfacing the British economy and the bitterness he had provokedamong Labour supporters.     

Policy Influence and Policy Responsiveness in State Pollution Control

This article develops an integrated theory of state policy influence and responsiveness, then operationalizes this theory to account for variations in the strength and scope of state water pollution control and hazardous waste management programs. The analysis finds that economic, ideological, interest group, and political system characteristics act in concert to affect state policymaking, and that the influences behind policymaking vary systematically and predictably across policy areas within environmental protection.     

Russia's Energy Policy: A Framing Comment

A prominent specialist on the Russian economy provides a framing comment on two preceding papers entitled "Russia's Energy Policy" (by Vladimir Milov, Leonard Coburn, and Igor Danchenko) and "Russia's Energy Policy: A Divergent View" (by Matthew J. Sagers). The author argues that Russia's current energy policy should be viewed as an outcome of competition between three overlapping programs. In this context, he identifies three policy models—the old Soviet, the liberal or oligarchic, and the most recent state capitalist. The latter is currently supported by President Putin, who prioritizes diversification of the country's economy at the expense of diminished investments in the oil and gas sector. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L71, O13, Q40, Q48. 2 tables, 2 figures, 22 references.     

Russia's Energy Policy: A Divergent View

A noted American analyst of Russian, Central Asian, and Transcaucasian oil and gas industries and markets offers his own perspective on issues raised in the preceding paper on Russia's energy policy (Milov et al., 2006). While generally concurring that Russia indeed pursues an ad hoc (rather than systemic) energy policy, he expresses divergent views on the role of government-regulated versus market-based pricing in final and primary energy use, reasons for the intense flows of oil and gas to Europe, the role of pipelines in determining oil export allocations, and the contribution of regional monopolies and refining capacity to domestic oil product prices. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: L71, O13, Q40, Q48. 20 references.     

The Supreme Court as a Policy Arena: The Strategies and Tactics of State Attorneys General

Presently, state governments are more active and more successful in the U.S. Supreme Court than at any time since the New Deal. These rates of activity and success are a function of two coincident forces—the emergence of the Republican Court and the increased capacity of the states to pursue their policy goals aggressively before the High Bench. In this analysis, we seek to offer a better-defined portrait of the states' evolving advocacy in the Supreme Court. Using archival and survey data, we find that, as a group, the states are more capable Supreme Court litigators, that their perceptions of the Republican Court have encouraged them to increase their pursuit of policy goals through litigation, and that they are "procedurally rational"—i.e., their estimates of success enter into their decisions to engage the Court.     

Public Policy and the Idea of the Vietnamese State: The Cultural Political Economy of Domestic Water Supply

Using Rural Water Supply (RWS) policy practices as a case study, this article shows that the disjunction between implementation as formally conceived and informally practised is not a question of ineffective policy cycle dynamics, but rather an inherent feature of Vietnam’s Cultural Political Economy. Drawing on critical realist approaches to social and state theory, we argue that formal and informal RWS policy practices, as a set of two interconnected spheres, serve as key, separate but connected, mechanisms for reproducing the distribution of material resources (primarily through the informal sphere) and the hegemony of ideas (primarily through the formal sphere) in Vietnamese society. We conclude that the formal, administrative practices of RWS policy are primarily to be understood in their function of reproducing the idea of the state and state legitimacy. RWS administrative practices function to sustain the core social and political order in Vietnam as institutionalised in “the state”, rather than being primarily oriented to improving rural water supply. The findings raise questions for donor-supported programs that focus on formal administrative institutions and practices for improving the performance of the water sector.     

Tracing Issue Definition and Policy Change: An Analysis of Disability Issue Images and Policy Response

We examine the role of issue definition in disability policy change. Based on qualitative and quantitative evidence from media coverage and congressional hearings, we conclude that policy change was influenced by the redefinition of disability issues from medical and economic definitions to a new sociopolitical perspective. Specifically, we find evidence that media attention and tone influenced the number of congressional hearings and the tone of these hearings. The change in the congressional definition subsequently contributed to the passage of key legislation based on the sociopolitical/civil rights definition of disability. Importantly, our research supports previous studies that suggest problem definition helps to explain significant policy change.     

State Implementation of Federal Environmental Policy: Explaining Leveraging in the Clean Water State Revolving Fund

The Clean Water State Revolving fund (CWSRF) program provides states with significant discretion to design, implement, and administer the program to meet their water quality needs. An important aspect of the program is the decision whether to leverage existing funds to generate additional capital for loans. This article seeks to explain the leveraging decision process, using three models as explanators. We conceive leveraging as a two-stage process—(1) the decision to leverage and (2) the decision of how much to leverage. By employing regression techniques, we find that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) stated reasons for leveraging—environmental needs and demand for loans—are not significant in the decision to leverage, although needs are significant at the second stage. Likewise, there is limited support for Lester's (1994 ) "capacity/commitment" model of environmental implementation. A third model employing a larger range of independent variables is the best predictor of both the decision to leverage and the amount of leveraging. Furthermore, the factors important at each stage of the decision process differ substantially, reinforcing our conception of a two-stage decision process.     

E-mail Communication and the Policy Process in the State Legislature

E-mail has changed the policy process in state legislatures because political actors now have a new way to present their message to state legislators. What little research has been conducted on this topic examines e-mail communication generally and does not compare results by policy actor. Using an original survey of state legislators in eight states, we test for systematic effects of variables on general e-mail views and for effects specific to particular policy actors. We find that legislators have a nuanced approach to e-mail usage in the policy process with their assessment of its impact differing significantly for constituents, intermediary groups, and policy insiders. Only gender consistently shapes legislators' beliefs about e-mail with all groups, but institutional features, legislator characteristics, and legislator beliefs shape views on e-mail with different target groups. Clearly, legislators are attuned to the audience communicating via e-mail, and they value e-mail with each group differently.