Yardstick competition and its cousins

2019 ◽  
pp. 77-98
Author(s):  
Pierre Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Policy Learning ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Yardstick Competition ◽  
The Way

The chapter considers some mechanisms that interact with yardstick competition or that might be confused with it. Most attention is given to mobility-based competition and policy learning. Mobility-based competition is discussed mainly with regard to its relation with yardstick competition. For policy learning, the discussion is also about the way it is distinct from yardstick competition. On that matter, two differences are crucial: cross-jurisdiction comparisons are assumed to be made by citizens in the case of yardstick competition but by officials in the case of policy learning; officials are assumed to be concerned with both policies and policy outcomes while citizens are concerned only with policy outcomes—that is, at least as long as outcomes are comparatively satisfactory.

Accountability, information, and yardstick competition

2019 ◽  
pp. 47-76
Author(s):  
Pierre Salmon
Keyword(s):  
Information Asymmetry ◽  
Main Question ◽  
Yardstick Competition ◽  
Industrial Economics ◽  
Important Policy ◽  
To Come ◽  
Original Habitat ◽  
The Way

The chapter follows the logic of the relation between downward accountability, the information asymmetry faced by voters or citizens, and yardstick competition. Assuming that the accountability perspective is adopted, the main question is the information available to citizens. In important policy domains it is difficult to mitigate the information asymmetry faced by citizens in the absence of yardstick comparisons. This offers a role for these comparisons and with them yardstick competition to come to the rescue of accountability. A similar logic inspired the way tournaments and yardstick competition were introduced, in the 1980s, in the fields of labor and industrial economics. The last part of the chapter recalls some characteristics of that work and discusses the way they must be adapted, with some discarded (namely the contractual dimension), when the analysis is transposed from its original habitat to the agency relation between citizens and incumbents.

When Moderate Voters Prefer Extreme Parties: Policy Balancingin Parliamentary Elections

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
ORIT KEDAR
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Design ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Voter Choice ◽  
The Way

This work develops and tests a theory of voter choice in parliamentary elections. I demonstrate that voters are concerned with policy outcomes and hence incorporate the way institutions convert votes to policy into their choices. Since policy is often the result of institutionalized multiparty bargaining and thus votes are watered down by power-sharing, voters often compensate for this watering-down by supporting parties whose positions differ from (and are often more extreme than) their own. I use this insight to reinterpret an ongoing debate between proximity and directional theories of voting, showing that voters prefer parties whose positions differ from their own views insofar as these parties pull policy in a desired direction. Utilizing data from four parliamentary democracies that vary in their institutional design, I test my theory and show how institutional context affects voter behavior.

Executive-Legislative Relations in Democratic Regimes

2020 ◽  
pp. 546-565
Author(s):  
Michelle M. Taylor-Robinson ◽  
Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon
Keyword(s):  
External Environment ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Legislative Branch ◽  
Presidential Systems ◽  
The Way

To make lasting policy executives must get the legislature to pass their proposals. How do executives form working relationships with the legislative branch, and when do they seek control over rather than negotiation with the legislature to achieve their preferred policy outcomes? Scholars of presidential, parliamentary, and semi-presidential systems have sought to answer this question from a variety of angles. We consider how executives use and manage coalitions to achieve their preferred outcomes; the constitutional or chamber rules that allow them to influence which bills become law; and the way changes in the external environment can lead to shifts in the executive’s strategy. We conclude by offering suggestions for extending the study of executive-legislative relations including advocating for more comparisons across different institutional structures and party systems and a recognition that increased diversity in the executive branch may impact executive-legislative relations.

National Styles and Policy Sectors: Explaining Structured Variation

1985 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 467-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary P. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
Policy Sector ◽  
Common Framework ◽  
National Styles ◽  
Cross National ◽  
The Way

ABSTRACTA vigorous tradition in comparative politics argues that national policymakers develop characteristic and durable methods for dealing with public issues, that these can be linked to policy outcomes, and that they can be systematically compared. More recently, a number of scholars have suggested reversing the direction of causality, claiming that the nature of political issues themselves causes the politics associated with them. This policy sector approach implies that there should be cross-national similarities in the way issues are treated, whatever the styles particular nations adopt. The two approaches need to be integrated into a common framework built around a research strategy that investigates policymaking within specific sectors across multiple national cases. Such an approach can transcend the often sterile debate over whether the policies of nations are unique or are converging by seeking to explain how the nature of issues structures the variation among the policies of nations.

scholarly journals Half a Century of Wilson & Jungner: Reflections on the Governance of Population Screening

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Sturdy ◽  
Fiona Miller ◽  
Stuart Hogarth ◽  
Natalie Armstrong ◽  
Pranesh Chakraborty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Screening ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
International Expert ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Screening Programs ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Screening Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way

Background: In their landmark report on the “Principles and Practice of Screening for Disease” (1968), Wilson and Jungner noted that the practice of screening is just as important for securing beneficial outcomes and avoiding harms as the formulation of principles. Many jurisdictions have since established various kinds of “screening governance organizations” to provide oversight of screening practice. Yet to date there has been relatively little reflection on the nature and organization of screening governance itself, or on how different governance arrangements affect the way screening is implemented and perceived and the balance of benefits and harms it delivers. Methods: An international expert policy workshop convened by Sturdy, Miller and Hogarth. Results: While effective governance is essential to promote beneficial screening practices and avoid attendant harms, screening governance organizations face enduring challenges. These challenges are social and ethical as much as technical. Evidence-based adjudication of the benefits and harms of population screening must take account of factors that inform the production and interpretation of evidence, including the divergent professional, financial and personal commitments of stakeholders. Similarly, when planning and overseeing organized screening programs, screening governance organizations must persuade or compel multiple stakeholders to work together to a common end. Screening governance organizations in different jurisdictions vary widely in how they are constituted, how they relate to other interested organizations and actors, and what powers and authority they wield. Yet we know little about how these differences affect the way screening is implemented, and with what consequences. Conclusions: Systematic research into how screening governance is organized in different jurisdictions would facilitate policy learning to address enduring challenges. Even without such research, informal exchange and sharing of experiences between screening governance organizations can deliver invaluable insights into the social as well as the technical aspects of governance.

scholarly journals Half a Century of Wilson & Jungner: Reflections on the Governance of Population Screening

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 158
Author(s):  
Steve Sturdy ◽  
Fiona Miller ◽  
Stuart Hogarth ◽  
Natalie Armstrong ◽  
Pranesh Chakraborty ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Screening ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
International Expert ◽  
Multiple Stakeholders ◽  
Screening Programs ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Screening Practice ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Way

Background: In their landmark report on the “Principles and Practice of Screening for Disease” (1968), Wilson and Jungner noted that the practice of screening is just as important for securing beneficial outcomes and avoiding harms as the formulation of principles. Many jurisdictions have since established various kinds of “screening governance organizations” to provide oversight of screening practice. Yet to date there has been relatively little reflection on the nature and organization of screening governance itself, or on how different governance arrangements affect the way screening is implemented and perceived and the balance of benefits and harms it delivers. Methods: An international expert policy workshop convened by the three lead authors. Results: While effective governance is essential to promote beneficial screening practices and avoid attendant harms, screening governance organizations face enduring challenges. These challenges are social and ethical as much as technical. Evidence-based adjudication of the benefits and harms of population screening must take account of factors that inform the production and interpretation of evidence, including the divergent professional, financial and personal commitments of stakeholders. Similarly, when planning and overseeing organized screening programs, screening governance organizations must persuade or compel multiple stakeholders to work together to a common end. Screening governance organizations in different jurisdictions vary widely in how they are constituted, how they relate to other interested organizations and actors, and what powers and authority they wield. Yet we know little about how these differences affect the way screening is implemented, and with what consequences. Conclusions: Systematic research into how screening governance is organized in different jurisdictions would facilitate policy learning to address enduring challenges. Even without such research, informal exchange and sharing of experiences between screening governance organizations can deliver invaluable insights into the social as well as the technical aspects of governance.

Does Process Matter? Direct Democracy and Citizens’ Perceptions of Laws

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 232-237
Author(s):  
Christina Ladam
Keyword(s):  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Negligible Effect ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Legislative Process ◽  
Ballot Initiative ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Outcome Evaluations ◽  
The Way

AbstractDoes the process used to pass a law affect the way citizens evaluate the outcome? In a series of experiments, I manipulate the way in which a law is passed – ballot initiative or the legislative process – to test the effect of process on citizens’ evaluations of policy outcomes. The results show that people view the ballot initiative process as fairer than the legislative process, but that process has a negligible effect on outcome evaluations.

scholarly journals Policy, learning and regime change: Western concepts and CEE experience

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 2-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.K. Colebatch
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Regime Change ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Shared Understandings ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article offers an outsider’s perspective on the place of policy in the analysis of governing in Central and Eastern Europe, both before the change from a communist to a post-communist order, and since. It explores the way in which ‘policy’ is used as a construct in both the practice of governing and the analysis of that practice. It argues that we have to recognise multiple strands – authority, structured interaction, and collective problematisation - in the construction of ‘policy’. It points to a distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘practical’ perspectives, and argues that this distinction reflects structural tensions in the process of ’putting together’ the shared understandings and relationships which make g for ‘governing’, It argues for the importance of continuing research, empirically based and theoretically informed, into the way that governing is ‘put together’ in Central and Eastern Europe, and how both participants and the governed ‘make sense’ of this process.

scholarly journals The governance of European security

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Webber ◽  
Stuart Croft ◽  
Jolyon Howorth ◽  
Terry Terriff ◽  
Elke Krahmann
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
European Security ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Security Governance ◽  
Dynamic Relationship ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
The Way

This article seeks to develop a concept of ‘security governance’ in the context of post-Cold War Europe. The validity of a governance approach lies in its ability to locate some of the distinctive ways in which European security has been coordinated, managed and regulated. Based on an examination of the way governance is utilised in other political fields of political analysis, the article identifies the concept of security governance as involving the coordinated management and regulation of issues by multiple and separate authorities, the interventions of both public and private actors (depending upon the issue), formal and informal arrangements, in turn structured by discourse and norms, and purposefully directed toward particular policy outcomes. Three issues are examined to demonstrate the utility of the concept of security governance for understanding security in post-Cold War Europe: the transformation of NATO, the Europeanisation of security accomplished through EU-led initiatives and, finally, the resultant dynamic relationship between forms of exclusion and inclusion in governance.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document