Comparative Public Policy in Europe

Author(s):  
David Aubin ◽  
Marleen Brans
1993 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon J. Bulmer

ABSTRACTThe analysis of European integration has tended to use a toolkit drawn from international relations. But since the revival of integration in the mid-1980s, the governance of the European Community and European Union has increasingly come to resemble that of a multi-tiered state. Accordingly, this article analyzes the governance of the European Union from a comparative public policy perspective. Using new or historical institutionalism, three levels are considered. In the first part, attention is focused on the EU's institutions and the available instruments of governance. The second part examines the analysis of governance at the policy-specific or sub-system level, and puts forward an approach based on governance regimes. The final part considers the institutional roots of the persistent, regulatory character of governance in the European Union.


Author(s):  
Kate Crowley ◽  
Jenny Stewart ◽  
Adrian Kay ◽  
Brian W. Head

State-centred and society-centred explanations in comparative public policy analysis disagree markedly on the extent to which the state has autonomy or is essentially a clearing-house for outside forces. In this chapter, we reconsider the position of the state in policy studies by investigating the interactions and inter-dependency between the state and society rather than making a binary choice between state-centred and society-centred perspectives on governance. The core argument is that policy studies can improve its ability to apprehend the position of the state in dilemmas of contemporary policy-making by acknowledging that the state is, at once, both critical to collective action and reliant on crucial elements of societal support for its policy effectiveness. In such terms, governance is a useful label for the variety of ways in which society is not simply acted upon by the state, but actively shapes the actions of and outcomes of state activity.


1977 ◽  
Vol 92 (1) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Robert C. Fried ◽  
Arnold J. Heidenheimer ◽  
Hugh Heclo ◽  
Carolyn Teich Adams

1985 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold J. Heidenheimer

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to acquaint the reader with the intellectual landscape of comparative policy studies, and to raise the level of self-consciousness of scholars active in the field. To this end it discusses why comparative policy studies emerged when and where it did in the 1970s. Then it grapples with the reasons and possible effects of the fact that the very term ‘comparative policy’ is so difficult to translate into non-English languages, and links this to a discussion of problems of conceptual cohesion. The last part assesses the prospects of a field which is seeking to gain and retain intellectual coherence and respect, though not nestled comfortably within a single discipline, and is subject to contending pulls from national and international academic, political and bureaucratic forces.


2019 ◽  
pp. 391-398
Author(s):  
Frank R. Baumgartner ◽  
Christian Breunig ◽  
Emiliano Grossman

The concluding chapter emphasizes several central points and contributions of the book. It first provides a summary of the extent of the emerging infrastructure that the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) has developed. It shows the many possibilities provided by this infrastructure, as illustrated by the comparative chapters in the volume. The chapter goes to discuss the achievements in terms of data collection and comparability. Finally, the chapter explores possible future directions of research for the CAP and, beyond, the field of comparative public policy. In particular, it could positively contribute to the study of the consequence of differences in bureaucratic structures. Similarly, the inclusion of media data has opened up new possibilities that have only just started to be explored. Finally, the study of “responsiveness” and its consequences for political behavior could also benefit from crossing, say, survey data with CAP data.


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