scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question

Showing papers in "Governance in 2015"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a theoretical framework for identifying feedback mechanisms through which policies can become self-undermining over time, increasing the likelihood of a major change in policy orientation, and illustrate three types of selfundermining feedback mechanisms that they expect to operate in democratic politics: the emergence of unanticipated losses for mobilized social interests, interactions between strategic elites and loss-averse voters, and expansions of the menu of policy alternatives.
Abstract: Most studies of policy feedback have focused on processes of self-reinforcement through which programs bolster their own bases of political support and endure or expand over time. This article develops a theoretical framework for identifying feedback mechanisms through which policies can become self-undermining over time, increasing the likelihood of a major change in policy orientation. We conceptualize and illustrate three types of self-undermining feedback mechanisms that we expect to operate in democratic politics: the emergence of unanticipated losses for mobilized social interests, interactions between strategic elites and loss-averse voters, and expansions of the menu of policy alternatives. We also advance hypotheses about the conditions under which each mechanism is likeliest to unfold. In illuminating endogenous sources of policy change, the analysis builds on efforts by both historically oriented and rationalist scholars to understand how institutions change and seeks to expand political scientists’ theoretical toolkit for explaining policy development over time.

235 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas and show a pattern of privileged pluralism in Danish political arenas.
Abstract: A key issue for interest groups and policymakers is the ways through which organized interests voice their interests and influence public policy. This article combines two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas. From a resource exchange perspective, it argues that access to different political arenas is discrete as it is determined by the match between the supply and demands of interest groups and gatekeepers—politicians, bureaucrats, and reporters. From a partly competing perspective, it is argued that access is cumulative and converges around wealthy and professionalized groups. Based on a large-scale investigation of group presence in Danish political arenas, the analyses show a pattern of privileged pluralism. This describes a system where multiple political arenas provide opportunities for multiple interests but where unequally distributed resources produce cumulative effects (i.e., the same groups have high levels of arena access).

226 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The relationship between a state's performance in delivering services and its degree of legitimacy is nonlinear as discussed by the authors, conditioned by expectations of what the state should provide, subjective assessments of impartiality and distributive justice, the relational aspects of provision, how easy it is to attribute (credit or blame) performance to the state, and the characteristics of the service.
Abstract: Received wisdom holds that the provision of vital public services necessarily improves the legitimacy of a fragile or conflict-affected state. In practice, however, the relationship between a state's performance in delivering services and its degree of legitimacy is nonlinear. Specifically, this relationship is conditioned by expectations of what the state should provide, subjective assessments of impartiality and distributive justice, the relational aspects of provision, how easy it is to attribute (credit or blame) performance to the state, and the characteristics of the service. This questions the dominant institutional model, which reduces the role of services in (re)building state legitimacy to an instrumental one. A more rounded account of the significance of service delivery for state legitimacy would look beyond the material to the ideational and relational significance of services, and engage with the normative criteria by which citizens judge them.

134 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low as mentioned in this paper, which is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China-the cadre organization.
Abstract: Much research has argued for the importance of state's administrative capacity for development. Disregard for the rule of law and failure to get corruption under control are seen as detrimental to economic and social development. The China paradox refers to the fact that in all commonly used measures of levels of corruption and the quality of government, China is a country that scores quite low. China also lacks the Weberian model of bureaucracy that is seen as central for development. It is argued that this paradox is the result of disregarding the existence of a different public administration model in China-the cadre organization. Instead of rule following, this organization is marked by high commitment to a specific policy doctrine. The argument is that while very different from Weberian bureaucracy, this organization is well suited for effectively implementing policies for economic and social development.

110 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Cornel Ban1
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the evolution of the International Monetary Fund's doctrine to staff politics, more diverse thinking in mainstream economics, and a careful framing of the message through the use of mainstream macroeconomic models.
Abstract: Since 2008, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has become more open to the use of discretionary fiscal stimulus packages to deal with recessions, while changing its doctrine on the timing and content of fiscal consolidation. The article traces this evolution of the Fund's doctrine to staff politics, more diverse thinking in mainstream economics, and a careful framing of the message through the use of mainstream macroeconomic models. To map the changing contours of institutional views on fiscal policy through 2008–2013, the article undertakes a detailed content analysis of official publications from the Fiscal Affairs Department and the Research Department. The connection between these shifts and significant personnel shake-ups is demonstrated through an extensive biographical analysis of the authors of all IMF studies cited in the official reports of the two departments. The findings contribute to the emerging debate on the sources of intellectual and policy change in international economic organizations.

108 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a distinction is made between accountability within an established regime with stable power relations and role expectations and accountability as (re)structuring processes in less institutionalized contexts and in transformation periods.
Abstract: Accountability is a principle for organizing relations between rulers and ruled, and making public officials accountable is a democratic achievement. There are, however, competing claims about what is involved in demanding, rendering, assessing, and responding to accounts; what are effective accountability institutions; and how accountability regimes emerge and change. This article provides a frame for thinking about institutional aspects of accountability regimes and their cognitive, normative, and power foundations. A distinction is made between accountability within an established regime with stable power relations and role expectations and accountability as (re)structuring processes in less institutionalized contexts and in transformation periods. A huge literature is concerned with the first issue. There is less attention to accountability as (re)structuring processes. The article, therefore, calls attention to how democracies search for, and struggle over, what are legitimate accountability regimes and political orders.

86 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: For example, the United States' 1993 National Performance Review as discussed by the authors rewrote Bentham's famous “aptitude maximized, expense minimized” slogan of nearly two centuries before.
Abstract: “New public management” (NPM)—that now-hackneyed shorthand phrase for a set of loosely related ideas about government and public service reform—was ostensibly intended to create “a government that works better and costs less” (in the famous words of the United States’ 1993 National Performance Review, reworking Bentham’s famous “aptitude maximized, expense minimized” slogan of nearly two centuries before). So what do we have to show for three decades or so of NPM reforms? The short answer seems to be: higher costs and more complaints.

83 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a tax-based measure to capture the intra-country variation in state capacity, and validated the measure on the basis of survey data collected by the Latin American Public Opinion Project.
Abstract: Even though the unequal reach of the state has become an important concern in the literature on developing democracies in Latin America, empirical measures of intracountry variation in state capacity are scarce. So far, attempts to develop valid measures of the reach of the state have often been hampered by inadequate data. Leveraging insights from national-level scholarship, this article proposes a tax-based measure to capture such intracountry variation. Drawing on a comprehensive data set of municipal finance and estimates of economic activity derived from nighttime lights, it maps state capacity in Ecuador. The article validates the measure on the basis of survey data collected by the Latin American Public Opinion Project. A multilevel analysis demonstrates that citizens tend to be more satisfied with the services provided by the state in municipalities with higher state capacity, which strengthens confidence that the measure picks up relevant differences.

64 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reviewed patterns of policy stability and change at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the Great Recession and attempted to explain their causes, finding that the crisis ignited a reassessment regarding how the IMF would position itself as a pivotal player in global economic governance.
Abstract: This special issue reviews patterns of policy stability and change at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the Great Recession and attempts to explain their causes. The contributors show that the crisis ignited a reassessment regarding how the IMF would position itself as a pivotal player in global economic governance. Some new ideas and evidence definitely found their way into IMF decision making, but this process was often tempered by the nature of the institution and the powerful interests that control its governing structure. Where change did occur, its causal generators could be found in some combination between IMF staff politics, a string of innovations coming from academic and IMF economists, and the emerging economic powers' creative leveraging of institutional fora both within and inside the Fund.

63 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article used qualitative content analysis to establish the frequency of a series of policy dialogue indicators in four sample sets of countries requesting IMF stand-by arrangements over three decades and found that contemporary IMF policy advice to borrowers continues to stress the importance of fiscal consolidation, with reduced emphasis on promoting the structural economic reforms associated with the Washington consensus era.
Abstract: This article contributes to the literature on the dynamics of change and continuity in the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) policy paradigm. The IMF embarked on a process of “streamlining conditionality” during the 2000s, but many observers have argued that the IMF's policy paradigm from the 1990s remains intact. This article examines whether the scope of the IMF's policy advice to borrowers during the Great Recession narrowed in comparison to its advice to borrowers during the heyday of the Washington consensus in the 1980s and 1990s. The article uses qualitative content analysis to establish the frequency of a series of policy dialogue indicators in four sample sets of countries requesting IMF stand-by arrangements over three decades. The evidence suggests that contemporary IMF policy advice to borrowers continues to stress the importance of fiscal consolidation, with reduced emphasis on promoting the structural economic reforms associated with the Washington consensus era.

60 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level and found that the differentiated nature of the international environment transforms national agencies into policy-developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals.
Abstract: This article examines the influence of Europeanization on the relationship between ministries and agencies at the national level. The core argument is that the differentiated nature of the international environment (with policy development often transferred to the international level and policy implementation left at the national level) transforms national agencies into policy-developing actors that shape policies without being directly influenced by their national political principals. The increasingly common involvement of national agencies in European policymaking processes thereby increases these agencies' policy-development autonomy but does not change their role in policy implementation. We examine this argument by testing an innovative hypothesis—the differentiation hypothesis—on a combined data set of German and Dutch national agencies. Our empirical findings support the hypothesis in both countries, suggesting that similar effects can be expected in other contexts in which semiautonomous agencies are involved in transnational policymaking.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper analyzed four streams of government actions in Hong Kong from 1946 to 2007 straddling the colonial and postcolonial regimes, and found that government processes are generally leptokurtic even under authoritarian regime institutions, with the degree of the dispersion of decision-making power across the streams of actions affecting the magnitude of punctuation.
Abstract: The punctuated equilibrium theory contends that government attention allocation is universally leptokurtic in that long periods of stability are punctuated by bursts of rapid and radical change; the empirical evidence in support of this claim is however exclusively drawn from democratic systems. The absence of electoral politics and institutional decentralization in authoritarian regimes could presumably affect institutional friction; whether and how this might pose as a qualification to the thesis is of major interest. By analyzing four streams of government actions in Hong Kong from 1946 to 2007 straddling the colonial and postcolonial regimes, we have found that government processes are generally leptokurtic even under authoritarian regime institutions, with the degree of the dispersion of decision-making power across the streams of actions affecting the magnitude of punctuation. We have also found that punctuation was greater when the political system was more centralized but declined as the political system democratized.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use meso-level theories to elaborate on the relationship and suggest that institutional logics mediate the effect of gendered experiences on corruption, arguing that the relationship between more women and lower levels of corruption is weaker in the state administration than in the legislative arena, because the bureaucratic administrative logic absorbs actors' personal characteristics.
Abstract: Scholars have argued that recruiting more women to office is an effective way to curb corruption; however, the more precise mechanisms underlying why this may be the case have remained unclear. We use meso-level theories to elaborate on the relationship and suggest that institutional logics mediate the effect of gendered experiences on corruption. We make two propositions: First, we suggest that the relationship between more women and lower levels of corruption is weaker in the state administration than in the legislative arena, because the bureaucratic administrative logic absorbs actors’ personal characteristics. Second, we refine our institutional argument by claiming that the stronger the bureaucratic principles are in the administration, the less gender matters. We validate our theory using data provided by the European Commission (EC) covering the EC countries and original data from the Quality of Government Institute Expert Surveys, covering a larger set of countries on a worldwide scale.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine how an executive's consultations with interest groups during the formative stage of the policy process affect its bargaining success during the decision-making stage after it has proposed new policies to legislative actors.
Abstract: We examine how an executive's consultations with interest groups during the formative stage of the policy process affect its bargaining success during the decision-making stage after it has proposed new policies to legislative actors. Our theory sets out how consultations with interest groups strengthen the executive by bolstering its formal and informal agenda-setting power. The empirical testing ground for our theory is the European Union (EU), and in particular the consultations held by the European Commission. The analysis assesses the effects of these consultations on the congruence between the Commission's legislative proposals on controversial issues and EU laws. Our analysis incorporates detailed information on the type and scope of each consultation. In line with our theory, we find that the Commission had more success during the decision-making stage after conducting open consultations with large numbers of interest groups during the policy formation stage.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the possibility that democratization itself may play an important role in the subsequent development and consolidation of the state and the results of their panel analysis, covering a population of 122 countries, show that both a country's level of democracy and the interaction between degree and duration of democracy positively and significantly affect the consolidation of state and its two key individual dimensions, namely, political order and administrative capacity.
Abstract: The established view in political science is that a sound and functioning state has to be in place before democracy can be introduced. State first, and then democracy. While acknowledging the existence of a basic state infrastructure as a necessary starting point, we examine the possibility that democratization itself may play an important role in the subsequent development and consolidation of the state. We do this by addressing the major conceptual and methodological shortcomings of existing research on this topic. The results of our panel analysis, covering a population of 122 countries, show that both a country's level of democracy and the interaction between degree and duration of democracy positively and significantly affect the consolidation of the state and of its two key individual dimensions, namely, political order and administrative capacity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) assesses FSAP teams, focusing on the hiring of external experts and their professional skills.
Abstract: In 2006, the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) lauded Iceland's capacity to “withstand extreme, but plausible, shocks,” which was clearly an error in judgment. After the international financial crisis hit, IMF officials bemoaned the lack of professional market skills in FSAP teams. Importing these skills was difficult given IMF staff freezes, but postcrisis FSAP continued with heightened legitimacy inside and outside the IMF. This article provides an assessment of FSAP teams, focusing on the hiring of external experts and their professional skills. We use an Optimal Matching analysis of work roles in career histories to identify differences in policy teams and external experts' attributes. The article also draws on interviews with FSAP team members from 2008 to 2013. We demonstrate that changes in professional skills and team composition are a consequence of demands for professional insulation, institutional legitimation, and a view of professionalism as transnational organizational competence.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that anticorruption entrepreneurs combat corruption in three ways: (1) by initiating attempts to reduce corrupt practices, whether through legislation or judicial decisions; (2) by being recognized as honest brokers for informants and insiders; and (3) by providing reliable information from these sources to promote scandals.
Abstract: This article suggests a new perspective for analyzing anticorruption policies by emphasizing the important role of policy entrepreneurs. We maintain that these entrepreneurs combat corruption in three ways: (1) by initiating attempts to reduce corrupt practices, whether through legislation or judicial decisions; (2) by being recognized as honest brokers for informants and insiders; and (3) by providing reliable information from these sources to promote scandals. Even when they are unsuccessful in getting legislation passed, anticorruption entrepreneurs reduce corruption because they raise the level of scrutiny into corrupt practices. In addition, they foment uncertainty, deterring those considering abusing their power. We test our theoretical framework on several anticorruption entrepreneurs in Israel, demonstrating that their existence increases the potential cost of corruption. By creating networks, sharing information with others, and building reputations of honesty and courage, they encourage those involved in or considering illegal activities to refrain from such actions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that a particular type of costs produce different logics of institutional change that privilege the state, professionals or private, or political actors in distinct ways.
Abstract: Many scholars have argued that social programs are marked by a logic of “increasing returns” that makes change difficult. Yet over the past decades, reformers across industrialized countries have introduced substantial administrative reforms in these services, even as entitlement reform remains politically difficult. This paper explains these shifts by breaking apart the logic of “increasing returns” into three distinct “costs to change”: technical, political, and expectations. Decreases in a particular type of costs produce different logics of institutional change—back end, informal, and front end—that privilege the state, professionals or private, or political actors in distinct ways. I support these claims by reexamining three cases that were considered exemplars of stability but that ultimately had major entitlement reform: health care in the United Kingdom and United States and welfare programs in the United States. I show that even before radical reforms occurred, reformers introduced distinct logics of administrative change that underpinned later changes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The second generation of global governance research as discussed by the authors has focused almost exclusively on formal mechanisms of interstate relations within public multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank, with these structures apparently in gridlock, many observers now regard global governance to be in crisis.
Abstract: A first generation of global governance research, principally in international relations (IR), has focused almost exclusively on formal mechanisms of interstate relations within public multilateral institutions, such as the United Nations and the World Bank. With these structures apparently in gridlock, many observers now regard global governance to be in crisis. However, a second generation of disparate scholarship spanning IR, European Union Public Policy (EPP) and International Law (IL) has begun to investigate new forms of public and private global governance as a response to the limitations faced by states in tackling pressing transboundary challenges. IR itself epitomizes this rebellion against old orthodoxies, having decisively shifted away in recent years from international relations to world politics, defined not simply by anarchic system structures, but also by an infrastructure built on liberal principles, and the presence of diverse social forces. This commentary proposes a research agenda which seeks to integrate insights across this theoretically and empirically-rich second generation of scholarship to ground a powerful third generation of global governance research, distinguished by a concern for the complexity and dynamism of global public policy-making and delivery in the 21st century.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the impact of politics on governmental rule production and show that the effect of political factors is indistinguishable across changes in primary laws and changes in administrative rules, a result that challenges the depiction of the latter rule-making process as more or less disconnected from the political domain.
Abstract: This article examines the impact of politics on governmental rule production. Traditionally, explanations of rule dynamics have focused on nonpolitical factors such as the self-evolvement of rules, environmental factors, and decision maker attributes. This article develops a set of hypotheses about when, why, and how political factors shape changes in the stock of rules. Furthermore, we test these hypotheses on a unique, new data set based on all Danish primary legislation and administrative rules from 1989 to 2011 categorized into 20 different policy domains. The analysis shows that the traditional Weberian “rules breed rules” explanations must be supplemented with political explanations that take party ideology and changes in the political agenda into account. Moreover, the effect of political factors is indistinguishable across changes in primary laws and changes in administrative rules, a result that challenges the depiction of the latter rule-making process as more or less disconnected from the political domain.

Journal ArticleDOI
Dennis Grube1
TL;DR: This paper conducted a comparative study across four Westminster jurisdictions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) to examine the formal rules and guidelines that apply to public servants when making public statements in their official capacity, arguing that public servants are expected to demonstrate a new level of enthusiasm when explaining or justifying government policy to the public.
Abstract: © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc 28 3 July 2015 10.1111/gove.12088 Original Articles Original Article © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Contemporary public service leaders are no longer the anonymous mandarins of Westminster folklore. Whether giving public speeches to outside organizations or communicating directly with the media, senior public servants are emerging from anonymity to become public actors in their own right. This article undertakes a comparative study across four Westminster jurisdictions-Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom-to examine the formal rules and guidelines that apply to public servants when making public statements in their official capacity. Drawing on the late Peter Aucoin's notion of "promiscuous partisanship," the article argues that public servants are expected to demonstrate a new level of enthusiasm when explaining or justifying government policy to the public. This has implications for the extent to which nonpartisanship can continue to effectively function within Westminster systems. Copyright

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors traces the political process that yielded the IMF's new view on capital account liberalization and draws out lessons for thinking about policy change in global economic governance institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Abstract: Financial crises can trigger different actors to reassess their ideas, interests, and policies, and sometimes change them. The Global Financial Crisis triggered a reassessment at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding the utility of capital account liberalization and the management of capital flows. In 2010, the IMF embarked upon an official reassessment of these issues and in 2012 published an official “institutional view” on capital account liberalization and managing capital flows that gives more caution toward capital account liberalization and endorses the use of capital controls in certain circumstances. This article traces the political process that yielded the IMF's new view and draws out lessons for thinking about policy change in global economic governance institutions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) new financial interconnectedness agenda, developed in response to postcrisis calls from G20 to better understand systemic financial institutions, deploys a critical approach that stresses the spatial, political, and institutional dimensions of cross-border financial networks as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) new financial interconnectedness agenda, developed in response to postcrisis calls from G20 to better understand systemic financial institutions, deploys a critical approach that stresses the spatial, political, and institutional dimensions of cross-border financial networks. It portrays global banks as key nodes in those networks, “super-spreaders” of systemic risk through complex business models that involve yield search, regulatory and tax arbitrage. Yet this critical view does not translate into its policy advice at country level. In regular surveillance of developing countries, the IMF remains committed to a benign view of transnational banking, even when confronted with growing cross-border fragilities. During crises of cross-border banking, the IMF tailors its conditionality to minimize domestic regulatory challenges to cross-border banking models and to propose crisis measures that create new profit opportunities for transnational banks.

Journal ArticleDOI
Johan Engvall1
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the logic of political and administrative organization in post-Soviet countries can be understood in terms of a kind of "investment market" where would-be officials invest in offices to obtain access to a stream of income associated with an office.
Abstract: What type of state has emerged in post-Soviet Eurasia, and what kind of theoretical framework can help us understand its behavior and performance? This article argues that we can usefully understand the logic of political and administrative organization in terms of a kind of “investment market.” Access to the state is frequently determined by actual financial payment. Would-be officials invest in offices to obtain access to a stream of income associated with an office. This framework represents a novel perspective on the post-Soviet state, which has hitherto either been premised on modernization theory or emphasized a robustly personalistic logic of political organization.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account, and they find that political preferences still prevail in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas.
Abstract: For three decades, the “politics matters” literature has found that political ideology is an important explanation of public policy. However, this literature systematically fails to include the influence of the bureaucracy. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify a single study in this literature that controls for the influence of the permanent bureaucracy. In this article, we investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account. We do this in a simultaneous test of political and bureaucratic influences on public budgets, a policy measure often studied in the “politics matters” literature. We find that political preferences trump bureaucratic ones in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas. This might be comforting news from a democratic perspective. However, as public budgets represent an easy case for political influence, it is food for thought that political preferences do not always prevail.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine the European Union's medical biotechnology policy and find that establishing ethical experts as a new category of expertise alongside scientific experts bolsters the technocratic domain in areas where it is contested, thus reinforcing the authority of experts and bureaucrats in the policy process, rather than democratic control.
Abstract: This article challenges the assumption that ethics committees introduce democratic control in policy areas where scientific expertise and ethical concerns collide. The claim is that politicians or bureaucrats are likely to resort to the use of ethical expertise when they face a specific type of dilemma: the impossibility, on the one hand, of yielding a consensus on controversial value-based issues via the democratic route and the need, on the other, to legitimize controversial policy choices in these areas. The article examines this dynamic with regard to the European Union's medical biotechnology policy, a contested policy domain where ethical specialists are awarded expert status. The article finds that establishing ethical experts as a new category of expertise alongside scientific experts actually bolsters the technocratic domain in areas where it is contested, thus reinforcing the authority of experts and bureaucrats in the policy process, rather than democratic control.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors suggests that government may adapt existing policy arrangements to encourage compliance rather than enforce implementation, and that noncompliance is an ongoing decision-making process rather than a single event, with scope for government intervention at different points.
Abstract: Governmental reaction to citizens’ noncompliance with policy is often portrayed as a retrospective enforcement effort, in which incentives and information serve as the main mechanisms to change citizens’ noncompliant behavior. This study suggests that government may adapt existing policy arrangements to encourage compliance rather than enforce implementation. Such responses recognize that noncompliance is an ongoing decision-making process rather than a single event, with scope for government intervention at different points. Drawing on toddlers’ nonvaccination in Israel as a test case, findings indicate that to minimize noncompliance and its public health implications, officials have responded by personalizing the standardized service. Personalization is a pragmatic response that recognizes that hesitant parents may be amenable to modified interventions as an alternative to complete exit. Nevertheless, personalization challenges the very notion of a public health intervention based on a standard protocol and raises new dilemmas around where private responsibilities end and public ones begin.