Search results

Reconsiders tax reform and economic emancipation of women with respect to public policy formation in The Netherlands. In particular, investigates the attempts of organised interest groups of the Dutch women′s liberation movement during the 1980s to influence the public policy process on tax form. The theory of public choice is applied as a theoretical framework for this case study of The Netherlands. The analysis starts with an overview of the issues at stake in the tax reform debate in The Netherlands. Organised women′s interest groups have a specific viewpoint on these issues. These viewpoints are expressed in the public policy process by various lobby mechanisms and political arenas in the Dutch political‐economic system. The attempts to influence these mechanisms and arenas in favour of women′s interests appear to have been rather unsuccessful in the 1980s. The Dutch policy process can be characterised by the so‐called “barrier model”. Various barriers in the Dutch policy process offer an explanation for the relative failure of the organised women′s interest groups to influence the tax reform process in The Netherlands. This explanation may also be valid for similar cases in other West European countries, where the same issues of tax reform and women′s emancipation are at stake and where the public policy process has the same characteristics. Finally, formulates some policy recommendations to overcome the barriers in the public policy process on tax reform.

Purpose – This chapter explores the policy formation process for chemical pollution in the An-Shun Plant case. Two major policies including the closing policy and the 1.3 billion NT dollars’ compensation were studied.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter first analyzes the background of the An-Shun Plant case, the closing policy, and the compensation policy. Analytically, a comparison of the closing policy and compensation policy are offered using Kingdon's (1984) theories of policy formation.

Findings – It was found that both inside and outside government factors were important from the analysis of the two formed policies. For the closing policy, inside government factors were more important than outside government factors. On the contrary, outside government factors were more important for the compensation policy.

Originality/value of the chapter – Environmental policies, especially compensation policy processes, were often ignored. This chapter signifies the importance of environmental policy formation.

Korea’s Institute for Basic Science (IBS), the first research institute dedicated to basic science in Korea, started ten years ago as part of a science policy called the Science Belt. It is noteworthy that Korea, with a short history of basic science, established such a research institute exclusively for basic science within a short period of time and made it one of the representative institutions of basic science in Korea. This paper aims to uncover the impetuses and constraints surrounding the policy of Science Belt, centering on the IBS.

Kingdon’s stream theory is used to clarify the factors that acted as impetuses or constraints for the Science Belt. For the analysis, in-depth interviews with the active policy participants were conducted in addition to the thorough literature review. The interviews enabled an in-depth understanding of the underlying factors for the Science Belt and the actual procedures of the policy decision.

This study found that the most powerful impetus in the Science Belt policymaking process was the President and a small group composed of a few scientists who played a leading role in the political stream. The constraint of the Science Belt was that the participation of scientist experts and governmental officials, the so-called invisible participants of Kingdon, was insignificant. In particular, there was no system in place to select policy alternatives for basic science through discussion between scientists and governmental officials.

The temporal scope of this study was limited to policy formation, that is, until the establishment of IBS. Therefore, future studies shall conduct a research on the implementation of the actual policy, IBS’s achievements and IBS’s impact of Korea’s basic science community.

This study applied both a theoretical framework and in-depth interviews along with the literature overview to understand a policymaking process from various angles.

This paper examines characteristics of three main education sub‐systems: the policy formation system, the management or control system and the implementation system. In the policy formation system the main features are: intangibility of some education goals; lack of means‐ends continuum; inconsistency of goals; external dominance; the role of management and of teachers in education policy formation; value judgements; lack of feedback; heuristic processes; and incrementalism. Characteristics of the management system include: internal and external constraints; flat hierarchy; bases of authority; conflicting role demands; lack of colleague control; bureaucratic rules; size of staff; feminization; and management self‐image. Implementation system features are: organization of small symmetric sub‐units; organizational implications of goal conflict; compulsory attendance of clients; cognitive vs. emotive functions; resulting tensions and conflicts; sub‐cultures; clients' vulnerability; differential treatment of clients; obstacles to output measurement; and implication of measurement difficulties. The last section points out some implications of the analysis which seem to indicate similar and increasingly important developments in other public service bureaucracies. These include: diffuse and intangible goals; value sensitivity; high cost and external dominance; client service and client dependence; obstacles to output measurements; professionalization and feminization.

This paper considers the problems of developing a policy formation process to cope with the issues created by declining school enrolments, principally those relating to conflict and ambiguity. The paper is based on an analysis of a particular case study of an US school district from which tentative conclusions are derived regarding the political dynamics of policy generation; stages in policy formation; and leadership styles appropriate to contraction.

Explores a number of the debates and justification used to support and advance non‐state governance of the Internet in the USA. Reviews public reports released leading up to the formation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Concludes that the scope herein is restricted to the jurisdictions and reasoning stated in the policy papers leading to the formation of the ICANN.

Even though the promise of globalization has faded and it is no longer the fashionable topic it once was, national policy‐makers must still deal with its widespread economic, political and social effects. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between, on the one hand, differing levels of human development between countries, and, on the other, the extent to which countries pursue national policy objectives disciplined by what has been described as the “universal values” underlying the globalization process.

The concepts of globalization and world society values are first defined and discussed in a policy‐related context. The relationship between globalization values, national policy settings and human welfare and freedom is explored by means of a simple SEM model.

The results of the SEM model indicate that there is a clear link between higher levels of human development where countries' normative policy settings concord with world society values. A more important outcome is greater insight into the critical role that social connectedness plays in explaining differences in levels of human development.

The paper presents an exploratory analysis of globalization and national policy formation.

Existing research argues that repression hindered the ability of local civil rights movements to influence the development of local War on Poverty programs; however, the Virginia civil rights struggle defies this pattern. This comparative county-level study melds institutionalist accounts of welfare state development with an analysis of movement repression in order to explain this paradox. A distinction is made between situational and institutional repression. While scholars focus on the former and its negative impact on mobilization, this study suggests that institutional repression can have the opposite effect, unifying movements and facilitating their influence on the formation and implementation of poverty policy.

Research has already uncovered a great deal of evidence about the individual and organizational qualities that enhance effective teaching and the kinds of qualifications (attributes) that are associated with effective teaching and learning. From a research perspective, increased precision and specificity in the definition and refinement of specific concepts (e.g., pedagogical content knowledge) will increase academic knowledge about the relationship between teacher characteristics, working conditions, and the quality of instruction that takes place. This knowledge may have little effect on policy formation. From a policy perspective, a holistic or organic conception of teacher quality will be critical for effective policy formation and implementation. At some point, academic knowledge about different aspects of effective or “quality” teaching need to be connected to a general concept of a quality teacher in order to be effectively inserted into policy debates and the general media. Systematic use of academic knowledge is often hindered by either the narrow focus of the research, or by its limited application to actual teacher practice. In spite of these limitations in academic research, there are areas where academics, policymakers, and practitioners have achieved consensus or are converging on shared constructs of promise. In other areas, both academic and political debates seem locked into conflict over constructs related to teacher quality. Identifying these three broad categories of consensus, convergence, and conflict provides a broad framework to assess the kinds of research and the kinds of reform that need to be carried out in order to promote and sustain teachers’ development and implementation of their professional skills in the classroom.

This article seeks to present approaches on the utilisation of expert information in strategic planning practices.

The article emphasises alternative scenario development for the bases of decision making. This is done through an evaluation of Delphi studies and their feasibility for scenario construction. As an application of the information processes, both narrow and broad expert information processes are presented as alternative sources for solutions in public sector strategic planning.

Basically, there are two alternative ways to utilise Delphi studies in strategic planning and decision making: a broad expert information process (BEIP) model; and a narrow expert information process (NEIP) model.

As a broad process, an example is presented of the alternative future outcomes and the argumentation around it in the share of genetically modified plant varieties in commercial farming in Finland.

This theoretical review contributes to the discussions of the linkages between the use of expert information, the scenario planning and the strategic planning processes.