Global Public Policy and Governance
1. Governing in a time of global crises: the good, the bad, and the merely normal
B. Guy Peters，Maurice Falk Professor of Government, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA
Governments and societies in 2020 and 2021 have been facing three interconnected crises—COVID-19 and the health crisis, an economic crisis resulting from the health crisis, and a social crisis around inclusion and equity. The magnitude of these crises, and their nature, vary across countries, but no country has been left untouched. The governance responses to these crises have varied markedly, both in terms of their character and their success. This paper discusses the good, the bad, and the merely normal aspects of governance that have emerged in response to these crises.
2. Coordinating government silos: challenges and opportunities
Ian Scott，Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Ting Gong，Department of Public Policy, City University of Hong Kong, Institute for Global Public Policy & School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai, China
The literature on silos in government often focuses on their failure to engage effectively in horizontal coordination. While this is often true, silos-dominant administrative systems may still find ways to overcome or prevent incoherence in government. The problem is not so much with the structure of silos but with the lack of effective coordination mechanisms between them. Therefore, it is important to identify what mechanisms may enable silos to work successfully with each other and under what conditions, so that there will be no need to pursue a total breakdown of silos, which can be politically and administratively costly. Using Hong Kong examples, we distinguish three different types of coordination and examine their effects on silos: informal or semi-formal coordination where administrative elites and professionals use quid pro quos to overcome coordination problems; formal coordination where political expectations, directions and monitoring may mitigate problems; and remedial policy-making where failure is addressed. The Hong Kong case reveals that effective changes may be made by strengthening existing coordinating mechanisms and extending them to the implementation level in a silos-dominant system. Radical reforms may improve coordination but they run the risk of political instability and service disruption.
3. The role of pro-women institutions in addressing violence reports against women
Adalmir Oliveira Gomes，University of Brasilia, Management Program, Brasilia, Brazil
Claudia N. Avellaneda，O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA
Violence against women is a major public health and human rights problem. In response, countries have sought to empower and support victims and strengthen violence prevention by promoting the creation of several pro-women institutions, such as a city council for women’s rights, a women’s police station, and a shelter for women facing violence. However, we know little about how these pro-women institutions affect reporting cases of violence against women. This study tests the reporting effects of an integrative framework that includes pro-women institutions, economic, demographic, cultural, political, and symbolic representation factors. The analysis relies on data derived from the 496 municipalities of the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Violence against women is captured with reporting of (a) serious threats, (b) personal injury, (c) rape, (d) attempted murder, and (e) murder. Results seem to be contingent on the types of reporting cases and pro-women institutions. Having a police station for women issues boosts reporting cases of personal injury, and the presence of a public defender officer for women increases reporting cases of serious threats and attempted murder. Results suggest local pro-minority institutions seem to enhance government responsiveness by addressing their demands.
4. Can practitioners and analysts join forces to address largescale environmental challenges?
Oran R. Young，Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Efforts to promote collaboration between practitioners and analysts in establishing and administering governance systems to address largescale environmental challenges regularly fall victim to a two cultures problem. As a popular saying has it: analysts look at issues from 30,000 feet, while practitioners are down in the weeds. This article considers prospects for overcoming this problem. Using the concept of the policy cycle as a framing device, it examines contributions practitioners and analysts can make during the stages of agenda formation, collective choice, implementation and administration, and evaluation and reform. The article then turns to practical steps for overcoming the barriers to productive engagement between the two communities caused by the lack of a common language for thinking about specific needs for governance and by the influence of negative stereotypes about each other’s contributions that color the day-to-day activities of practitioners and analysts alike. The empirical focus of the article is on efforts to create effective governance systems to address largescale environmental challenges. But many features of the two cultures problem are generic. The ideas this article articulates may apply as well to efforts to foster collaboration between practitioners and analysts in other issue domains.
Rahul Mukherji，Department of Political Science, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
Seyed Hossein Zarhani，Department of Political Science, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
This paper demonstrates the impact of path-dependent policy paradigms on institutional progression. This could involve institutional journeys from democracy to authoritarianism, from federalism to centralization, and vice versa. First, we posit that policy ideas are more important than material interests for the evolution of historical paths. Second, the sequence of path construction is equally important. This paper points to the significance of policy ideas for the construction of two sequences—a layering–tipping–displacement path—and a path of institutional drift. Our case work describes how the layered evolution of ideas led to a tipping point that transformed a public sector-driven regime into a private sector oriented one in 1991, thereby unleashing India’s rapid economic growth. The causal mechanism suggests that layering leading to a tipping point that displaces the old paradigm can reveal why overtly abrupt change may result from gradual endogenous processes. This is a largely unexplored causal mechanism in comparative politics. The paper also demonstrates that an ideational drift away from the federalising frame evolved since 2014. It has resulted in famishing the Indian sub-national states for development expenditure, especially at the time of COVID-19. Scholars have suggested the causal logic behind conversion, drift, layering and displacement largely based on material factors. This paper connects ideas embedded in policy paradigms with two of these paths.
E. S. Savas，Presidential Professor Emeritus, Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, USA
The roles of government and the other institutions of society are analyzed with respect to the provision of goods and services. Goods and services are classified, according to the principles of political economy, using the two defined variables: consumption and exclusion. This leads to four kinds of goods: individual goods, toll goods, common-pool goods, and collective goods. The goods can be provided by four different institutions: government, the family, civil society, and the market. Each of these institutions has shortcomings and is subject to failures. Moreover, not all of the four kinds of goods can be supplied by each of the four institutions. The characteristics of the goods and of the supplying institutions result in a table showing which types of goods can be provided by which of the four institutions. So, who should do what? How should the responsibility for providing goods and services be allocated between government and the three private institutions of society? What kinds of collaboration—including privatization—can be applied to achieve a better functioning society? The discussion is summarized in a decision tree that shows how one can consider the different kinds of goods, the different institutions, and the collaboration needed for a better allocation of these necessary societal activities.
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