Who governs culture? Actors,federalism and expertise in Swiss regional cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel approach to cultural policies and cultural policy change, drawing on public policy and institutional analysis to study how decision-making power is distributed between actors in the public and private sectors and at different state levels, as well as the precise roles of public administrations, elected officials and cultural actors. Indeed, rather than directly defining cultural policy, laws on culture mostly designate actors in charge of policy implementation. Based on an empirical application of this analytical framework to the case of Swiss cantons and focusing specifically on the positions of cultural actors, findings show that cultural policies are transformed in different ways, affording more or less power to actors from the cultural sector in implementation arrangements generally dominated by administrative actors.     

Multilevel Instruments for Infrastructure Investment: Evaluating State Revolving Funds for Water

In recent decades, the federal government has introduced complex, multilevel state‐operated revolving loan fund programs as an instrument for promoting state and local investment in national infrastructure priorities while limiting direct federal involvement in implementation. A federally funded state revolving fund (SRF) program combines features of a categorical matching grant to states and a subsidized loan program to localities, both of which should lower the effective price of infrastructure investment and therefore promote higher levels of infrastructure investment. However, little evidence exists to date on whether these programs stimulate new subnational spending or instead displace spending that would have occurred otherwise. We evaluate the stimulus effects of SRFs by examining the two largest such programs, the Clean Water and the Drinking Water SRF Programs. Analyzing 17 years of state‐level panel data, we find evidence that the flow of federal funds to states under the SRF programs stimulates new local investment in wastewater infrastructure, but not in drinking water infrastructure. In discussing several possible explanations for these divergent results, we argue for further research that emphasizes the intergovernmental features of this financing tool.     

Cultural Worldview and Preference for Childhood Vaccination Policy

In the face of the reemerging threat of preventable diseases and the simultaneous vaccine risk controversy, what explains variations in Americans’ policy preferences regarding childhood vaccinations? Using original data from a recent nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults, this research seeks to explain differing public opinions on childhood vaccination policies and related issues of governance. As Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's grid‐group cultural theory of policy preference formation suggests, cultural biases have a significant impact on the formation of preferences toward various vaccination policies. Hierarchs are in support of mandatory vaccination, oppose religious and philosophical exemption, and believe the government should preside over vaccination‐related decisions. Fatalists strike a bold contrast in their opposition to mandatory vaccination policy and support for religious and philosophical exemptions and the role of parents in deciding on vaccinations. Falling between hierarchs and fatalists, egalitarian support for vaccinations is stronger than individualists‘.     

New public management and welfare-to-work in Australia: Comparing the reform agendas of the ALP and the Coalition

Since the 1990s, the adoption of new public management (NPM) as a management philosophy has translated into multiple waves of reform in the employment services sector in Australia, namely Working Nation (1994–96), Job Network (JN: 1996–2009) and Job Services Australia (JSA: 2009–present). Each wave has sought to improve the preceding policy. In this article, we examine changes implemented during the Rudd/Gillard Labor governments. Using government policy documents and survey data from frontline employment services staff, we compare JSA to JN against five benchmarks. Our data indicate that JSA has generated modest improvement. JSA is also a system with less emphasis on strong forms of sanctioning. Our combined data suggest that policy actors operating under NPM conditions are indeed able to influence specific aspects of frontline practice, but they must spend great effort to do so and must accept new imperfections as a consequence.

1990年代以来,新型公共管理被作为一种管理哲学而被接受。这导致了就业服务部门的数次改革浪潮,即工作国（1994—96）、工作网（1996—2009）、澳大利亚工作服务（2009至今）。每波浪潮都力图改良此前的政策。本文考察了陆克文/吉拉德工党执政时期的变革。作者根据政府的政策文件、一线就业服务机构员工的调查数据等等,在五个基准点上将澳大利亚工作服务与工作网做了对比。根据我们的资料,澳大利亚工作服务这个系统带来的改进最小,也不大注重强有力的制裁。我们认为,实施新型公共管理的政策制定方的确能影响一线实践的某些方面,但他们还要花大力气,还要接受往后新的不圆满。     

Government's Unequal Attentiveness to Citizens' Political Priorities

An accumulation of evidence suggests citizens with low incomes have relatively little influence over the policy decisions made by lawmakers in the United States. However, long before elected officials are asked to cast a final vote on a bill's passage, an equally important decision has already been made: the decision for government to focus its limited attention and agenda space on the issue at all. Therefore, it is possible that political inequality is infused earlier in the policymaking process at the agenda‐setting stage if the issues held important by some citizens are given attention while the issues held important by others are not. To investigate this question, we develop novel state‐level measures of citizens' issue priorities and find sizable differences in which issues poor and rich citizens think are most important and deserving of government attention. We then use bill introduction data from state legislatures to measure government attention and uncover evidence that state legislators are less likely to act on an issue when it is prioritized by low‐income citizens as compared to affluent citizens. These findings have important implications for our understanding of political equality and the functioning of American democracy.     

Is State Gambling Policy “Morality Policy”? Framing Debates Over State Lotteries

The politics of so‐called “morality policies” including same‐sex marriage, abortion, gun control, and gambling have captured the attention of both the public and political scientists in recent years. Many studies have argued that morality policy constitutes a category of public policy that has distinctive characteristics (such as technical simplicity and less amenability to compromise) compared with non‐morality policy. However, in a recent contribution Mucciaroni argues that morality “policy” should instead be viewed primarily as a strategy for framing issues. Drawing on examples from the debate over gay rights, Mucciaroni finds that opponents focus on rational‐instrumental or procedural frames more so than engaging in “morality talk.” In this study, I seek to extend Mucciaroni's analysis to the issue of lottery gambling in the United States. Drawing on data from legislative records in four states, I find that lottery critics mostly avoid private behavior‐based morality arguments. Instead, they criticize government's role in sanctioning lotteries and denounce the negative consequences of gambling. Supporters, meanwhile, emphasize the potential benefits of lottery creation and the importance of allowing the state public a voice on the issue. The results indicate that rational‐instrumental arguments coexist alongside morality talk in state lottery debates, and that private behavior morality frames are on the decline while governmental morality frames are on the rise.     

China’s Exchange Rate Policy Making: International Pressures Meet Domestic Politics

With China’s economic rise and in particular its massive international trade surplus with the rest of the world, the exchange rate of its currency has come under increasing scrutiny in the new millennium. Based on a critical review of existing International Political Economy (IPE) theoretical approaches on exchange rate politics – the Innenpolitik approaches and the international-domestic interaction approach – this paper argues that two-level game theory is a suitable tool for explaining the development of China’s exchange rate policy. By specifically examining the external factors and domestic sources of China’s exchange rate policy, this paper develops a complete analytical framework in which China’s central decision makers are understood to strive to reconcile international pressures and domestic bargainers when making decisions on exchange rate policy. After offering a theoretical review, revision and synthesis, the paper provides an empirical study of China’s 2005 exchange rate reform to specifically show how international factors played an agenda-setting role in China’s exchange rate policy making and how China’s domestic politics determined the pathway of the exchange rate reform in July 2005.     

The Growth of the Evaluation Tree in the Policy Analysis Forest: Recent Developments in Evaluation

The practice and profession of evaluation is continually evolving. From its early origin in the Great Society years of the 1960s, through its golden years of the 1970s, its transformation under the fiscal conservatism of the Reagan era in the 1980s, and in its maturation during the performance and results era of the 1990s, the field of evaluation continues to evolve in response to broader trends in society. This article examines recent developments and trends in the practice and profession of evaluation. Structured around the evaluation theory tree, the presentation of these developments elaborates on the three main branches of evaluation: methods, use, and valuing. The concluding discussion briefly addresses the central role of evaluation—and other types of knowledge production—in providing actionable evidence for use in public policy and program decision making.     

The Impact of Temporary Immigrant Workforce Growth on Employee Verification Policies in the United States

The U.S. Department of Labor admits temporary immigrant workers to address labor shortages in local markets. Yet, do elected officials make it less difficult for some immigrants than others to secure employment in a state? Using U.S. temporary immigrant labor admissions data between 2006 and 2014, I examine the extent to which growth rates of main foreign‐born subgroups influence E‐Verify policies that require employers to authenticate the legal immigration status of employees. I find that state policymakers are less likely to enact E‐Verify policies in response to the growth of immigrants who work in specialty occupations (H‐1b visas). In contrast, the growth of immigrants working in nonspecialty occupations (H‐2a and H‐2b visas) increases the likelihood of enacting E‐Verify policies over time. The results suggest that policymakers release strict rules for employment only for highly educated immigrants who work in specialty occupations that offer higher paying salaries and career advancement opportunities. Disaggregating a monolithic foreign‐born population indicator into more specific class components provides an important contribution to public policy studies. Scholars will likely overlook the contrasting effects of specialty and nonspecialty immigrant workforce growth on policy decisions relating to immigrant employment.     

Importing Concepts from Biology into Political Science: The Case of Punctuated Equilibrium

From the 1950s to the 1990s, the “incrementalist” model dominated theories of policymaking. Since Baumgartner and Jones's Agendas and Instability in American Politics was published in 1993, however, the “punctuated equilibrium” model, borrowed from evolutionary biology, has supplanted the incrementalist model. But what do such alien models do to the discipline of political science, and what does the discipline do to the models, when they are thus imported? In this article, I first discuss the functions of concepts in political science, then discuss and analyze the creation and meaning of the concept of punctuated equilibrium in biology, then trace its transformation as it was initially adopted by political scientists, then analyze the manner in which its meaning developed and altered as it grew in popularity within the discipline, and finally assess its value to political science now. I will conclude with some general observations about the process of importing concepts from outside the discipline.     

Building the Reservoir to Nowhere: The Role of Agencies in Advocacy Coalitions

The purpose of the advocacy coalition framework is to explain policy change over time through an examination of the stability of advocacy coalitions within policy subsystems. Recently, scholars have confirmed that advocacy coalitions are held together by shared belief systems, specifically in distributive policy arenas. We contend that federal agencies, in distributive policy arenas, provide both the anchors and support systems for the development and maintenance of belief systems. This anchoring helps provide adequate resources, access to political institutions, ability to control administrative process, and/or the capacity to deliver public goods and services. We conducted an analysis of the policy changes that occurred during the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act for the construction of the Bureau of Reclamation's Animas‐La Plata project. This is an example where administrators, through the management of information, were able to control the policy process. The analysis provides a needed replication of previous findings regarding policy change and offers new insights into how institutions are critical to subsystem stability over time.     

Theories of Governance: Comparative Perspectives on Seattle's Light Rail Project

Governance entails the formulation and implementation of public policies across organizational and sectoral boundaries through coalitions, contracts, and networks. Studies of governance tend to cluster loosely into two theoretic traditions: rational choice and sociological institutionalism. Where the former analyzes actors’ individual interests and information, the latter examines their joint relationships and norms. These different analytic foci can be difficult to reconcile, leaving scholars at a loss as to how to cumulate insights and knowledge across the theoretic traditions. To understand better how the two traditions conflict and support one another in the analysis of governance, this article distinguishes domains of governance and identifies the different theories that the traditions use to study each domain. A case study of a rail transit project compares the insights from these theories, and assesses the quality and the complementarities of the explanations they offer. An analysis of the case generates propositions about the comparative utility of different concepts and theoretic traditions for understanding key governance phenomena.     

‘Prevention of evil,production of good’: Jeremy Bentham’s indirect legislation and its contribution to a new theory of prevention

ABSTRACT

This paper critically analyses current depictions of prevention and tries to offer a new theoretical reflection on the concept by reconstructing it on the basis of Jeremy Bentham’s writings on indirect legislation. It is my aim not only to explore Bentham’s concept of indirect legislation as an outstanding example of enlightened social/public policy, but also to show to what extent his thoughts might be a fruitful contribution to a necessary reconceptualization of current conceptions of prevention, which are heavily criticized by many scholars.