Policy Diffusion and Policy Transfer in Comparative Welfare State Research

For many years, comparative welfare state research has followed a ‘methodological nationalism’ in the sense that countries were treated as independent units. Yet the recent ‘spatial turn’ in comparative politics has also influenced welfare state research. For some years now, the field has been witnessing a growing interest in questions about interdependencies and policy diffusion between countries. In this article, we provide a structured overview of the state of the art in the policy diffusion and transfer literature that deals specifically with social policy. We present and critically evaluate existing theoretical concepts and quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches that enable the analysis of interdependencies between countries. Moreover, we summarize the empirical findings of quantitative and qualitative studies on the diffusion and transfer of social policy, from some pioneering studies to the latest findings. Against this background we point out what we believe to be promising avenues for future research. We focus on five areas: theoretical work on the mechanisms underlying diffusion and transfer; methodological approaches; the impact of domestic institutions and policy characteristics on social policy diffusion and transfer; programme‐specific dynamics; and the systematic combination of horizontal and vertical interdependencies.     

殡葬改革社会政策梗阻现象探析——以H省W市Z村为例

殡葬这一永恒的社会活动必然需要受到社会政策的调控,而殡葬改革政策实施过程中存在种种梗阻。本文拟将通过选点实地调研,基于社会政策视角和分析方法,对W市Z村殡葬改革政策制定、实施过程中尚存的梗阻现象进行分析,进而从文化张力、民众认同、执行机制等方面针对如何有效推进殡葬改革提出对策建议。     

Social Policy & Administration: Journal and Discipline

‘Social Policy & Administration’ is the oldest British social policy journal. This article charts its evolution over the last 40 years in the wider context of British social policy. It presents a timeline of the journal and discipline, an analysis of articles in the journal, and presents its most‐cited articles and most‐published authors. It uses this material to inform some impressions of the journal and discipline.     

我国公共医疗卫生政策中的政府角色分析

公共医疗卫生政策关系老百姓的切身利益,近些年来的一系列的天价医疗费事件和医疗改革的成效讨论早已就是人们关注的焦点。本文从当前的热点人手,着重从政策过程角度提出了我国政府在公共医疗卫生政策中的角色定位。     

Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective

Since the beginning of the 1980s, historical institutionalism has emerged as one of the most influential theoretical perspectives in social policy studies. Although their work is insightful, most institutionalist scholars tend to relegate policy ideas to the back of their theoretical constructions dealing with welfare state development. The objective of this paper is to show how institutionalist scholarship can pay greater attention to ideational processes without abandoning its core assumptions about the structuring impact of political institutions and policy legacies on welfare state development. If institutions truly influence policy‐making, policy ideas matter in and beyond the agenda‐setting process. Related to existing policy legacies, perceived problems mesh with policy alternatives grounded in a specific paradigm. When stressing the need to reform, and promoting new alternatives, policy entrepreneurs draw on existing ideological repertoires to frame these alternatives. The ability to successfully frame policy alternatives can become a decisive aspect of the policy process. A discussion of recent European and North American policy debates illustrates these claims.     

Fear of the Brown Envelope: Exploring Welfare Reform with Long‐Term Sickness Benefits Recipients

This article presents qualitative data taken from in‐depth interviews with 25 long‐term sickness benefits recipients in the north east of England, UK. A key theme emerging from the research is the importance of listening to the narratives of long‐term sick and disabled benefits recipients, particularly in relation to the formation of policy responses and in terms of practice. The findings also illustrate how stigma associated with claiming benefits can deter people from accessing the support they need, leading to under‐claiming and the risk of amplified financial strain and hardship. Further, the importance of evidence that emerges from research which focuses upon the lived experiences of sickness benefits recipients to provide evidence in the framing of disability and welfare policy is crucial. Lastly, the article discusses how the narratives presented have implications for social policy and practice, alongside the potential implications for sick and disabled people themselves.     

Policy transfer,contagion effects and intra-party reform

ABSTRACT

This article examines the extent to which the Australian Labor Party (ALP) engaged in a process of policy transfer, learning from the UK Labour Party, when it reformed its federal leadership selection process in 2013. Bringing together insights from both the public policy and party organisations literature, the article develops an empirical framework for identifying instances of policy transfer (or contagion effects) that consists of three criteria: intention, motivation and implementation, which can examined through various types of empirical data (including interviews, documentary, and network analysis). Applying this framework to the ALP reforms, the article concludes that while it is possible to see evidence of a general shift to a similar, more inclusive selection process, policy transfer is more difficult to substantiate. There were clear differences in the specifics of how the process would work, and a temporal disjoint between when actors sought information about UK practices and when the reforms actually occurred.     

Addressing Ethnicity in Social Care Research

This article surveys recent developments in relation to the dimensions of ethnicity and ethnic disadvantage in social policy research and practice, with a focus on social care. While there has been limited increase in attention to ethnicity within general policy discussion and increasing sophistication within specialist debates, advances in theory and methodology have largely failed to penetrate the research mainstream, let alone policy or practice. This is a long‐standing problem. We advocate more focused consideration of ethnicity and ethnic disadvantage at all levels. Failure to do so creates the risk of social policy research being left behind in understanding rapid changes in ethnic minority demographics and patterns of migration, with increasing disadvantage to minorities.     

Quantifying Quality: Can Quantitative Data (“Metrics”) Explain the 2001 RAE Ratings for Social Policy and Administration?

This paper finds that around 80 per cent of the differences in the ratings awarded in the 2001 RAE for social policy may be “explained” using half a dozen pieces of quantitative data. Social policy excellence—as judged by peer review—is associated with the award of doctorates, the amount of money raised, publications in a particular (if broad) range of journals and books by major publishers, and being large. Even taking account of differences on all these factors, the analysis found that new universities fared worse than their quantitative data would suggest. It is argued that quantitative data should play a larger role in decisions about research quality, aiding equity and transparency.     

Rhetoric and Reality in European Co-operation with Third Countries: A Case Study

This case study illustrates the reality of trying to achieve the European Commission objective of fruitful international research co-operation with Third Countries. The process of responding to an EC research call, preparing a proposal and negotiating a contract are explored with areas of general applicability being highlighted. The case study is drawn from the Avicenne Initiative in the area of health systems research. The difficulties and inequality of access to information, administrative research support and resourcing are explored as both issues for individuals and institutions and also as part of the difficulties of developing south-north or east-west research partnerships. The backstage of research is explored in order to highlight issues of discourse, practice and procedure which, if tackled, could provide a more level playing field for researchers from a wide range of institutions and countries.     

Policy transfer from the UN to ASEAN: the case of trafficking in persons

This article examines the policy transfer from the United Nations (UN) to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the case of trafficking in persons (TIP). It presents pioneering empirical research that analyzes the processes and mechanisms of policy transfer between the UN and a regional organization. Institutional collective action and regime complex theories in international relations are used to complement the existing state-centric policy transfer framework. We argue that the UN-ASEAN policy transfer in TIP is characterized by a two-step process, starting with transfer from the UN to the ASEAN member states, followed by synthesis at the regional level. The consensus-based decision-making approach in ASEAN restricts transfer outcomes to a common low base of national preferences, which is the lowest common denominator. The ability of stakeholders in the TIP field to steer lesson drawing, emulation and coercive transfer at both the national and regional levels allows them to influence the lowest common denominator. At the same time, policy transfer to ASEAN is shaped by “forum-shopping” by the ASEAN member states and other stakeholders within the TIP regime complex, based on the comparative advantage between ASEAN and other cooperation mechanisms in solving TIP-related issues.     

The past,present and future of policy modeling

We evaluate the past, present, and future of policy modeling from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. We do this through an extensive review and analysis of papers published in the Journal of Policy Modeling between 1978 and 2018. Over the years the focus of the policy modeling literature (and the Journal) changed. The changes were in research topics, approaches, techniques, theories, methods, and analytical tools as required for the rigorous analysis of complex and dynamic economic phenomena in policy modeling.     

Is There an Indian Policy Process? An Investigation into Two Social Policy Processes

India is a huge, poor, fast developing, centralized and increasingly unequal, democratic country. The core argument of this article is that these and other contextual factors have an impact on the way in which social policies are formulated and implemented. The focus of the article is on two such policies on food and primary education. Based on secondary material and own fieldwork, the shaping of these two policies is discussed and some major characteristics of the two social policy processes are highlighted. This analysis brings to light the existence of two paradoxes present in social policy processes in India: one related to the fact that social policies are important for regime legitimacy but nevertheless suffer from a lack of political commitment; the other related to the fact that centralized decision‐making goes together with the widespread involvement of local politicians in policy implementation. These two paradoxes, the article concludes, are the result of the wider context in which social policies are shaped and are hence not easily resolved.     

From Street‐level Bureaucrats to Street‐level Policy Entrepreneurs? Central Policy and Local Action in Lottery‐funded Community Cancer Care

Recent contributions to the policy implementation literature have applied Kingdon's model of ‘policy windows’ to the implementation of policy on health inequalities in the UK, and have identified the key role played by ‘policy entrepreneurs’ at local as well as national level. Despite this, the picture that emerges is of frustration of central policy intentions at the local level, alongside frustration of local aspirations by the centre. This article explores the relationship between central policy and local implementation in the context of a Lottery‐funded initiative to develop community cancer care in the UK. We examine the relationships: between the BIG Lottery Fund and central government; between BIG and the cancer care projects it funded; and between the projects and their local economy of cancer care. We found evidence of success both in vertical cascading of policy and in local policy innovation; 83 per cent of projects succeeded in obtaining continuation funding at the end of their Lottery funding. We suggest that this was due, in part, to two features of Lottery funding and accountability that combined to differentiate it from the other policy initiatives studied. They meant that projects were ‘buffered’ not just from national policy churn, but also from competing local priorities. In the ‘protected space’ that was thus formed, ‘street‐level policy entrepreneurs’ played a key role in developing cancer care innovations for adoption by mainstream funding agencies.     

Policy and media forces that shape the creation of Chinese state-owned enterprise policies

In this exploratory research, we examine the effect of policy and media indicators on the creation of Chinese state-owned enterprise policies. Using a VAR model, we show that Ministry of Finance policy and People’s Daily mention of small enterprises can explain, to some extent, the incidence of state-owned enterprise policies. We verify that non-government forces are less important in determining Chinese SOE policy incidence, as has been suspected by foreign observers, and that policy is indeed made through government agenda setting or consensus building. We also provide evidence to validate the theory of Leutert (2021), that SOE policy occurs in a feedback loop (it is self-reinforcing). These explanations of Chinese policy making can be applied to other government departments to further explain policy incidence.     

Cumulative influence: the case of political settlements research in British policy

The concept of the political settlement has risen to occupy a central place in British policy toward conflict-affected and fragile states. Yet, at around the turn of the millennium, the term was barely mentioned in official circles and the so-called ‘good governance’ approach held sway as the dominant operational mode. So, how had this transformation in policy approach come about and what was the role of research? In this article, we demonstrate that research played a central role in influencing the rhetoric of policymakers through a process we term ‘cumulative influence’. Indeed, the subject of political settlements represents an excellent case study for understanding the dynamics of research utilisation. It allows us to build on existing models and suggest useful ways forward in this important area of public policy analysis.     

Ideas and Institutional Change in Social Security: Conversion,Layering, and Policy Drift*

Objectives. In recent years, social scientists such as Kathleen Thelen and Jacob Hacker have introduced new concepts to assist in the understanding of institutional change. Fostering some of these concepts, this article proceeds to augment the theoretical debate on institutional change in social science and policy research. A discussion of Social Security development in the United States advances the article's main objective: to uncover the relationship between ideational processes and policy development. Methods. Qualitative and historical analysis is offered to examine three major policy episodes: the enactment of the 1939 amendments, the first mandate of the Nixon Administration (1969–1972), and the push for Social Security privatization that emerged in the 1990s. Results. First, the analysis suggests that, through the process of institutional conversion, the 1939 amendments and the Nixon‐era reforms altered the nature of Social Security. Second, the discussion on Social Security privatization stresses the impact of layering and policy drift on public and private pensions. Conclusions. The concepts of conversion, layering, and policy drift receive further empirical support through the presented analysis. Moreover, this article suggests that, for a full understanding of institutional change, a systematic analysis of ideational processes is necessary.     

Stakeholder Consultation as Social Mobilization: Framing Scottish Mental Health Policy

Public and stakeholder consultation is increasingly important in the policy process, both in the UK and elsewhere. Social scientists have considered consultation primarily in terms of how it relates to decision‐making – either as a means of involving a wider constituency of actors in the decision‐making process, or as a means of legitimizing the decisions taken by policymakers. This article shows that consultation can also serve a rather different role in relation to policy: as, in effect, the first stage in policy implementation. Based on direct observation of a stakeholder consultation on Scottish mental health policy that took place during late 2007 and early 2008, it draws on elements of social movement theory to show how that consultation served as a means of enrolling, orienting and mobilizing stakeholders to implement a largely pre‐existing set of policy aims.     

浅谈社会调查研究方法课程中定量研究的学习策略

定量研究是社会调查研究方法课程中的主体部分,通过介绍社会调查研究方法课程中量化研究的基本概念和一般程序的基础上,指出社会调查研究方法在日常授课过程中要贯彻＂用中学＂的理念,将理论讲授、方法传授和动手实践这三者之间结合起来,善于用团队讨论策略、小组实践策略和定量研究论文写作策略来引导学生,从而可以有效培养学生的量化思维能力和研究水平。     

Governing Deviance in Public Space through Mayoral Orders: Fields Mismatch and Metropolitan Turbulence

This article addresses the issue of policy change and its consequences on the organizational field and institutional context, looking at the role of an instrument transfer process. We adopt a political sociology approach to policy instruments to account for the impact that the introduction of a securitarian instrument, the mayoral order, had on the implementation process of a social policy. Through a genealogy of the instrument we identify a constitutive, normative and cognitive dimension. Our aim is to explain the interaction between these institutional dimensions, the re‐definition of the organizational field of the policy, and the dynamics of metropolitan politics. Following a synthesis of the policy process and the institutional arrangements where the policy is implemented, we show how the instrument transfer triggered a division within the organizational field, and the rise of institutional tensions amongst local authorities. In the conclusion, we identify the institutional dimensions of the instruments and the policy implementation scale as elements that are to interact with public‐private relationships and institutional arrangements, and that have an impact on implementation process and policy outcome.