Exploring Integration Trajectories for a European Health Union

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 736-746
Author(s):  
Giulia BAZZAN
Keyword(s):  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Energy Union ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
European Health ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Cutting Problem

COVID-19 emerged as a cross-cutting problem across governance sectors and levels, urging the creation of a European Health Union. There are already a number of integrated European governance strategies – such as the European Energy Union (2015) and the European Green Deal (2019) – adopted for overcoming problems of governance fragmentation and inadequacy of fragmented policy responses to cross-cutting policy challenges. Past studies focused on the interaction between crisis and policy change and investigated the activation of different mechanisms to enhance integration. This article contributes to the debate over the creation of a European Health Union by unpacking the acknowledged dimensions of policy integration – policy frame, subsystem involvement, policy goals and policy instruments – in order to assess their manifestations in the new EU4Health policy and to establish what contextual conditions triggered the activation of the integration-enabling mechanisms that led to a more integrated European Health Union. In so doing, it offers an analytical illustration and discusses implications for decision-making.

scholarly journals Finding the right tools for the job: Instrument mixes for land use and transport integration in the Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijn T. Van Geet ◽  
Sander Lenferink ◽  
Tim Busscher ◽  
Jos Arts
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Multiple Case ◽  
The Right ◽  
Single Instrument

Governments have widely established policy goals, which span the domains of land use and transport. Despite these integrated ambitions, government action often remains fragmented. This study adopts an instrumental perspective to encourage land-use and transport integration (LUTI). So far, the existing literature on this subject has adopted a single-instrument perspective and has been primarily focused on technical, rather than governance-oriented, instruments. Using a comprehensive analytical framework derived from combining policy integration and policy instrument theory, this in-depth multiple case study of the Dutch provinces of Friesland, Overijssel and North Brabant investigates how governments use a mix of policy instruments throughout the policy process to achieve LUTI in collaboration with municipalities. These instruments are compared based on how they structure interaction — i.e., the transfer of resources — across horizontal and vertical boundaries. The study finds that there is not one right tool to achieve LUTI. Instead, it is about finding the right mix of instruments, which, in line with LUTI goals, helps overcome government fragmentation by structuring interaction patterns across horizontal and vertical boundaries. Interestingly, each province adopts a unique mix of instruments that reflects a specific approach, typical to the case.

scholarly journals PoliMap: A taxonomy proposal for mapping and understanding the global policy response to COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Peña ◽  
Cristóbal Cuadrado ◽  
Ariadne Rivera-Aguirre ◽  
Rebecca Hasdell ◽  
José Ignacio Nazif-Munoz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
Virus Transmission ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Policy Response ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Viral Spread ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Governance Strategies

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is challenging societies, governments and economies at an unprecedented scale. Policy responses to face the epidemic virus had varied greatly among countries, from massive testing, large scale lockdowns to more voluntary approaches for social distancing. The analysis of such policies has been framed mainly with the sole aim of reducing virus transmission (“Flatten the curve” strategies), such as suppression and mitigation approaches. In this article, we argue that the overarching goal of the policy response should not be reducing the viral spread but to ultimately reduce the negative impacts on health and wellbeing of the COVID-19 pandemic. This requires not only interventions to reduce virus transmission, but also policies aimed at increasing the capacity of the health system’s response (“Raising the line” strategies), mitigating the negative consequences of the epidemic and potential adverse effects of interventions to tackle the outbreak (Mitigation strategies) and increasing governmental capacities to respond to the crisis (Strengthening Governance strategies). We propose PoliMap, a comprehensive taxonomy addressing these four policy domains. We present an overview of potential policies in each domain and discuss cross-cutting dimensions of policy responses as the dynamic nature of policymaking, alignment of policy responses at different levels, types of policy instruments, coverage of interventions and gendered-impact of policies. This taxonomy could be used to systematically map, monitor and compare policy responses across countries and over time, in conjunction with morbidity, mortality and demographic data, used to obtain a broad view of the societal effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

A Disproportionate Policy Perspective on the Politics of Crisis Management

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moshe Maor
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Management ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Crisis Response ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy System ◽  
Policy Perspective ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Policy Overreaction

Disproportionate policy response—which is composed of two core concepts, namely policy overreaction and under-reaction—is typically understood to be a lack of “fit” or balance between the costs of a public policy and the benefits deriving from this policy and/or between a policy’s ends and means. The disproportionate policy perspective introduces an intentional component into disproportionate response. It represents a conceptual turn whereby the concepts of policy overreaction and under-reaction are reentering the policy lexicon as types of intentional policy responses that are largely undertaken when political executives are vulnerable to voters. In times of crisis, disproportionate policy responses may be intentionally designed, implemented as planned, and sometimes successful in achieving policy goals and in delivering the political benefits sought by the political executives who design them. The premise underlying this argument is that crises vary in many respects, some of which may incentivize a deliberate crisis response by political executives that is either excessive, or lacking. For example, when crises occur at times of electoral vulnerability, the relevancy of policy instruments’ visibility, theatricality, spectacularity, and popularity may dominate the calculus of crisis management decisions. The same applies in cases where strong negative emotions emerge, and subsequently, political executives may opt to overwhelm hysterical populations cognitively and emotionally, trying to convince them that the policy system is viable.

Features of Integration and Metaintegration in American Region

2019 ◽  
pp. 58-64
Keyword(s):  
Integration Method ◽  
South American ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
American Continent ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Creation ◽  
South American Continent ◽  
Andean Community ◽  
American Region

The analysis of integration of the legal systems of states in the American region is held. In the Southern subregion, a combination of integration and disintegration in cooperation of states led to the creation of two integration entities – MERCOSUR and the Andean Community (AC), in the Northern subregion – NAFTA. The author concludes that the convergence on the American continent, especially using the integration method, helped to implement a special scenario in the southern part of this continent – the meta-integration scenario, with the creation of the Union of South American Nations, uniting the Andean Community and MERCOSUR – something resembling a European one, but at the same time different from it. UNASUR is an effective mechanism for bringing together and integrating the states of the South American continent. Within this Union with notable leadership of Brazil and Argentina the first steps in the direction of the foreign policy integration of the member states are traced. In terms of economic integration, the Union uses the achievements of the AC and MERCOSUR, unifying the legal regulators in the economic sphere and bringing rapprochement to the legal systems of the member states.

scholarly journals Transformation of Sociocultural Integration Policy and Inherent Political Theories in the United Kingdom: A Way Forward

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110074
Author(s):  
Samiul Parvez Ahmed ◽  
Sarwar Uddin Ahmed ◽  
Ikramul Hasan
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Diversity Management ◽  
Policy Instrument ◽  
Management Policy ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Theoretical Argument ◽  
Integration Policy ◽  
The United Kingdom

The contemporary integration policies (Community Cohesion Agenda [CCA]) of the United Kingdom have been criticized for their foundational weaknesses, conceptual inadequacies, myopic views with regard to the complexity of the issue, lack of evidence, and so on. Vast majority of the studies conducted to verify this discourse have been done in the line of theoretical arguments of diversity management rather than exploring their connections to a target community in reality. This study aims at establishing a linkage between the growing theoretical arguments of the integration discourse with empirical data in light of the policy framework of the CCA. We have selected the fastest growing Bangladeshi community of the CCA-adapted Aston City of Birmingham as the representative group of the ethnic minority communities of the United Kingdom. Qualitative data collection approach has been followed, where primary in-depth interviews were conducted on various policy actors, social workers, faith leaders, and Bangladeshi residents of Aston. The entire policy instrument, starting from its broad purposes to operational strategies, has been severely challenged by both residents of the community and relevant policy-implementing bodies in Aston. CCA policies appear to be largely inclined toward the interculturalism/communitarianism ideology rather than to multiculturalism. However, the empirical evidence shows that the need for multiculturalism, to be more specific—Bristol School of Multiculturalism, as a political theory remains in the integration discourse in the context of the United Kingdom. Findings are expected to have implications on practitioners and policy makers in designing diversity management policy instruments by having a wider synthesized view on both theoretical argument and empirical data.

Instruments of Government: Perceptions and Contexts

1989 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen H. Linder ◽  
B. Guy Peters
Keyword(s):  
National Policy ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Problem Situation ◽  
Organizational Setting ◽  
Indirect Methods ◽  
Instrument Choice ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Provision Of Services ◽  
Policy Style ◽  
Government Provision

ABSTRACTGovernment uses a wide variety of instruments to reach its policy goals, ranging from indirect methods, such as moral suasion and cash inducements, to more direct ones involving government provision of services. Although there has been a fair amount of writing on the nature and use of various policy instruments, there is very little work on either the meaning ascribed to these instruments by the decisionmakers who use them (or the experts who design them) or the processes by which some come to be favored over others. Characteristics of the political system, such as national policy style, the organizational setting of the decisionmaker, and the problem situation are all likely to have some influence over the choice of instruments. The relative impact of these variables, however, is likely to be mediated by subjective factors linked to cognition. Perceptions of the proper ‘tool to do the job’ intervenes between context and choice in a complex way. Efforts to account for variation in instrument choice, then, must focus not only on macro level variables but on micro ones as well.

scholarly journals Climate Crises and the Creation of ‘Undeserving’ Victims

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Degradation ◽  
The West ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Environmental Threats ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Climate Crisis

This paper explores how advanced liberal democracies respond to climate migrants in ways that reflect colonial logics and practices. With a focus on the Pacific, it reflects on three constructions of climate crisis victims. First, as savages—those incapable of adapting or thriving under catastrophic environmental threats and who need to be saved by ‘the West’. Secondly, as threats—the hordes who will threaten white civilization and who must be sorted, excluded, detained and deported. Thirdly, as ‘non-ideal’ victims—those undeserving of full legal protections but who may survive under hostile conditions in receiving states. These political and policy responses create systemic harms and injustice for those who struggle under or must flee environmental degradation, and they function to ensure that those most to blame for climate crises are prioritized as having least responsibility to take action. The paper concludes with consideration of socially just responses to those most affected from climate harms.

scholarly journals Policy integration, problem-solving, and the coronavirus disease crisis: lessons for policy design

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martino Maggetti ◽  
Philipp Trein
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Policy Integration ◽  
Catching Up ◽  
The World ◽  
Integration Problem ◽  
The One ◽  
Integrated Response ◽  
Crisis Responses

Abstract The coronavirus disease pandemic has exposed differences in the capacity of governments around the world to integrate and coordinate different policy instruments into a coherent response. In this article, we conceptualize and empirically examine policy integration in responses to the coronavirus disease crisis in 35 countries. We then discuss how the interplay between restrictions, health protection, and economic policy has been articulated between, on the one hand, a policy design based on the complementarity of pro-public health and pro-economy measures, implying an integrated response, and, on the other, a policy design based on the perception of an inherent trade-off between the two. Finally, we discuss three implications from our analysis of policy integration against the coronavirus disease crisis for the post-COVID state: (a) the normalization and adaptation of integrated crisis responses; (b) the possible acceleration and “catching up” of problem-solving capacity as governments may use the crisis as an instance to put into place new social policies; and (c) policy integration as an accelerator of policy complexity and resistance against technocracy in the post-COVID state.

scholarly journals From the European Health Community to the European Health Union: The Project of the Supranational Health and Research Organization of the European Countries and its Historical Destiny

Lex Russica ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 138-153
Author(s):  
A. O. Chetverikov
Keyword(s):  
Legal Regulation ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Eurasian Economic Union ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Legal Nature ◽  
Legal Model ◽  
European Health ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Research And Education ◽  
The Impact

The paper examines the little-known pages of the legal regulation of international integration in Europe: the project of the creation in the middle of the 20th century of the European Health Community (EHC) and its relationship to the current project for the establishment of the European Health Union. The introduction examines the reasons for the ineffective response of the modern European Union (EU) to the global coronavirus pandemic, mainly due to the lack of European institutions, in contrast to the economy and a number of other spheres of public life, supranational powers in the field of health.The first section analyzes the main provisions of the draft EHC presented by the French Government in 1952 and became the subject of an international "preparatory conference" with the participation of 16 European countries at the end of the same year. The author gives special attention to the legal consolidation in the EHC draft founding treaty of "sanitary activities" (prevention and counteraction of various types of diseases); "cultural provisions" dedicated to the collection of information, the development of scientific research and education in the field of health; provisions on the creation of a common therapeutic and research infrastructure of the EHC; the political and legal nature of the EHC as a supranational organization with restrictions in its favor of the sovereign rights of the participating states.The second section describes and evaluates the domestic, foreign, and economic factors that prevented the creation of the EHC.The final section examines the impact of the EHC on the law-making and law-enforcement activities of the modern EU, and compares the legal model of the EHC with the model of the European Health Union, which was established in the end of 2020. There are also proposals for using the experience of European integration in the field of healthcare for the development of integration processes in a similar field between Russia and other former Soviet republics, including the creation of common medical and research centers under the auspices of the Union State of Russia and Belarus and (or) the Eurasian Economic Union, equipped with mega-science facilities (synchrotrons, etc.), other advanced infrastructure of scientific theoretical and scientific applied nature.

scholarly journals How Fiscal Policy in Bulgaria may Affect the Transition to a Low Carbon Economy?

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-535
Keyword(s):  
Fiscal Policy ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Macroeconomic Policy ◽  
Currency Board ◽  
Low Carbon ◽  
Low Carbon Economy ◽  
Policy Goals ◽  
Short Run ◽  
Macroeconomic Environment ◽  
Carbon Economy

The adaptation of traditional macroeconomic policy goals to new ecological realities assigns a specific role to macroeconomic policy. We model the short-run transmission mechanism of fiscal policy under Currency Board Arrangements in Bulgaria in order to assess the fiscal policy potential to boost sustainable economic development and compensate for the economic growth losses due to decarbonisation of the economy. We find that fiscal policy instruments in Bulgaria have no statistically significant effect on GDP components considered separately but they do have a complex effect on macroeconomic environment in the country. This indicates that specific fiscal policy effects to support the transition to a low-carbon economy in Bulgaria cannot be expected and the structural policies should be followed.

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