Suchergebnisse

Examines variations in media visibility of research findings of public policy think tanks, and ideological, financial, and other factors responsible; based on a sample of 51 think tanks in six national newspapers, 1991-98.

Policies usually have to be sustained for a substantial period of time to have their intended impact, but they may face a number of important political challenges after enactment that can result in their repeal or erosion. These challenges follow recurrent patterns and frequently can be predicted in advance, at least in their broad parameters. Policy analysts should, therefore, consider political sustainability as an important criterion in designing policies and evaluating policy alternatives. Drawing on research on the ways that policies create self‐reinforcing and self‐undermining feedbacks, this article provides a "checklist" of potential sources, risk factors, and warning signs for potential challenges to political sustainability. It also identifies and discusses a set of strategies that both program defenders and challengers can use to achieve their objectives. The article applies this analysis to the case of the Affordable Care Act.

Most studies of policy feedback have focused on processes of self‐reinforcement through which programs bolster their own bases of political support and endure or expand over time. This article develops a theoretical framework for identifying feedback mechanisms through which policies can becomeself‐underminingover time, increasing the likelihood of a major change in policy orientation. We conceptualize and illustrate three types of self‐undermining feedback mechanisms that we expect to operate in democratic politics: the emergence of unanticipated losses for mobilized social interests, interactions between strategic elites and loss‐averse voters, and expansions of the menu of policy alternatives. We also advance hypotheses about the conditions under which each mechanism is likeliest to unfold. In illuminating endogenous sources of policy change, the analysis builds on efforts by both historically oriented and rationalist scholars to understand how institutions change and seeks to expand political scientists' theoretical toolkit for explaining policy development over time.

Although the idea that existing policies can have major effects on politics and policy development is hardly new, the last three decades witnessed a major expansion of policy feedback scholarship, which focuses on the mechanisms through which existing policies shape politics and policy development. Starting with a discussion of the origins of the concept of policy feedback, this element explores early and more recent contributions of the policy feedback literature to clarify the meaning of this concept and its contribution to both political science and policy studies. After exploring the rapidly expanding scholarship on policy feedback and mass politics, this element also puts forward new research agendas that stress several ways forward, including the need to explain both institutional and policy continuity and change. Finally, the element discusses the practical implications of policy feedback research through a discussion of its potential impact on policy design. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

AbstractWhile much has been written about the politics of retrenchment, in a number of advanced industrial societies social policy expansion does occur today, which raises issues about how to study it in a post-retrenchment era. The present article explores the new politics of social policy expansion in Canada. Drawing on the work of Paul Pierson, we use an integrated framework that highlights the interaction of five factors: the availability of fiscal resources; the emergence of new social risks; the intensity and nature of partisan competition; the policy preferences of the main political parties; and the role of political institutions, especially federalism. Empirically, the article studies the politics of federal social policy expansion during the Harper (2006–2015) and Justin Trudeau (2015–) years, with a focus on three policy areas: child benefits (Universal Child Care Benefit and Canada Child Benefit), pensions (Old Age Security and Canada/Quebec Pension Plan) and Employment Insurance.

Nonfinancial defined contribution (NDC) schemes offer governments desirable properties in terms of efficiency, fairness, and financial sustainability and an opportunity to deflect the blame for pension cuts. Yet adoptions of NDC schemes largely ground to a halt and several countries retreated from NDC implementation after legislation. Lack of support from powerful international actors is partly to blame, as is the perceived rigidity of NDC in reducing room for policy maneuver. Correct implementation requires substantial administrative capacity. Less demanding automatic stabilizing mechanisms undercut the appeal of NDC in the European Union. Thus, while being an important option for policy makers and a benchmark against which to measure alternative reforms, NDC is unlikely to become the dominant pension design choice anytime soon.