Urban scale digital twins in data-driven society: Challenging digital universalism in urban planning decision-making

The article examines the impact of the virtual public sphere on how urban spaces are experienced and conceived in our data-driven society. It places particular emphasis on urban scale digital twins, which are virtual replicas of cities that are used to simulate environments and develop scenarios in response to policy problems. The article also investigates the shift from the technical to the socio-technical perspective within the field of smart cities. Despite the aspirations of urban scale digital twins to enhance the participation of citizens in the decision-making processes relayed to urban planning strategies, the fact that they are based on a limited set of variables and processes makes them problematic. The article aims to shed light on the tension between the real and the ideal at stake during this process of abstracting sets of variables and processes in the case of urban scale digital twins.

How diverse and inclusive are policy process theories?

Numerous published efforts have compared and contrasted policy process theories. Few assessments, however, have examined the extent to which they are inclusive or diverse. Here we summarise lessons from previous assessments, paying attention to how Paul Sabatier’s science-based criteria have shaped the contours of the field. In looking at these contours, we explore evidence of diversity and inclusivity of policy process approaches in terms of methods, concepts, topics, geography and authors. We conclude with strategies to address challenges revealed by our examination: creating space for conversations among scholars of differing perspectives and approaches; building sustained and meaningful efforts to recruit and train researchers with diverse backgrounds; establishing research coordination networks that focus on policy problems; and creating better metrics to assess our diversity and inclusivity.

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.

Grant support as an option for private sector solutions and systemic issues in the work of NPOs

This article examines the existing practice of participation by non-profit organizations (NPOs) in solving social policy problems, both in the West and in Russia, and makes a comparative analysis of Russian and foreign experience in this area. A separate section of the work is devoted to the study of the grant support system of NPIs in Russia. Systemic and private problems have been identified. Conclusions are drawn about imperfections of the emerging system of interaction between the State and NCBs, including in the area of project financing; and also about the need to create conditions for the replication of successful pilot projects of individual NCBs on the territory of the whole of Russia.

The Excellent Sukoharjo District in Inclusive Health Services for People with Disabilities

Sukoharjo district has Regional Regulation Number 18 of 2017 concerning Persons with Disabilities including Inclusion Health Services Policy. Problems completed during the implementation included four aspects that determined the success of policy implementation, they were communication between organizations, resources, disposition, and bureaucratic structure ( standard operating procedures). Sukoharjo is the first district that has inclusive health service SOP. This research aims to analyze the implementation of the regional regulation which is an inclusive health service policy This qualitative research was conducted at Community Health Centers in Sukoharjo from May to December 2020. Data collection techniques were in-depth interviews, observation, and document study. Subjects consisted of 20 informants consisted of Community Health Center officers, staff of health office and social office, disability communities, and patients with disability. The results showed that the number of physiotherapist was insufficient, the budget for supplementary feeding and therapy equipment was insufficient, disability-friendly infrastructures in several community health centers still need repairment.

Fragmented policymaking in Mexico: the design of social programs in a subnational case

Subnational governments in Mexico have significantly increased their role as policymakers. As a result, they have contributed to the creation of a wide variety of social programs earmarked to different target populations. Although the effects of these interventions on poverty reduction or on other development indicators are uncertain, analyzing their design can provide valuable insights about how social policy is conceived. In this article, I use the case of Jalisco, one of the states in Mexico that has taken the lead in the development of evaluation and monitoring mechanism to manage policymaking, to analyze the internal consistency design of social programs (the logic between problem definition, pertinence of goals and instrument selection) and their degree of horizontal articulation (to what extent programs duplicate or complement with each other). Drawing on an original dataset with more than 100 variables for 339 social programs, I find that policy interventions have a poor level of internal consistency, particularly regarding the formulation of policy problems. In addition, programs are highly atomized, which means that too many interventions aim at particularized interests, not at broader social groups. I argue that, notwithstanding that they operate in context where the formulation and evaluation of public policy are highly institutionalized, social programs are considerably inconsistent and fragmented, suggesting that they are not a deliberative response to social problems demanding solutions.

Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts: The Value of Q Methodology

<p>Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and hence necessitate analysts' having the capability to address them. Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work. Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion - and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind. The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology. Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind. It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the power to create substantial policy-analytic change. To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce's pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined, which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van Eeten's work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context, and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall epistemological choices made in policy analysis. Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice described as "reading complexity" in a real-world policy application possible.</p>

Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts: The Value of Q Methodology

<p>Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and hence necessitate analysts' having the capability to address them. Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work. Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion - and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind. The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology. Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind. It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the power to create substantial policy-analytic change. To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce's pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined, which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van Eeten's work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context, and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall epistemological choices made in policy analysis. Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice described as "reading complexity" in a real-world policy application possible.</p>