Examines criticism of policy networks for failure to distinguish content driven (policy) activities from structure driven (polity) activities and the possible implications for boundary delineation of border-crossing networks; uses as example network analysis of the 18 ton limit for heavy goods vehicles in Swiss transport policy. Summaries in English and French.
Compares the results of coordination of spatial planning and transport policy in the urban areas of Basel, Berne, Geneva, and Lausanne, and seeks to determine the extent to which they were affected by political geography, political culture, and the institutional setting; Switzerland. Summaries in French and English.
AbstractCooperative forms of policy implementation bear the promise of being an answer to the policy delivery challenge resulting from policy growth, with the quality of network management often rated as a key success factor. The positive relationship between network management and performance in networks, however, is primarily supported by theoretical reasoning rather than empirical evidence. The present study empirically investigates this relationship in the context of rapid policy growth resulting from a change in the governance structure in the field of smoking prevention in Switzerland. The results of the analyzed 13 Swiss smoking prevention networks and the 187 associated projects show that network management improves the performance of new policy projects by facilitating access to implementing partners and target groups, but has no impact on output delivery in existing interventions. The study shows that networks, if actively managed, can be a means to ensure adequate enforcement in the context of increasing numbers of new policies.
AbstractThis article examines how street‐level organisations (SLO) respond to new legal framework conditions after regulatory reform. Organisational response to a changed legal framework is key to understand implementation resilience as established organisational practice may collide with new legal obligations. Our cases are four family support and child protection organisations in a Swiss canton facing new legislation. These SLO and their personnel are strongly committed to their clientele and thus cannot simply adapt to new legislation. The study shows how the organisations perceive their discretion in the implementation of the new policy framework, the accountabilities they are bound by, and the way they cope with divergent requirements and conflicting priorities given their dependence on the regulator as commissioner of their work. SLO differ in their strategies for dealing with the new legal framework depending on the economic context in which they operate, in particular if they act as mainly privately run organisations.Points for practitioners Members of street‐level organisations (SLO) are strongly committed to their clientele and thus cannot simply adapt to new legislation. Facing legal restrictions, SLO members aim to maintain their client‐oriented services and to exercise their discretion as far as possible. SLO that are administratively and financially dependent on the regulator and the service commissioners cannot ignore a new legal framework. SLO differ in their strategies for dealing with the new legal framework depending on the economic context in which they operate, in particular if they act as mainly privately run organisations.
AbstractThis article studies how the prolonged pandemic situation impacted crisis governance in the federalized governance system of Switzerland. It examines how in this acute crisis situation, the responsibility for decision‐making fluctuated among governance levels, placing subnational states in a situation of uncertainty that caused a fragmented crisis management, and therefore suboptimal policy learning processes. The study is based on the case of COVID‐19 governance in Switzerland, where, as in many other European countries, the management of the first pandemic wave was very centralized. However, the federal government avoided taking a strong lead during the subsequent waves. Consequently, pandemic management was marked by numerous fluctuations regarding who was in charge of the main COVID‐19 decisions between the federal and subnational governance levels. A media analysis (February 2020–March 2022) and an analysis of the gray literature show that crisis governance and policy learning processes were scattered across levels of governance, which impeded the accumulation of knowledge and know‐how. The article analyses how crises can give way to blame games between the levels of governance, thus hampering a coordinated crisis management and policy learning processes across the different stages of the pandemic.
How do politicians in advanced democracies get away with violating political norms? Although norm violators confront a powerful establishment that can penalize them, norm violations currently occur in many advanced democracies. This article analyzes the conflicts between norm-violating challengers and established politicians and parties as norm defenders in multiparty systems to contribute to the discipline's understanding of norm erosion processes. Based on diachronic and synchronic comparisons of conflicts over norm violations in Austria and Germany, the article reveals how political challengers can already damage democratic norms from a position of institutional weakness. Norm violators that make ambiguous provocations and can leverage their previously acquired democratic credentials, can more credibly dispel attempts to stigmatize them as undemocratic. In doing so, they turn the tables on the political establishment and portray its sanctions as a form of 'excessive retaliation' that constitutes a norm violation in itself. The article concludes with the unsettling finding that (verbal) norm protection can facilitate norm erosion.
AbstractHow do politicians in advanced democracies get away with violating political norms? Although norm violators confront a powerful establishment that can penalize them, norm violations currently occur in many advanced democracies. This article analyzes the conflicts between norm‐violating challengers and established politicians and parties as norm defenders in multiparty systems to contribute to the discipline's understanding of norm erosion processes. Based on diachronic and synchronic comparisons of conflicts over norm violations in Austria and Germany, the article reveals how political challengers can already damage democratic norms from a position of institutional weakness. Norm violators that make ambiguous provocations and can leverage their previously acquired democratic credentials, can more credibly dispel attempts to stigmatize them as undemocratic. In doing so, they turn the tables on the political establishment and portray its sanctions as a form of 'excessive retaliation' that constitutes a norm violation in itself. The article concludes with the unsettling finding that (verbal) norm protection can facilitate norm erosion.
AbstractThis article explores why the Swiss Federal Council and the Swiss Federal Parliament were reluctant to follow the majority views of the scientific epidemiological community at the beginning of the second wave of the Covid‐19 pandemic. We propose an institutionalist take on this question and argue that one major explanation could be the input overload that is characteristic of the Swiss federal political system. We define input overload as the simultaneous inputs of corporatist, pluralist, federalist and direct democratic subsystems. Adding another major input—this time from the scientific subsystem—may have threatened to further erode the government's and parliament's discretionary power to cope with the pandemic. We assume that the federal government reduced its input overload by fending off scientific advice.
AbstractThis article proposes rethinking democratic conflict management by acknowledging the increasingly important role policy plays in it. As the debate on the health of democracy intensifies, research on how democracies manage and absorb political and societal conflicts becomes broadly relevant. Existing theories and perspectives view conflict management through the lens of elections and other institutional mechanisms, or they examine the social and economic preconditions for successful conflict management while inadequately understanding how policies contribute to conflict management. The article develops a theoretical framework that allows for the analysis of how policies' material and interpretive effects influence societal conflicts and thereby strengthen (or weaken) democracy. While the article focuses on hypothesis-generation rather than hypothesis-testing, it draws on a large variety of policy and case examples to corroborate and illustrate the theoretical expectations embodied in the framework. Insights into policy's role in democratic conflict management expand our understanding of the challenges to democracy in the twenty-first century and create new possibilities for comparative, policy-focused research into what makes democracy work.
AbstractPolicy implementation is a formative stage of the policy process. It determines policy's form and effect while also lying at the intersection of politics, policy, and the public. Policy implementation takes place within a given institutional setting and requires specific structure and organization to conduct it both of which allocate decision power and mint specific roles in the implementation process. Nevertheless, current implementation literature tends to overlook implementation arrangements as structures influencing, and influenced by, power. This special issue draws on various aspects of implementation arrangements to demonstrate the significant, yet underexplored, polity of implementation. To do so, this introduction begins by reviewing the conceptual frameworks available in the current implementation scholarship. This is followed by a discussion of the special issue's seven contributions. Finally, the conclusion proposes recommendations for conducting future research on the polity of implementation.
Policy implementation is a formative stage of the policy process. It determines policy's form and effect while also lying at the intersection of politics, policy, and the public. Policy implementation takes place within a given institutional setting and requires specific structure and organization to conduct it both of which allocate decision power and mint specific roles in the implementation process. Nevertheless, current implementation literature tends to overlook implementation arrangements as structures influencing, and influenced by, power. This special issue draws on various aspects of implementation arrangements to demonstrate the significant, yet underexplored, polity of implementation. To do so, this introduction begins by reviewing the conceptual frameworks available in the current implementation scholarship. This is followed by a discussion of the special issue's seven contributions. Finally, the conclusion proposes recommendations for conducting future research on the polity of implementation.
