The Policy Transfer Model

ABSTRACT

“New” social welfare policies are often actually policies borrowed from other states or nations. This paper reviews the recent theoretical developments in understanding the processes of policy transfer and presents a “policy transfer” model that can be a useful heuristic tool for social workers engaged in policy making. It discusses how the field of social work can benefit from understanding the factors underlying successful and unsuccessful policy transfer, and argues for the inclusion of the study of policy transfer in social welfare policy courses.     

Public Policy: Choice, Influence, Evaluation

This symposium celebrates the entire policy-making process in the context of labor relations. The four contributions to the symposium are reviewed and their contributions are assessed.     

What Are Strategies to Advance Policies Supporting Family Caregivers? Promising Approaches From a Statewide Task Force

Family caregivers are the cornerstone of the long-term supports and services infrastructure in the United States, yet they often contend with many challenges related to this role. Public policy has been slow to change, leaving many caregivers vulnerable to health and economic consequences. Using models of policy making, we identify barriers to advancing policies that support family caregivers and overcome policy drift. We draw on discussions from the California Task Force on Family Caregiving as it prepares state policy recommendations. Identified strategies include identification of caregivers in health care and workplace settings to promote political consciousness raising, collecting and reporting on data that frame caregiving as a policy problem, borrowing policies and language from overlapping fields to emulate their policy successes, and presenting supportive caregiver policies as solutions to other policy problems. By presenting specific strategic approaches to advance caregiving policies, we provide tools to address the growing gap between caregiver needs and policy responses.     

A Comparative Study of Social Policy Transfer

Abstract

Both the United Kingdom and Australia engaged in social policy transfer of anti-discrimination policy for people with disabilities in the 1990s with the adoption of new legislation whose structure and approach originated in the United States a decade earlier. This paper focuses on the extent of the convergence of disability policies between each country and the USA, and the variables that affected social policy transfer in each nation. By using a comparative approach, this paper allows for a better understanding of the processes and constraints involved in transferring social policy across nations.     

Identifying Attributes of Relationship Management in Nonprofit Policy Advocacy

Relationship management has been identified as an important activity for policy advocacy, but little is known about the strategies that human service administrators use to develop and maintain relationships with policymakers. This exploratory study aimed at identifying attributes of relationship management strategies that are associated with policy advocacy outcomes. Data were gathered from a sample of 333 nonprofit human service providers in Florida. Controlling for organizational size, the findings indicated that several established dimensions of relationship management were associated with policy advocacy success: networking, sharing of tasks, and assurances. Post hoc analyses found that the relationship between policy advocacy success and the domains of access and openness were respectively mediated by networking and sharing of tasks. Implications for nonprofit administrators and researchers are discussed.     

The Right Turn in Economic Policy: Business Elites and the New Conservative Economics

Sociological Forum - What was the role of business elites in the development of the new conservative economic policies? Corporate elite and class fraction arguments have been invoked to explain...     

Is Transition Heading the Wrong Way?

Even after a 15-year-long transition experience the question can be asked whether the transition is heading the wrong way. This question originates from practice and personal experience of the author of this paper. The background of this question consists of four dilemmas. (1) Is transition a constructivist project or a project based on evolution? (2) Is transition a problem to be solved by several generations? (3) What were the expectations from transition? (4) Which social groups needed transition? Do transition countries want to develop a capitalistic system or do they just want to introduce capitalism constructively? What has been achieved till these days in most transition countries is a state of so-called political capitalism. It means a system with strong relations between politics and business. Does political capitalism per se have to turn into entrepreneurial capitalism? No! The current transition paradigm leads us into that trap of belief!     

How Academic Research Shapes Labor and Social Policy

How academic research affects labor and social policy is viewed through a program evaluation framework that highlights the difficulties of determining the causal impact of such research on public policy. The effect is illustrated by examples. My conclusion is that academic research can have a modest to substantial impact on policy. Its impact is enhanced if it has a number of key characteristics: high quality; reputable researchers involved; synthesized and translated into a language understood by policy makers, the general public, and the media; credible champions who will broker and defend it, in the political process or in the public realm; timeliness; and, political acceptability.     

Toward the Systematic Study of Feminist Policy in Practice:An Essential First Step

ABSTRACT

This article proposes an analytical construct, based on feminist and non-feminist policy studies, to be eventually used in the systematic study of feminist policy in practice in postindustrial democracies. The measurement allows for the analysis of democracy, representation, and symbolic reform in terms of the array of policy actors who come forward during the crucial implementation and evaluation stages, the policy instruments that are used in these phases, and policy outcomes. As the article argues, developing this analytical measurement constitutes the essential first step in the emerging research cycle on feminist policy postadoption in a comparative perspective.     

Has Family Policy Come of Age? A Decade Review of the State of U.S. Family Policy in the 1990s

Family policy has come of age in the 1990s, yet it has not achieved a status commensurate with that of economic or environmental policy. Because family policy has been difficult to define, this review proposes an explicit definition of the term family policy and a companion implicit term, a family perspective in policy making It updates the rationale for family policy, arguing that family commitment at its core is particularly consequential in an individualistic market economy with a small social safety net. It chronicles recent developments including philanthropic commitments, state and federal policy initiatives, and the use of research to inform family policy making. Selected family policy issues including family and work conflict, long-term care, family poverty, and marriage, are overviewed. The paper concludes with developments during the decade in theory, methods, and dissemination that hold the potential for capitalizing on the current popularity of families as a theme in policy making.     

城市政策转移与政策知识的全球性循环

本文提出了一种方法,可以用于研究在全球范围内循环的城市政策、政策模型和政策知识中有关空间、社会和相互关系的特性。基于那些被用来分析在更广泛的社会空间背景下特定的社会进程的政治经济地理文献,本文部分侧重于固定性和流动性的辩证分析。本文将该观点与通过仔细研究分析得出的,政策知识得以转移的具体实践、表述和专门知识等后结构主义论证结合到一起。作者认为,对＂流动性＂的定义提供了一个实施上述方法的规程,它可以实现城市政策移植中的＂本地化的全球性＂。本文介绍了利用这种研究方法的一个例子：位于加拿大不列颠哥伦比亚省的温哥华市,是一个经常被其他地方的决策者引用为他们寻求＂热门＂政策思路的城市。该案例还表明,关于城市之间城市政策移植性的特点和推论,还有许多研究尚待进行。具体来说,本文认为,在保持对更广泛力量的侧重的前提下,研究城市政策的流动性必须认真对待政策模型转移过程中个别政策转移中介那些明显平庸的作为,同时也必须进行细致的定性研究,研究政策是如何从一个地方移植到另一个地方去的,如何从特定的环境中学习的,并且在移植过程中是怎样变化的。     

SGACA: The Rise and Paradoxical Demise of a Political‐Economy Instrument

This article discusses the Strategic Governance and Corruption Analysis (SGACA) introduced in 2007 by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a tool for political‐economy analysis of governance structures in aid‐receiving countries. It suggests an explanation of the paradox that SGACA was generally seen as a strong analytical instrument, yet was discarded within one 4‐year policy cycle. Drawing on the literature on policy innovations, it argues that there are three main causes of this demise: first, the collective‐action problems involved in getting innovations implemented in the apparatus of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; second, the fact that the policy window opened for SGACA by the mid‐2000s did not stay open throughout the implementation process; and third, the bureaucratic politics played out in the environment in which SGACA had been developed.     

Preschool Policymaking by Stealth: Application of an Alternative Framework for the Policy Process

This study uses the design and passage of universal preschool in two states, Oklahoma and West Virginia, to present an alternative framework for understanding the policy process, Policymaking by Stealth, and demonstrate its usefulness both in expanding the understanding of the politics of public preschool and as a tool for social work policy practice. An overview of the current state of preschool policy in the United States and the political history of federal preschool policy is presented first to provide context to the analysis, followed by an introduction to the analytic framework, and then a formal analysis of the policy passage processes in the two states via the lens of Policymaking by Stealth. The contributions of this new framework to the study of the policy process in general and the practice of policymaking in complex political contexts are discussed.     

Harnessing civil society's knowledge for development policy: Potential and challenges for the Republic of Yemen

This exploratory case study investigated Yemeni civil society actors’ actual and potential contribution to policy‐making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, in the sectors prioritized in Yemen's national development strategy. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted in Sana'a between January and July 2015 with policy‐makers, researchers from academic institutions and civil society organizations. More specifically, this article discusses the role that YPRIs play in the public policy landscape of Yemen; the challenges they face in their interaction with policy‐makers; the opportunities they represent for policy actors in Yemen; and the factors enabling and limiting their influence, communication, inclusiveness and capacity. The authors conclude by contextualizing their findings within the ongoing conflict and drawing lessons for post‐war policy‐making in Yemen.     

An Exploratory Examination of Students' Family Policy Beliefs

Abstract

Family policy is coming to be recognized as an important component of programs focusing on family issues. As political leaders continue to engage in debates about family issues and family service professionals report spending more time on policy issues within their professional practice, attention to policy issues has become more important in the education of students in family courses. Because of the increasing presence of public policy study within the family studies curricula, it is important to consider students' policy perceptions and experiences as they enter family policy classes. Argued here is that students are more likely to become engaged with family policy topics that are timely and meaningful to them. This research examines student perceptions of various policy topics and issues in an attempt to better design courses with family policy content.     

A Feminist Policy Analysis Framework

ABSTRACT

Most policy analysis models, both inside and outside of social work, approach policy in a gender-neutral manner. This fact belies the many ways our society is organized around gender, which is often regulated through policy. This article outlines a model for looking at policies through a gendered lens by framing a set of questions to be asked in a feminist policy analysis. The complexities and underlying issues inherent in such a model are discussed, as well as the model's implicit goals and values. The model provides an important framework for policy analysts and teaching students about policy.     

Informal Caregiving and the Politics of Policy Drift in the United States

Informal caregivers play an increasingly important role in caring for aging Americans. Yet existing social policies that could support informal caregiving have experienced “policy drift,” a failure to adapt to social risks that develop after policies are initially enacted. This article examines policy makers’ success at updating seven major policies to address caregiver needs. It draws on an original data set of legislation in this area introduced between 1991 and 2006 (n = 96). Findings indicate that drift is more likely when policy updates are costly, lack support from members of majority parties in the House and Senate, and fail to generate bipartisan support.     

Going Against World Trends

Abstract

Neo-liberal social and economic schools of thought and changing demographics appear to be leading to a worldwide retreat in the provision of universal social benefits. However, Botswana seems to be taking the opposite route. The article examines the country's major safety net schemes and suggests why her sociocultural and political milieus mitigate against a more selective approach to providing social benefits.     

What Brazil learned from labour flexibilization in the 1990s

The debt crisis of 1981–83 changed the course that Brazil's social and labour policy had followed from the 1930s to the 1970s. The social and labour protection systems built up over those five decades – in conjunction with urbanization, industrialization and the rise of wage employment – were gradually dismantled. The neo‐liberal policies adopted, however, failed to generate sufficient economic growth and brought worsening unemployment and job insecurity instead. Since the end of 2002, Brazil has been turning away from its “neo‐liberal society “project.     

Promotion of Sexual Health in the United States

Abstract

The United States has been experiencing a severe sexual health crisis in the last decade. This paper reviews these sexual health challenges and discusses a major initiative and a “Call to Action” that was launched by the U.S. Surgeon General in 2001 to promote sexual health. This led to several initiatives to overcome obstacles that were preventing the development of a sound, scientifically based public health policy to promote sexual health. This paper specifically outlines the components of the Sexual Health Program housed at the Morehouse School of Medicine's National Center for Primary Care, including the National Advisory Council and the National Consensus Process.