During their time in office, British governments’ styles of political judgement or bias in policymaking often become shorter in term and less intellectually coherent, sometimes in passive or coping ways, sometimes shifting toward imposition. This article offers an explanation, developing the neo-Durkheimian theory of institutional dynamics. Changing judgement style, it argues, is driven by changes in administrations’ informal institutional ordering of social organisation. “Isolation dynamics” are shifts in that ordering towards weakly cohesive but strongly constrained “isolate” forms. Increased isolate ordering is reflected in less cohesive but more constrained judgement style. Novel distinctions within isolate ordering explain key differences among administrations’ trajectories. Using extensive archival data, three British administrations between 1959 and 1974 are compared. The study finds that, among otherwise contrasting administrations, reinforcement or undermining in informal social organisation drove changes in styles of political judgement, as shown in their ways of framing policy problems, risks, time horizons, etc.

We analyse the importance of legitimacy on public policy support by comparing how drivers of public policy attitudes evolve across the policy process consisting of the input (the processes forgoing acquisition of power and the procedures permeating political decisionmaking), throughput (the inclusion of and interactions between actors in a governance system) and output (the substantive consequences of those decisions) stages. Using unique panel data through three phases of the implementation of a congestion tax in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, we find that legitimacy is indeed important in explaining policy support. Moreover, we find a lingering effect where support in one phase depends on legitimacy both in the present and in previous phases. Hence, our study takes us one step further on the road to understand the complicated dynamic mechanisms behind the interactions between policymaking, policy support, and the legitimacy and approval of politicians and political processes.

I analyse the relative influence of lawmakers before and after a watershed moment in the development of faction institutions: the abolition of legislative service organizations. Blocs of lawmakers in the House of Representatives were afforded official resources to advance their policy agendas between 1979 and 1995. In the wake of the “Republican Revolution,” however, these groups were categorically dismantled. Using a difference-in-difference design, I estimate the individual-level effect of losing congressional resources on relative legislative effectiveness. The results inform our understanding of faction power, legislative bargaining and evolving congressional institutions.

The levels of organisational development of business interest associations in two industrial sectors – chemicals and food processing – in Canada and the United Kingdom are compared, with special reference to the capacity of the associations to undertake public policy functions and to engage in long-term strategic thinking about the problems facing their industries. There is a higher level of organisational development in British business interest associations than in their Canadian counterparts, especially in the chemicals sector. The British associations are better able to assume responsibility for public policy implementation as private governments. A number of explanations are reviewed, particular emphasis being placed on different company structures, the disintegrating effect of high levels of foreign ownership in Canada, bureaucratic competition in Canada, association involvement in collective bargaining, and the impact of European Community membership on the British associations.

This article attempts to analyse why, to quote a recent report from the Home Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, ‘in the vacuum caused by the Home Office's reluctance to be seen to be interfering, ethnic minority concerns go by default’. It first examines the reasons for placing responsibility for race relations policy with the Home Office and then goes on to detail events within the Home Office in the two years following the introduction of the 1976 Race Relations Act. The article concludes by suggesting that a lack of preparedness for the implementation stage of the policy, together with a diminution of political commitment and the limitations on special funding, discouraged the Home Office from playing a more active and more effective role in coordinating and initiating within central government policies for racial disadvantage.

The market orientation of the 1992 European Community programme has given way to a range of other projects involving institutional integration. Issues such as European Monetary Union and the EC Social Charter now dominate the Community's policy agenda. Inducing this shift from ‘negative’ to ‘positive’ integration was a growing realisation that institutional interventions are required to secure and coordinate the integration process. This paper examines the nature of the EC Social Charter as a positive coordination mechanism. First the controversies surrounding the adoption of the Charter are outlined. Then an appraisal is made of how the clauses of the Charter' accompanying action programme and recently published draft Directives affect existing national systems of labour market regulation. The conclusion is that although the Charter does not constitute a move towards a harmonised employment regime, it is a serious attempt to bring about greater coherence in Community labour markets.

Law is an instrument which can be used by central government to influence its environment, including other levels of government. This paper examines a number of fundamental questions about the nature of legal influence upon local authorities in Britain. Legislation affects local authorities in a variety of ways: through making direct reference to local authority organisations and the services they provide; through affecting all large organisations, public or private; and through affecting the organisations and individuals with which local authorities interact. In the 1970s a large proportion of legislation was concerned with the financial aspects of local services. Relatively few laws make substantive changes in the legal framework within which local authorities operate and much legislation can be categorised as ‘anodyne’. However, particular items of legislation can produce such substantive changes in public policies and in the powers of different organisations within government.

Interest groups cannot advocate on every issue they might consider relevant. They must decide what issues to prioritise and which ones to leave to one side. In this article, we examine how groups seek to balance different internal and external considerations when prioritizing issues, and which factors might explain variation in the relative strength of these drivers. We integrate data of a survey of national interest groups in Australia with findings from interviews with a cross section of high-profile groups. While the literature often suggests a clash between external political considerations and internal membership demands, we find that groups view these drivers as largely compatible. Our explanatory analysis points to the policy orientation and insider status of the group, its democratic character, and the extent to which it faces competition for membership contributions, as important factors shaping the relative strength of distinct drivers of internal agenda setting.

The ability to forecast and evaluate the impact of selective financial assistance is crucial to the formulation of effective policies of selective industrial intervention. A survey of institutions and methodology across the three countries reveals inadequacies in the quality and the extent of governments’ appraisal of industrial assistance measures. The principal problems of quantitative appraisal are identified and discussed and suggestions are made for improvements in the procedures and methods of appraisal, with the purpose of improving the formulation and the implementation of policies of selective industrial assistance.

This article discusses the results of recent historical research on the governance of networks and their impact on policy-making in the formative period of the EU. It concludes that historically aware research on networks in EU governance has great potential. In particular, in can contribute to enhancing our knowledge about the formation and dynamics of networks; conceptualising the role of supranational institutions such as the Commission in instigating network formation and steering new networks; and improving our understanding of change over time in the governance of networks and their policy impact in the EU.

Punctuated equilibrium theory seeks to explain policy volatility and stability in government attention. In previous research into the temporal dynamics of punctuations, scholars found that punctuations occur in clusters – a recent budgetary punctuation increases the likelihood of a subsequent punctuation. This article examines the direction, positive or negative, of budgetary punctuations over time. Are budgetary punctuations corrective, grouping positive and negative changes? Or, do budgetary punctuations occur in cumulative trends of positive or negative changes? These questions address the heart of the theoretical metaphor for punctuated equilibrium. In an analysis of over 1,000 Texas school districts for nearly a 20-year-period, results support the notion of reactive patterns of budgetary punctuations – positive and negative budgetary punctuations pair up at a rate much higher than expected by chance. The findings demonstrate that even though it is likely to see consecutive positive and negative punctuations, they are not always fully corrective.

Institutional fragmentation is usually assumed to influence social policy outcomes in countries with constitutional features such as federalism and divided government, but not in unitary and parliamentary states. The example of childcare politics in the Scandinavian countries suggests that institutional fragmentation and veto points also can play a significant role in unitary and parliamentary systems. The rules of childcare implementation in the Scandinavian countries to a varying degree provide municipalities and NGOs with veto opportunities and veto incentives against the realization of the central government's ambition of universal childcare coverage. In Norway but not in Sweden and Denmark municipalities and NGOs have been provided with significant veto opportunities as well as considerable incentives to act. This might help to understand why Norwegian childcare development has lagged behind its Scandinavian neighbours.

Private arrangements are framed by a set of institutional rules, either public policies or property rights that actors activate in order to defend their positions. This is particularly visible in the field of the environment where human pressure is increasing scarcity and generating rivalries between competing users. How do rules intervene in the resolution of rivalries? I suggest that users activate rules to assert their rights against their rivals and find out a solution to the rivalry. Three hypotheses follow: the owner uses his property rights; the non-owner activates a public policy that acknowledges him as the final beneficiary; and the owner activates a public policy if he cannot exclude the rival from his property. The empirical test, carried out on four cases of local water rivalries in Belgium and Switzerland, validates these hypotheses and shows that public policies are more frequently activated than is initially expected.

Governmental commissions are an established part of the British and American systems of government. To what extent are they a means by which social science can have an impact upon policy-making? To what extent do they use empirical research methods to gather evidence which influences the commissions' deliberations? What factors hinder the effective use of social science research by governmental commissions? Drawing on case studies of British Royal Commissions and Departmental Committees, and American Presidential Commissions, this article suggests that the potential effectiveness of social science is reduced by the political context in which commissions work, their preferred modes of taking evidence, the way in which commissions are staffed, and the internal dynamics of their workings.

The effects of political and macroeconomic influences in determining the principal taxes in the United Kingdom since 1948 are examined here. Basic models of tax determination – policy initiative, macroeconomic determination and consumer preference – are tested. Causal path analysis is used to answer the question: Which is more important in determining tax revenues: the policy initiatives of governments, or circumstances in the economy which in the short term may be outside governmental control? The results demonstrate that for most taxes policy initiatives to alter tax rates and bases are much less important to revenue yield than underlying trends in the economy. The continuing strength of these macroeconomic secular trends circumscribes attempts by British policymakers to depart radically from the existing pattern of taxation.

This article examines the deregulation of cross-broader broadcasting to test its impact on strategies pursued by EU member states. It modifies our understanding of regulatory competition through an institutional explanation of the process. The European Union’s Television Without Frontiers (1989) Directive provided a framework for regulatory competition in television broadcast markets. Despite a high level of investment flight, member states did not automatically respond with deregulation but were compelled to do so by the European Court of Justice. Therefore national deregulation in this field was not a natural response to the preference of economic actors or an objective of state policy; it was driven by the European institutions.

Institutional design balances the costs and benefits of dictatorship and disorder. Democracy can be efficient if it improves the performance of government. Yet, sometimes authoritarian governments can be efficient if they reduce disorder. We show that democratisation has a non-linear effect on income-adjusted perceptions of government effectiveness. These findings present a new opportunity to revisit the study of government performance for researchers working in public administration and political science.

How are civil servants and politically appointed advisers likely to respond to policy proposals that they believe will harm their countries severely even if they are legal? Based on the different loyalties and roles of political advisors (PA) and civil servants (CS), we hypothesise that (1) PAs are more likely to voice internally, (2) CSs are more likely to voice externally and (3) CSs in functionally politicised systems are more likely to stay silent. These hypotheses are tested on – and partially supported by – data collected through two surveys directed to the ministerial staffs in Denmark and Sweden. PAs are more likely to voice internally, but none of the two groups is particularly keen to voice externally. The propensity to voice concerns in case of perceived harmful policy proposals depends on the kind as well as the level of politicisation.

Despite widespread acknowledgement of the dangers of selective subsidisation, government support to business remains common practice. Looking at State aid allocations in the European Union, the article explores why some countries grant more aid than others. Scholarship has failed to address this issue in a comprehensive manner, focusing either on the responsiveness of governments to voters’ preferences or on the use of subsidies as a way to ensure the political survival of the incumbent. Using the lens of distributive politics, this article proposes a more comprehensive account of State aid politics that joins these two perspectives. By means of time-series cross-section regression analysis, it tests how aid allocation depends on the attainment of policy goals (namely correction of market failures), electoral pragmatism and responsibility towards international commitments. The results show that politicians are indeed electorally pragmatic, but not necessarily responsive, due to institutional constraints and international commitments.

This paper makes a two-fold contribution to the practical application of cost-benefit analysis and to our understanding of the costs and benefits to the host country of foreign students in higher education. First, within the technical constraints it develops a model for assessing costs and benefits; this model is potentially applicable to all countries with foreign students. The model includes educational and political as well as economic inputs, and the paper discusses qualitative as well as quantitative costs and benefits. Secondly, the model is applied to the particular case of the United States. The significance of different perspectives for assessing net benefit is recognized, and costs and benefits are assessed from the perspectives of higher education institutions, state residents and all US citizens. The paper finds positive net benefits, subject to a number of assumptions. However, the policies of both state governments and the US government do not appear to be consistent with the goal of maximizing this net benefit.