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AbstractPolicy feedback scholars argue that experiences with government shape political participation. Administrative burden scholars posit that burdensome bureaucratic encounters deter political participation. Related quantitative studies take a top‐down, deductive approach and test effects of single policies, yet people engage multiple programs, and all policies may not be equally salient in how they view the state. Using qualitative interviews, our inductive, "bottom‐up" approach examines the most prominent policy domains in views of government shared across mothers with low incomes in the United States (n = 80). Mothers experienced a wide range of policies, and they detailed related administrative burdens, but this was not the focus in most of their views of the government. Many raised issue areas that hit close to home, such as affordable child care or children's recreation programs. They often drew on a sense of collective motherhood in their view of government, including how it could facilitate efforts to raise children.

Although co-design is acknowledged as an emerging tool in public administration for use in program or service system design, it has not been widely applied to complex policy spheres, such as law and regulation. In the context of policy development for the field of social enterprise, we explored the use of co-design as a facilitation method to elicit end-users' experience of regulation and to generate options for reform. Specifically, this involved the use of LEGO® Serious Play® to understand end-user views on legal structures following a push by policy advocates in Australia for a structure to serve the needs of social enterprise, similar to that available in the United Kingdom. The article makes two contributions to research on co-design in public policy. The first contribution is methodological. We offer insights into the application of co-design to a new area, law and regulation, finding that co-design is useful for generating bottom-up insights into the regulatory preferences of end-users but has certain limitations as a tool for research and policy development, notably in relation to the feasibility of the insights it may provide. The second contribution is uncovering empirical insights into end-user preferences regarding how regulatory reform might improve the policy environment for social enterprise development in Australia and beyond.

This study, conducted in Zimbabwe, sought to better understand the relationship between a microfinance program, Zambuko Trust, and how microentrepreneurs' households cope with the impact of HIV/AIDS. The study examined how HIV/AIDS is affecting Zambuko's operations and what microfinance institutions (MFIs) can do to lessen the impact of HIV/AIDS on their clients and operations. The findings indicate several small yet important ways that MFI programs help microentrepreneurs and their families respond to these impacts through access to credit and business management training. Participation in a microfinance program led to income smoothing and better financial management, which can help households mitigate the economic shock caused by HIV/AIDS. A number of recommendations emerged from the study that have policy, program, and research implications for MFIs, AIDS service organizations, donors, and governments.