Joshua Newman

Policy analysis and policy work in federal systems: Policy advice and its contribution to evidence-based policy-making in multi-level governance systems

Abstract In most cases, policy scholars interested in the role of policy analysts in promoting and practicing evidence-based policy-making rely on very partial survey results, or on anecdotal case studies and interview research. Despite the existence of a large body of literature on policy analysis, large-scale empirical studies of the work of policy analysts are rare, and in the case of analysts working at the sub-national level, virtually non-existent. There has been very little research on this level of policy workers despite the significant powers they exercise in prominent federal systems such as the USA, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, Malaysia and Canada. This paper reports on the first comprehensive survey of the work of policy analysts at the provincial and territorial levels conducted in Canada in 2008–2009. It examines the background and training of provincial and territorial policy analysts, the types of techniques they employ in their jobs, and what they do in their work on a day-by-day basis. The resulting profile of sub-national policy analysts presented here reveals several substantial differences between analysts working for national governments and their sub-national counterparts, with important implications for policy training and practice, and for the ability of nations to improve their policy advice systems in order to better accomplish their long-term policy goals through the practice of evidence-based policy-making.

Policy capacity and evidence-based policy in the public service

ABSTRACT Governments in many jurisdictions have called for an increase in ‘evidence-based’ policy-making. However, the international evidence-based policy movement has so far shown little progress in transforming the way that public policy is formulated and implemented. Much research on evidence-based policy has focused on political interference and contextual frames of reference as barriers to the uptake of research evidence. With the support of data from a survey of over 2,000 Australian public servants, we argue that individual and organizational deficits can leave the public service structurally unprepared for an engagement with diverse forms of evidence, including academic research in particular.

Revisiting the “two communities” metaphor of research utilisation

Purpose – The “two communities” metaphor for the relationship between policy and academia is inconsistent with empirical evidence that shows that a sizeable minority of public servants use academic research in their policy-related work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the two communities metaphor by comparing the personal and professional characteristics of Australian public servants who claim to use research in their policy work with the characteristics of those who claim not to use research. Design/methodology/approach – Using data from a survey of 2,084 public servants from the state and federal levels in Australia carried out from 2011 to 2013, tests of statistical significance were conducted for the relationship between some personal and professional characteristics (e.g. gender, age, work experience) and the claim that research is used in policy-related work. Findings – The “two communities” metaphor is not an accurate description of the relationship between policy and academia. In reali...

Categories of failure in climate change mitigation policy in Australia

Discussions of failure in public policy have been hampered by a lack of consensus on a definition of the term ‘failure’. It can be shown that arguments relating to policy failure tend to conflate forms of failure that are actually discrete, such as failure to meet objectives, claims of negative distributional outcomes and negative electoral outcomes attributed to specific policy decisions. This article attempts to unify and clarify the discourse on policy failure by presenting a multi-dimensional approach that can identify separate aspects of failure within a single policy or program. This multi-dimensional approach to policy failure is then be applied to climate change policy in Australia, in order to demonstrate how some aspects of a policy can be interpreted as failed while others can simultaneously be interpreted as successful, even by the same observer. As this example illustrates, global pronouncements of a public policy as a ‘success’ or ‘failure’ should be avoided in favour of more precise evaluations of what kind of failure occurred, and who was affected and in what ways.

The National Context of Wicked Problems: Comparing Policies on Gun Violence in the US, Canada, and Australia

Abstract Scholars and practitioners have always been dogged by problems that are so complex that no practical solution appears to be possible. These have been referred to in the academic literature as “wicked” problems. However, it is possible that a problem’s “wickedness” depends in part on its context and on the vantage point of the observer, meaning that at least some aspects of wickedness can be thought of as being relative rather than absolute. In this article, the complex policy problem of gun control is examined across multiple national contexts to show how a problem that is perceived as being wicked in one jurisdiction can be seen as manageable in another.

Regulation and time: temporal patterns in regulatory development

Given the complex decision-making that goes into policy choices for regulatory regimes, it would seem intuitive that such regimes might develop under distinct national styles. By revisiting several historical models of regulatory development, including Bernsteins classic life-cycle model, and then by analyzing six case studies from the US and UK, for example, we explore the possibility that regulatory regimes vary more prominently along the temporal dimension rather than along spatial ones. We conclude that regulatory regimes have similar developmental patterns, although the time spent at each stage in the process can vary significantly according to unique domestic factors. Points for practitioners Existing theories of regulation would suggest that regulatory activity should either follow identical development trajectories in different countries or it should be entirely idiosyncratic in every jurisdiction in which it is used. Clearly neither is true, as some regulatory regimes display similar qualities and development patterns, while others appear to be unique. A comparison of regulatory activities in the US and UK reveals that regulatory regimes in these countries develop through similar stages along similar pathways, but that the rate of development and the transition through the stages can occur at different speeds. This development is mainly stimulated by periodic crises that force changes in regulation.

After “the Regulatory Moment” in Comparative Regulatory Studies: Modeling the Early Stages of Regulatory Life Cycles

Abstract Regulation has been the subject of a significant amount of scholarship, mostly debating the necessity of regulatory action or examining the phenomenon of capture. Less attention has been paid to the early stages of regulatory development, during which the structure of the regime is defined. By revisiting the life-cycle analogy of regulation first proposed by Bernstein in 1955, we offer a new model that explains the development of these early stages in greater depth. This model is then applied to case studies of several sectors in the US and UK to highlight the general pattern of early regulatory regime development.

La réglementation et le temps : Les régimes temporels dans l'élaboration de la réglementation

Compte tenu des processus decisionnels complexes qui interviennent dans les choix strategiques dans le cadre des regimes reglementaires, il pourrait sembler naturel que ces regimes se developpent dans le cadre de styles nationaux differents. En revisitant plusieurs modeles historiques d’elaboration de la reglementation, comme le modele classique de cycle de vie de Bernstein, puis en analysant six etudes de cas emanant des Etats-Unis et du Royaume-Uni, nous examinons la possibilite que les regimes reglementaires varient davantage sur le plan de leur dimension temporelle que sur celui de leur dimension spatiale. Nous concluons que les regimes reglementaires presentent des modes de developpement similaires, meme si le temps consacre a chaque etape dans le processus peut varier considerablement, en fonction de facteurs nationaux particuliers.Remarques a l’intention des praticiensLes theories existantes en matiere de reglementation laissent entendre que l’activite de reglementation doit suivre des trajectoires evolutives identiques dans differents pays, ou qu’elle doit etre totalement idiosyncrasique dans chaque region ou elle est pratiquee. Aucune de ces deux theories n’est manifestement vraie, puisque certains regimes reglementaires affichent des qualites et des modes de developpement similaires, tandis que d’autres s’averent uniques en leur genre. Une comparaison des activites de reglementation aux Etats-Unis et au Royaume-Uni revele que les regimes reglementaires dans ces pays evoluent en passant par des phases similaires, dans le cadre de trajectoires similaires, mais que le rythme de developpement et la transition entre les etapes peuvent se faire a des vitesses differentes. Ce developpement est essentiellement stimule par des crises periodiques, qui imposent des modifications dans la reglementation.