In trust we trust: The impact of trust in government on excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward myriad challenges to public policy, central of which is understanding the different contextual factors that can influence the effectiveness of policy responses across different systems. In this article, we explore how trust in government can influence the ability of COVID-19 policy responses to curb excess mortality during the pandemic. Our findings indicate that stringent policy responses play a central role in curbing excess mortality. They also indicate that such relationship is not only influenced by systematic and structural factors, but also by citizens’ trust in government. We leverage our findings to propose a set of recommendations for policymakers on how to enhance crisis policymaking and strengthen the designs of the widely used underlying policy learning processes.

Policy Learning, Policy Failure, and the Mitigation of Policy Risks: Re-Thinking the Lessons of Policy Success and Failure

Policy failures are often assumed to be unintentional and anomalous events about which well-intentioned governments can learn why they occurred and how they can be corrected. These assumptions color many of the results from contemporary studies of policy learning which remain optimistic that ongoing policy problems can be resolved through technical learning and lesson drawing from comparative case studies. Government intentions may not be solely oriented toward the creation of public value and publics may not abide by government wishes, however, and studies of policy learning need to take these “darksides” of policy-making more seriously if the risks of policy failure are to be mitigated.

Audiovisual policy transfer between Mercosur and the European Union has gone offtrack

This article analyses the Audiovisual Mercosur Program as a case of policy transfer between Mercosur and the European Union. A qualitative document analysis, expert interviews and the use of policy transfer theory and its constraints made possible the critical evaluation of the program and its impacts. By focusing on the constraints that led to an incomplete and uninformed transfer, we were able to identify an alignment between the underlying ideas of audiovisual policies in Mercosur and the European Union, but also inadequate governance within Mercosur, unbalanced interests between the two trade blocks, and a lack of policy learning. As a result, the transfer of European Union policies reproduced well-documented failures of the European Union's internal market policies relating to the audiovisual sector.

The Reorientation of Thailand’s National R&D Programmes - Limits and Challenges

<p>Since 2016 Thailand has recognised a significant transition in research and innovation policy, with government increasingly acknowledging the importance of national R&amp;D programmes and favourable institutional conditions as determinants to overcome middle income trap. Drawing a lesson-learned from successful experiences of South Korea and Japan, the Thai government decided to experiment the national large-scaled mission-oriented R&amp;D programme, known as ‘Spearhead R&amp;D Programme’. This novel innovation financing scheme was designed to accelerate the commercialisation and economic impact of R&amp;D outputs. From the outset, it was clear that the outcome and impact of Spearhead R&amp;D Programme was yet to be realized. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reorientation of Thailand’s research and innovation landscape with the focus on the efficiency of operation in relation to the objective of the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme. It is found that the Spearhead R&amp;D Programme is equipped with four novel conceptual and operational features including strategic national STI agenda, R&amp;D commercialization, multi-year budget allocation and proactive research management. Yet, there were also potential limits and challenges that need to be addressed to move the Programme towards greater sectoral contribution with open innovation and flexibility in policy learning.</p><p> </p><p>Keywords: Research &amp; Innovation Reform, Mission-oriented R&amp;D Programme, Policy Experiment, Catch-up, R&amp;D Commercialisation, Thailand</p>

Do Business-Backed Think Tanks Represent Class Interests? The Co-evolution of Policy Learning and Economic Elites in the Canadian Knowledge Regime

Business-backed think tanks are often presented as representing the interests of economic elites. This article provides a more nuanced argument by using field theory to present the co-evolutionary dynamics between economic elites and other social forces. Three Canadian think tanks are examined to illustrate how different social forces can converge around business-backed think tanks, and how governance contexts and institutions shape these relationships. The paper also reflects on the kinds of learning these think tanks can enable depending on the kinds of actors that converge around them and on the forms of power that these actors represent.