Exploring the Australian policy context relating to women’s reproductive choices

This study explored Australian federal level policy instruments which influence and impact on women’s reproductive choices and the consequences of those choices. A systematic policy search and mapping exercise was undertaken. Eighteen policy instruments were identified at the Federal level and were explored through a policy framework and thematic analysis. Findings indicate there are multiple layers of influence on women’s reproductive choices and the consequences of those choices, and the policy instruments interact in multiple dynamic, interconnected and contextual ways. Yet, they also lack cohesion and congruency, failing to account for women’s life circumstances while at the same time shifting the promoted position for women in each policy instrument. The policy instruments seek to regulate, control and selectively support women’s reproduction while simultaneously silencing, marginalising and reprimanding some groups of women.     

Economic,social and environmental effects of reducing dairy methane emissions through market-based policies: An application of the Livestock Policy Simulation Model

Several technological approaches to mitigate methane dairy emissions are available; however, assuming that technological change alone generates the necessary incentives to accelerate emissions reduction is risky. Without adequate market signals, producers might choose not to use the technologies available or to the desired extent. Addressing this economic problem requires altering producers’ and consumers’ behaviour by introducing incentives or constraints. Employing the livestock policy simulation model, we examine the effects of reducing methane emissions in the dairy sector under different market-based policy instruments. We used the primary dairy sector in Uruguay as a case study. The results show that a policy mix combining a set of market-based instruments can be more effective than a single policy instrument alone.     

Documentary analysis of the legal and policy framework of transracial adoption in South Africa

Transracial adoption was legalized in South Africa through legislative reform as South Africa moved into a post-apartheid era of non-racialism. Transracial adoption offers one option of placement for Black children in need of alternative care. However, adoption continues to face obstacles to implementation, including cultural obstacles which impact on placement of Black African children. This paper reports on adoption statistics on national adoption in the period 2013–2021 and a documentary analysis of the current legal and policy framework governing transracial adoption. We cover international instruments, local laws, including the Children's Act of 2005, and relevant policy documents designed to facilitate the implementation of adoption. We show that the law is supportive of transracial adoption, but that policy documents offer a somewhat contradictory stance to the practice. The lack of success of transracial adoption as a child protection strategy does not lie within the legal framework but may lie in the difficulties in interpreting and implementing the range of different policies by those implementing these policies. More research into the implementation practice of these bureaucrats is required to understand the underutilization of transracial adoption as a placement option for Black children in South Africa.     

The Psychology of Environmentally Sustainable Behavior: Fitting Together Pieces of the Puzzle

This paper considers the main features of four general psychological approaches to the analysis of environmentally sustainable behavior (rational–economic, social dilemmas, attitude–behavior models, and applied behavioral analysis), and focuses on the problems inherent in applying each approach to this issue. It also details the utility of a holistic Social–Ecological Framework that I believe is useful for analyzing environmentally sustainable behavior. This approach draws on concepts from ecological psychology such as Gibson's (1979) notion of "affordances," and shows how such a method can account for and help us understand the limitations of traditional psychological approaches to environmentally sustainable behavior, and provides a general guiding framework for the formulation of environmental policy decisions and intervention programs.     

Regional coordination of European environmental policies

Over the last years the European Union (EU) has implemented ambitious climate and energy targets for 2020, i.e. the 2020 Climate and Energy Package (Package), to become a highly efficient, low carbon economy. The Package assigns binding renewable energy sources (RES) target for each EU member countries. Indeed costs to reach Package's targets vary among EU countries, given heterogeneity among regions and different instruments implemented to spur RES deployment. The aim of our paper is to provide a policy tool for EU policy makers in the negotiation process that assigns achievable quantitative targets according to which countries are not inclined to deviate from the agreement.We compute potential extra costs that may arise when some EU countries fail to reach the assigned objective within the Package with reference to RES target. More generally, our simulation model is an instrument that allows EU policy makers to assess incentives that countries might have to participate or not to the environmental agreements. Our analysis shows that partial participation to the Package produces inefficiencies by rising costs for other participating countries to the environmental agreement. Finally, we propose a new policy mechanism based on progressive sanctions for countries that do not meet their national targets, which are proportional to the monetary value of the penalty they impose to the rest of the EU countries with their opportunistic behavior.     

Ideas and actors in policy processes: where is the interaction?

Several influential frameworks in the field of policy analysis explicitly acknowledge that the role of ideas is as important as the role of actors in analyzing and understanding policy and policy change. An issue of principal interest in this body of literature concerns the interaction between ideas and actors. This article argues that, regardless of important contributions from previous research, the literature can be enriched by new analytical tools that further our understanding of the complex interplay between ideas and actors in policy-making. The article outlines a dynamic approach to policy analysis, which has proven fruitful in producing high quality empirical research in a Swedish case of policy on prostitution. Three new analytical dimensions are specified and operationalized: (1) the political institutionalization of frames, analyzing how the influence and content of ideas change over space and time in policy-making; (2) the mechanisms of institutionalization and assignment of jurisdiction through which ideas become part of the political context and work restricting and enabling for actors; and (3) risk-taking and limitation as unintended consequences of actors' involvement and strategic action in the construction of meaning.     

The impact of the European Youth Guarantee on active labour market policies: A convergence analysis

The European Union’s (EU) Youth Guarantee aims to improve the labour market situation of young people. Rather than prescribing a uniform policy model, it acknowledges that supportive measures need to align with national, regional and local circumstances. It thus seeks to promote mutual policy learning through the open method of coordination. As an innovative measure, the EU has deployed funding programmes to support the domestic measures related to the Youth Guarantee. We therefore examined in this study whether this mix of recommendations and financial incentives has entailed a convergence of member state policies. Our analysis of policy outputs for the period 2007?2014 yields a mixed empirical picture. There is catching‐up convergence regarding policies’ sectoral coverage but increasing divergence concerning the number of adopted policy instruments. The first two years of financial incentives did not produce any effect on enhancing policy experimentation among less active member states. We offer an optimistic and a pessimistic interpretation of these findings.     

Indigenous Policy and Mutual Obligation: Shared or Shifting Responsibility Agreements?

Shared Responsibility Agreements (SRAs) are a key instrument of the Federal Government's new arrangements for the administration of Indigenous affairs. SRAs, described by the Government as a form of ‘mutual obligation’, require Indigenous communities to commit to behavioural changes or other actions in order to access ‘discretionary’ government funding for infrastructure or services. There are significant political, moral and practical issues raised by SRAs. In this paper we contend that despite the language of mutuality, flexibility and choice that accompanies SRAs, the approach appears more aptly associated with ‘divide and conquer’ tactics and a subtle shifting of responsibility for problems from governments to Indigenous communities themselves. In this paper we explore the concepts of mutual obligation and reciprocity, the structural biases that favour the state and its agencies over Indigenous communities in the SRA negotiation process, and issues of citizenship entitlements and accountability that are raised. Finally, acknowledging that SRAs can be a means for Indigenous communities to access greatly needed funding, we suggest various strategies and measures that could be taken up to make the SRA framework more equitable and effective.     

Policy Stable States in the Graph Model for Conflict Resolution

A new approach to policy analysis is formulated within the framework of the graph model for conflict resolution. A policy is defined as a plan of action for a decision maker (DM) that specifies the DM’s intended action starting at every possible state in a graph model of a conflict. Given a profile of policies, a Policy Stable State (PSS) is a state that no DM moves away from (according to its policy), and such that no DM would prefer to change its policy given the policies of the other DMs. The profile of policies associated to a PSS is called a Policy Equilibrium. Properties of PSSs are developed, and a refinement is suggested that restricts DMs to policies that are credible in that they are in the DM’s immediate interest. Relationships with existing stability definitions in the graph model for conflict resolution are then explored.     

Understanding how globalisation and restructuring affect women's lives: implications for comparative policy analysis

Globalisation and neo–liberal restructuring have transformed social policy and social services in many countries over the past two decades. Among the various impacts on different societies, one commonality is that many of the costs of restructuring are being picked up by women. In the last decade, feminist scholars have developed a critique of the effects of restructuring on the public and private lives of women, effects which are conspicuously absent from many discussions of restructuring. This article presents several conceptual ingredients for a framework that can facilitate a comparative understanding of restructuring and its effects on women at both global and local levels. Canada and China are used to illustrate the utility of such an approach to comparative policy analysis. The article contributes to a growing body of feminist literature on changing regimes of citizenship. It adds to the scholarship on comparative policy analysis by developing a research approach that is grounded in the experiences of women and is attentive to global and local politics. We argue that understanding just how restructuring affects different groups of women is essential for developing analyses that can cross national boundaries and challenge policies that reproduce conditions that oppress women.     

Discourse, Learning and Welfare State Change: The Case of German Labour Market Reforms

In this article we argue that Germany has significantly changed its approach to labour market policies (LMPs) during the past decade; in many instances Britain has served as a model to learn from. In a first step, we identify the core institutional arrangements of the conservative approach to LMP in Germany and contrast them with the liberal approach, using the UK as an example. Secondly, we trace the development and nature of changes in German LMP since the 1990s. We show that the policy has increasingly incorporated elements of, and to a considerable extent shifted towards, a liberal approach. Thirdly, we review competing theoretical approaches that might explain this turn in LMP and conclude that changed interpretative patterns have been crucial to understand the overall shift. Fourthly, utilizing the policy transfer framework, we show that in regards to the specific policy instruments German policy‐makers have learnt from the experiences in the UK.     

The evolution of family policy in South Korea: From Confucian familism to Neo‐familism

The aim of this article is to trace the trajectory of family policy development in South Korea from the 1940s to the present. Changes to family intervention are analyzed in terms of the settings of policy instruments, the policy instruments themselves, and policy goals (or policy regimes). Consequently, two critical turning points are identified: the late 1980s and the early 2000s. The first period (1945–1988) was an era of embryonic Korean family policy when family intervention was limited and indirect based on Confucian familism. During the second period (1998–2003), explicit family policies emerged, but the Korean government kept family intervention to a minimum; maintained a division of roles between the state, the market, and families (the state as the regulator and the market/families as the providers); and maintained patriarchal family relations and gendered family roles based on Confucian familism. However, the third period (2003–2016) shows the explosive expansion of family policies and changes in policy goals and regimes based on Neo‐familism, which emphasizes democratic and equal gender relations within families and a family‐friendly/supportive society.     

Mobility,migration and rights in the European Union: critical reflections on policy and practice

This article assesses developments in European Union (EU) migration policy and practice and their implications for rights regulation in the Union, as revealed in this special issue and the wider literature. It identifies how rights are constituted in the complex and multivalent policy-making field of the EU. The article views rights as constituted in the process of migration governance. This governance analysis puts centre stage an assessment of the links between policy, policy-making and policy's social and political ordering effects. The article argues that the significance of the Union needs to be analysed against different aspects of rights regulation. The article adopts an analytical framework which discriminates between the discursive framing of migrants' rights, the specification of such rights in Union and member state policy, and the shaping of rights by actors in context at the local level. The article concludes that, first, the Union has begun to play a significant role in regulating mobility rights across its territory in ways which can undermine the substantive or normative rights accessible to migrants in practice. Second, its policy and legal role are politically significant as it asserts the role of the EU as a source of regulatory authority over the distribution of rights for citizens and non-citizens within its territory.     

Cross-national policy learning in health system reform: The case of Diagnosis Related Groups

Observations of policy convergence and the cross-national diffusion of ideas, knowledge and policies have raised the question about the ways countries might learn from their peers. This article examines the role of cross-national learning with regard to Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs). We review the spread of this policy instrument and analyse the implementation of DRGs in three late-adopting countries: Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. The three cases show that the implementation of this policy instrument required intense studies, cooperation with stakeholders and adjustment to country-specific needs. The countries learned from foreign experience, but it was only with the introduction of a regulatory framework for competition between sickness funds that DRGs came fully onto the political agenda. While Germany and Switzerland drew upon foreign DRG models, the Netherlands developed an alternative system to classify patients according to case-mix.     

Enacting reflective and deliberative practices in action research

ABSTRACT

We consider action research as a form of deliberative policy analysis. This analysis explores a “reconstruction clinic” in which stakeholders and public officials engaged memories, hopes and obligations as they sought to resolve controversies over details of policy implementation. We ask how institutional design shaped participants’ reflective and deliberative progress. Reflection in action can prompt not only changes in cognitive frames, but new behavioural capacities for action. Deliberative practices can shape new relationships between parties through the work of apology, recognition, appreciation, and emergent collaboration.     

Innovation policy configuration – a comparative study of Russia and China

This paper presents a study of innovation policy configurations in two BRICS countries, Russia and China; the fastest growing and most innovative countries in recent years. Employing a three-dimensional framework which maps policy objectives, policy instruments and policy implementation, the research analyzes a database of 485 policy items issued between 1990 and 2013. Twenty-five innovation policy variables have been scrutinized vis-à-vis the three policy dimensions. The paper compares the experiences of Russia with China, across these three policy dimension areas, revealing the similarities and differences in innovation policy configurations. The research identifies how innovation management in both Russia and China has been shaped by contrasting histories, state institutions and economies. The paper offers an alternative perspective to the debate on the effective management of innovation, a debate currently dominated by the experiences of the USA, Japan and Western Europe.     

How child inclusive were Australia's responses to COVID-19?

From March 2020, Australia introduced a range of policies to respond to COVID-19, most of which impacted significantly on the lives of children. This article applies a child-centred framework, developed from rights-based participatory research with children, to analyse how children have been represented in policy narratives around COVID-19 and the extent to which policy responses have been child-inclusive or child-centred. We argue that, overall, COVID-19 policy responses have failed to be child-inclusive or child-centred. This has important implications not only for understanding the impact of COVID-19 on children but also in understanding—and potentially rethinking—the place of children in policies as Australia emerges from COVID-19 restrictions.     

Policy integration: mapping the different concepts

A growing number of studies have examined the collaboration of actors from two or more policy domains in order to integrate aims and concerns derived from one policy domain into another. In our literature review, we refer to this empirical phenomenon as ‘policy integration’, exemplified by the Health in All Policies approach. Despite the wealth of literature on the subject, the scientific community only has access to a portion of the insights that have come out of this field of research, due primarily to the fact that policy integration is discussed using a variety of different terms, which tend to be specific to the policy domain under investigation. To facilitate a more inclusive scientific debate on policy integration, we provide a comprehensive overview of the different terminologies associated with policy integration and analyse the recurring themes in the respective literature strands. What is the motivation for policy-makers to promote policy integration? What is the design of the instruments used for policy integration? How does policy integration affect the policy-making process? And how well does policy integration perform? These are the four questions guiding our study.     

货币政策操作工具选择基准的理论分析

中央银行实施货币政策的过程就是运用操作工具实现政策目标的过程，为更好地实现既定的货币政策目标，中央银行应该依据一定的基准选择操作工具。中央银行选择操作工具的基准包括理论基准和实证基准，其中，前者包括外在性基准和内在性基准。内在性基准是其日常操作中最重要的选择基准，它又有主动性基准、微调性基准、信号功能基准、时效性基准和可操作性基准等内容。     

Making the most of the frame: developing the analytical potential of frame analysis

Frame analysis has been developed and applied across contexts in several disciplines such as policy analysis, where the perspective has proven fruitful to carve out essential differences in the construction of meaning and to understand the responsiveness of the strategic use of ideas. However, this article argues in line with other scholars that the analytical potential of frame analysis is not fully utilized in most empirical studies. The article addresses two points of critique raised against frame analytical perspectives: the limited view of the framing process and the limited understanding of frame effects. We suggest two analytical dimensions that help to develop the analytical potential of frame analysis in policy analysis and beyond: firstly, the institutionalization process of frames which can capture the struggle of meaning within policy processes and also distinguish between the varying influences of different frames over space and time. Secondly, the extension of frame effects that through a reconceptualization of frame effects can capture how a frame has an effect on actors other than the audience and beyond its immediate purpose.