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Linking absorptive capacity and project performance in environmental uncertainty: A perspective on implementation arrangements Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Jahanzeb Waheed
This study utilizes the concept of absorptive capacity as a unique way to view implementations arrangements in resource‐scarce public sector organizations. It introduces absorptive capacity as a policy implementation capacity and explains the relationship between potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity and project performance, primarily, in the higher education, primary and secondary health and
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What shapes the formation of interstate benchmarking networks? Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-24 Shuai Cao, Hongtao Yi
Most studies on public sector benchmarking focus on performance indicators, processes, and outcomes of managed benchmarking. This article, instead, explores the formation of spontaneous interstate benchmarking networks among U.S. state agency leaders. Informed by social comparison theory, we first recategorize benchmarking into best practice benchmarking and competitive benchmarking. Then, we quantify
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Policy convergence in authoritarian regimes: A comparative analysis of welfare state trajectories in post-Soviet countries Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-12 Angelo Vito Panaro
Do authoritarian regimes adopt similar or equal policies? Despite the large literature on policy convergence in democracies, we know little about whether and to what extent authoritarian regimes follow analogous paths. This article argues that similar policy legacy, political and institutional context, and international influences lead to policy convergence among nondemocratic regimes. Analyzing welfare
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Alternative policy narratives of the future of climate change: Analyzing Finland's energy and climate strategy and news reports Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-09 Marjukka Parkkinen, Suvi Vikström
In this article, we examine the ways in which the futures of climate change and the climate change policy process are constructed as narratives—both explicitly and implicitly—in two different yet interconnected contexts that shape public climate discourse and debate: foresight-based political decision-making and journalism. The featured case is the National Energy and Climate Strategy of Finland for
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Responding to crises in authoritarian environments: Russian think tanks between policy evaluation and state endorsement Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 Vera Axyonova
In the literature on policy advice and analytical communities in democratic settings, think tanks are often assumed to be carriers of new ideas that serve as an informed and independent voice in policy debates. However, how much intellectual independence do think tanks have in authoritarian environments? This article tackles this question in a case study of Russian think tanks' discursive responses
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Avoiding the blame game: NGOs and government narrative strategies in landscape fire policy debates in Russia Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-02-02 Tatiana Chalaya, Artem Uldanov
To what extent can nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) communicate policy problems in an authoritarian country, and how limited are they in narrating policy alternatives? This article seeks to develop studies on the application of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) in Russia, extend our knowledge about the use of narrative strategies in centralized and authoritarian policy processes, highlight certain
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Policy process theories in autocracies: Key observations, explanatory power, and research priorities Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Annemieke van den Dool, Caroline Schlaufer
The policy process frameworks and theories that are currently considered mainstream were originally developed in the United States, before traveling to other countries. Despite their roots in democratic values, these frameworks and theories are increasingly applied to autocracies. Given important differences between democracies and autocracies, this raises questions about the desirability, limitations
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The EU's carbon border adjustment mechanism: Shaped and saved by shifting multi-level reinforcement? Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-16 Jørgen Wettestad
In April 2023, the EU institutions finally adopted an innovative international climate policy instrument: the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). As the long and winding road to a CBAM has included significant EU-internal and EU-external opposition, a “shifting Multi-Level Reinforcement” (MLR) perspective is helpful for understanding this development. When France assumed initial leadership from
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How does the use of evidence in policy narratives change during crises? A comparative study of New York City's pandemic school shutdowns Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-15 Nikolina Klatt, Sonja Blum
Narratives play an essential role in fast-paced policy making that occurs during crises. The COVID-19 pandemic brought numerous disruptions of normality, including school closures, which were intensely debated in narratives by many policy actors. Two shutdowns of New York City's public school system affected over 1.1 million students. This article investigates how scientific evidence was used in the
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Climate integration into sectoral policies: The case of the Brazilian biofuel policy RenovaBio Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Gustavo Velloso Breviglieri, Camila Yamahaki
Seeking to derive lessons for future policy processes on how climate change concerns can be integrated into sectoral policies to expedite policy approval, we applied the Multiple Streams Framework to analyze the forces and dynamics at work in the policy process of Brazil's National Biofuel Policy (known as RenovaBio). Based on an analysis of 123 newspaper articles citing “RenovaBio” and eleven semistructured
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Impact of public information campaign on citizen behaviors: Vignette experimental study on recycling program in South Korea Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-05 Eunyi Kim, M. Jae Moon, Sun-Young Park
This study uses a vignette-based survey experiment for recycling programs in Korea to examine how different messages of a public information campaign as a policy instrument affect the attitudes and behaviors of citizens. It tests hypotheses based on construal-level theory, which suggests that people tend to be more affected by abstract messages under distant psychological conditions and by concrete
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Assessing participatory process-system linkages in polycentric water governance: Insights from WFD implementation in Germany Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Nadine Jenny Shirin Schröder, Nigel Watson
An important, although insufficiently answered, environmental governance research question concerns how exactly participation improves policy implementation at different scales. Numerous studies have highlighted important variables influencing the effectiveness of participatory processes. However, studies of participation tend to be strongly process-oriented rather than system-oriented and often overlook
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Upstream and downstream implementation arrangements in two-level games. A focus on administrative simplification in the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2024-01-02 Fabrizio Di Mascio, Alessandro Natalini, Stefania Profeti
The onset of the European NGEU program represented for European member states a formidable opportunity for post-pandemic recovery and yet a significant challenge at the same time: to receive and retain EU funds, each state had to promptly draw up a National Recovery and Resilience Plan—NRRP) and commit to a pressing timetable for its implementation. Regarding this challenge, the Italian government's
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Implementation arrangements for research and innovation policies in the Italian, Spanish, French, and German national recovery plan: A comparative analysis of emerging challenges for multi-level governance Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Valentina Ottone, Michele Barbieri
The crisis triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic has challenged the socioeconomic systems of all European member states. To reduce the severe impact of the pandemic, the European Union has established a common fund for European states, launching therefore a social-economic recovery process. This fund was granted upon the submission of a programmatic plan of targets to be pursued within certain deadlines
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Blockchain and digital governance: Decentralization of decision making policy Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-11-27 Maxat Kassen
Blockchain is gaining popularity as a potential solution for the decentralized management of public information. A number of interesting solutions have been proposed by independent developers around the world to promote blockchain as a promising platform to potentially accelerate democratic processes and achieve certain public values in reforming digital governance. This could be reflected in facilitating
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Expertise for emerging technology: Information, prestige, and the Office of Technology Assessment Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-11-22 Jonathan Lewallen
Policy makers often struggle to adapt and respond to the uncertainties and ambiguities associated with new and emerging technologies. In such situations decision makers often widen their search for information and acquire more expertise in order to better define complex problems and to understand the potential consequences of proposed alternatives. I argue that acquiring information also carries social
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The role of policy learning in explaining COVID-19 policy changes Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Chan Wang
The ongoing fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of adaptive policy change and the critical role of policy learning in responding to public health crises. This study utilizes policy change and policy learning theories to investigate how instrumental and political learning intertwined to explain the policy change decisions made by six U.S. states from May to December 2020
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Political regime, institutional capacity, and inefficient policy: Evidence from gasoline subsidies Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Richard J. McAlexander, Joonseok Yang, Johannes Urpelainen
Why do some governments subsidize gasoline consumption, despite its very high economic and environmental costs? We answer this question by examining how a state's political regime and level of institutional capacity jointly determine its level of fossil fuel price distortion. We find that, without sufficient institutional capacity, democratic regimes do not necessarily provide less fuel subsidies,
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Judicial reasoning, individual cultural types, and support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Christopher Brough, Li-Yin Liu, Yao-Yuan Yeh
With heated political and public debate over government vaccine mandates, COVID-19 offers an opportunity to better understand the role of policy justifications on people's perceptions towards a policy. Through this study, we aim to move beyond the partisan and ideological arguments for and against vaccine mandates to illustrate how individuals' worldviews, based on Cultural Theory, can better explain
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Policy instruments attitudes and support for government responses against Covid-19 Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Arnošt Veselý, Ivan Petrúšek, Petr Soukup
An individual's political attitudes have been documented as the most important predictor of acceptance of government measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. Their effect, however, is somewhat unclear and cannot be reduced to one dimension. In this article, we test whether general attitudes toward policy instruments might, together with left–right orientation, authoritarianism, social liberalism, and
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Tackling climate change on the local level: A growing research agenda Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Melanie Nagel, Marlene Kammerer
Climate change, as one of the most pressing problems of our time, affects different levels of governance. At the international level, countries negotiate to find common ground on various topics related to climate change, but most importantly on how to share the burden of mitigating global warming and its effects on humankind. At the national level, national governments formulate greenhouse gas reduction
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Politics and policy of Artificial Intelligence Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Inga Ulnicane, Tero Erkkilä
While recent discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI) as one of the most powerful technologies of our times tend to portray it as a predominantly technical issue, it also has major social, political and cultural implications. So far these have been mostly studied from ethical, legal and economic perspectives, while politics and policy have received less attention. To address this gap, this special
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Evaluating diffusion in policy designs: A study of net metering policies in the United States Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Myriam Gregoire-Zawilski, Saba Siddiki
In the United States, some of the most important environmental policy innovations of the past decades have occurred at the state level. Net metering policy is one kind of policy that states have widely adopted in support of decarbonization goals. The widespread adoption of net metering policies varying in policy design, defined here as policy content, offers an opportunity to investigate to what extent
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Abandoned mine land program: Examining public participation in decision-making Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-08-10 Karsyn Kendrick, Younsung Kim
For centuries, coal extraction and production provided low-cost energy that powered the American economy. Currently, an estimated 5.5 million people in the Appalachian region live within one mile of an Abandoned Mine Land (AML) site. The site remediation has been funded and promoted by the AML program under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) of 1977, and public engagement has been
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Environmental racism and air pollution: Pre and post the COVID-19 economic shutdown Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-08-02 Heather E. Campbell, Sekwen Kim, Shawnika Johnson, Claudia Cáceres
Decades of research demonstrates that minoritized groups are disproportionately affected by swathes of harmful pollutants, including air pollution, even controlling for low income. Would significantly reducing individual car traffic help reduce the EJ gap? The systemic shock of the COVID-19 economic shutdown, with accompanied reduction in car use, can be exploited to analyze this question. Kerr and
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A new typology for comparing scientific advisory committees. Evidence from the Italian response to the COVID-19 pandemic Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-07-18 Giliberto Capano, Mattia Casula, Anna Malandrino, Andrea Terlizzi, Federico Toth
The study of scientific advisory committees (SACs) is a recurrent topic of research in public policy and public administration. Scholars are increasingly interested in analyzing the scientization of policy advice as well as the role played by knowledge-based policymaking processes. Despite recent developments in the field, SACs studies continue to face an analytical and empirical gap due to the lack
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The effect of policy narratives on policy elite versus public preferences for hydraulic fracturing regulation Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Ben Galloway, Chad Zanocco, Geoboo Song, Michael Jones
Central to the growing policy debate surrounding climate change is the role of fossil fuels in the energy sector. Chief among these issues is the role of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has drawn controversy for its negative externalities while also allowing the extraction of a new range of oil and gas reserves. This research applies the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), combined with grid-group
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Power and politics in framing bias in Artificial Intelligence policy Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-28 Inga Ulnicane, Aini Aden
Bias is a key issue in expert and public discussions about Artificial Intelligence (AI). While some hope that AI will help to eliminate human bias, others are concerned that AI will exacerbate it. To highlight political and power aspects of bias in AI, this contribution examines so far largely overlooked topic of framing of bias in AI policy. Among diverse approaches of diagnosing problems and suggesting
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Policy advisory systems and public policy making: Bibliometric analysis, knowledge mapping, operationalization, and future research agenda Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-27 Fiaz Hussain, Denise Tsang, Zain Rafique
This study offers a comprehensive overview of the literature on policy advisory systems (PAS), motivated by its significance, growing interest in the field among policy scholars, and the substantial body of recent research published recently. The study conducted a quantitative bibliometric analysis of 62 articles on PAS published between 1993 and 2022, using data extracted from the Web of Science and
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How are emotions and beliefs expressed in legislative testimonies? An advocacy coalition approach Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-20 Kayla M. Gabehart, Allegra H. Fullerton, Anna M. Crawford, Christopher M. Weible
While emotions are an inherent component of the human experience that influence behavior, values, and beliefs, they have largely been left out of policy process studies theoretically and methodologically. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), with its focus on how individuals coalesce into coalitions around a set of common beliefs, we begin to situate emotions as a critical component of belief
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Stakeholder theory in the public sector domain: A bibliometric analysis and future research agenda Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Greici Sarturi, Simone R. Barakat, Ricardo Corrêa Gomes
Stakeholder theory has been widely studied and used in private companies because of its potential to achieve satisfactory organizational outcomes and create sustainable value among different stakeholder groups. However, the stakeholder theory principles still need to be consolidated in the public administration field. To advance this discussion, this study undertook a bibliometric analysis to collect
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Electric regionalism: Path dependence, development, and the African power pools Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-07 Kathleen J. Hancock
Low access, unreliable supply, and high-cost electricity have hampered many African states' ability to grow their economies. Even high-income states, like South Africa, are increasingly challenged to provide reliable electricity. To help address this shortfall, African states belong to five regional power pools: organizations that link together electricity grids of member states and create markets
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Presidential stories of fear: Focusing congressional climate change mitigation attention in the United States Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-06 Holly L. Peterson, Chad Zanocco
Do presidential climate change narratives increase related congressional attention in the United States? Narrative theory says since narratives leverage cognitive heuristics, they should focus policy-making attention in institutions more efficiently than non-narrative statements. This study identifies and tests climate change statements and narratives, including those focused on solutions, or “stories
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Punctuating “Happiness”: Punctuated equilibrium theory and the agenda-setting of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) policy in Bhutan Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-05 Lhawang Ugyel, Michael Givel, Dendup Chophel
Gross National Happiness (GNH), a concept first introduced by Bhutan, has gained immense traction as an alternate development paradigm to GDP toward achieving wholesome global progress. In this paper, we investigate the origins of the policy of GNH, through the theoretical lens of the punctuated equilibrium theory (PET), and when and how GNH came to the national agenda. By focusing on the year 2008
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Global indicators and AI policy: Metrics, policy scripts, and narratives Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-06-06 Tero Erkkilä
Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a global policy issue that is actively governed by international actors producing governance indicators. This article argues that despite the arguments about disruptions to governance and policy due to AI, the global rankings increasingly constitute a strong path dependence on AI policy, leading to conformity with existing policies and institutional practices
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Artificial intelligence technology, public trust, and effective governance Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-05-31 Pedro Robles, Daniel J. Mallinson
Advancement in information technology continues to evolve especially in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). Research studies have been conducted to evaluate the perceptions of Americans on the development and utilization of AI technology and if it is appropriate to use AI in public administrative duties. The research revealed that society is fragmented regarding the acceptance of AI, and whether
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Measuring climate change adaptation policy output: Toward a two-dimensional approach Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Kai Schulze, Jonas J. Schoenefeld
As jurisdictions across the globe step up their efforts to adapt to climate change, it is important to assess progress by taking stock of and comparing adaptation policy. However, scholars and practitioners are struggling to conceptualize and measure adaptation policy. In this article, we propose a new two-dimensional framework to measure public adaptation policy output, namely, the Climate Adaptation
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The politics of animal welfare: A scoping review of farm animal welfare governance Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Renate Marie Butli Hårstad
The lack of research in farm animal welfare governance is noticeable given how political science traditionally describes the agricultural field as politicized, i.e., subject to private and public regulations and governance. This paper shows how this issue is making its way into social and political science by using a scoping review methodology to map and analyze what exists in the research literature
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Achieving cross-sectoral policy integration in multilevel structures—Loosely coupled coordination of “energy transition” in the German “Bundesrat” Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-04-24 Nathalie Behnke, Yvonne Hegele
The big policy challenges of our times are complex problems cutting across policy sectors and levels of government. To answer the question how cross-sectoral policy coordination in multilevel structures can be achieved, we argue in line with policy integration and multilevel governance scholarship that “loosely coupled” institutions create the interdependency necessary to secure complex coordination
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Traveling AI-essentialism and national AI strategies: A comparison between South Korea and France Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-04-13 Jongheon Kim
In this paper, I investigate what common discourses National AI Strategies (NAISs) share and how they have unfolded differently in diverging national contexts. For this purpose, I compare the South Korean and French cases by relying on the notions of sociotechnical imaginary and future essentialism. I analyze (1) the emergence of the common discourses, which I call AI-essentialism, over the past decade;
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Gender equality in Swedish AI policies. What's the problem represented to be? Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-03-17 Malin Rönnblom, Vanja Carlsson, Andreas Öjehag-Pettersson
Over the past few decades, Sweden has established itself as a “world leader” in gender equality. Alongside this development, Swedish politicians have also initiated ambitious plans that aim to establish the country as “world class” in terms of digitalization. International research shows that women and racialized groups are in a minority in the design processes, that AI facial recognition systems are
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United in disagreement: Analyzing policy networks in EU policy making Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Dennis Abel, Armin Mertens
Shared belief systems are generally assumed to forge policy networks. Empirical evidence whether and to what extend shared policy core beliefs create ally networks and under which circumstances shared policy core beliefs are not necessary to form these networks, however, is limited. Based on a novel inferential network approach in combination with mediation analysis, this study investigates the role
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Net-zero carbon declarations by Japanese local governments: What caused the domino-like diffusion? Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-02-16 Takashi Nakazawa, Keiichi Satoh, Gregory Trencher, Tomoyuki Tatsumi, Koichi Hasegawa
Sub-national governments are a crucial non-state actor for mitigating climate change. This importance has recently strengthened as increasing numbers of municipalities declare net-zero carbon emission goals to support the Paris Agreement, often well ahead of national governments. In Japan, net-zero declarations have also diffused widely, with nearly 800 declarations appearing in domino-like fashion
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Politics of on-demand food delivery: Policy design and the power of algorithms Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-02-09 Meng-Hsuan Chou, Catherine Gomes
In this article, we examine the politics of on-demand food delivery using insights from the theory of social construction and policy design. On-demand food delivery is a service built on algorithm-based technology known for its precarity and physical risks for couriers. We compare how the on-demand food delivery sector is regulated and its observable effects in two Asia-Pacific cities with contrasting
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Powerful stories of local climate action: Comparing the evolution of narratives using the “narrative rate” index Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-02-08 Melanie Nagel, Melanie Schäfer
The complex relationship between local climate action and reducing global emissions is often difficult to grasp and cities might scale back their ambitions if they realize that the way is hard and rocky. We analyze local climate change narratives through the lens of the narrative policy framework (NPF). Following the NPF, policy actors use narratives to communicate information to change an existing
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COVID-19 as an opportunity window for policy change; insights from electronic authentication case study in Iran Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Hossein Shirazi, Valiallah Vahdaninia, Ali Maleki
Public emergencies are focal events that present possibilities for policy changes. This study aims to explain policy insights on policy change in Iran through analyzing how the Iranian government's policy toward the long-awaited e-authentication finally changed in the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19. Due to the policy context of Iran, it uses the Multiple Stream Model, in which three streams were
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Framing the climate crisis: Dread and fatalism in media and interest group responses to IPCC reports Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Melissa K. Merry, Hailey Mattingly
While UN reports indicate increasingly dire consequences of climate change, the political will to initiate rapid decarbonization is lacking, as nations fail to meet targets set by international agreements. Given these developments, this paper investigates the role of climate dread and fatalism in the discourse about climate science. We examine the treatment of fatalism in major theories of the policy
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Looking through a policy window with tinted glasses: Setting the agenda for U.S. AI policy Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-01-31 Daniel S. Schiff
The policy agenda is currently being established for artificial intelligence (AI), a domain marked by complex and sweeping implications for economic transformation tempered by concerns about social and ethical risks. This article reviews the United States national AI policy strategy through extensive qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 63 strategic AI policy documents curated by the federal
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Trans-local action and local climate policy. Configurations of success for climate innovations in the European multilevel system Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-01-24 Andreas Corcaci, Jörg Kemmerzell
Local climate policy in Germany is embedded in a complex and dense multilevel system. While higher levels of governance confront cities with legal frameworks and regulations, they are not constrained to mere implementation of requirements from the national or supranational levels. Cities can influence and make strategic use of opportunities stemming from the multilevel structure to introduce innovative
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Building coalitions in a nascent subsystem: Investigating beliefs and policy preferences in Ugandan pesticide policy Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-01-24 Ruth Wiedemann, Karin Ingold
Many political actors lack the power or competencies to impact policy outputs and outcomes on their own. This is why they join forces to multiply their impact. Following the advocacy coalition framework, they do so based on joint beliefs and shared policy preferences. Therefore, to understand cooperation or conflict among political actors, including the potential for policy compromises or stalemates
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Comparing regulatory processes in genome editing and autonomous vehicles: How institutional environments shape sociotechnical imaginaries Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2023-01-16 Meghna Mukherjee, Konrad Posch, Santiago J. Molina, Ken Taymor, Ann Keller
This study compares the regulation of two emerging technologies, the CRISPR genome-editing system and Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) in the United States. The study draws on 33 in-depth interviews with innovation and governance experts to study the relationship between their regulatory environments and developing beliefs about these technologies. Using sociotechnical imaginaries as a framework
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Measuring policy analytical capacity in renewable energy policy: Germany-Japan-US comparison Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-27 Masahiro Sugiyama, Jun Muto
Policy makers in the modern age must confront complex and expanding knowledge on a daily basis. It has been put forth that policy making requires increasingly higher levels of policy analytical capacity at the individual, organizational, and system levels. Analytical capacity can enable better policy design and facilitate policy learning. Previous studies mostly operationalized the concept at the individual
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Narrative dynamics in European Commission AI policy—Sensemaking, agency construction, and anchoring Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Frans af Malmborg
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably one of the most powerful and disruptive technologies of our times which may pose challenges as well as opportunities to contemporary political organizations. Studying AI from a lens of perceived uncertainty, this article studies the policy response of the European Commission toward this fast-paced emerging technology. By empirically focusing on the Commission's
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What drives local communities to engage in climate change mitigation activities? Examining the rural–urban divide Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Ulrike Zeigermann, Marlene Kammerer, Michael Böcher
The National Climate Initiative (NKI) in Germany provides a strong incentive for local governments to apply for funding to engage in climate protection activities. Yet, the latest evaluation of the NKI confirms that there is a great disparity in the distribution of funding across regions. Taking this regional fragmentation as a starting point, we ask the following: How can we explain disparity in the
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An item response approach to sea-level rise policy preferences in a nascent subsystem Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Kyra Gmoser-Daskalakis, Tyler A. Scott, Mark Lubell, Francesca P. Vantaggiato
Sea-level rise is a “nascent subsystem” with policy actors actively developing initial policy preferences through participation across multiple policy forums in a polycentric system. This paper uses item-response models to empirically analyze how actors, perceived problems, and preferred policy solutions are related in a latent “policy space”. We focus on California's San Francisco Bay region, where
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Policy responses and public reactions to risks Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-20 Nils C. Bandelow, Johanna Hornung, Ilana Schröder
The RPR editorial team could not be happier to welcome our previous and new readers to this new year with the first issue of a very special volume of Review of Policy Research. The year 2023 marks the 40th volume of this traditional public policy journal, formerly known as Policy Studies Review, whose first volumes featured works of, inter alia, Dye and Davidson (1981), Blomquist and Ostrom (1985)
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Rethinking de facto autonomy? A multi-policy area approach and the regulatory policy process Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-13 M. Kerem Coban
We examine de facto autonomy across regulatory agencies and policy sectors. Yet not much is known whether, how and why de facto autonomy could vary across policy areas within the same policy sector. This article demonstrates the existence of such variation and suggests that this variation depends on the interplay between stakeholders' diverging (or overlapping) policy preferences, deficient (or superior)
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When cities take control: Explaining the diversity of complex local climate actions Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-08 Anmol Soni, Justina Jose, Gordon A. Kingsley
Cities face substantial risks of economic and physical losses from repeated exposure to climate hazards exacerbated by climate change. Drawing from the climate action and policy mix literatures, this study conceptualizes “climate action mix” defined as the diverse policy actions adopted by city governments to adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate hazards. This study makes a key contribution
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Politics of problem definition: Comparing public support of climate change mitigation policies using machine learning Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-08 Junghwa Choi, Wesley Wehde, Romit Maulik
Public support is a key contributor to successful policy adoption and implementation. Given the urgency of climate change mitigation, scholars have explored various determinants that affect public support for climate change mitigation policy. However, the relative decisiveness of these factors in shaping public support is insufficiently examined. Therefore, we deploy interpretable machine learning
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Contextual responsiveness in U.S. local government climate policy Review of Policy Research (IF 2.328) Pub Date : 2022-12-05 David Switzer, Jiwoong Jung
Local governments have led the way on climate action in the United States. While the federal government has largely stood to the side, local governments have made great efforts to adopt policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A large and robust literature in urban politics has explored the variables that influence local government action on climate change in the United States. Issue severity