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The politics of public policy is a vibrant research area increasingly at the forefront of intellectual innovations in the discipline. We argue that political scientists are best positioned to undertake research on the politics of public policy when they possess expertise in particular policy areas. Policy expertise positions scholars to conduct theoretically innovative work and to ensure that empirical research reflects the reality they aim to analyze. It also confers important practical advantages, such as access to a significant number of academic positions and major sources of research funding not otherwise available to political scientists. Perhaps most importantly, scholars with policy expertise are equipped to defend the value of political science degrees and research in the public sphere.

ABSTRACTThe politics of public policy is a vibrant research area increasingly at the forefront of intellectual innovations in the discipline. We argue that political scientists are best positioned to undertake research on the politics of public policy when they possess expertise in particular policy areas. Policy expertise positions scholars to conduct theoretically innovative work and to ensure that empirical research reflects the reality they aim to analyze. It also confers important practical advantages, such as access to a significant number of academic positions and major sources of research funding not otherwise available to political scientists. Perhaps most importantly, scholars with policy expertise are equipped to defend the value of political science degrees and research in the public sphere.

Public participation is ubiquitous in many contemporary democratic societies – used for many purposes, and in many contexts, with particular and growing relevance for policy-making on science and technology issues. However, there is a dearth of evidence as to its qualities and benefits. We contend that the implementation and interpretation of participation faces a number of dilemmas that – together –undermine its successful adoption. In this paper, we identify and discuss six specific dilemmas that – together – may militate against the practice and development of good quality participation in science and technology policy, notably dilemmas of Timing; of Relevance; of Representation; of Evaluation; of Criticism; and of Impact. We theoretically account for these dilemmas and discuss their likely impacts. Finally, we provide some suggestions as to how the participation community might attempt to pre-empt difficulties due to these dilemmas and demonstrate participation effectiveness.

There is a vast literature on the causes and consequences of corruption. A common theme is the belief that countries which exhibit a low level of political competition are more likely to have higher levels of corruption. The model presented here examines the effect of corruption on environmental policy under varying degrees of political competition. An important feature of this model, which has received far less attention in the literature, is that corruption may occur at different levels. A polluting firm attempts to reduce the amount of an environmental tax it pays by bribing a low level bureaucrat to make no reports regarding emission levels. In addition, it also makes contributions to the incumbent and rival parties of government in order to influence key policy parameters. The model thus provides a picture of the relationship between political competition, environmental outcomes and the type of corruption which may be observed. It is shown that higher levels of political competition result in more stringent regulations and better environmental outcomes. Political competition also has the capacity to reduce both grand and petty corruption, however, this is not assured. The model also suggests that polluting interests may have an incentive to corrupt opposition parties in order to weaken their political position. This may lead to policy convergence even when political competition is strong. Political competition is indicated as a necessary but not sufficient means by which to combat corruption.

Javne su politike, kao višedimenzionalan i izrazito kompleksan fenomen, nužno multidisciplinaran predmet istraživanja. Cilj je rada istražiti što je specifično politološko znanje o javnim politikama, odnosno koji je jedinstveni doprinos politologa izučavanju i upravljanju javnim politikama u svrhe profiliranja te mlade politološke discipline u Jugoistočnoj Europi. Rad je nastao kao rezultat pregleda temeljnih udžbenika javnih politika u svijetu i regiji, te literature o metodologiji i pristupima istraživanju u društvenim znanostima i politologiji. Kreće se od određivanja što su javne politike i što je politički aspekt javnih politika. Propituju se pristupi istraživanju javnih politika (policy studije). Zatim se identificiraju vrste profesionalne uporabe tih istraživanja (policy analize). Ključna je pretpostavka kako je politologija prvenstveno kompetentna za analizu aktera stvaranja politika. Osnovni je nalaz da temelj profesionalnog profiliranja politologa u javnim politikama, s obzirom da jedini rabe istraživačku perspektivu usmjerenu na aktere, reprezentativnost i legitimnost stvaranja politika, može biti jedan oblik participatorne policy analize. ; Public policies, as a multi-dimensional and highly complex phenomenon, necessarily make a multidisciplinary research subject. The aim of this paper is to examine what is specific political science knowledge about public policy, and what is the unique contribution of political scientists to policy research and governance to enhance consolidating this young discipline in Southeastern Europe. This paper is a result of a review of policy textbooks in Southeastern Europe and worldwide, and literature on approaches and methodologies in social sciences and political science. It starts with determining public polices and their political aspect. Then it explores approaches of policy studies. Finally, it identifies types of professional policy research or policy analysis. The key assumption is that political science is primarily competent to analyze policy actors. The main finding of the paper is that the basis of political scientist professionalization in policy research, given that they are best in actor-centered research, and issues of representativeness and legitimacy of policy-making, can be a form of participatory policy analysis.

Antarctic terrestrial and marine environments are under increasing pressure from national operator activities, tourism and climate change. The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty provides overarching legislation concerning the environmental management of the Treaty area, with 2016 marking the Protocol's 25th anniversary. The Protocol also established the Committee for Environmental Protection (CEP) to provide advice to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) on environmental matters. Today, the CEP's Five-Year Work Plan and Climate Change Response Work Programme lists and prioritises issues that need to be addressed to ensure impacts in Antarctica by human activities are both recognized andminimised.Despite all of this, recent evaluations have suggested that a slow pace of environmental policy development presents a significant threat to effective Antarctic conservation. Progress on many environmental issues, including wildlife disturbance, the conservation status of Antarctic species, area protection and pollution management, is glacial or has stalled completely. Whilst in some cases capacity issues concerning those responsible for Antarctic environmental policy work may be a contributing factor, the level of interaction between researchers and those responsible for environmental management and decision-making is also of importance. Without quality science - and effective interpretation of research results - policymakers have little evidence on which to base their decisions. But researchers need to know policymakers' needs. Two-way communication is essential: policymakers could ask the research community to answer specific environmental questions, and, in turn, researchers could present evidence-based recommendations and highlight emerging threats. But how is this to be funded? Ultimately, effective communication is needed between national government departments responsible for funding Antarctic research and those dealing with Antarctic environmental protection. Hopefully, this will ensure essential research informing environmental policy decisions is adequately resourced. In reality, the cost is likely to be trivial compared with the resources spent by Parties on Antarctic logistics.

Under the Chinese strategy of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", Enterprises' Environmental Information Disclosure (EEID), as one of the important ways for enterprises to achieve low-carbon development, has gained increased attention from the government, media, investors, and other stakeholders. the EEID is not only an important tool for companies to communicate environmental performance to the outside world, but also an effective way for the government to monitor corporate pollution behavior. Its importance is self-evident. However, relevant research shows that 70% of Chinese listed companies had not implemented the EEID in 2020. Also, there are common problems in the disclosure content and the polarization of the disclosure level among the companies that do disclose. These problems weaken the objectivity and practicability of the EEID and have a negative impact on the government's environmental supervision, the environmental protection demands of the public, and investors' decision making. This paper takes listed companies in China's A-share heavily polluting industries as the research sample to solve the optimization problem of the EEID. By adopting a fixed effects model (FEM), this paper empirically studies the impact of three public pressures on the EEID: government environmental regulation, media attention, and institutional investment preference. Based on China's unique socialist market economic system, this paper innovatively uses environmental policy uncertainty as a moderator variable. This paper examines the limitations of theoretical research on public pressure and environmental information disclosure by studying the impact of local environmental leadership change on the relationship between public pressure and the EEID. The conclusions of this paper reveal the driving mechanism of how stakeholders such as government, media, and institutional investors influence the EEID. At the same time, it expands the application of public pressure theory in environmental information disclosure research by ...

In the past there was hardly any use of economic instruments in environmental policy, mainly command and control measures were used. More recently, ecological taxes as well as tradable permits became more popular and voluntary agreements have been implemented. Using the Public Choice approach we ask for the reasons of this wider acceptance of economic instruments. We conclude that the use of market based instruments in environmental policy has not increased very much and their impact on the actual situation is still rather low, but there is hope of at least some increase in the future.

Does globalization lead to environmental degradation? What is the role of democracy for environmental performance and do left-wing governments really care more about the environment? Using a comprehensive measure of environmental performance, we test these three hypotheses for a panel of 134 countries for the period 2007-2016. Our findings show that globalization leads to better environmental performances. Interestingly, this result is predominantly driven by social, not by economic or political globalization. Although we find evidence that left-wing governments perform better than right-wing governments, it is centrist governments that have the highest environmental performance. The political system, i.e. democracy, turns out insignificant in all specifications.

What are the correlates of environmental performance? In particular, does globalization lead to environmental degradation? What is the role of democracy for environmental performance and do left-wing governments really care more about the environment? Using a novel and comprehensive measure of environmental performance, we test these three hypotheses for a panel of 134 countries for the period 2007–2016. Our results are surprising—we find no evidence that democracies are cleaner, left-wing governments perform better than right-wing governments, but centrist governments clearly have the highest environmental performance, and globalization is good for the environment. The positive impact of globalization, however, is driven by social globalization—economic and political globalization do not play a role.

The idea of integration in research has risen rapidly in both environmental science and public environmental policy since the mid-1990s, and has encouraged innovative relationships between scientists and practitioners in a range of contexts. Yet the concept of integration is broad and ambiguous, which inhibits efforts to learn from these innovations. In this paper, I review the different concepts of integration that currently exist in international and Australian science and environmental policy contexts. Drawing on comprehensive examples, I identify 12 thematic categories of integration. The themes encompass integration within science, as well as integration between scientific and non-scientific partners. They also include integration focused on activities, and on the organisational or institutional structures that govern research activity. These groupings reflect significant differences in the ways science-policy relationships are understood, and the main problems integration is intended to overcome. They serve as a foundation for a framework that researchers, policy-makers and other partners can use to compare and learn from different integrative research approaches. This is a first step towards building a comprehensive understanding of how integration can contribute to better environmental outcomes.

The idea of integration in research has risen rapidly in both environmental science and public environmental policy since the mid-1990s, and has encouraged innovative relationships between scientists and practitioners in a range of contexts. Yet the concept of integration is broad and ambiguous, which inhibits efforts to learn from these innovations. In this paper, I review the different concepts of integration that currently exist in international and Australian science and environmental policy contexts. Drawing on comprehensive examples, I identify 12 thematic categories of integration. The themes encompass integration within science, as well as integration between scientific and non-scientific partners. They also include integration focused on activities, and on the organisational or institutional structures that govern research activity. These groupings reflect significant differences in the ways science-policy relationships are understood, and the main problems integration is intended to overcome. They serve as a foundation for a framework that researchers, policy-makers and other partners can use to compare and learn from different integrative research approaches. This is a first step towards building a comprehensive understanding of how integration can contribute to better environmental outcomes.

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.

We study the role of political frictions in public policy outcomes. We propose a simple model of fiscal policy that combines a lack of commitment by the government, political turnover, and another political friction that can be interpreted either as political polarization or as public rent-seeking. We show that political turnover increases public debt levels, while political polarization or public rent-seeking leads to higher public spending. We evaluate the importance of different political frictions for fiscal policy outcomes using a sample of twenty developed countries. We find that the data on political instability combined with the data on public rent-seeking explain 25% of the variation in public debt levels.

There is increasing debate about the role that public policy research can play in identifying solutions to complex policy challenges. Most studies focus on describing and explaining how governance systems operate. However, some scholars argue that because current institutions are often not up to the task, researchers need to rethink this 'bystander' approach and engage in experimentation and interventions that can help to change and improve governance systems. This paper contributes to this discourse by developing a design science framework that integrates retrospective research (scientific validation) and prospective research (creative design). It illustrates the merits and challenges of doing this through two case studies in the Netherlands and concludes that a design science framework provides a way of integrating traditional validation-oriented research with intervention-oriented design approaches. We argue that working at the interface between them will create new opportunities for these complementary modes of public policy research to achieve impact.