Search Results

Locking-in Neoliberalism: Independent Central Banks and Fiscal Spending Rules

Aldo Madariaga

in Neoliberal Resilience: Lessons in Democracy and Development from Latin America and Eastern Europe

This chapter focuses on the locking-in of exchange rates and industrial policies in institutional frameworks, including the constitution that reduced partisan influences and made future changes and ... More

This chapter focuses on the locking-in of exchange rates and industrial policies in institutional frameworks, including the constitution that reduced partisan influences and made future changes and reforms more difficult. It formulates and tests the operation of locking-in neoliberal policy alternatives through constitutionalization and the embeddedness of exchange rates and industrial policies in institutional frameworks. It also discusses the delegation of policymaking authority to nonelected bureaucratic agencies that lies at the heart of constitutionalized lock-in. The chapter emphasizes the importance of support creation and opposition blockade in reducing both representation and the agency of unelected bureaucrats in policymaking. It examines countries that attempted to lock-in neoliberalism through the establishment of independent central banks and fiscal policy rules.Less

How Effective Is Policy Analysis?

John A. Hird

in Does Policy Analysis Matter?: Exploring Its Effectiveness in Theory and Practice

This chapter discusses the effectiveness of policy analysis generally and then focuses on its use in the federal regulatory setting. It emphasizes that there are quite different definitions of policy ... More

This chapter discusses the effectiveness of policy analysis generally and then focuses on its use in the federal regulatory setting. It emphasizes that there are quite different definitions of policy analysis, ranging from almost any social science that discusses a policy to a tightly focused analysis of alternative policies evaluated and compared by public interest criteria leading to a specific recommendation. Effectiveness can also be defined broadly, from almost any use that is made of the policy research to whether or not the analysis improves the outcome of the policy-making process as judged by public interest criteria. The chapter clarifies these alternative definitions and reviews the sparse literature that has attempted to assess effectiveness by these definitions.Less

The (micro)politics of racial neoliberalism

Viviana Pitton

in Education Policy and Racial Biopolitics in Multicultural Cities

This chapter maps the event of the alternative school policy of the Toronto School Board District understood as neoliberalism, and specifically racial neoliberalism. This analysis asserts how power ... More

This chapter maps the event of the alternative school policy of the Toronto School Board District understood as neoliberalism, and specifically racial neoliberalism. This analysis asserts how power and force operate within educational equity attempts and illustrates the necessary but insufficient attempts at educational equity that rely solely on moral and epistemological, including statistical, arguments. The chapter focuses on the material and ontological aspects of the policy environment affecting the event. The spatial and temporal analysis of this chapter underscores how objects and subjects easily interchange positions depending on the location of the analysis, including how (1) policy ‘activists’ simultaneously are policy ‘subjects’; (2) school mission statements are simultaneously efforts to develop a brand within quasi educational markets; (3) discourses of parental choice are conflated into contradictory discourses of educational entrepreneurialism and equity and, (4) moral statements against racism are erased through pressures to maintain the dominant policies and practices of colourblind (neoliberal) multiculturalism.Less

Canons, Contours, and Contributions of Policy Research in Law: A Note on Methodological Discourse

P. Ishwara Bhat

in Idea and Methods of Legal Research

Policy connects law to the social and political world. Research in policy matter—making, implementing, and evaluating—can be better done not by the mono-linear approach of allowing the discourse to ... More

Policy connects law to the social and political world. Research in policy matter—making, implementing, and evaluating—can be better done not by the mono-linear approach of allowing the discourse to revolve only around a rough idea; but by surveying all the policy alternatives, examining them from different angles with reference to certain paramount goals such as welfare, social justice, and human rights, and arriving at some sustainable inference. As policy research being conducted by new players such as NGOs, institutions, and stakeholders, in addition to state and inter-disciplinary characters of policy research has come to stay, proper designing of policy research becomes imperative. Tools of policy research include participatory assessment, which involves conducting of collective assessment; imagination of future scenarios; appropriate indicators; models of change; and cost benefit analysis. Empirical research for policy making or evaluation is also valuable. Policy research has made substantive contributions and has great potentiality.Less

Summary: Carbon Taxes for 2013–2020

Chris P. Nielsen, Mun S. Ho, Jing Cao, Yu Lei, Yuxuan Wang, and Yu Zhao

in Clearer Skies Over China: Reconciling Air Quality, Climate, and Economic Goals

This chapter examines a number of carbon policy options for China, applying the integrated research framework introduced in the last chapter and described in the rest of the book. The research tools ... More

This chapter examines a number of carbon policy options for China, applying the integrated research framework introduced in the last chapter and described in the rest of the book. The research tools were first developed by evaluating emission control policies set in the recent past; in this chapter, they are used to analyze policy alternatives set in the future, to 2020. The focus is narrowed to policies designed to limit China's carbon emissions, but making full use of the breadth of the book's integrated framework. This allows the chapter to assess the effects of future policies not only on carbon emissions, but also on China's economy, energy use, air pollution emissions, domestic air quality, and the damages to public health and agricultural productivity that result.Less

Conclusion: Returning to First Principles

Gary Orfield

in Integrating Schools in a Changing Society: New Policies and Legal Options for a Multiracial Generation

This conclusion reviews the failed policy alternatives to desegregation, arguing that issues of segregation and racial inequality have not gone away and no workable alternative to desegregation has ... More

This conclusion reviews the failed policy alternatives to desegregation, arguing that issues of segregation and racial inequality have not gone away and no workable alternative to desegregation has been found. It also argues that this book features important voices, those of scholars who believe the policies are fundamentally mistaken, that resegregated schools are failing, and that there are alternatives that educators, policy makers, AND advocates must consider.Less

Introduction: Looking to the Future

Erica Frankenberg and Elizabeth Debray

in Integrating Schools in a Changing Society: New Policies and Legal Options for a Multiracial Generation

This book explores the meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (PICS, 2007) and what is possible in its aftermath and in ... More

This book explores the meaning of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (PICS, 2007) and what is possible in its aftermath and in current policy. It presents what new evidence exists about integrated education and its relationship to equality in educational opportunity; what the political prospects are; what we know about new policy alternatives, including using socioeconomic status; and what the federal role could be in encouraging such options.Less

Capabilities, human rights and the challenge to workfare

Mick Carpenter, Stuart Speeden, Colin Griffin, and Nick Walters

in Beyond the workfare state: Labour markets, equalities and human rights

This chapter talks about the basis for developing an alternative capabilities and human rights approach, in the context of the creation of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). It ... More

This chapter talks about the basis for developing an alternative capabilities and human rights approach, in the context of the creation of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). It argues that social class justice must be a primary concern, along with other equalities. The chapter then develops a discussion of policy alternatives, while connecting them to emerging campaigns to fight various forms of discrimination and promoting equalities and human rights.Less

Historical background of policy analysis in Japan

Jun Iio

in Policy analysis in Japan

During the course of modernization, Japanese government had been eager to import various kinds of policy ideas from the developed countries. This import oriented culture and good economic condition ... More

During the course of modernization, Japanese government had been eager to import various kinds of policy ideas from the developed countries. This import oriented culture and good economic condition of latter half of 20th century had prevented Japanese original policy analysis. Established way of policy making during high economic growth was based on mutual adjustments among ministries without analysis, because both political parties and cabinet could not integrate policy matters comprehensively. In recent years, difficult economic situation and political change require the reform of policy process and the introduction of policy analysis method. Higher education for policy analysis, policy oriented research institute, and policy analysts have been growing rapidly, and they are going to prepare new stage of policy process and policy analysis in Japan.Less

Analytical Conclusions: The Search for Alternative Drug Policies in the Americas

Bruce M. Bagley and Jonathan D. Rosen

in Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Violence in the Americas Today

The chapter highlights the major lessons of the volume and examines the various challenges that exist in the future. The chapter also proposes several policy options.

SGCC in Action: As a Policy Entrepreneur

Xu Yi-chong

in Sinews of Power: Politics of the State Grid Corporation of China

This chapter examines how SGCC managed to convince the government to accept its controversial ultra-high-voltage (UHV) AC and UHV DC projects as a policy solution to a bundle of problems. It ... More

This chapter examines how SGCC managed to convince the government to accept its controversial ultra-high-voltage (UHV) AC and UHV DC projects as a policy solution to a bundle of problems. It highlights (a) a set of visions for SGCC and China’s transmission industry; (b) the way SGCC used its institutional capacity to translate the visions and ideas into policy alternatives and actions; (c) the ability of its management to manoeuvre the policy windows in the policy process; and (d) the active role SGCC played as a policy entrepreneur to keep its preferred policy alternatives on the government agenda. In this process, SGCC and policy makers enjoyed a reinforcing partnership: the government needed ideas to govern while SGCC was happy and able to ‘educate officials’, identify the problems and provide solutions. All was done from its perspective but justified in the interest of government and the country as a whole,Less

Alternative care practices in child welfare institutions

Xiaoyuan Shang and Karen R. Fisher

in Young People Leaving State Care in China

This chapter presents the alternative care policies in the research cities — Beijing, Taiyuan, Datong, Urumqi, and Nanning. The institutions' policies and practices during the children's childhood ... More

This chapter presents the alternative care policies in the research cities — Beijing, Taiyuan, Datong, Urumqi, and Nanning. The institutions' policies and practices during the children's childhood and when they reach late teenage years affect the quality of the transition of young people out of care, such as whether they are required to leave, are supported to leave, have the capacity to leave and understand the benefits of leaving. The policies and practices affect the expectations and capacity of young people to achieve social inclusion in their young adulthood and to experience their rights to transition towards independent living in the same way as their peers in their communities, as well as support them to avoid the risks of social exclusion.Less

Answering Skeptics

David Madland

in Re-Union: How Bold Labor Reforms Can Repair, Revitalize, and Reunite the United States

This chapter considers whether the new labor system could work as intended in the United States and whether alternative policies could better address the country's economic and political problems. It ... More

This chapter considers whether the new labor system could work as intended in the United States and whether alternative policies could better address the country's economic and political problems. It reviews some of the likely implementation challenges the new system would face, including determining the appropriate bargaining unit in a broad-based system and relationship friction between national and local unions, and finds, based on the US historical experience, that the challenges are likely manageable. It also reviews alternatives to the new labor system and argues that while most would be helpful, all have limitations. Other strategies to strengthen labor, such as increased organizing by unions and banning right-to-work laws, are necessary but on their own would not sufficiently increase union density or dramatically increase collective bargaining coverage. Non-union policies — from increased training to a jobs guarantee to campaign finance reform — would do less to raise wages, reduce inequality, or increase political voice. These often rely on strong labor unions to work best. All told, the new labor system is practical and necessary.Less

Political parties and think tanks: policy analysis oriented toward office-seeking

Camilo Argibay, Rafaël Cos, and Anne-Cécile Douillet

in Policy Analysis in France

This chapter examines the role played by political parties and think tanks in the development of policy analysis in France. It shows how party-based policy analysis is interwoven with inter and ... More

This chapter examines the role played by political parties and think tanks in the development of policy analysis in France. It shows how party-based policy analysis is interwoven with inter and intra-party competition related to the objective of seeking office. Indeed, even though policy seeking activities do not look central in the functioning of French political parties, developments in party rationales, like those in the profile of governing parties’ elites, are favourable to intensifying interest in policy issues. Political parties’ professionalization nonetheless appears to have a marked effect on their internal production of public policy expertise: party membership is marginalised while the electoral issues and internal competition have a structuring impact. Lastly, analysis of public policy expertise production shows that it is mainly done in the vicinity of party organisations, due to the significant recourse to experts outside of parties and the role of think tanks.Less

Mass Publics, Crime, and Democratic Politics

Lisa L. Miller

in The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics

The chapter provides an overview of the book’s central claims and a framework for empirically assessing the conventional causal narrative about the relationship between crime, mass publics, and ... More

The chapter provides an overview of the book’s central claims and a framework for empirically assessing the conventional causal narrative about the relationship between crime, mass publics, and politics. The chapter also introduces the key questions of the book: First, does violent crime contribute to the public and political salience of crime? Second, when crime is salient, what policies emerge? Third, how do variations in the institutional design of democratic systems—especially with respect to the accountability and responsiveness of elected government to mass publics—shape the political dynamics of crime and punishment? The research design is also explained and a summary of the chapters is provided.Less