The evolution of the national innovation system as programmatic policy idea in Finland

This article studies the idea of a national innovation system (NIS) as a policy program. Previous research has addressed NIS as a policy idea in the context of expert discourse or as normative frames in policy discourse. The idea has not yet been studied as a policy program that explicitly coordinates public policymaking. In this article, we study the programmatic idea of NIS and its status and impacts in the coordination discourses of Finnish policymaking in 1990–2019. We find that the idea of NIS was omnipresent in Finnish policy programs of the 1990s and 2000s, but lost its programmatic status in the 2010s. We show how Finnish policymakers explicitly deployed the idea to prescribe budget allocations and new legislation. The findings suggest that the idea was given a tangible but, compared with the breadth of the idea, relatively narrow role in coordinating public policy.

An Analysis on Schmidt V.A.'s Discursive Institutionalism and its implications to Taiwan's Teacher Professional Development Policy

This Thesis explored the theory, practices, and future prospects of the teacher professional development policy in Taiwan. Prof. Schmidt's discursive institutionalism pointed out an analysis of institutions must start from the ideas and discourses of the actors and must regard the coordinative political sphere of the policy for a policy idea to be communicated and become the consensus of political elites. Additionally, the top-down communicative political sphere was essential for ideas to be imparted to the general public. The length of participation in the professional policy in Taiwan was, on average, one to two years, because teachers there considered the policy unrelated to their classroom teaching. Although teachers were aware of the need to grow, few, in fact, take actions while most remained passive and stayed inertia. This thesis argued that the languages of a policy idea were transmitted both by a top-down and bottom-up approach. If a ruling government fails to construct an effective discourse, its policy will not be successfully implemented.

Universalism in Social Policies: A Multidimensional Concept, Policy Idea or Process

This issue of Social Inclusion takes the dazzling and fuzzy term ‘universalism’ to scrutiny. The editorial introduces different usages of the term in the academic debate. It first discusses universalism as an idea, then as a process, and finally its dimensions. The articles published in this issue are situated in the debate.

The Virtuous Circle of Sustainable Welfare as a Transformative Policy Idea

Welfare states are highly dependent on the economic growth paradigm. Especially in social democratic welfare states, growth dependence has historically been accompanied by the notion of a virtuous circle, which ensures that social policy measures do not conflict with economic growth. However, this policy idea ignores the environmental impacts that are now challenging human wellbeing and welfare goals. In this conceptual research article, I reframe the virtuous circle of the welfare state by revealing its unintended consequences and internal contradictions before introducing a more sustainable policy idea. I argue that this new concept—a virtuous circle of sustainable welfare—could have transformative potential in designing a planned and socially sustainable degrowth transformation. Drawing on historical institutionalism, degrowth, social policy and sustainable welfare state research, I advocate for the virtuous circle as a heuristic tool to provide an appealing and convincing narrative for sustainable welfare state beyond growth. The policy idea of virtuous circle addresses interrelated institutional reforms and positive feedbacks between different institutions and policy goals. It also emphasizes that a holistic approach is necessary to avoid trade-offs and contradictions between social, environmental, and economic policies.

Introduction

The policy idea of facilitating circular migration entered the European Union’s agenda more than a decade ago as part of a worldwide buzz among international organisations that it could provide a ‘triple win solution’ that would benefit all: the countries of origin and destination as well as the migrant workers themselves. According to the European Commission’s vision, this type of migration was to be facilitated in such a way as to allow some degree of legal mobility for migrants between two countries. Chapter 10.1007/978-3-030-52689-4_1 aims to introduce the understanding of this concept in the EU context and to set the scene for the book to unfold.

Shestidesyatniki Economics, the Idea of Convergence, and Perestroika

The article analyzes the reception of the idea of convergence in Soviet economics from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s. It is predominantly concerned with convergence theory as a policy idea that inspired perestroika. Its central question is: Under the conditions of an authoritarian regime, how could an imported policy idea that bluntly contradicted official ideology reach a degree of dissemination and (among a specific stratum of the elite) popularity that would later turn it into a central pillar of reform policy? An important finding is that the idea of convergence united the Soviet “people of the sixties” and some Western “progressive” intellectuals who together formed a transregional epistemic community that only for a short period of time, at the end of the 1980s, gained political influence.