scholarly journals Reactance or Rationalization? Predicting Public Responses to Government Policy

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 256-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devon Proudfoot ◽  
Aaron C. Kay

The public’s attitudes toward new governmental laws and regulations are frequently at the forefront of public policy debates. Will the public react negatively to a newly implemented public safety regulation or embrace the change? Does the public’s initial favorability toward a proposed environmental policy indicate public opinion and compliance if such a law passed? Social psychological research directly explores these questions and provides insight into how specific policy designs and implementations can shape public response to new regulations. People may exhibit one of two contrasting responses to policies: reactance or rationalization. When a rule is imposed, individuals often display reactance—exaggerating the value of the behavior being banned or restricted. However, individuals also frequently show an opposite, perhaps less conspicuous, tendency—They rationalize government policy; that is, they diminish alternatives and actively justify why the imposed regulations are favorable. In experiments, two factors—individuals’ attentional focus and a policy’s apparent absoluteness—determine whether people react against or rationalize policies that seek to restrict their behavior. In other evidence, people’s motivation to defend the status quo may hinder—but also facilitate—support for public policy changes. The implications can guide public policy design and implementation.

Author(s):  
Žiga KOTNIK ◽  
Dalibor STANIMIROVIĆ

"Policy processes are complex systems and require an in-depth and comprehensive analysis. Especially, factors that affect public policy design and implementation, as two important stages of the public policy cycle, have not been sufficiently explored. The aim of the paper is to analyze the relationship between two critical factors that influence the design and implementation of public policies in the case of Slovenia, namely strategic factors and normative factors, and offer a basis for comparison with similar countries. Based on twenty-two structured interviews with prominent public policy experts in Slovenia and content analysis of the responses, the findings reveal that, although strategic factors are identified by the interviewees as the most critical, the role of normative factors is also important and should not be underestimated. For various reasons, in practice, normative factors often turn out to be crucial."


2020 ◽  
pp. 1329878X2095640
Author(s):  
Lee-Ann Ewing ◽  
Huy Quan Vu

COVID-19 has wreaked havoc worldwide. Schools have escaped neither the pandemic nor its consequences. Indeed, by April 2020, schools had been suspended in 189 countries, affecting 89% of learners globally. While the Australian government has implemented variously effective health and economic policies in response to COVID-19, their inability to agree with states on education policy during the pandemic caused considerable confusion and anxiety. Accordingly, this study analyses 3 weeks of Tweets during April, leading up to the beginning of term 2, during the height of Government policy incongruity. Findings confirm a wide and rapidly changing range of public responses on Twitter. Nine themes were identified in the quantitative analysis, and six of these (positive, negative, humorous, appreciation for teachers, comments aimed at Government/politicians and definitions) are expanded upon qualitatively. Over the course of 3 weeks, the public began to lose its sense of humour and negative tweets almost doubled.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Nosek

Existing norms for scientific communication are rooted in anachronistic practices of bygone eras, making them needlessly inefficient. We outline a path that moves away from the existing model of scientific communication to improve the efficiency in meeting the purpose of public science – knowledge accumulation. We call for six changes: (1) full embrace of digital communication, (2) open access to all published research, (3) disentangling publication from evaluation, (4) breaking the “one article, one journal” model with a grading system for evaluation and diversified dissemination outlets, (5) publishing peer review, and, (6) allowing open, continuous peer review. We address conceptual and practical barriers to change, and provide examples showing how the suggested practices are being used already. The critical barriers to change are not technical or financial; they are social. While scientists guard the status quo, they also have the power to change it.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Prayoga Bestari

All laboratory schools in the LPTK (Teacher Training Institute) are still in trouble now ¸ so it certainly demands a solution from the public policy dimension. All labschools under the LPTK are all private, whereas the LPTK is a state. This was experienced by UPI (Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia), UNJ (Jakarta State University), UNP (Padang State University), UNDIKSA (Ganesha Education University) and other LPTKs that have Labschool. Until now Labschool has double accountability and responsibility, namely to the LPTK itself and to the Education Office. In practice there are often disagreements and miscoordination in governance. So demand a better solution. The main problem; how regulations must be built? This research has the advantage for LPTK as an institution providing teaching staff to have various alternative regulations that must be developed. This research approach uses a qualitative approach with the method of "public policy analysis" and comparative studies. Focusing on regulations which should bridge the public's expectations regarding the status of laboratory schools. The results showed: 1) Laboratory School Regulation still needs to be improved so that it is synergistic with the Ministry of Education and Culture regulations as the LPTK laboratory school; 2) The need for academic studies and political-strategic efforts in the Ministry of Education and culture with the Ministry of Finance to issue special regulations on the status of Labschool under the LPTK.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurniadi . ◽  
◽  
Syafei Ibrahim ◽  

The public service system is determined by the standardization of public services regulated in laws and regulations. Therefore, a common perception is needed between the bureaucratic apparatus and the community in terms of service delivery, especially in the investment sector in order to improve the performance of investment services both at the central and regional levels. Licensing is an instrument of government policy to control negative externalities that may be caused by social and economic activities. Permits are also an instrument for efficient and fair allocation of public goods, preventing information asymmetry, and legal protection of ownership or operation of activities. As an instrument of control, licensing requires clear rationality and is stated in the form of government policy as a reference. Without rationality and a clear policy design, licensing will lose its meaning as an instrument for defending the interests of the community over individual actions. Problems in the field of licensing in the city of Bandung, namely licensing services in the city of Bandung which have been implemented since 2001 are still considered ineffective, so that the performance of licensing services is still low. To carry out business licensing properly, a comprehensive analysis is needed to simplify licensing (Abolish, Combine, Simplified, Decentralized).


1991 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter J. May

ABSTRACTOne of the emerging areas in the public policy literature concerns new modes of thought about the construction and analysis of public policy. This article extends notions about politics within the ‘policy design’ literature by considering the implications of different political environments for policy design and implementation. Two different political environments – policies with and without publics – that form ends of a continuum of policy publics are discussed. A contrast is drawn between these two polar political environments with respect to differing policy design and implementation challenges, as well as with respect to differing opportunities for policy learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol Exaptriate (Varia) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustapha Mnasfi

رامت هذه الدراسة، بناء على تجربة مجالس الشباب بالمغرب، تتبع تلكم العلاقة التي تربط بين فئة الشباب من جهة والسياسات العمومية من جهة أخرى. ولا شك أن طبيعة هذا البحث قد طرحت ثلة من الأسئلة التي تستدعي استقراء يمَّكن من الإجابة عنها، وهي من قبيل: ما أبرز التحولات الطارئة على فئة الشباب نتيجة انخراطهم في مجالس الشباب؟ وكيف لتلك الفئة أن تؤثر في السياسات العمومية المحلية؟إن الفرضية التي تنطلق منها الدراسة، بناء على تجربة مجلس الشباب لمدينة ورززات، مفادها أن الشباب الذين يعارضون استراتيجية سياسة عمومية محلية ينتهي بهم الأمر بقبول هذه الاستراتيجية بعد إدماجهم في تدبير هذه الأخيرة.ومن أجل تبيان ذلك، أجريت مجموعة من المقابلات النصف موجهة، ما بين شهري ماي/أيار 2017 وماي/أيار 2019، بحيث عقد لقاء مع ممثلي التنسيقية الوطنية لمجالس الشباب بالمغرب، فضلا عن ممثلي مجلس الشباب بمدينة ورززات، بالإضافة إلى مستشارين جماعيين بنفس المدينة. لقد أظهرت المعطيات الميدانية للدراسة، ما للشباب من قدرات على الانخراط في الأنشطة المرتبطة بالسياسات العمومية المحلية، غير أن ذلك الانخراط يعطي نتائج عكسية للدوافع التي من أجلها أسس هؤلاء الشباب مجلسهم. إذ بينت نتائج الدراسة، أن مجالس الشباب تساهم في خلق نوع من التقارب بين الشباب وممثلي السلطات العمومية على المستوى المحلي، مما يسهل دمج هذه الفئة في السياسات العمومية المحلية. بالمقابل، يساهم هذا الإدماج في تغيير وتوجيه مطالب فئة الشباب بعد إشراكهم في السياسات واللجان المحلية، كما يساهم ذلك في دفعهم إلى تبني خطاب مماثل لخطاب ممثلي السلطات العمومية المحلية. This article deals with youth councils, one of the mechanisms for participatory democracy established in Morocco. Their objective is to facilitate the full and active participation of young people in public policy design and implementation. This article specifically addresses the use made by different types of local actors of this facility. How do youth councils impact youth who are participating in these structures? How do youth manage to influence local policies? Those are the two main questions that we will try to answer in this paper. The link between youth and public policy is linked to the use made by young people of the public participation mechanism. In this sense, it is critical to try to understand how actors who openly challenge one or more aspect of the public intervention end up becoming actors themselves within that public policy. We will try to demonstrate, from the experience of a youth council established in the city of Ouarzazate, that young people challenging public interventions end up accepting the precise interventions they vehemently opposed once they start joining the formal participatory structures. This research is based on the collection of qualitative data from semidirect interviews with members of the national coalition of youth councils, with young people organized around the local youth council and with local elected officials in Ouarzazate. Field surveys show that young people organized around a socalledparticipatory mechanism can ensure their entry into local public action, but as a result, adopt a position at the opposite of what it originally was. This participatory mechanism manages to brings young people closer to government representatives and, as a result, impacts on their demands. The youth council’s process thus helps to mediate the approval of the official state discourse by young people who previously challengedlocal public action. Cet article porte sur un dispositif participatif mis en place au Maroc : les conseils des jeunes. Ceuxci ont pour objectif d’associer la jeunesse marocaine à l’élaboration des politiques publiques locales. Il vise à interroger les usages différenciés de ce dispositif par les acteurs de l’action publique locale. Comment les conseils des jeunes transforment les jeunes qui y participent, mais également comment ces derniers parviennentils à influencer l’action publique locale ? Telle est la question à laquelle nous voudrions présenter des éléments de réponse dans le cadre de cette recherche. La question du lien entre jeunes et politiques publiques est liée à l’usage des dispositifs publics par cette catégorie sociale. Dans ce sens il est important ici de chercher à comprendre comment des acteurs qui contestent ouvertement un ou plusieurs aspects de l’intervention publique finissent par devenir acteurs de cette même politique publique. L’hypothèse à démontrer dans ce cadre, à partir de l’expérience du conseil des jeunes de la ville de Ouarzazate, est que les jeunes qui contestent une stratégie d’une politique publique locale finissent par accepter cettestratégie suite à leur entrée dans l’action publique locale. Cette recherche s’appuie sur le recueil des données qualitatives issues d’entretiens semidirectifs réalisés entre mai 2017 et mai 2019 auprès des membres de la coordination nationale des conseils des jeunes, des jeunes mobilisésautour du conseil des jeunes et des élus locaux dans une ville ayant une situation socioéconomique différente des grandes métropoles marocaines: Ouarzazate. Les enquêtes de terrain montrent que les jeunes organisés autour d’un dispositif qualifié de participatif sont capables d’assurer leur entrée dans l’action publique locale, mais cela engendre des effets inverses à leur position de départ. Ce dispositif participatif ne permet que de rapprocher les jeunes des représentants des pouvoirs publics et de modifier, en conséquence, leurs revendications. Le dispositif du conseil des jeunes contribue ainsi à approuver le discours officiel par des jeunes qui contestaient auparavant une action publique locale.


Author(s):  
Richard Eibach

Ideology is a recurrent feature of human societies. Ideologies provide people with frameworks to evaluate the relative legitimacy of different approaches to social order. Such ideologies often involve an opposition between right-leaning ideologies, which tend to justify and maintain the traditional order, and left-leaning ideologies, which advocate for systemic reforms to reduce hierarchies. Social psychological investigations of ideology explore the root motivations and moral foundations of people’s attraction to left versus right ideologies. In particular, such work focuses on understanding the motivational dynamics of ideologies that justify the status quo, promote authoritarian control, and rationalize social dominance hierarchies. Social psychological research also investigates information-processing biases that increase the polarization between left and right. These insights can be applied to bridge divides within ideologically polarized communities.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 821-823 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard D. Eron

Professor Hyman has reviewed for us all the research that has been done on the effects of corporal punishment in the schools.1 It is actually a meager record because of the reasons he has mentioned, many of them ethical, demographic, and religious. Whatever research has been published on the effects of corporal punishment, however, would indicate that although the practice is widespread in the United States, corporal punishment is not an effective means of discipline and has many harmful effects on the recipient of the punishment, both physical and psychological. Certainly there are enough data, which Dr Hyman has assembled over 20 years, to warrant the measures he advocates to get the message out to the public as well as to concerned professionals, and to formulate public policy aimed at eliminating corporal punishment in our schools as well as all other settings, including the home. And to those cynics who are skeptical about what influence psychological research findings can have on public policy, my own personal experience over 40 years with research on the effects of viewing television violence on aggressive behavior of children indicates that psychological and sociological research findings can have a profound influence. But changing behavior takes persistence and time. There are too many vested interests who favor the status quo and are threatened by change. There are also many professionals who very often have not done any research in the area, but consider themselves authorities, as well as lay persons who are convinced that the old way of doing things is the only right way.


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