Kris Hartley
Arizona State University, School of Sustainability, Faculty Member
A survey of Hong Kong residents finds that public support for government technology, as understood through the concept of smart cities, is associated with concept-awareness and official communications. The statistical analysis identifies... more
A survey of Hong Kong residents finds that public support for government technology, as understood through the concept of smart cities, is associated with concept-awareness and official communications. The statistical analysis identifies moderating effects attributable to personal social media use and controls for personal ideological views about scope of government intervention and perceived political legitimacy of smart city policies. The study builds on a growing body of empirical scholarship about public support for government technology, while also addressing a practical trend in urban governance: the growing sophistication of technologies like artificial intelligence and their use in strengthening government capacities. The Hong Kong case exemplifies ambitious investments in technology by governments and, at the time of the survey, relatively high freedom of political expression. The study's findings help refine theories about state-society relations in the rapidly evolving context of technology for public sector use. Policy Significance Statement This study offers empirical evidence about factors that influence the political legitimacy of government technology, including the effect of concept-awareness and public communication. Findings imply that message credibility and comprehension are instrumental in crafting policy narratives and that participatory co-construction of these narratives can strengthen the political legitimacy of government technology.
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Economic growth and population migration have driven urban sprawl in the American Sunbelt for decades. Some cities have been particularly effective in parlaying windfall growth into visibility and unique urban identities. The ‘it’ status... more
Economic growth and population migration have driven urban sprawl in the American Sunbelt for decades. Some cities have been particularly effective in parlaying windfall growth into visibility and unique urban identities. The ‘it’ status that attracts national curiosity rests on a balance of growth, livability, and edginess – traits that cannot be engineered or purchased alone. Post-Covid economic recovery is an opportunity for cities to revitalize their urban cores in manifold ways, even amidst growing turbulence and uncertainty. This article examines these shifting dynamics and considers whether a modestly sized heartland American city – Waco, Texas – is poised to achieve transformational change in its urban core.
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This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birth. It is also one year since Yunchan Lim became the youngest pianist ever to win the gold medal in the sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano... more
This year we celebrate the 150th anniversary of composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s birth. It is also one year since Yunchan Lim became the youngest pianist ever to win the gold medal in the sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, held once every four years. Lim’s acclaimed performance of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of conductor Marin Alsop, clinched his victory and was by all accounts a rare moment.
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As sites of economic, political, and social convergence, cities absorb the earliest effects of global crises. These dynamics are observable also in environmental crises and resiliencelonger-running challenges to legacy models of urban... more
As sites of economic, political, and social convergence, cities absorb the earliest effects of global crises. These dynamics are observable also in environmental crises and resiliencelonger-running challenges to legacy models of urban governance. Shifting epistemic and practical contexts invite scholarship to more thoroughly examine the dynamics of urban policy with regard to the 'localization' of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the contribution of city governments to global environmental policy. This chapter examines urban sustainability as an ontologically complex or 'wicked' policy problem, a framing concept with a history in the urban planning and policy literatures but deserving fresh revisitation. The argument is that a 'complexity science' approach that avoids narrative capture is needed to better understand global environmental crisis and its manifestation in cities. This approach seeks to challenge the predominance of linear, atomistic, and reductionist perspectives that remain embedded in policy thinking.
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Emerging in scholarly discussions about political discourse over the past decade, the terms 'post-truth' and 'denialism' refer to disagreement not on public policy strategies but on the nature of truth itself. Policy facts are now... more
Emerging in scholarly discussions about political discourse over the past decade, the terms 'post-truth' and 'denialism' refer to disagreement not on public policy strategies but on the nature of truth itself. Policy facts are now contested in ways that disrupt mainstream political narratives and weaken institutional legitimacy. In turn, the technocratic response of doublingdown on facts is faltering as the 'burn it down' vacuity of post-truth declares equivalent political legitimacy. This strident, self-assured irrationality offers few substantive policy visions, seeking only to bewilder and 'own' its perceived enemies including progressive 'elites,' science experts, and academics trying to understand the phenomenon. This article discusses disruption in the political discourse about fact-informed policy issues, focusing on a looming period of epistemic instability and the futility of using systematic analysis and logic to understand post-truth.
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This report outlines how cities and the private sector can collaborate on and magnify sustainability efforts that enable broad systemic change. Sustainability efforts require not only public policy interventions and resources but also... more
This report outlines how cities and the private sector can collaborate on and magnify sustainability efforts that enable broad systemic change.
Sustainability efforts require not only public policy interventions and resources but also the initiative and innovation of the private sector. These are systematized through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for governments, including at the city level, and through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles for companies. Bringing these two approaches into alignment is a crucial step for fostering multi-sectoral sustainability effort, but this alignment is largely unrealized.
Among the local-government sustainability documents examined for this report, mentions of corporate activity are minimal and often superficial, primarily addressing the participation of companies in multi-stakeholder discussions about policy issues. In turn, ESG reports center on the decisions and actions of corporations, with public governance referenced largely in the context of regulatory limitations and policy objectives that affect business operations.
Local governments and companies are undertaking sustainability efforts in their own ways. Merging the two through shared focus and strategy can magnify sustainability efforts in ways that enable the broad systemic change needed to avert climate crisis and societal disruption. This report outlines how a more collaborative approach can proceed, first by providing an overview of policy and corporate sustainability efforts and second by detailing examples of both. The report concludes with a discussion about how sustainability narratives can be harmonized between the two sectors.
Sustainability efforts require not only public policy interventions and resources but also the initiative and innovation of the private sector. These are systematized through the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for governments, including at the city level, and through environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles for companies. Bringing these two approaches into alignment is a crucial step for fostering multi-sectoral sustainability effort, but this alignment is largely unrealized.
Among the local-government sustainability documents examined for this report, mentions of corporate activity are minimal and often superficial, primarily addressing the participation of companies in multi-stakeholder discussions about policy issues. In turn, ESG reports center on the decisions and actions of corporations, with public governance referenced largely in the context of regulatory limitations and policy objectives that affect business operations.
Local governments and companies are undertaking sustainability efforts in their own ways. Merging the two through shared focus and strategy can magnify sustainability efforts in ways that enable the broad systemic change needed to avert climate crisis and societal disruption. This report outlines how a more collaborative approach can proceed, first by providing an overview of policy and corporate sustainability efforts and second by detailing examples of both. The report concludes with a discussion about how sustainability narratives can be harmonized between the two sectors.
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In the past decade, use of the circular economy (CE) concept by scholars and practitioners has grown steadily. In a 2017 article, Kirchherr et al. found that the CE concept is interpreted and implemented in a variety of ways. While... more
In the past decade, use of the circular economy (CE) concept by scholars and practitioners has grown steadily. In a 2017 article, Kirchherr et al. found that the CE concept is interpreted and implemented in a variety of ways. While multiple interpretations of CE can enrich scholarly perspectives, differentiation and fragmentation can also impede consolidation of the concept. Some scholarship has discussed these trends in context-specific cases, but no large-scale, systematic study has analysed whether such consolidation has taken place across the field. This article fills this gap by analysing 221 recent CE definitions, making several notable findings. First, the concept has seen both consolidation and differentiation in the past five years. Second, definitional trends are emerging that potentially have more meaning for scholarship than for practice. Third, scholars increasingly recommend a fundamental systemic shift to enable CE, particularly within supply chains. Fourth, sustainable development is frequently considered the principal aim of CE, but questions linger about whether CE can mutually support environmental sustainability and economic development. Finally, recent studies argue that CE transition relies on a broad alliance of stakeholders, including producers, consumers, policymakers, and scholars. This study contributes an updated systematic analysis of CE definitions and conceptualizations that serves as an empirical snapshot of current scholarly thinking. It thereby provides a basis for further research on whether conceptual consolidation is needed and how it can be facilitated for practical purposes.
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Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey data and government economic data from Vietnam are used to examine the relationship between economic growth and two indicators of governance effectiveness: efficacy at working with central law... more
Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey data and government economic data from Vietnam are used to examine the relationship between economic growth and two indicators of governance effectiveness: efficacy at working with central law and creativity in solving business problems. Examining all of Vietnam's 63 provinces over 11 years (2007 to 2017), this study's fixed-effects regression analysis finds a significant association between economic growth and both measures of governance effectiveness, with a stronger magnitude for more industrialised provinces. This finding suggests that efforts to improve governance effectiveness and creativity in less industrialised provinces may fail to have desired economic impacts, pointing to deeper structural constraints. This article concludes by discussing implications for policy content and administrative reform.
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Policy models based on ‘big data’ and other ‘smart’ systems, including those for circular economy (CE) transition, are proliferating as technology enables deeper monitoring and analysis. At the same time, policymaking is occurring in... more
Policy models based on ‘big data’ and other ‘smart’ systems, including those for circular economy (CE) transition, are proliferating as technology enables deeper monitoring and analysis. At the same time, policymaking is occurring in increasingly contentious and politically fragmented settings, particularly as populism foregrounds anti-science and post-truth sentiments. More sophisticated models would appear to improve empirical understandings about policy problems and help resolve associated disputes, but a conclusive policy ‘truth’ remains elusive and politically contestable. This contention highlights the need to understand competing narratives and their influence on model designs and inputs.
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Asia's global rise highlights a host of policy opportunities and challenges. Historically, the region's developmentalist governments were single-minded of purpose, aiming principally for rapid economic growth. As growth... more
Asia's global rise highlights a host of policy opportunities and challenges. Historically, the region's developmentalist governments were single-minded of purpose, aiming principally for rapid economic growth. As growth stabilized and economies matured, a variety of other concernsenvironmental, social, and political, among othersbegan to warrant policy intervention. Public administrators in Asia now operate in a setting of increasing complexity amidst an array of conflicting policy mandates. Accordingly, policy education and training are as crucial to Asia's continued rise as they were in the early stages of emergence decades ago. This article and the special issue it introduces address several key elements characterizing the rise of policy education in Asia, including how policy educational practices have converged and diverged, how they have responded to situational mandates, and how they are now asserting a unique disciplinary identity.
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Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy... more
Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy tools and goals, are an appropriate unit of analysis for EGT because they embody the theory’s emphasis on co-evolving elements within policy systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies within assemblages by establishing objectives, collecting information, comparing options, strategizing implementation, and selecting instruments. However, as EGT implies, this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily—some policies emerge from carefully considered blueprints while others evolve from muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products of the latter often include loosely steered, unmoored, and ‘non-designed’ path dependencies that confound linear logic and are understudied in the policy literature....
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The chapter discusses the impact of social change on how society views governance quality in the era of complex and interconnected policy problems. This era presents a valuable opportunity to revisit tensions between the deepening... more
The chapter discusses the impact of social change on how society views governance quality in the era of complex and interconnected policy problems. This era presents a valuable opportunity to revisit tensions between the deepening technocratic logic of formal policymaking and the social change implied by and reflected in the rise of alternative policy epistemics. The chapter focuses on the technocratic exercise of smart governance, as embodied by the smart cities concept, in considering the confrontation between late-stage technocracy and an emerging anti-technocratic agitation that manifests itself in the ‘local knowledge’ movement on one hand and in ‘anti-science’ populism on the other. Recognizing a mature literature critical of the hegemonic narrative posture of governance ideas, we explore the epistemic foundations of governance reform movements to more deeply understand a mechanism of narrative power that deserves renewed attention in the ‘smart’ era: instrumental rationalism. Smart governance, from an epistemic perspective, marks a progression in a sequence of ideas serving the long-running project to validate and normalize instrumental rationalism in policymaking. To connect this argument to social change, our approach combines the critical perspective of poststructuralism with the political economy perspective of world-systems theory. We postulate that ‘good’ governance is a vessel into which momentarily salient global norms are loaded, and that each successive iteration (e.g., smart) is considered politically viable only if emerging from existing institutional architecture and bearing the ideational legacy of instrumental rationalism. This process of narrative auto-replication yields seemingly novel ideas that are mere variations on a failed theme. The type of social change that can unseat this epistemic lock-in emerges from a more robust valorization of alternative perspectives, which we conclude this chapter by describing as an epistemic awakening.
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COVID-19 decimated global tourism. As governments and firms strategize the sector’s recovery, insights from the sector’s prepandemic period of high growth offer useful policy lessons. This study examines the drivers of the tourism... more
COVID-19 decimated global tourism. As governments and firms strategize the sector’s recovery, insights from the sector’s prepandemic period of high growth offer useful policy lessons. This study examines the drivers of the tourism sector’s growth and catch-up performance in 13 industrialized economies over the period 2000–2015, using data from the EU-KLEMS database. The findings have three notable policy implications. First, the tourism sector in most countries experienced significant growth. However, value-added growth was driven largely by labor employment expansion while labor productivity declined in most countries. Second, weak investment in non–information and communications technology (ICT) capital and declining total factor productivity are the principal impediments to labor productivity growth. Third, all countries embraced digital transformation but many lagged on innovation and labor quality. These findings are analyzed to identify policy strategies for the tourism sector...
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Abstract The global reach of COVID-19 presents opportunities to compare policy responses to the pandemic and the role of knowledge across political contexts. This article examines the case of Vietnam’s COVID-19 response. Recognized for... more
Abstract The global reach of COVID-19 presents opportunities to compare policy responses to the pandemic and the role of knowledge across political contexts. This article examines the case of Vietnam’s COVID-19 response. Recognized for its early effectiveness, Vietnam exhibits the standard characteristics of unitary states but has also engaged communities, strengthening the legitimacy of and buy-in to response efforts. This article identifies six factors that shaped Vietnam’s response to the pandemic: (i) command-and-control governance, (ii) extensive preparation, (iii) fostering cooperative sentiment and solidarity, (iv) political readiness and communication, (v) policy coordination, and (vi) adaptation. The article contributes to practical discussions about country-specific responses to the pandemic, and to scholarship on policy effectiveness and success within the policy sciences and public management.
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This Element explores the uncertain future of public policy practice and scholarship in an age of radical disruption. Building on foundational ideas in policy sciences, we argue that an anachronistic instrumental rationalism underlies... more
This Element explores the uncertain future of public policy practice and scholarship in an age of radical disruption. Building on foundational ideas in policy sciences, we argue that an anachronistic instrumental rationalism underlies contemporary policy logic and limits efforts to understand new policy challenges. We consider whether the policy sciences framework can be reframed to facilitate deeper understandings of this anachronistic epistemic, in anticipation of a research agenda about epistemic destabilization and contestation. The Element applies this theoretical provocation to environmental policy and sustainability, issues about which policymaking proceeds amid unpredictable contexts and rising sociopolitical turbulence that portend a liminal state in the transition from one way of thinking to another. The Element concludes by contemplating the fate of policy's epistemic instability, anticipating what policy understandings will emerge in a new system, and questioning the...
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This study examines the state and development of public policy education in Thailand, including its dynamics over time, its institutional setting, and emerging forces acting upon it. It focuses on policy educational institutions, policy... more
This study examines the state and development of public policy education in Thailand, including its dynamics over time, its institutional setting, and emerging forces acting upon it. It focuses on policy educational institutions, policy courses offered in universities, and national socio-political contexts that shape the academic profession. Policy education has heavily been developed and taught as a subset of public administration with predetermined specifications. However, it has potential to be an independent field. This study fills a notable research gap, as the topic has been largely neglected in international publications, especially works concerning the internationalization of policy education.
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City diplomacy has a long history and has witnessed a clear sprawl over the last century. Successive “generations” of city diplomacy approaches have emerged over this period, with a heyday of networked urban governance in the last two... more
City diplomacy has a long history and has witnessed a clear sprawl over the last century. Successive “generations” of city diplomacy approaches have emerged over this period, with a heyday of networked urban governance in the last two decades. The covid-19 pandemic crisis presents a key opportunity to contemplate the direction of city diplomacy amid global systemic disruptions, raising questions about the effectiveness of differing diplomatic styles across cities but also the prospect of a new generational shift. This essay traces the history of generations in city diplomacy, examines prospects for novel ways of understanding city diplomacy, and contemplates how the pandemic’s impact heralds not the demise of internationalization in urban governance but an era in which city diplomacy is even more crucial amid fundamental limitations.
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The emergent paradigm of disaster risk reduction (DRR) invites scrutiny with reference to problem definition and epistemics. We argue that DRR is the next manifestation of the long-dominant 'development' paradigm. This... more
The emergent paradigm of disaster risk reduction (DRR) invites scrutiny with reference to problem definition and epistemics. We argue that DRR is the next manifestation of the long-dominant 'development' paradigm. This chapter first interrogates the epistemic foundations of public policy as a practiced and studied discipline, exploring how wicked problems like disaster risk are refracted though the kaleidoscope of socio-political context. We then argue that the flawed assumptions and perspectives of the development narrative are reproduced within DRR by a powerknowledge nexus that fortifies the status-quo while fashioning the image of progress through performative and quasi-participatory mechanisms. We conclude with a recommendation to reframe the epistemics of policymaking around a transmodern approach that sees nuance and fluidity in how problems are conceptualized. The study suggests a pathway for policy sciences scholarship that examines how dominant social or economic paradigms (e.g., capitalism) underlying policy thinking survive through multiple narrative reframings.
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The recent proliferation of degree and executive education programs in policy studies deserves closer examination. This chapter investigates this trend as a consequence of efforts to professionalize the civil service. While the practice... more
The recent proliferation of degree and executive education programs in policy studies deserves closer examination. This chapter investigates this trend as a consequence of efforts to professionalize the civil service. While the practice of professional civil service has existed for centuries, recognition of a politics-administration divide provided a basis to theorize a politically neutral and professional civil service. Into the late-20 th century, the academic and practitioner gaze was trained on operational efficiency and optimization, climaxing in new public management reforms. The inevitable hollowing-out of state capacity has led to a counter-movement aimed at reasserting the "public" in public servicesand an associated interest in broadening bureaucratic capacity. This chapter examines these trends through the perspective of two generations of civil service professionalization, its spread via institutional isomorphism, and implications for policy studies education. The chapter applies the structure-institutions-actors perspective to analyze the case of Brunei's Institute of Policy Studies.
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Iran’s policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how countries with pre-existing challenges manage acute crises. Already economically weakened by international sanctions, Iran’s governme...
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While the conceptualization of policy capacity and its application to governance performance have been addressed in the academic literature, existing governance indices appear not to consider policy capacity in its many nuanced forms.... more
While the conceptualization of policy capacity and its application to governance performance have been addressed in the academic literature, existing governance indices appear not to consider policy capacity in its many nuanced forms. This shortcoming may be perpetuating incomplete accounts of governance quality within a diverse and growing group of indices. This chapter surveys five commonly used indices to determine whether and how they measure policy capacity. Two of the indices, the Worldwide Governance Indicators and KPMG Change Readiness Index , address broad measures of governance in a globally comparative context. The remaining indices—the Sustainable Governance Indicators , Global Innovation Policy Index , and Bertelsmann Transformation Index —target particular dimensions of governance. This chapter argues that policy capacity is relevant across many types of indices, and therefore deserves closer attention. In particular, the chapter illustrates how a robust framework measuring policy capacity, proposed by Xun, Ramesh, and Howlett, can be used to identify areas in which governance indices inadequately account for capacity. This chapter is in three parts. After a brief introduction, the first part tabulates measures of capacity within selected indices using elements of the framework as an analytical template. The second part compares tabulation results across all five indices, and the final part advocates a more robust consideration of capacity based on the identified shortcomings of the observed indices.
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The 2020 introduction by China’s central government of a national security law (NSL) in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semiautonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests... more
The 2020 introduction by China’s central government of a national security law (NSL) in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semiautonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests that reflected declining public trust in Hong Kong’s government. Against this turbulent backdrop, Hong Kong’s policy projects moved forward, including smart city development. This article explores public trust in and political legitimacy of Hong Kong’s smart cities endeavors in the period leading up to the introduction of the NSL. At a theoretical level, the smart cities phenomenon invites critical reflection about tensions between technocracy and democracy, but this topic remains largely unexploited by empirical literature. Using survey data from 1,017 residents, this study identifies confidence in the benefits of smart cities but lesser trust in privacy and security and lesser satisfaction with participation opportunities in related policymaking. Pr...
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The COVID‐19 pandemic is a crisis with high complexity and should be understood as such by scholarship. A complexity science approach situates increasingly divergent ideological and epistemological perspectives about the crisis within the... more
The COVID‐19 pandemic is a crisis with high complexity and should be understood as such by scholarship. A complexity science approach situates increasingly divergent ideological and epistemological perspectives about the crisis within the practical exigencies of containment and mitigation measures. We ask which of the seven stages of soft systems methodology contributes to deeper understandings about COVID‐19 as a policy issue, beyond the contributions of current and conventional perspectives. The discussion outlines implications for practice and places them within broader debates about tensions between scientific facts and political values.
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The 21st century is a moment of reckoning for the field of public policy. Multiple convergent crises threaten ecological, economic and social stability while testing the planning and response capac...
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The academic literature offers some insights about lagging progress on circular economy (CE) transition, including cultural, regulatory, market, and technical barriers. There is also an increasing body of knowledge about barriers to CE... more
The academic literature offers some insights about lagging progress on circular economy (CE) transition, including cultural, regulatory, market, and technical barriers. There is also an increasing body of knowledge about barriers to CE adoption that takes a macro‐level perspective across industries. However, such studies have largely neglected the industry scale. This study fills that gap by examining barriers to CE transition in the Dutch technical and interior textiles industries. Using data from 27 interviews with manufacturers and retailers, the study finds that high costs for production and marketing, along with lack of consumer interest, are among the most substantial barriers. To provide a system‐wide perspective, the study conceptualizes relationships among barriers as a chain reaction: limited knowledge of CE design options raises the difficulty and cost of delivering high‐quality circular products at the firm level, while limited availability of circular supply streams combined with the orientation of existing production systems toward linear supply chains constrain CE transition at the industry level. These findings highlight the need for intervention at levels beyond the scale of individual firms, a key implication for public policy.
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China’s pursuit of global superpower status compels the country to make coordinated efforts across numerous sectors. Global leadership in higher education is one example and provides a case study i...
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With indiscriminate geographic and socio-economic reach, COVID-19 has visited destruction of life and livelihoods on a largely unprepared world and can arguably be declared the new millennium’s most trying test of state capacity.... more
With indiscriminate geographic and socio-economic reach, COVID-19 has visited destruction of life and livelihoods on a largely unprepared world and can arguably be declared the new millennium’s most trying test of state capacity. Governments are facing an urgent mandate to mobilize quickly and comprehensively in response, drawing not only on public resources and coordination capabilities but also on the cooperation and buy-in of civil society. Political and institutional legitimacy are crucial determinants of effective crisis management, and low-trust states lacking such legitimacy suffer a profound disadvantage. Social and economic crises attending the COVID-19 pandemic thus invite scholarly reflection about public attitudes, social leadership, and the role of social and institutional memory in the context of systemic disruption. This article examines Hong Kong as a case where failure to respond effectively could have been expected due to low levels of public trust and political le...
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Research Interests: Business, Groundwater, Environmental Management, Singapore, Wastewater Treatment, and 15 moreEnvironmental Planning, Water Reuse, Medicine, Multidisciplinary, Groundwater recharge, Desalination, Water Supply, Water Stress, Water resource management, Reuse, Population Growth, Namibian Archaeology, Reclaimed Water, Greywater, and Windhoek
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Introduction Part I: Institutions 1. Understanding Institutions 2. Institutions in Research and Practice 3. Institutions and Economic Development 4. Institutions and Political Power 5. Institutions and Global Urbanization Part II: Public... more
Introduction Part I: Institutions 1. Understanding Institutions 2. Institutions in Research and Practice 3. Institutions and Economic Development 4. Institutions and Political Power 5. Institutions and Global Urbanization Part II: Public Administration 6. Contrasting Paradigms: Traditional Bureaucracy and Collaborative Governance 7. Emergent Paradigms: From Neoclassical to Postmodern 8. Administration in Local and National Development Part III: Evidence-Based Policy 9. Foundational Thinkers in Epistemology 10. Research Methods and Empirical Validity 11. Use of Evidence in Environmental Regulation 12. Nationalizing Benefits and Localizing Costs in Industrial Development 13. Evidence-Based Intervention for Housing Markets Conclusion
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Research Interests: Computer Science, Development Economics, Economic policy, Political Economy of Development, Foreign Aid, and 7 moreMathematical Modelling, Applied Economics, Corruption, International Aid and Development, Official development assistance, Public Administration and Policy, and Official Development Assistance (ODA)
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Abstract Public participation is an increasingly common pathway for democratizing policymaking, but it is often executed in only symbolic and perfunctory ways. To reach its full potential as a method for empowering society in the... more
Abstract Public participation is an increasingly common pathway for democratizing policymaking, but it is often executed in only symbolic and perfunctory ways. To reach its full potential as a method for empowering society in the policymaking process, public participation should foremost be viewed as legitimate by participants. This article empirically examines public participation through three types of legitimacy – representative, process, and influence – that give the exercise democratic effect. The case context, energy policy in northern Thailand as part of the country’s regional energy development plan, is an instructive example of public participation that has been newly introduced into a policy system characterized by top-down centralization. This study documents the degree to which a ‘design thinking’ approach for participatory mechanisms helps produce policy input that reflects the concerns and ambitions of local stakeholders. The findings offer lessons for how legitimacy can be a pathway for public participation to support energy democracy.
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The concept of ‘sustainability missions’ has recently received increasing attention in the academic literature. Broadly defined as a collective ambition to strengthen systemic preparedness and adaptive capacity for various policy... more
The concept of ‘sustainability missions’ has recently received increasing attention in the academic literature. Broadly defined as a collective ambition to strengthen systemic preparedness and adaptive capacity for various policy challenges, the concept of sustainability missions invites critical reflection due to its rise in usage and popularity. In this spirit, we discuss five challenges that limit the ability of the missions concept to guide progress on meaningful change. First, much of the academic literature takes the concept for granted by using it as a descriptor or normative goal, without the skeptical perspective that would challenge the perpetuation of old ways of thinking about societal problems. Second, the concept is policy-centric and thus tends to endorse a top-down approach to complex problems that otherwise elude centralization. Third, scholarly treatment of the concept often undervalues the role of non-government stakeholders like businesses and communities. Fourth, the literature often fails to acknowledge that sustainability missions involve picking industrial ‘winners’ – a strategy with historically mixed results. Finally, scholars frequently neglect the unpredictability of sustainability mission implementation, a risk magnified in the case of totalizing goals like economic or social-systemic transformation. These five limitations, among others, work against the stated goals of sustainability missions and hinder theoretical development. This article describes a way forward for research and practice utilizing the concept.
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This study analyzes public perceptions about the impact of 'smart cities' programs on governance and quality-of-life. With smart city scholarship focusing primarily on technical and managerial issues, political legitimacy remains... more
This study analyzes public perceptions about the impact of 'smart cities' programs on governance and quality-of-life. With smart city scholarship focusing primarily on technical and managerial issues, political legitimacy remains relatively underexploredparticularly in non-Western contexts. Drawing on a Hong Kong-based survey of over 800 residents conducted in 2019, this study analyzes the results of probit regressions on dependent variables for governance (participation, transparency, public services, communication, and fairness) and quality-of-life (buildings, energy-environment, mobility-transportation, education, and health). Findings show more optimism about the impact of smart cities on quality-of-life than on governance. Awareness about the smart city concept associates positively with expectations about smart city benefits, but the effect is sensitive to education level and income. This study deepens understandings about the political legitimacy of smart cities, at a time when urban governments are accelerating investments in related technologies. More broadly, it adds contextual nuance to research about state-society relations and, at a practical level, supports policy recommendations to strengthen information and awareness campaigns, better articulate smart city benefits, and openly acknowledge limitations.
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This chapter examines how the issue of trust is reflected in the longstanding pragmatic perspective of the policy sciences and how it offers a pathway by which to ‘politicize’ understandings of policy capacity (including that used by... more
This chapter examines how the issue of trust is reflected in the longstanding pragmatic perspective of the policy sciences and how it offers a pathway by which to ‘politicize’ understandings of policy capacity (including that used by Government Competitiveness). It proceeds with a discussion about the roots of epistemic instability, including the influence of a century of technocratic thinking on contemporary efforts to frame policy problems. The chapter continues with a discussion of how the rise of populism and decline in trust is destabilizing the epistemic certitude of technocracy. The chapter then turns to an examination of how this destabilization can be more intricately understood by viewing trust through the lens of policy capacity and Government Competitiveness. The chapter concludes with a reflection on how trust might be better integrated into studies of policy and administration in an era when the politics－administration divide seems to be an increasingly contested concept.
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Policy models based on ‘big data’ and other ‘smart’ systems, including those for circular economy (CE) transition, are proliferating as technology enables deeper monitoring and analysis. At the same time, policymaking is occurring in... more
Policy models based on ‘big data’ and other ‘smart’ systems, including those for circular economy (CE) transition, are proliferating as technology enables deeper monitoring and analysis. At the same time, policymaking is occurring in increasingly contentious and politically fragmented settings, particularly as populism foregrounds anti-science and post-truth sentiments. More sophisticated models would appear to improve empirical understandings about policy problems and help resolve associated disputes, but a conclusive policy ‘truth’ remains elusive and politically contestable. This contention highlights the need to understand competing narratives and their influence on model designs and inputs.
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Asia's global rise highlights a host of policy opportunities and challenges. Historically, the region's developmentalist governments were single-minded of purpose, aiming principally for rapid economic growth. As growth stabilized and... more
Asia's global rise highlights a host of policy opportunities and challenges. Historically, the region's developmentalist governments were single-minded of purpose, aiming principally for rapid economic growth. As growth stabilized and economies matured, a variety of other concernsenvironmental, social, and political, among othersbegan to warrant policy intervention. Public administrators in Asia now operate in a setting of increasing complexity amidst an array of conflicting policy mandates. Accordingly, policy education and training are as crucial to Asia's continued rise as they were in the early stages of emergence decades ago. This article and the special issue it introduces address several key elements characterizing the rise of policy education in Asia, including how policy educational practices have converged and diverged, how they have responded to situational mandates, and how they are now asserting a unique disciplinary identity.
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Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey data and government economic data from Vietnam are used to examine the relationship between economic growth and two indicators of governance effectiveness: efficacy at working with central law... more
Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) survey data and government economic data from Vietnam are used to examine the relationship between economic growth and two indicators of governance effectiveness: efficacy at working with central law and creativity in solving business problems. Examining all of Vietnam's 63 provinces over 11 years (2007 to 2017), this study's fixed-effects regression analysis finds a significant association between economic growth and both measures of governance effectiveness, with a stronger magnitude for more industrialised provinces. This finding suggests that efforts to improve governance effectiveness and creativity in less industrialised provinces may fail to have desired economic impacts, pointing to deeper structural constraints. This article concludes by discussing implications for policy content and administrative reform.
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Because a city is inseparable from its economic context, its analysis must be positioned in relation to the current and future forms of capitalism that define it. Examining the commonly deployed “sustainable” and “smart” narratives of... more
Because a city is inseparable from its economic context, its analysis must be positioned in relation to the current and future forms of capitalism that define it. Examining the commonly deployed “sustainable” and “smart” narratives of city visioning, this chapter argues that the seemingly revolutionary tone of such narratives belies the fact that they represent no meaningful departure from capitalist logic and are thus likely to perpetuate existing policy problems. Market fundamentalism, even when obscured or blunted by these seemingly progressive narratives, replicates existing power structures while making the by-products and failures of status-quo capitalism politically palatable—even in the face of growing economic inequality and existential threats like climate change, pandemics, and human exploitation.
There is a need for more critical approaches such as those taken by Datta and Odendaal (2019) and Kuecker and Hartley (2020), not only within the academy but also in practitioner circles. At the same time, efforts to redefine and reshape these narratives are already occurring on multiple fronts, including political critiques of the neoliberal and market-fundamentalist logic underlying the sustainability and smart movements. Adding further nuance to these critiques, this chapter goes beyond arguments about the corporate capture of policy agendas to discuss how narratives themselves become institutionally embedded. This discussion seeks to deepen understandings about the mechanics by which particular narratives maintain their hegemonic position within a broader policy discourse—one that shrewdly presents itself as progressive, adaptable, and politically responsive even as its claims are undermined by inconvenient realities. This chapter further argues that the perpetuation of staid capitalist logic within these seemingly revolutionary policy narratives reflects, in part, the underlying influence of policy-instrumental rationalism—the view that complex problems can be reduced to observable elements and solved with policy interventions that are appropriately targeted, designed, and calibrated (Hartley & Kuecker, 2021). The remainder of this chapter discusses the institutionalization of governance reform narratives and how the promotion of sustainable and smart as reconstituted iterations of “good governance” serves capitalist ideals.
There is a need for more critical approaches such as those taken by Datta and Odendaal (2019) and Kuecker and Hartley (2020), not only within the academy but also in practitioner circles. At the same time, efforts to redefine and reshape these narratives are already occurring on multiple fronts, including political critiques of the neoliberal and market-fundamentalist logic underlying the sustainability and smart movements. Adding further nuance to these critiques, this chapter goes beyond arguments about the corporate capture of policy agendas to discuss how narratives themselves become institutionally embedded. This discussion seeks to deepen understandings about the mechanics by which particular narratives maintain their hegemonic position within a broader policy discourse—one that shrewdly presents itself as progressive, adaptable, and politically responsive even as its claims are undermined by inconvenient realities. This chapter further argues that the perpetuation of staid capitalist logic within these seemingly revolutionary policy narratives reflects, in part, the underlying influence of policy-instrumental rationalism—the view that complex problems can be reduced to observable elements and solved with policy interventions that are appropriately targeted, designed, and calibrated (Hartley & Kuecker, 2021). The remainder of this chapter discusses the institutionalization of governance reform narratives and how the promotion of sustainable and smart as reconstituted iterations of “good governance” serves capitalist ideals.
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The chapter discusses the impact of social change on how society views governance quality in the era of complex and interconnected policy problems. This era presents a valuable opportunity to revisit tensions between the deepening... more
The chapter discusses the impact of social change on how society views governance quality in the era of complex and interconnected policy problems. This era presents a valuable opportunity to revisit tensions between the deepening technocratic logic of formal policymaking and the social change implied by and reflected in the rise of alternative policy epistemics. The chapter focuses on the technocratic exercise of smart governance, as embodied by the smart cities concept, in considering the confrontation between late-stage technocracy and an emerging anti-technocratic agitation that manifests itself in the ‘local knowledge’ movement on one hand and in ‘anti-science’ populism on the other. Recognizing a mature literature critical of the hegemonic narrative posture of governance ideas, we explore the epistemic foundations of governance reform movements to more deeply understand a mechanism of narrative power that deserves renewed attention in the ‘smart’ era: instrumental rationalism. Smart governance, from an epistemic perspective, marks a progression in a sequence of ideas serving the long-running project to validate and normalize instrumental rationalism in policymaking. To connect this argument to social change, our approach combines the critical perspective of poststructuralism with the political economy perspective of world-systems theory. We postulate that ‘good’ governance is a vessel into which momentarily salient global norms are loaded, and that each successive iteration (e.g., smart) is considered politically viable only if emerging from existing institutional architecture and bearing the ideational legacy of instrumental rationalism. This process of narrative auto-replication yields seemingly novel ideas that are mere variations on a failed theme. The type of social change that can unseat this epistemic lock-in emerges from a more robust valorization of alternative perspectives, which we conclude this chapter by describing as an epistemic awakening.
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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propose a vision for policymaking at all scales and an institutional platform for producing knowledge and sharing experiences. National governments have the prerogative to determine... more
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propose a vision for policymaking at all scales and an institutional platform for producing knowledge and sharing experiences. National governments have the prerogative to determine their SDG planning and implementation strategies, with 169 targets and 232 indicators guiding efforts to achieve the 17 goals. At the same time, pursuing the SDGs is often a ground-level endeavor, highlighting the local and urban scale for policy concerns like infrastructure. In this way, cities are at the front lines of SDG implementation. This article considers how the global political economy of the SDGs – that is, the power and resource dynamics shaping sustainability narratives – imprints itself on relationships among cities and across levels of government in the planning of sustainable infrastructure.
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Progress in water conservation is dependent as much on human behavior as on the promise of new technologies. Digital feedback-based interventions present an opportunity to bring these two factors together, as increasingly sophisticated... more
Progress in water conservation is dependent as much on human behavior as on the promise of new technologies. Digital feedback-based interventions present an opportunity to bring these two factors together, as increasingly sophisticated technologies can help change behaviors rather than simply solving problems caused by those behaviors. This paper explores the various options and opportunities for adopting feedback-based interventions — those that communicate information for the purpose of encouraging individuals to alter water consumption habits. Lessons proposed are applicable to any realm in which individual human behavior contributes to a collective environmental or social problem. Focusing on five determinants of success (design, delivery, content, integration, and commitment), this paper presents findings of related studies and fashions them into a suite of recommendations that serves as a template for practice and agenda for future research. The underlying theme — that technol...
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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propose a vision for policymaking at all scales and an institutional platform for producing knowledge and sharing experiences. National governments have the prerogative to determine... more
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) propose a vision for policymaking at all scales and an institutional platform for producing knowledge and sharing experiences. National governments have the prerogative to determine their SDG planning and implementation strategies, with 169 targets and 232 indicators guiding efforts to achieve the 17 goals. At the same time, pursuing the SDGs is often a ground-level endeavor, highlighting the local and urban scale for policy concerns like infrastructure. In this way, cities are at the front lines of SDG implementation. This article considers how the global political economy of the SDGs-that is, the power and resource dynamics shaping sustainability narratives-imprints itself on relationships among cities and across levels of government in the planning of sustainable infrastructure.
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China’s Pearl River Delta region has a political and geographic setting that presents coordination challenges in the management of environmental resources, including water. Understanding these dynamics can provide lessons for policy... more
China’s Pearl River Delta region has a political and geographic setting that presents coordination challenges in the management of environmental resources, including water. Understanding these dynamics can provide lessons for policy interventions in similarly situated regions around the world. For a region with more than 45 million inhabitants and yearly economic output in excess of US$1 trillion, the water needs of a growing demand base pressure policymakers to maintain supply continuity and anticipate unforeseen threats. Despite only modest concern among officials and experts about supply continuity, two potential threats deserve attention: climate change and political tension. The pressing policy question for officials and analysts alike is whether collaboration among local governments enhances regional resilience against such threats, specifically regarding the collective governance capacity to adapt to exogenous change.
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Conventional wisdom suggests that corruption has a negative effect on growth although the mechanisms are subject to debate. We take an alternate approach to challenge this wisdom by testing the economic effects of anti-corruption... more
Conventional wisdom suggests that corruption has a negative effect on growth although the mechanisms are subject to debate. We take an alternate approach to challenge this wisdom by testing the economic effects of anti-corruption measures. Using panel data (1999-2016) from 31 provinces in China and difference-in-difference estimation, we find that President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign is associated with an average 1.3% drop in the real growth rates of provinces, controlling for relevant variables. We speculate that the fierce anti-corruption campaign has made local officials cautious in committing to public investments, the main driver of growth in China in recent years, and has also undermined investor confidence and deterred private investment which would further drag down China’s economic growth. The effect is stronger for higher-income and more industrialized provinces. The result is robust to different model specifications. Our findings support the greasing-the-wheels...
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Cities are playing an increasingly prominent role on the global policy stage, and in the process have established moreformalised international engagements. However, there is an incomplete understanding about the types and levels of... more
Cities are playing an increasingly prominent role on the global policy stage, and in the process have established moreformalised international engagements. However, there is an incomplete understanding about the types and levels of capacity needed for such engagement. This study offers an examination of the underpinnings of “city diplomacy”. It confirms that cities recognise the importance of city diplomacy but also lack necessary resources to fulfill the commitments they make to global agendas . The article calls for action on three fronts : more effective training, formalised multilateral engagement , and stronger city-level diplomatic capacity.
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The global economy is undergoing revolutionary changes brought about by the fourth industrial revolution. At the center of this transformation are three trends: the proliferation of platform economies, the extensive adoption of emerging... more
The global economy is undergoing revolutionary changes brought about by the fourth industrial revolution. At the center of this transformation are three trends: the proliferation of platform economies, the extensive adoption of emerging smart technologies, and the strategic application of big data to improve decision-making. Embracing digital transformation allows firms, governments, and entire economies to achieve efficiency gains, upgrade technological capabilities, and strengthen the foundations of long-term growth and competitiveness. This new technological landscape will require prudent foresight and effective strategies on the part of both the private and public sectors. Shaping development in every industry and country, the defining features of this new digital paradigm will be transparency, learning, resource-sharing, co-innovation, and collective action, among others. Cloud computing will play a crucial role in this transformation. This article briefly examines the benefits...
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In this article we ask why smart cities have emerged within the international development community as the normative urban logic for confronting systemic global crises. This phenomenon is exemplified by the embrace of smart cities as an... more
In this article we ask why smart cities have emerged within the international development community as the normative urban logic for confronting systemic global crises. This phenomenon is exemplified by the embrace of smart cities as an implementation tool for UN Habitat’s aspirational New Urban Agenda. Our analysis deploys two theoretical approaches in novel combination. First, we reinterpret Foucault’s governmentality concept through the lens of Lefebvre’s planetary urbanization thesis. This approach reveals global crises and systemic instability as neglected lines of inquiry within the smart city discourse, particularly in scholarship that has viewed technocratic rationality and neoliberalism as primary mechanisms of capitalist reproduction. Our use of Lefebvre positions smart city governmentality within this neglected context. Our second theoretical approach goes beyond critical urban theory’s emphasis on social justice to consider its value in explaining rational-technocratic planning vis-à-vis Lefebvre’s “critical zone” of full planetary urbanization. We argue that smart cities represent an emergent form of critical zone urbanism. The article begins with a review of governmentality and planetary urbanization that establishes the foundation for the study’s case analysis of New Songdo City. We then analyze the Songdo project, its related actors and power brokers, and its evolution from test bed to implementation model that becomes the new urban norm. The conclusion synthesizes elements of the case and novel theoretical approach to highlight distinctions between cities as organically evolving entities and those as products of totalizing technocratic norms. Key Words: governmentality, planetary urbanization, smart cities.
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Abstract Water resource management is a crucial issue in the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta. Numerous studies have examined transboundary water management, but those focusing on Hong Kong are largely technical, with little... more
Abstract Water resource management is a crucial issue in the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta. Numerous studies have examined transboundary water management, but those focusing on Hong Kong are largely technical, with little consideration for political dynamics or collaboration. This study’s contribution is a systematic analysis of water governance in China’s ‘one country–two systems’ setting. Through interviews and historical analysis, the study applies Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework to a setting with political complexity and environmental vulnerability. The principal finding is that cooperation on supply infrastructure reflects a regional interdependence that builds the multiparty trust needed for more strategic governance.
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The academic literature offers some insights about lagging progress on circular economy (CE) transition, including cultural, regulatory, market, and technical barriers. There is also an increasing body of knowledge about barriers to CE... more
The academic literature offers some insights about lagging progress on circular economy (CE) transition, including cultural, regulatory, market, and technical barriers. There is also an increasing body of knowledge about barriers to CE adoption that takes a macro-level perspective across industries. However, such studies have largely neglected the industry scale. This study fills that gap by examining barriers to CE transition in the Dutch technical and interior textiles industries. Using data from 27 interviews with manufacturers and retailers, the study finds that high costs for production and marketing, along with lack of consumer interest, are among the most substantial barriers. To provide a system-wide perspective, the study conceptualizes relationships among barriers as a chain reaction: limited knowledge of CE design options raises the difficulty and cost of delivering high-quality circular products at the firm level, while limited availability of circular supply streams combined with the orientation of existing production systems toward linear supply chains constrain CE transition at the industry level. These findings highlight the need for intervention at levels beyond the scale of individual firms, a key implication for public policy.
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The call to feminize critiques of water recognizes the role of power and struggle not only in the mechanics of public management but also, more sublimely, in the political economy of knowledge and the process by which understandings about... more
The call to feminize critiques of water recognizes the role of power and struggle not only in the mechanics of public management but also, more sublimely, in the political economy of knowledge and the process by which understandings about policy problems are framed to serve elite interests. The latter suggests a need to look beyond the tropes of interdisciplinarity or applied research and anticipate the next great moment in human understanding – a new ‘Enlightenment’. Within the tools of technocratic and smart water management there exists no potential for Enlightenment but only a doubling-down on legacy ways of approaching policy problems. In short, modern water management is a study in how to do the wrong things, but faster and cheaper. Through the proverbial emperor’s clothes of the ‘smart’ label, technocratic rationalism is poised to reproduce itself within the liminal state of epistemic transition – it will promise novelty while delivering only repackaged dross. Feminist theory can intervene by exposing and deposing the masculinist epistemic of command and control, and by proposing a bold vision for how transcendent understandings about public policy can emerge.
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City diplomacy has a long history and has witnessed a clear sprawl over the last century. Successive "generations" of city diplomacy approaches have emerged over this period, with a heyday of networked urban governance in the last two... more
City diplomacy has a long history and has witnessed a clear sprawl over the last century. Successive "generations" of city diplomacy approaches have emerged over this period, with a heyday of networked urban governance in the last two decades. The Covid-19 pandemic crisis presents a key opportunity to contemplate the direction of city diplomacy amid global systemic disruptions, raising questions about the effectiveness of differing diplomatic styles across cities but also the prospect of a new generational shift. This essay traces the history of generations in city diplomacy, examines prospects for novel ways of understanding city diplomacy, and contemplates how the pandemic's impact heralds not the demise of internationalization in urban governance but an era in which city diplomacy is even more crucial amid fundamental limitations.
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Covid-19 has resulted in loss of life and livelihoods while deepening political fault lines and exposing governance shortcomings. Emerging from the economic upheaval of the pandemic will be the next great policy challenge. Industries like... more
Covid-19 has resulted in loss of life and livelihoods while deepening political fault lines and exposing governance shortcomings. Emerging from the economic upheaval of the pandemic will be the next great policy challenge. Industries like tourism and education are among those affected most by the crisis.
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Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy... more
Evolutionary governance theory (EGT) provides a basis for holistically analyzing the shifting contexts and dynamics of policymaking in settings with functional differentiation and complex subsystems. Policy assemblages, as mixes of policy tools and goals, are an appropriate unit of analysis for EGT because they embody the theory's emphasis on co-evolving elements within policy systems. In rational practice, policymakers design policies within assemblages by establishing objectives, collecting information, comparing options, strategizing implementation, and selecting instruments. However, as EGT implies, this logical progression does not always materialize so tidily-some policies emerge from carefully considered blueprints while others evolve from muddled processes, laissez faire happenstance, or happy accident. Products of the latter often include loosely steered, unmoored, and 'non-designed' path dependencies that confound linear logic and are understudied in the policy literature. There exists the need for a more intricate analytical vocabulary to describe this underexplored 'chaotic' end of the policy design spectrum, as conjuring images of 'muddles' or 'messes' has exhausted its usefulness. This article introduces a novel metaphor for non-design-the bird nest-to bring studies of policy design and non-design into lexical harmony.
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COVID-19 decimated global tourism. As governments and firms strategize the sector's recovery, insights from the sector's pre-pandemic period of high growth offer useful policy lessons. This study examines the drivers of the tourism... more
COVID-19 decimated global tourism. As governments and firms strategize the sector's recovery, insights from the sector's pre-pandemic period of high growth offer useful policy lessons. This study examines the drivers of the tourism sector's growth and catch-up performance in 13 industrialized economies over the period 2000-2015, using data from the EU-KLEMS database. The findings have three notable policy implications. First, the tourism sector in most countries experienced significant growth. However, value-added growth was driven largely by labor employment expansion while labor productivity declined in most countries. Second, weak investment in non-ICT capital and declining total factor productivity are the principal impediments to labor productivity growth. Third, all countries embraced digital transformation but many lagged on innovation and labor quality. These findings are analyzed to identify policy strategies for the tourism sector's post-pandemic recovery.
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The emergent paradigm of disaster risk reduction (DRR) invites scrutiny with reference to problem definition and epistemics. We argue that DRR is the next manifestation of the long-dominant 'development' paradigm. This chapter first... more
The emergent paradigm of disaster risk reduction (DRR) invites scrutiny with reference to problem definition and epistemics. We argue that DRR is the next manifestation of the long-dominant 'development' paradigm. This chapter first interrogates the epistemic foundations of public policy as a practiced and studied discipline, exploring how wicked problems like disaster risk are refracted though the kaleidoscope of socio-political context. We then argue that the flawed assumptions and perspectives of the development narrative are reproduced within DRR by a powerknowledge nexus that fortifies the status-quo while fashioning the image of progress through performative and quasi-participatory mechanisms. We conclude with a recommendation to reframe the epistemics of policymaking around a transmodern approach that sees nuance and fluidity in how problems are conceptualized. The study suggests a pathway for policy sciences scholarship that examines how dominant social or economic paradigms (e.g., capitalism) underlying policy thinking survive through multiple narrative reframings.
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The recent proliferation of degree and executive education programs in policy studies deserves closer examination. This chapter investigates this trend as a consequence of efforts to professionalize the civil service. While the practice... more
The recent proliferation of degree and executive education programs in policy studies deserves closer examination. This chapter investigates this trend as a consequence of efforts to professionalize the civil service. While the practice of professional civil service has existed for centuries, recognition of a politics-administration divide provided a basis to theorize a politically neutral and professional civil service. Into the late-20 th century, the academic and practitioner gaze was trained on operational efficiency and optimization, climaxing in new public management reforms. The inevitable hollowing-out of state capacity has led to a counter-movement aimed at reasserting the "public" in public servicesand an associated interest in broadening bureaucratic capacity. This chapter examines these trends through the perspective of two generations of civil service professionalization, its spread via institutional isomorphism, and implications for policy studies education. The chapter applies the structure-institutions-actors perspective to analyze the case of Brunei's Institute of Policy Studies.
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Iran's policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how countries with pre-existing challenges manage acute crises. Already economically weakened by international sanctions, Iran's government was forced to consider short-term... more
Iran's policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how countries with pre-existing challenges manage acute crises. Already economically weakened by international sanctions, Iran's government was forced to consider short-term tradeoffs between public health and social stability in pandemic response, with imminent unemployment and food insecurity used to justify a policy pivot from mitigation to economic continuity. This article investigates the policy responses of Iran's government during the crucial first months of the pandemic, using data obtained through interviews structured around SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) and interpreted to elicit insights for policy capacity theory and practice. Explanations for Iran's initially ineffective pandemic response are found to include weakness in economic policy, failure to coordinate public health initiatives, priority of treatment over prevention, insufficient public engagement, and inadequate healthcare facilities. Policy recommendations emerging from the study are comprehensive and coordinated pandemic management efforts, community-based and proactive approaches, targeted economic stimulus, and a clear policy vision for crisis resolution. The discussion integrates policy capacity into explanations and recommendations to illustrate the applied value of the concept in crisis settings characterized by uncertainty and rapid onset.
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China's pursuit of global superpower status compels the country to make coordinated efforts across numerous sectors. Global leadership in higher education is one example and provides a case study in how resource support and strategic... more
China's pursuit of global superpower status compels the country to make coordinated efforts across numerous sectors. Global leadership in higher education is one example and provides a case study in how resource support and strategic vision can generate 'quick wins' in reputation and rankings. The ascendancy of Peking University, Tsinghua University and Fudan University, among others, has positioned China to attract top-tier faculty and supports local innovation ecosystems through collaborative research capacity. However, universities with global visibility account for only a fraction of China's university enrollment, and reputational stagnation among universities outside the elite 'C9 League' has implications for regional economic development, geographic diffusion of innovation, and workforce competitiveness. This article offers explanations for why China has not developed a cadre of globally competitive non-elite universities in the same vein as many Western countries. Issues explored include the institutional and political contexts of university governance, national strategic focus on high-visibility institutions, near-exclusive emphasis on KPIs measured by university ranking indices, and concerns about academic freedom and their cooling effects on research and faculty recruitment.
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The 2020 introduction by China's central government of a national security law in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semi-autonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests that... more
The 2020 introduction by China's central government of a national security law in Hong Kong marked a watershed moment in the social and political history of the semi-autonomous city. The law emerged after months of street protests that reflected declining public trust in Hong Kong's government. Against this turbulent backdrop, Hong Kong's policy projects moved forward, including smart city development. This article explores public trust in and political legitimacy of Hong Kong's smart cities endeavors in the period leading up to the introduction of the national security law. At a theoretical level, the smart cities phenomenon invites critical reflection about tensions between technocracy and democracy, but this topic remains largely unexploited by empirical literature. Using survey data from 1,017 residents, this study identifies confidence in the benefits of smart cities but lesser trust in privacy and security and lesser satisfaction with participation opportunities in related policymaking. Probing these dynamics, the study finds that trust in smart city mechanics and governance associate positively with support for smart cities, controlling for ideology and issue awareness. Illuminating a theoretical and practical puzzle, these findings contribute empirically to discussions about the political legitimacy of scientific, technological, and technocratic undertakings in the public sector.
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The global reach of COVID-19 presents opportunities to compare policy responses to the pandemic and the role of knowledge across political contexts. This article examines the case of Vietnam's COVID-19 response. Recognized for its early... more
The global reach of COVID-19 presents opportunities to compare policy responses to the pandemic and the role of knowledge across political contexts. This article examines the case of Vietnam's COVID-19 response. Recognized for its early effectiveness , Vietnam exhibits the standard characteristics of unitary states but has also engaged communities, strengthening the legitimacy of and buy-in to response efforts. This article identifies six factors that shaped Vietnam's response to the pandemic: (i) command and control governance, (ii) extensive preparation, (iii) fostering cooperative sentiment and solidarity, (iv) political readiness and communication, (v) policy coordination, and (vi) adaptation. The article contributes to practical discussions about country-specific responses to the pandemic, and to scholarship on policy effectiveness and success within the policy sciences and public management. ARTICLE HISTORY
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Progress in water conservation is dependent as much on human behavior as on the promise of new technologies. Digital feedback-based interventions present an opportunity to bring these two factors together, as increasingly sophisticated... more
Progress in water conservation is dependent as much on human behavior as on the promise of new technologies. Digital feedback-based interventions present an opportunity to bring these two factors together, as increasingly sophisticated technologies can help change behaviors rather than simply solving problems caused by those behaviors. This article explores the various options and opportunities for adopting feedback-based interventions-those that communicate information for the purpose of encouraging individuals to alter water consumption habits. Lessons proposed are applicable to any realm in which individual human behavior contributes to a collective environmental or social problem. Focusing on five determinants of success (design, delivery, content, integration, and commitment), this article presents findings of related studies and fashions them into a suite of recommendations that serves as a template for practice and agenda for future research. The underlying theme-that technology is no absolute substitute for behavioral change but can be one catalyst for it-contributes to broader discussions about the relationship between human systems and the environment.
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Public participation is an increasingly common pathway for democratizing policymaking, but it is often executed in only symbolic and perfunctory ways. To reach its full potential as a method for empowering society in the policymaking... more
Public participation is an increasingly common pathway for democratizing policymaking, but it is often executed in only symbolic and perfunctory ways. To reach its full potential as a method for empowering society in the policymaking process, public participation should foremost be viewed as legitimate by participants. This article empirically examines public participation through three types of legitimacy-representative, process, and influence-that give the exercise democratic effect. The case context, energy policy in northern Thailand as part of the country's regional energy development plan, is an instructive example of public participation that has been newly introduced into a policy system characterized by top-down centralization. This study documents the degree to which a 'design thinking' approach for participatory mechanisms helps produce policy input that reflects the concerns and ambitions of local stakeholders. The findings offer lessons for how legitimacy can be a pathway for public participation to support energy democracy.
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This article examines the impact of policies for start-up and entrepreneurship on the developmental model that remains a policy legacy in many Asian countries. The main argument is that the influence of central planning is deeply embedded... more
This article examines the impact of policies for start-up and entrepreneurship on the developmental model that remains a policy legacy in many Asian countries. The main argument is that the influence of central planning is deeply embedded in the institutions of the Four Asian Tigers, but globalisation and economic liberalisation are disrupting the old developmentalism by incentivising innovation and structural adaptability. In practice, although developmentalism once focused on infrastructure and industrial policy, softer strategies such as attracting educated millennials through urban amenities and creative clustering mimic those of the postindustrial West. Either this trend represents the end of developmentalism or top-down industrial policy is being rebranded to embrace knowledge and service industries. This article examines this issue at the urban scale, examining policies used by Singapore and Seoul to encourage start-ups and entrepre-neurship in the context of innovation. Government documents are examined and findings compared.
Polycentric governance is characterized by an organizational structure where multiple independent actors mutually order their relationships with one another under a general system of rules (V. Ostrom 1972). We argue that the idea of... more
Polycentric governance is characterized by an organizational structure where multiple independent actors mutually order their relationships with one another under a general system of rules (V. Ostrom 1972). We argue that the idea of polycentricity is an idea whose time has come because of its powerful implications for the discourse on governance in complex, modern societies. The premise is simple; governance of such societies requires institutional diversity embodied in multi-level, multipurpose , multi-sectoral, and multi-functional units of governance. In the first part of this paper, we explore the epistemological and ontological foundations of polycentricity, describe its essential features, and outline some preconditions for a polycentric system of governance. We critique the old and new public management, arguing that the current discourse on network governance merely reinforces the old concept of public administration. We also consider implications for a second-generation research agenda on governance that takes into account the logic of polycentricity. In the second part of this paper, these concepts are illustrated through a comparative case of environmental management featuring a mature polycentric governance structure and a developing one. The disciplined, multi-jurisdictional approach of the San Francisco Bay Area contrasts sharply with a weakly administered environmental management regime in Rayong Province, Thailand, where pollution from a petrochemical industrial estate visits negative externalities on the local population. These cases are read through grassroots efforts to tighten pollution regulations, illustrating how their efficacy is impacted by the degree of structural and institutional cohesion within polycentric systems.
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The COVID‐19 pandemic is a crisis with high complexity and should be understood as such by scholarship. A complexity science approach situates increasingly divergent ideological and epistemological perspectives about the crisis within the... more
The COVID‐19 pandemic is a crisis with high complexity and should be understood as such by scholarship. A complexity science approach situates increasingly divergent ideological and epistemological perspectives about the crisis within the practical exigencies of containment and mitigation measures. We ask which of the seven stages of soft systems methodology contributes to deeper understandings about COVID‐19 as a policy issue, beyond the contributions of current and conventional perspectives. The discussion outlines implications for practice and places them within broader debates about tensions between scientific facts and political values.
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The impact of global challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic manifests most acutely in urban settings, rendering cities essential players on the global stage. The individual stories of five cities whose officials... more
The impact of global challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic manifests most acutely in urban settings, rendering cities essential players on the global stage. The individual stories of five cities whose officials participated in the study offer lessons for a variety of challenges and approaches to city diplomacy. Based on the survey results, we discuss the three primary obstacles cities must overcome in order to strengthen the role of city diplomacy globally: inadequate funding and resources for international engagement, insufficient training in city diplomacy, and the failure of national and multilateral bodies to fully recognize and formalize city engagement in diplomacy.
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The COVID-19 crisis has revealed structural failures in governance and coordination on a global scale. With related policy interventions dependent on verifiable evidence, pandemics require governments to not only consider the input of... more
The COVID-19 crisis has revealed structural failures in governance and coordination on a global scale. With related policy interventions dependent on verifiable evidence, pandemics require governments to not only consider the input of experts but also ensure that science is translated for public understanding. However, misinformation and fake news, including content shared through social media, compromise the efficacy of evidence-based policy interventions and undermine the credibility of scientific expertise with potentially longer-term consequences. We introduce a formal mathematical model to understand factors influencing the behavior of social media users when encountering fake news. The model illustrates that direct efforts by social media platforms and governments, along with informal pressure from social networks, can reduce the likelihood that users who encounter fake news embrace and further circulate it. This study has implications at a practical level for crisis response in politically fractious settings and at a theoretical level for research about post-truth and the construction of fact.
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This essay examines epistemological tensions inherent in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) project. The clash between the totalizing logic of the SDGs and growing populist antipathy for expert governance can be better understood... more
This essay examines epistemological tensions inherent in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) project. The clash between the totalizing logic of the SDGs and growing populist antipathy for expert governance can be better understood and potentially mediated through a critical pragmatist view. For the SDGs, technocratic fundamentalism not only serves the ambition for universality but also ensures epistemic stability in problem framing and protects the interests that benefit from it. However, technocratic fundamentalism also undermines the mechanics of SDG localization, working against their stated aims of justice, transparency, and institutional equity; in this way, a global development agenda shaped by myopic epistemics does itself no favors on elements by which it proposes to be measured. Compounding these epistemic tensions, anti-expert and anti-intellectual populism is confronting the credibility of technocracy and governance more generally, with possible implications for national and local policymaking informed by the SDGs. The concept of critical pragmatism, as articulated by Forester, presents both a provocation to the SDG project and a vision for imparting a more participatory orientation to it. This essay elaborates on these points.
Research Interests:
Smart water management (SWM) brings technological sophistication to water governance by providing monitoring, operational and communications capacities through real-time information. SWM’s quantification appeals to metric-driven... more
Smart water management (SWM) brings technological sophistication to water governance by providing monitoring, operational and communications capacities through real-time information. SWM’s quantification appeals to metric-driven governance but, we argue, also perpetuates a technocratic and instrumental-rationalist mindset. The peril of this mindset is that it sees technology as a solution for sustainability problems caused by deep-seated structural and behavioural faults. This essay reflects on this dynamic by siting the SWM concept within discussions about technocracy, moral hazard and power dynamics. It suggests that SWM’s rhetorical positioning undermines its own goals while naively seeking universal applicability, resolvable by embracing the precautionary principle.
The circular economy is a much discussed pathway towards sustainability. While some scholarly work has been carried out on barriers towards a circular economy, there are relatively few academic studies on policies that may accelerate a... more
The circular economy is a much discussed pathway towards sustainability. While some scholarly work has been
carried out on barriers towards a circular economy, there are relatively few academic studies on policies that
may accelerate a transition towards a circular economy. Those that focus on policies mostly scrutinize existing
policies. The study at hand utilizes data from semi-structured interviews with 47 public and private sector
circular economy experts from the European Union to explore expectations regarding circular economy policies,
with expectations possibly going beyond existing policies. Expectations identified via this work include more
robust standards and norms in production, expansion of circular procurement, tax relief for circular products,
liberalization of waste trading and its facilitation through virtual platforms, support for eco-industrial parks, and
awareness campaigns. The set of policy recommendations is presented from a life-cycle perspective that is necessary
for a transition towards a circular economy. The study aims to contribute to the nascent body of circular
economy literature concerning policies and may be of particular interest to practitioners.
carried out on barriers towards a circular economy, there are relatively few academic studies on policies that
may accelerate a transition towards a circular economy. Those that focus on policies mostly scrutinize existing
policies. The study at hand utilizes data from semi-structured interviews with 47 public and private sector
circular economy experts from the European Union to explore expectations regarding circular economy policies,
with expectations possibly going beyond existing policies. Expectations identified via this work include more
robust standards and norms in production, expansion of circular procurement, tax relief for circular products,
liberalization of waste trading and its facilitation through virtual platforms, support for eco-industrial parks, and
awareness campaigns. The set of policy recommendations is presented from a life-cycle perspective that is necessary
for a transition towards a circular economy. The study aims to contribute to the nascent body of circular
economy literature concerning policies and may be of particular interest to practitioners.
Research Interests:
With indiscriminate geographic and socioeconomic reach, COVID-19 has visited destruction of life and livelihoods on a largely unprepared world and can arguably be declared the new millen-nium's most trying test of state capacity.... more
With indiscriminate geographic and socioeconomic reach, COVID-19 has visited destruction of life and livelihoods on a largely unprepared world and can arguably be declared the new millen-nium's most trying test of state capacity. Governments are facing an urgent mandate to mobilize quickly and comprehensively in response, drawing not only on public resources and coordination capabilities but also on the cooperation and buy-in of civil society. Political and institutional legitimacy are crucial determinants of effective crisis management, and low-trust states lacking such legitimacy suffer a profound disadvantage. Social and economic crises attending the COVID-19 pandemic thus invite scholarly reflection about public attitudes, social leadership, and the role of social and institutional memory in the context of systemic disruption. This article examines Hong Kong as a case where failure to respond effectively could have been expected due to low levels of public trust and political legitimacy, but where, in fact, crisis response was unexpectedly successful. The case exposes underdevelopment in scholarly assumptions about the connections among political legitimacy, societal capacity, and crisis response capabilities. As such, this calls for a more nuanced understanding of how social behaviours and norms are structured and reproduced amidst existential uncertainties and policy ambiguities caused by sudden and convergent crises, and how these can themselves generate resources that bolster societal capacity in the fight against pandemics.
Research Interests:
COVID-19 crisis has focused global attention to respiratory health. In cities with chronic and severe air pollution, people may be more vulnerable to the virus. While the entire world’s attention at present is on crisis mitigation due to... more
COVID-19 crisis has focused global attention to respiratory health. In cities with chronic and severe air pollution, people may be more vulnerable to the virus. While the entire world’s attention at present is on crisis mitigation due to coronavirus, it is important not to lose sight of the health impacts of serious and chronic air pollution. Even in comparatively clean Europe, COVID-19 lockdown has resulted in 11,000 less deaths due to air pollution reduction, and 1.3 million fewer days of work absence. India’s lockdown has reduced air pollution in cities like Delhi by some 90%. 21 Indian cities were among the top 30 cities of the world with worst air pollution. An average Indian lost 5.3 years of life expectancy due to air pollution in 2016. In Delhi, this loss was a staggering 12 years. Both China and India share similar economic ambitions and have witnessed rapid industrialisation. Both have faced serious air pollution challenges. However, China has been significantly more successful in combating air pollution compared to India. See my analysis with Kris Hartley on what India can learn from China to substantially reduce its urban air pollution.
Research Interests:
Water stress is an increasing burden in regions with arid climates, aquifer vulnerability, and erratic rainfall. Population growth and competing domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses are also stretching the capacity of water supply... more
Water stress is an increasing burden in regions with arid climates, aquifer vulnerability, and erratic rainfall. Population growth and competing domestic, industrial, and agricultural uses are also stretching the capacity of water supply systems. Beyond groundwater extraction, surface water overuse, and inter-basin transfers, governments are exploring alternative sources amidst looming supply threats. These alternatives include desalination , greywater recycling, and reclaimed or recycled wastewater. The latter, also known as water reuse with varying levels of treatment, has been applied for irrigation, street cleaning, industrial processes, and groundwater recharge. However, reused water for potable purposes has seen limited uptake, due in part to lack of public acceptance. This article examines the dynamics of public acceptance for potable water reuse. The article's theoretical contribution is a formal mathematical model for understanding public acceptance of water reuse. The model conceptualizes how governments, water utilities and the public interact to facilitate or hinder acceptance of water supply sources, including potable reuse. The article concludes by applying the model to cases of water reuse in Windhoek, Namibia, and Singapore.
Research Interests:
In 2018, India had 22 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities and China five, with Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for the other three. Which shows urban air pollution is primarily an Asian problem, and the challenges are regionally... more
In 2018, India had 22 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities and China five, with Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for the other three. Which shows urban air pollution is primarily an Asian problem, and the challenges are regionally widespread.
Research Interests:
Urbanization cannot be stopped, but this does not excuse governments for failing to address air pollution. With considerable resources and capacity for nationwide policy coordination, China should be leading the way in developing a... more
Urbanization cannot be stopped, but this does not excuse governments for failing to address air pollution. With considerable resources and capacity for nationwide policy coordination, China should be leading the way in developing a sustainable approach to urbanization that can serve as a regional and even global example.
Research Interests:
Once the muse of oracles and soothsayers, global systemic instability is now increasingly plausible given the convergence of wicked, synchronous, and interconnected problems like climate change and socioeconomic inequality. International... more
Once the muse of oracles and soothsayers, global systemic instability is now increasingly plausible given the convergence of wicked, synchronous, and interconnected problems like climate change and socioeconomic inequality. International organizations have confronted such crises with policy platforms like the Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda, and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. However, there is increasing need to connect the meta-context of systemic crises with the practical realities facing local policy practitioners, who must determine how to manage the local impacts of a so-called "perfect storm" of policy challenges. This article argues first that policy interventions addressing wicked problems are locked into a legacy epistemic focused on discrete problem identification and associated policy solutions, and second that such policy thinking will fail to adequately address global crises. The article critically visits Enlightenment rationality-inspired instrumentalism underlying the ongoing high-modernist and technocratic approach of policymaking, deriving a suite of recommendations based on a theoretical application of policy capacity. ARTICLE HISTORY
Research Interests:
National competitiveness indices are often theoretical underdeveloped, limiting their engagement with academic literature. Because many are based on neoliberal ideology, a new approach is needed to incorporate governance and... more
National competitiveness indices are often theoretical underdeveloped, limiting their engagement with academic literature. Because many are based on neoliberal ideology, a new approach is needed to incorporate governance and administration theory, and to enhance relevance to developing countries. This article introduces government competitiveness, a concept that recognizes overlooked factors like the role of social organizations, the use of diverse policy inputs and policy development processes, and the imperative to address human needs at all development stages. The conceptual foundation draws from systems theory, needs theory, and intervention stages theory to inform a comprehensive framework that bridges development scholarship and
practice.
practice.
Research Interests:
This article presents a study of state-society relations in the context of urban arts and cultural space. Focusing on the suburban Manila town of Angono, Philippines, the article examines how the emergence of place-based cultural activity... more
This article presents a study of state-society relations in the context of urban arts and cultural space. Focusing on the suburban Manila town of Angono, Philippines, the article examines how the emergence of place-based cultural activity is supported or obstructed by top-down policymaking, in particular the policy instrumentalization of culture to increase tourism. Divergent interests between the state and artist community are embodied by respective tensions between economic interest and the drive for personal expression. Based on interviews with artists and officials, this study's findings illustrate that power imbalances within the policy making process, principally between government and artists, have led not to the erasure of arts from the public sphere but to a bipartite cultural environment with tourist-oriented art promotion at one end and endogenous local art at the other. This distinction is apparent not only in physical space but also in patterns of interaction between established and emerging artists and between the arts community and local government. The article concludes by outlining how policy can better support cultural authenticity amidst commercial pressures, and
how state-society relations are mediated in a creative pursuit whose interest is not exclusively economic.
how state-society relations are mediated in a creative pursuit whose interest is not exclusively economic.
Research Interests:
The transition from an industrial to knowledge-based economy is impacting urban growth across Asia. Many cities now seek to lure educated professionals through arts and cultural amenities, with a common focus on disinvested neighborhoods.... more
The transition from an industrial to knowledge-based economy is impacting urban growth across Asia. Many cities now seek to lure educated professionals through arts and cultural amenities, with a common focus on disinvested neighborhoods. The underlying planning tactics often favor top-down intervention over multi-sectoral collaboration, marginalizing and displacing the politically weaker constituencies that give neighborhoods their authenticity. Many studies have examined the drivers and impacts of this process in Western contexts, but further research is needed to understand collaborative governance for urban art districts in neoliberal contexts. Mullae, an artist-originated district in Seoul, illustrates collaboration between civil society and local government in such a context. Based on in-depth interviews, document analysis, and observational research, this study examines tensions among parties participating in and affected by urban development in art districts. Empirical findings are interpreted through a framework that focuses on three dialectics: economy, policy, and culture.
Government overtures to collaboration are found to provide only limited avenues of policy influence among artists. This suggests the need for further research about the role of neoliberal forces in replicating elite place-building power structures, which remain at theoretical and practical odds with the concept of collaborative governance.
Government overtures to collaboration are found to provide only limited avenues of policy influence among artists. This suggests the need for further research about the role of neoliberal forces in replicating elite place-building power structures, which remain at theoretical and practical odds with the concept of collaborative governance.
Research Interests:
This article examines the impact of policies for start‐up and entrepreneurship on the developmental model that remains a policy legacy in many Asian countries. The main argument is that the influence of central planning is deeply embedded... more
This article examines the impact of policies for start‐up and entrepreneurship on the developmental model that remains a policy legacy in many Asian countries. The main argument is that the influence of central planning is deeply embedded in the institutions of the Four Asian Tigers, but globalisation and economic liberalisation are disrupting the old developmentalism by incentivising innovation and structural adaptability. In practice, although developmentalism once focused on infrastructure and industrial policy, softer strategies such as attracting educated millennials through urban amenities and creative clustering mimic those of the postindustrial West. Either this trend represents the end of developmentalism or top-down industrial policy is being rebranded to embrace knowledge and service industries. This article examines this issue at the urban scale, examining policies used by
Singapore and Seoul to encourage start‐ups and entrepreneurship
in the context of innovation. Government documents are examined and findings compared.
Singapore and Seoul to encourage start‐ups and entrepreneurship
in the context of innovation. Government documents are examined and findings compared.
Research Interests:
Smart city initiatives have been researched primarily in the developed country context. In developing countries, however, emerging technologies are enabling progress on urban functionality, productivity, and livability. A deeper... more
Smart city initiatives have been researched primarily in the developed country context. In developing countries, however, emerging technologies are enabling progress on urban functionality, productivity, and livability. A deeper understanding of facilitative policy conditions unique to developing countries would be useful to both theory and practice. This study presents empirically grounded insights about the policy implications of smart city development in developing countries, based on surveys of experts from the public and private sectors in 10 Vietnam cities. The study makes three contributions. First, it provides new evidence that pursuing smart city development (SCD) is not a mere alternative but a crucial strategic imperative. While facing persistent problems, Vietnam's cities exhibit significant and rapidly improving readiness for SCD. Second, the study provides new insights into related policy issues and challenges, including the positive link between e-government development and control of corruption, the risk of bias toward operational management over institutional reform, and the lack of a clear development strategy. Finally, the study proposes a model for guiding smart city initiatives in developing countries.
Research Interests:
The development literature lacks consensus about the link between aid effectiveness and governance improvement. A basic rational actor model is introduced to clarify how donors can influence recipient behaviors and more broadly how... more
The development literature lacks consensus about the link between aid effectiveness and governance improvement. A basic rational actor model is introduced to clarify how donors can influence recipient behaviors and more broadly how foreign aid can support or impede governance quality improvement. Adopting the underutilized perspective of donor behavior, this study identifies mechanisms through which aid hinders governance improvement and offers substantive recommendations about how donors can enhance aid effectiveness, including strategies for donors to raise the level of effort recipients devote to project success.
Research Interests:
Management of environmental resources presents challenges across jurisdictional boundaries. In the case of river basins, multiple localities must coordinate water allocation, often across social, economic, and political contexts. As such,... more
Management of environmental resources presents challenges across jurisdictional boundaries. In the case of river basins, multiple localities must coordinate water allocation, often across social, economic, and political contexts. As such, the scale of governance systems often fails to match that of environmental challenges or the reach of their impacts. This study analyses Hong Kong’s water supply management in the context of political tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China, a transboundary dynamic offering broader lessons for improving regional water management. Hong Kong imports a majority of its water from neighboring Guangdong province, historically shaping a pattern of dependency and complacency. This study finds that chronic underinvestment in alternative sources of water exposes Hong Kong to potential instability in water supply from up-stream areas in mainland China. The study’s examination of institutional conditions and political dynamics add complexity to the largely technical and scientific research about water governance in Hong Kong.
Research Interests:
Management of environmental resources presents challenges across jurisdictional boundaries. In the case of river basins, multiple localities must coordinate water allocation, often across social, economic, and political contexts. As such,... more
Management of environmental resources presents challenges across jurisdictional boundaries. In the case of river basins, multiple localities must coordinate water allocation, often across social, economic, and political contexts. As such, the scale of governance systems often fails to match that of environmental challenges or the reach of their impacts. This study analyses Hong Kong’s water supply management in the context of political tensions between Hong Kong and mainland China, a transboundary dynamic offering broader lessons for improving regional water management. Hong Kong imports a majority of its water from neighboring Guangdong province, historically shaping a pattern of dependency and complacency. This study finds that chronic underinvestment in alternative sources of water exposes Hong Kong to potential instability in water supply from up-stream areas in mainland China. The study’s examination of institutional conditions and political dynamics add complexity to the largely technical and scientific research about water governance in Hong Kong.
Research Interests:
Political will is inexcusably weak, and mere statistics are failing to prod governments beyond election-year soundbites and platitudes.
Research Interests:
In the last 50 years, China has experienced rapid economic transformation. It is now poised to assume membership among the world’s most developed economies. Its strategies on issues like urbanisation and infrastructure are widely studied... more
In the last 50 years, China has experienced rapid economic transformation. It is now poised to assume membership among the world’s most developed economies. Its strategies on issues like urbanisation and infrastructure are widely studied and occasionally copied.
Research Interests:
Many developing nations have targeted poverty alleviation and improved living standards as ultimate policy goals. While China has achieved poverty alleviation on an historic scale, policy obstacles remain. These include bureaucratic... more
Many developing nations have targeted poverty alleviation and improved living standards as ultimate policy goals. While China has achieved poverty alleviation on an historic scale, policy obstacles remain. These include bureaucratic inefficiency and failed policy implementation. India has likewise made progress in alleviating poverty though it lags significantly behind China.
Research Interests:
The transformation to a greener future through electric vehicle adoption will require time and a steadfast policy commitment, but many countries are already some way down the road, Asit K Biswas and Kris Hartley write.
Research Interests:
Delhi’s smog crisis has shifted global attention away from Beijing, and rightly so, because China’s capital has taken long-term, fruitful measures to address the problem which have already yielded positive results.
Research Interests:
Membaiknya kesejahteraan manusia adalah salah satu keberhasilan terbesar era modern. Zaman yang serba berkecukupan juga telah menyebabkan krisis kesehatan global yang tak terduga: dua miliar orang kini kelebihan berat badan (obesitas).... more
Membaiknya kesejahteraan manusia adalah salah satu keberhasilan terbesar era modern. Zaman yang serba berkecukupan juga telah menyebabkan krisis kesehatan global yang tak terduga: dua miliar orang kini kelebihan berat badan (obesitas). Negara maju khususnya telah menjadi rentan terhadap berat badan yang tidak sehat, sebuah tren yang bisa dianggap sebagai harga dari kondisi berkelimpahan. Akan tetapi, negara berkembang kini pun menghadapi krisis serupa.
Research Interests:
Delhi’s air pollution crisis made international headlines in early December when a cricket match between India and Sri Lanka was suspended due to poor air quality.
Research Interests:
Improved human well-being is one of the modern era’s greatest triumphs. The age of plenty has also led to an unexpected global health crisis: two billion people are either overweight or obese. Developed countries have been especially... more
Improved human well-being is one of the modern era’s greatest triumphs. The age of plenty has also led to an unexpected global health crisis: two billion people are either overweight or obese. Developed countries have been especially susceptible to unhealthy weight gain, a trend that could be considered the price of abundance. However, developing countries are now facing a similar crisis.
Research Interests:
China could increase its soft power impact, but openness, transparency, and tolerance of debate present significant hurdles, Asit K Biswas and Kris Hartley write.
Research Interests:
Smart city initiatives have been researched primarily in the developed country context. In developing countries, however, emerging technologies are enabling progress on urban functionality, productivity, and livability. A deeper... more
Smart city initiatives have been researched primarily in the developed country context. In developing countries, however, emerging technologies are enabling progress on urban functionality, productivity, and livability. A deeper understanding of facilitative policy conditions unique to developing countries would be useful to both theory and practice. This study presents empirically grounded insights about the policy implications of smart city development in developing countries, based on surveys of experts from the public and private sectors in 10 Vietnam cities. The study makes three contributions. First, it provides new evidence that pursuing smart city development (SCD) is not a mere alternative but a crucial strategic imperative. While facing persistent problems, Vietnam's cities exhibit significant and rapidly improving readiness for SCD. Second, the study provides new insights into related policy issues and challenges, including the positive link between e-government development and control of corruption, the risk of bias toward operational management over institutional reform, and the lack of a clear development strategy. Finally, the study proposes a model for guiding smart city initiatives in developing countries.
Research Interests:
National competitiveness indices are often theoretical underdeveloped, limiting their engagement with academic literature. Because many are based on neoliberal ideology, a new approach is needed to incorporate governance and... more
National competitiveness indices are often theoretical underdeveloped, limiting their engagement with academic literature. Because many are based on neoliberal ideology, a new approach is needed to incorporate governance and administration theory, and to enhance relevance to developing countries. This article introduces government competitiveness, a concept that recognizes overlooked factors like the role of social organizations, the use of diverse policy inputs and policy development processes, and the imperative to address human needs at all development stages. The conceptual foundation draws from systems theory, needs theory, and intervention stages theory to inform a comprehensive framework that bridges development scholarship and practice.
Research Interests:
Water resource management is a crucial issue in the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta. Numerous studies have examined transboundary water management, but those focusing on Hong Kong are largely technical, with little consideration for... more
Water resource management is a crucial issue in the rapidly urbanizing Pearl River Delta. Numerous studies have examined transboundary water management, but those focusing on Hong Kong are largely technical, with little consideration for political dynamics or collaboration. This study’s contribution is a systematic analysis of water governance in China’s ‘one country–two systems’ setting. Through interviews and historical analysis, the study applies Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development framework to a setting with political complexity and environmental vulnerability. The principal finding is that cooperation on supply infrastructure reflects a regional interdependence that builds the multiparty trust needed for more strategic governance.
Research Interests:
As the United States and the European Union retreat from their foreign-aid commitments, only one country has the resources and the interest to assume the mantle of global development leadership. The world will have to become accustomed to... more
As the United States and the European Union retreat from their foreign-aid commitments, only one country has the resources and the interest to assume the mantle of global development leadership. The world will have to become accustomed to China's new role.
Research Interests:
The United States is retreating from the global community under a president who rejected the Paris Climate Accords and denigrates NAFTA and NATO. This provides an opportunity for China to play a greater role in global affairs.
Research Interests:
Plastic bags and bottles are a global menace, but the emergence of microplastics will test the policy courage of governments in new ways, Asit K Biswas and Kris Hartley write.
Research Interests:
Alarmingly, two out of five adults in the Asia-Pacific region are either overweight or obese. The World Heath Organisation (WHO) estimates that roughly half of the world’s share of adults with diabetes live in Asia.
Research Interests:
From the staggering population migration to the multi-lane traffic jams, China's rapid urbanization has captured global attention. But much of what threatens the sustainability of China's urbanization is not above ground but under it.
Research Interests:
Groundwater over-extraction, waterway degradation, and urban flooding are forcing China’s cities to address a vicious cycle. China’s “sponge city initiative” aims to arrest this cycle through the use of permeable surfaces and green... more
Groundwater over-extraction, waterway degradation, and urban flooding are forcing China’s cities to address a vicious cycle. China’s “sponge city initiative” aims to arrest this cycle through the use of permeable surfaces and green infrastructures. However, the initiative faces two challenges: lack of expertise of local governments to effectively coordinate and integrate such a complex set of activities, and financial constraints.
Research Interests:
Among the barrage of threats to human survival – economic crises, terrorism, inequality – perhaps the most urgent but least prioritized lies underfoot: groundwater. The World Economic Forum ranks water crises the world’s third greatest... more
Among the barrage of threats to human survival – economic crises, terrorism, inequality – perhaps the most urgent but least prioritized lies underfoot: groundwater. The World Economic Forum ranks water crises the world’s third greatest risk by impact, and extreme weather the top risk by likelihood. According to a 2016 study, aquifer depletion in agricultural regions could threaten nearly half the world’s food sources and deny 1.8 billion people reliable access to water by 2050.
Research Interests:
Two of the world's most densely populated regions, northern India and northern China, are experiencing high levels of groundwater depletion, according to a 2015 study sponsored by NASA. For these and many other highly stressed aquifers,... more
Two of the world's most densely populated regions, northern India and northern China, are experiencing high levels of groundwater depletion, according to a 2015 study sponsored by NASA. For these and many other highly stressed aquifers, natural replenishment through precipitation is unable to offset human-led extraction, threatening water quality and supply sustainability.
Research Interests:
Tackling China’s groundwater depletion and the growing crisis of water scarcity amidst rapid urbanisation will require political will and creative policy thinking.
Research Interests:
China's decision to relocate Beijing's non-capital functions to Xiongan New Area, which is home to Baiyangdian Lake, the largest freshwater body in North China, highlights the acute water shortage Beijing faces. This calls for special... more
China's decision to relocate Beijing's non-capital functions to Xiongan New Area, which is home to Baiyangdian Lake, the largest freshwater body in North China, highlights the acute water shortage Beijing faces. This calls for special attention to the groundwater shortage.
Research Interests: Groundwater and China
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In one of the most touching moments in recent political history, U.S. President Barack Obama hugged a Hiroshima survivor while visiting the site bombed by American forces 70 years ago. It is difficult to imagine such sincere behavior from... more
In one of the most touching moments in recent political history, U.S. President Barack Obama hugged a Hiroshima survivor while visiting the site bombed by American forces 70 years ago. It is difficult to imagine such sincere behavior from most other politicians, especially one particular American presidential candidate. Given the economic, social, and political strife endured by millions of people, the world is in deep need of empathy from its leaders. Yet tenderness and sensitivity are endangered qualities, particularly in this era of suspicion, uncertainty, and political bravado. A sweeping tide of protectionism and alarmism is flooding governments with political mandates to boost defense spending. The peace dividend is in severe jeopardy, and as usual society’s vulnerable will suffer the most.