Narrative disenchantment
In: Critical policy studies, Band 9, Heft 3, S. 368-371
ISSN: 1946-018X
In: Critical policy studies, Band 9, Heft 3, S. 368-371
ISSN: 1946-018X
In: World development: the multi-disciplinary international journal devoted to the study and promotion of world development, Band 61, S. 1-10
In: Environmental science & policy, Band 36, S. 1-7
ISSN: 1462-9011
In: Environmental science & policy, Band 36, S. 73-85
ISSN: 1462-9011
In: Administration & society, Band 45, Heft 3, S. 357-381
ISSN: 1552-3039
In: Policy sciences: integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity ; the journal of the Society of Policy Scientists, Band 46, Heft 1, S. 83-102
ISSN: 0032-2687
In: Policy sciences: integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity, Band 46, Heft 1
ISSN: 1573-0891
The policy literature has long recognized the inherent need for a program to fit the unique conditions found in a certain context. We present a theory of institutional contextualism that focuses on the mechanisms by which actors adapt a policy design to fit a situation. We conceptualize institutions as phenomena that are constituted by a constant dialectic between text (the general blueprint) and context (the particular setting). The first half of this dialectic, which is the diffusion of the constitutive text or norm onto the institutional setting, has been discussed in the literature. Our research focuses on the second half, and we delineate, in concept, mechanisms for fitting the program to the local context. We then use a case study of improvised microfinance programs in Tamil Nadu, India, to illustrate how this occurs in reality. The research underscores the unexamined link between effective governance and contextual fit and offers a typology of mechanisms for fit that should inform future research. Adapted from the source document.
In: Administration & society, Band 45, Heft 3, S. 357-381
ISSN: 0095-3997
In: Regulation & governance, Band 7, Heft 3, S. 387-405
ISSN: 1748-5991
AbstractThis research examines conditions under which environmental regulatory disclosure is more versus less likely to work, with focus on the case of the Philippines. Two major findings arise out of a case study. First, we observe a mismatch between the nature of information and the main addressees of the disclosed information, which led the operation of the subject disclosure program to deviate from its targets. Second, this institutional deficiency has to do with the organizational culture and routine practice of the implementing agency. The second finding challenges a major justification of information‐based environmental regulation (IBER) administered in weak states and underscores the role that administrative capacity plays in making novel regulations come into effect. Contrary to the popular belief that IBER creates non‐governmental forces that offset a limited statehood, it may be less likely to work where state administrative capacity is weak.
In: Environmental science & policy, Band 31, S. 61-70
ISSN: 1462-9011
In: Journal of public administration research and theory, Band 22, Heft 4, S. 793-814
ISSN: 1477-9803
In: Journal of theoretical politics, Band 24, Heft 1, S. 66-90
ISSN: 0951-6298
In: Journal of public administration research and theory, Band 22, Heft 4, S. 793-793
ISSN: 1053-1858
In: Journal of Theoretical Politics, Band 24, Heft 1, S. 66-89
Since Hardin first formulated the tragedy of the commons, researchers have described various ways that commons problems are solved, all based on the model of individual rationality. Invariably, these institutional solutions involve creating some system of property rights. We formulate an alternative model, one not founded on property rights but on decision-making around so-called vector payoffs. The model is formalized and an existence proof provided. The new model is shown to be effective in explaining some anomalous results (e.g., unanticipated cooperation) in the experimental games literature that run counter to the rational model. We then use the case of the buffalo commons to illustrate how the new model affords alternative explanations for examples like the rise and fall of the buffalo herds in the Great Plains. We find the vector payoff model to complement, though not displace, that of individual rationality. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]
In: Administration & society, Band 45, Heft 3, S. 357-381
ISSN: 1552-3039
Policy design is an area of study in the field of public policy with a curious intellectual history. It engendered a large literature in the 1980s and 1990s oriented to understanding design as both a process and an outcome with prominent figures in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia such as Lester Salamon, Patricia Ingraham, Malcolm Goggin, John Dryzek, Hans Bressers, Helen Ingram and Anne Schneider, G. B. Doern, Stephen Linder and B. Guy Peters, Renate Mayntz, Christopher Hood, Eugene Bardach, Evert Vedung, Peter May, Frans van Nispen, and Michael Trebilock writing extensively on policy formulation, policy instrument choice, and the idea of designing policy outcomes. After the early 1990s, however, this literature tailed off, and although some writings on policy design have continued to flourish in specific fields such as economics and environmental studies, in the fields of public administration and public policy, the idea of "design" was largely replaced by the study of institutional forms and decentralized governance arrangements. This article traces this decline to two related hypotheses about the changing nature of society and policy responses—the "government to governance" and "globalization" narratives—which it is argued crowded out more nuanced analyses of state options in the policy-making process in favor of decentralized market and "third" or "fourth" sector collaborative network mechanisms. Importantly, these latter designs are often seen as inevitable and "natural," obviating the need for reflective studies of design and metadesign processes and outcomes. We argue that the denouement of design research has, in fact, hurt the scholarship on governance and institutions and call for a renewal of the notion of policy design.