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Field experiments -- randomized controlled trials -- have become ever more popular in political science, as well as in other disciplines, such as economics, social policy and development. Policy-makers have also increasingly used randomization to evaluate public policies, designing trials of tax reminders, welfare policies and international aid programs to name just a few of the interventions tested in this way. Field experiments have become successful because they assess causal claims in ways that other methods of evaluation find hard to emulate. Social scientists and evaluators have rediscovered how to design and analyze field experiments, but they have paid much less attention to the challenges of organizing and managing them. Field experiments pose unique challenges and opportunities for the researcher and evaluator which come from working in the field. The research experience can be challenging and at times hard to predict. This book aims to help researchers and evaluators plan and manage their field experiments so they can avoid common pitfalls. It is also intended to open up discussion about the context and backdrop to trials so that these practical aspects of field experiments are better understood. The book sets out ten steps researchers can use to plan their field experiments, then nine threats to watch out for when they implement them. There are cases studies of voting and political participation, elites, welfare and employment, nudging citizens, and developing countries.--

We investigate how public opinion along with the electoral process affect the strength of environmental fiscal policies in the European Union (EU). Our analysis accounts for a set of economic, institutional, and political factors that can affect environmental taxes and expenditures. We pursue a dynamic panel data analysis covering 27 EU countries using public opinion data. We produce evidence showing that public concern for the environment, as gauged by opinion surveys, positively affects environmental protection expenditures, while elections negatively affect environmental tax revenues and environmental protection expenditures shrink in the aftermath of elections. We do not find evidence of partisan effects. The effect of public opinion and elections on environment-related fiscal decisions depends on the degree of integration with the global economy as well as several institutional factors including the level of corruption and the soundness of the rule of law. We also document that the results are impervious to a wide set of robustness tests.

Our spacecraft called the Earth is reaching its capacity. Can we not invent a way to reduce our population growth to zero?… Every human institution … should set this as its prime task.Lee A. DuBridge

The creation of a steady‐state world, which is at the same time a liveable one, is the most important and difficult problem mankind has ever faced.Roger Revelle

Brendan F.D., Barrett and Rikti Therivel Environmental Policy and Impact Assessment in Japan.Alemneh Dejene, Environment, Famine, and Politics in Ethiopia: A View from the Village.David Goodman and Michael Redclift, eds., Environment and Development in Latin Ameruca: The Politics of Sustainbiliity.Roberto P. Pryde, The Ecopolitics of Development in the Third World: Politics and Environment in Brazil.Philip R. Pryde, Environmental Management in the Soviet Union.Lester Ross, Environmental Policy in China.

Public personnel administration has always been infused with political considerations, & today, personnel policy choices can have major political ramifications. While this policy realm is characterized by a number of competing values espoused by different governmental institutions & private groups, the civil service reforms of 1978 created more coherent personnel policy & greater clarity among the various competing interests & participants. Nevertheless, the political environment of public personnel administration remains so complex that the issue of whether it is possible for public managers to manage effectively is legitimately raised. HA.

This article identifies a number of challenges the social sciences will have to face in order to play a broader role in formulating international migration policies. This new role is subject to two major processes: globalisation and the universal acceptance of human rights. Both processes affect policy options, albeit from different perspectives. Recent research findings have confirmed that there is no direct link between poverty and South‐North migration, despite the fact that many policy recommendations are based on this premise. The article suggests that the contradiction between policy recommendations and research findings is due to the weight of economic theory in migration policy. Yet economics does not take into account the complex nature of social, political and cultural factors that also influence migrants' motivations and migration processes. Recent efforts to formulate multi‐disciplinary theories should, it is suggested, help devise more effective policies. Channels of communication will need to be improved between knowledge‐producers and policy‐makers. The article also recommends distinguishing between a conceptual and an instrumental use of knowledge.

This article offers an empirical study of contemporary public science and technology (S&T) policy research in mainland China by analyzing 1,410 articles published in four core academic journals during the three-year period from 2004 to 2006. Based on the data, we found that the main subjects of the research were the national innovation system, S&T policy tools, and S&T industrial policy, and that the predominant research method was qualitative. The S&T research received significant financial support. We also argue that there is an enduring group of scholars devoting themselves to S&T research and they attach much importance to literature review. Although there were various problems with the research, this is a transitional phenomenon which should improve in the future.