Design of Policy Instruments

What is the state of the research on crowdsourcing for policymaking? This article begins to answer this question by collecting, categorizing, and situating an extensive body of the extant research investigating policy crowdsourcing, within a new framework built on fundamental typologies from each field. We first define seven universal characteristics of the three general crowdsourcing techniques (virtual labor markets, tournament crowdsourcing, open collaboration), to examine the relative trade-offs of each modality. We then compare these three types of crowdsourcing to the different stages of the policy cycle, in order to situate the literature spanning both domains. We finally discuss research trends in crowdsourcing for public policy and highlight the research gaps and overlaps in the literature.

"The prevalence of private property in most western countries places the responsibility for biodiversity conservation in the hands of hundreds of millions of individuals.  To preserve the remaining biodiversity on private land, many conservation policies and programs have been deployed.  These policies and programs, however, have largely failed, due to a lack of understanding landholders’ social characteristics, which influence their capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs and adopt conservation practices.

Innovation-adoption theory explains how, why and at what rate innovations are adopted.  I used this theory to conceptualise landholder participation in conservation programs because it offers an approach to increase our understanding of the motivations and barriers to participation.  Advancements in our knowledge of landholder behaviour can improve the design of conservation programs through more informed choices of policy instruments that assist government and non-government agencies in achieving their conservation policy goals.  Currently, our knowledge of the linkages between landholders’ social characteristics and their preferences for policy instruments remains inconclusive.

The overall aim of this research was to contribute to our understanding of how the social characteristics of landholders influence their conservation behaviour, in support of the improved use of policy instruments.  Specifically, the objectives of this research were to understand: 1) how social characteristics differed between landholders who had participated in one of three conservation programs; 2) what motivated and limited the involvement of participants; 3) how the social characteristics of conservation program participants and non-participants differed; 4) why some landholders chose not to participate in conservation programs; and 5) how conservation programs could be designed to enlist landholders who may otherwise not participate.  To satisfy these research objectives, I designed a revealed preference study to examine landholders’ ‘actual’ preferences for policy instruments.  Three north Queensland conservation programs were selected that each employed different policy instruments: the voluntary Queensland Government Nature Refuge Program; the direct-payment Cassowary Coast Rate Deferral Scheme; and the market-based Desert Uplands Landscape Linkages Program.  Each program required participants to enter into a conservation agreement or covenant.

Invitations were sent to 58 participants in the three programs.  In total, 45 conservation program participants were interviewed between February and June 2009.  Twenty-nine landholders who had not participated in one of these programs (non-participants), but who may otherwise have qualified for the program, were recruited, using snowball sampling, and interviewed.  Semi-structured interviews were used to administer a survey that comprised both closed and open response questions.  Chi-square and randomization tests were used to analyse quantitative data; the discourse analysis methods of grounded theory were used to analyse qualitative data.

The results revealed that landholders’ dominant land use (production or non-production) influenced their preference for policy instruments.  Production landholders used the land to derive an income from production-related activities, worked longer hours on their properties and experienced higher levels of stress related to their lifestyle.  They were more likely to participate in short-term programs that offered large financial incentives, and conserved less than 25% of their property.  Non-production landholders, who did not derive an income from production-related activities, demonstrated stronger personal norms and environmental attitudes regarding their role in conservation, and were more likely to participate in long-term programs that were voluntary or offered small financial incentives, and conserved more than 75% of their property.

I used qualitative data to understand landholders’ relative commitment to biodiversity conservation.  Overall, landholders were motivated to participate in conservation programs by conservation, production, financial and experimentally-based imperatives.  Production landholders represented all four motivations, while non-production landholders were only motivated by conservation or financial imperatives.  These motivations, along with landholders’ perspectives of the landscape (i.e., whether the land could be used for only production or conservation [uni-functional] or both [multifunctional]), influenced how they selected what land they would allocate to conservation.  In some instances, these choices resulted in no additional gain beyond what would have occurred from ‘business as usual’, or actually represented a threat to biodiversity.

Comparisons between program participants and non-participants revealed that non-participants had significantly lower levels of human and social capital than participants, in four of the eight dimensions assessed: lifestyle and wellbeing, information and knowledge, environmental attitudes, and trust.  Significant differences were not observed for four other dimensions that were measured.  Higher levels of pre-existing capital increased the likelihood of landholder participation in conservation programs; lower levels of human capital reduced the likelihood of participation.

Qualitative data were used to understand context-specific reasons for non-participation.  Two major barriers to participation existed.  First, non-participants believed that the programs did not fit with their personal needs or align with their land management goals and obligations, and were not sufficiently practical or flexible.  They feared participation would have directly or indirectly infringed upon their property rights and compromised the economic value of their property.  Second, non-participants harboured a deep mistrust of previous and current governments, which represented an impermeable barrier to participation.  For some respondents, participation was conditional on the fit between their property goals and both the characteristics of the program and the mandate of the program administrator (i.e., conditional non-participants).  For other respondents, these barriers completely inhibited their willingness to participate (resistant non-participants).  Non-participants believed that program administrators’ commitment to political goals, implicit in program design, confounded the relevance of conservation programs to their personal needs and property conditions.

These findings make an important contribution to private land conservation policy.  Landholders presented as a heterogeneous group of individuals whose participation in conservation programs was defined largely by their reliance on the land for income, landscape perspective, human and social capital, trust in the program administrator, and the politico-historical context.  These factors influenced landholders’ capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs, their preference for policy instruments, and how they selected land to conserve, which suggest that it is no longer necessary to understand adoption of innovation as occurring along a continuum based only on socio-psychological factors.  These findings should be used to improve the use of policy instruments in conservation program design so they can genuinely preserve biodiversity on the private land to which they are targeted.
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Effective policy mixes are expected to accommodate uncertainties in the future policy context by being flexible and adapt over time in expectation of a range of anticipated and unanticipated conditions. In response to shifts in the future policy context, while policy changes can manifest as increments to status quo over time, policymakers may also need to face the possibility of making major policy shifts to enable the transition into more appropriate policy regimes. In the context of socio-technical transitions, the switch to new policy alternatives can be facilitated by incorporating new policy actions into the suite of current policy strategies early on, which can also help accommodate the long lead-times on some decisions and actions. This paper is a conceptual piece that focuses on integrating policy design thinking into the crafting of conscious policy choices and mixes to enable socio-technical transitions while considering the likely changes in the future policy context.

This paper focuses on policy implementation in higher education (HE), analysed through the evolution and transformation of policy instruments related to government funding and evaluation. The research questions are: what do policy instruments reveal about the evolution of policy rationales and justifications? To what extent and why do they evolve in unpredictable ways? Our findings show that the form and evolution of instruments are related to factors such as the existing mix of instruments and policy paradigm, of the features of the policy process and of the instruments themselves.

Curso dictado para el B.A en Ciencia Política en la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú.

El curso “Programación de Proyectos Políticos” aborda el proceso de diseño de políticas públicas desde la Administración Pública, Gestión Pública y la Gestión de Proyectos. El curso, a pesar de estar orientado al diseño, también tiene un fin práctico: los participantes no solo comprenden las bases teóricas sobre las que se sustenta el curso sino que las aplican en un proyecto tomando como referencia a una entidad pública cliente. De esta manera, se espera que el estudiante utilice las categorías teóricas brindadas en el diagnóstico situacional de su sector (o dependencia) así como postule propuestas de política pública considerando limitantes institucionales reales y viables.

This book presents an innovative approach to the study of policy instruments in the context of broader governance dynamics. It mobilises concepts from innovation studies to reconstruct emerging trajectories of policy practice that result from interactions of models and real world configurations of governance. Case studies are presented on emissions trading and network access regulation in the utilities, two instruments with a key role in market-oriented governance transformations over the last decades. The analysis offers insights into patterns of innovation journeys in governance, the social life of policy instruments and the formation of instrument constituencies and regimes of policy technology, and the ambivalent role of technical models in the dynamics of social change.

Can Crowdsourcing be used for policy? Previous work posits that the three types of Crowdsourcing have different levels of potential usefulness when applied to the various stages of the policy cycle. In this paper, we build upon this exploratory work by categorizing the extant research with respect to Crowdsourcing for the policy cycle. Premised upon our analysis, we thereafter discuss the trends, highlight the gaps, and suggest some approaches to empirically validate the application of Crowdsourcing to the policy cycle.

Abstract Two important challenges in policy design are better understanding of the design space and consideration of the temporal factors. Moreover, in recent years it has been demonstrated that understanding the complex interactions of policy measures can play an important role in policy design and analysis. In this paper, the advances made in conceptualization and application of networks to policy design in the past decade are highlighted. Specifically, the use of a network-centric policy design approach in better understanding the design space and temporal consequences of design choices are presented. Network-centric policy design approach has been used in classification, visualization, and analysis of the relations among policy measures as well as ranking of policy measures using their internal properties and interactions, and conducting sensitivity analysis using Monte Carlo simulations. Furthermore, through use of a decision support system, network-centric approach facilitates ranking, visualization, and selection of policies using different sets of criteria, and exploring the potential for compromise in policy formulation. The advantage of the network-centric approach is providing the ability to go beyond visualizations and analysis of policies and piecemeal use of network concepts as a
tool for different policy design tasks to moving to a more integrated bottom–up approach to design. Furthermore, the computational advantages of the network-centric policy design in considering temporal factors such as policy sequencing and addressing issues such as layering, drift, policy failure, and delay are presented. Finally, some of the current challenges of network-centric design are discussed, and some potential avenues of exploration in policy design through use of computational methodologies, as well as possible integration with approaches from other disciplines, are highlighted.

Crowdsourcing is rapidly evolving and applied in situations where ideas, labour, opinion or expertise of large groups of people are used. Crowdsourcing is now used in various policy-making initiatives; however, this use has usually focused on open collaboration platforms and specific stages of the policy process, such as agenda-setting and policy evaluations. Other forms of crowdsourcing have been neglected in policy-making, with a few exceptions. This article examines crowdsourcing as a tool for policy-making, and explores the nuances of the technology and its use and implications for different stages of the policy process. The article addresses questions surrounding the role of crowdsourcing and whether it can be considered as a policy tool or as a technological enabler and investigates the current trends and future directions of crowdsourcing.

This report comprises 10 case study reports at regional and national on the implementation of the Smart Specialisation policy across 4 EU countries. This analytical work seeks to provide a wide assessment of the smart specialisation policy experience along with some reflections for the 2021-2027 EU Cohesion policy. The reports were produced by national experts using a common conceptual framework and set of guidelines for data collection. They were also redacted according to a common structure which facilitates comparative analysis and information search in general.

The case studies included in this report consists of three sections on (i) governance, (ii) the entrepreneurial discovery process and, (iii) monitoring and evaluation, plus a succinct
account of some relevant implementation measures characterised by being experimental.

The section on governance provides an overview of the smart specialisation governance and comprises four
parts focused on political support and leadership; autonomy and accountability of the smart specialisation
management body; horizontal and vertical coordination; and stakeholder engagement. The section on the entrepreneurial discovery process looks at the main dimensions of the process and develops four parts focused on understanding the continuous entrepreneurial discovery process concept; the entrepreneurial discovery process organisation: structure, role, processes, resources, and the mobilisation and engagement of stakeholders; and capacity building. The last section on monitoring and evaluation consists of four parts focused on the general objectives and main results of the smart specialisation strategy; the specificity and usefulness of the smart specialisation monitoring system; the smart specialisation monitoring system usage; and the smart specialisation evaluation.

An increasing number of planners have explored the implication of Coase Theorem for planning theory and practice. As there are often a large and dispersed number of actors involved in planning issues, the application of 'Pure' Coasian solutions has proved to be limited. However, some studies argue that when the conditions for a 'Pure' Coasian solution do not exist, 'Impure' Coasian solutions may still be achievable. This paper examines how, when conditions of 'Impure' Coasian solutions are available, local authorities in Switzerland use Land Improvement Syndicates (LIS) as a policy instrument in order to achieve negotiated solutions in relation to development processes involving multiple landowners. With a syndicate in the commune of Cheseaux as an illustrative example, the paper analyses how this policy instrument has been utilised to reduce transaction costs, correct information asymmetries, and clarify property rights. The focus has been on an interpretation of the Coasian Theorem that identifies attempts to reduce transaction costs and clarify property rights as the main roles of governments or local authorities.

The formulation of policies requires the selection and configuration of effective and acceptable courses of action to reach explicit goals. A one-size-fits-all policy is unlikely to achieve the desired goals; as a result, the identification of a suite of alternative policies, together with clear indications of their trade-offs, is crucial to accommodate the diversity of stakeholders’ preferences. At present, the formulation of transport policies is done manually; this fact, together with the size of the space of possible policies, results in a large part of that space being left unexplored. A six-step framework to explore the space of alternative transport policies in order to achieve environmental targets is proposed. The process starts with a user-defined set of specific policy measures, using them as building blocks in the generation of alternative policy packages, clusters and future images according to the user's preferences and goals.The analysis framework is based on the visioning and backcasting approach used in the VIBAT report [Banister, D., & Hickman, R. (2006a). Visioning and backcasting for UK transport policy (VIBAT) project. Department for Transport's Horizons Research Programme 2004/06. The Bartlett school of planning and Halcrow Group Ltd. Retrieved 1/18/2008 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/∼ucft696/vibat2.html]. The framework is being implemented as a prototype decision support system around a case study: the formulation and analysis of policies required to achieve CO2 emission targets for the transport sector in the UK. Important insights on how to develop the framework have also been elicited from engineering design. The goal is to accelerate the task of policy-making and improve the effectiveness of the resulting policies.The proposed method and computer implementation is fundamentally different from the tools commonly used in the transport sector and is intended to assist (not replace) transport policy makers, and complement (not substitute nor compete with) existing mathematical modelling tools. This research constitutes the first step towards the development of a general family of computer-based systems that support the design of policies to achieve environmental targets—not only for transport, but also for other sectors such as energy and water.

Tradable Permit Schemes (TPS) are market-based policy instruments, which are claimed to be more statically and dynamically efficient in achieving their policy objectives, compared to the traditional regulatory instruments. However, some researchers argue that high level of transaction costs associated with these policy instruments might undermine their efficiency. This paper addresses this issue through exploring the use of Blockchain technology in order to lower transaction costs that arise from TPS transactions. More specifically, it identifies the benefits of using Blockchain smart contracts in implementing TPS that include: increasing the amount of relevant information available to interested actors thus reducing uncertainties; reducing the amount of irrelevant information available to interested actors thus decreasing complexities; correcting information asymmetries among the actors involved thus limiting opportunistic behaviours; lowering the need for the involvement of intermediaries thus decreasing direct monetary costs; and facilitating the linkage between buyers and sellers thus improving trading quality. These potential benefits can increase the efficiency of TPS through decreasing policy-related transaction costs.

"Abstract. In addressing various policy problems, deciding which policy measure to start with given the range of measures available is challenging and essentially involves a process of ranking the alternatives, commonly done using multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) techniques. In this paper a new methodology for analysis and ranking of policy measures is introduced which combines network analysis and MCDA tools. This methodology not only considers the internal properties of the measures but also their interactions with other potential measures. Consideration of such interactions provides additional insights into the process of policy formulation and can help domain experts and policy makers to better assess the policy measures and to understand the complexities involved. This new methodology is applied in this paper to the formulation of a policy to increase walking and cycling.

Keywords: policy formulation, network analysis, multiple-criteria decision analysis, transport policy, walking and cycling"

The interdependence and complexity of socio-technical systems and availability of a wide variety of policy measures to address policy problems make the process of policy formulation difficult. In order to formulate sustainable and efficient transport policies, development of new tools and techniques is necessary. One of the approaches gaining ground is policy packaging, which shifts focus from implementation of individual policy measures to implementation of combinations of measures with the aim of increasing efficiency and effectiveness of policy interventions by increasing synergies and reducing potential contradictions among policy measures. In this paper, we describe the development of a virtual environment for the exploration and analysis of different configurations of policy measures in order to build policy packages. By developing systematic approaches it is possible to examine more alternatives at a greater depth, decrease the time required for the overall analysis, provide real-time assessment and feedback on the effect of changes in the configurations, and ultimately form more effective policies. The results from this research demonstrate the usefulness of computational approaches in addressing the complexity inherent in the formulation of policy packages. This new approach has been applied to the formulation of policies to advance sustainable transportation.

How do municipalities strategically use land policy to develop land for housing? The development of housing is a challenge for many European countries, though the scale and time of it differs. Issues are not always about the absolute number of houses that need to be supplied in a country. The distribution and quality of houses affect the demand for housing. Land policy determines where and how future developments take place, and as a result, it has a considerable impact on both supply and demand of housing. Municipalities use different strategies of land policy to pursue housing goals. This paper aims to explore the rationalities underpinning such strategies of land policy. Therefore, a theory on pluralism-Cultural Theory-is employed to understand municipal strategies in different contexts, i.e. Germany (Ruhr region), Belgium (Flanders), and Netherlands. Applying Cultural Theory to land policy results in four ideal-typical strategies of active, passive, reactive, and protective land policies. Despite the fact that the decisions of municipalities are made within (or constrained by) their institutional environments (i.e. national/regional planning systems, development cultures, etc.), we found that there are key similarities between the strategies of the studied municipalities regardless of their different institutional environments.

Monograph. London: Palgrave Macmillan (2014).

The military played a critical role in the twentieth century history of the Iberian Peninsula. They triggered and conditioned political developments and became both an important source of support and concern for Portuguese and Spanish governments. This compelling study is a comparative historical analysis of the instruments that governments used to control the military throughout two stages of Iberian recent history: first, Salazar's and Franco's dictatorships and, second, the transitions and early democratic periods (until 1986). In Portugal, the military, which had handed power over to a civilian dictator, Salazar, became a threat for the regime and ended up causing the downfall of the authoritarian Estado Novo with the Carnations revolution in 1974. In Spain the military, which helped Franco to defeat the Republic in 1939 remained loyal to the dictator's principles and posed a threat to democracy, culminating in the 23F coup attempt in 1981. This book explores the discrepancy between the experiences of two countries that share such strong political, social and geographical similarities.

Tradable permit schemes (TPS) are market‐based policy instruments, which are claimed to be more statically and dynamically efficient in achieving their policy objectives compared to the traditional regulatory instruments. However, some researchers argue that the high level of transaction costs associated with these policy instruments might undermine their efficiency. This paper addresses this issue through exploring the use of Blockchain technology in order to lower transaction costs that arise from TPS transactions. More specifically, it identifies the benefits of using Blockchain smart contracts in implementing TPS that include: increasing the amount of relevant information available to interested actors thus reducing uncertainties; reducing the amount of irrelevant information available to interested actors thus decreasing complexities; correcting information asymmetries among the actors involved thus limiting opportunistic behaviours; lowering the need for the involvement of intermediaries thus decreasing direct monetary costs; and facilitating the linkage between buyers and sellers thus improving trading quality. These potential benefits can increase the efficiency of TPS by decreasing policy‐related transaction costs.

Transfer of development rights (TDR) programs are introduced as an alternative institutional innovation to the traditional regulatory instruments for land development. They meet the demand for development and conservation while balancing the conflicts between public and private interests with minimal use of public funds. Most TDR literature is about nature conservation and there is little focus on the complicated process and diverse stakeholders' interests of urban land use in dealing with built heritage conservation. Previous studies show that the success of TDR programs depends on various elements, especially policy design and implementation approaches. The design and implementation of TDR programs involves transaction costs that can reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of these programs. This paper aims at developing a framework for analyzing TDR programs. This proposed framework not only takes transactions costs into account, but also provides a basis for decision makers to decipher the process of informal TDR. Using Hong Kong as a case study, three TDR implementation modes are selected to examine how different informal institutional arrangements have resulted in specific transaction costs in practice and hindered TDR projects. Our findings , which are informed by transactions costs economics, provide practical insights in order to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of TDR programs, particularly in informal contexts.

The increased complexity in our socio-economical systems requires the development of new tools to support a better understanding of the intricacies involved in addressing problems associated with such systems.  We believe that by introducing a systematic approach for exploring alternative policies we can improve the decomposition of these problems, decrease the required time for analysis and formulate more effective polices.  A case in policy formulation and analysis in the transport sector for achieving CO2 emission targets in the UK is presented; this solution is based on a previously proposed framework (Taeihagh et al., 2009a).  The results obtained from the analysis of policy measures and their relations are used in the formulation of policy alternatives (packages and clusters) through the application of agent-based modelling.  The results have the potential to further promote the use of computational approaches in the formulation of polices through the development of software systems that can support the design of policies for different sectors and geographical scopes.

Chapter 9. Formalisation or De-formalisation through Governance? Introduction : 189; The Expansion of Knowledge : 190;  The Evolution of European Science Co-Operation: 191; The European Research Area: 193; The OMC in Research and Development: 195; The Function of the OMC: 197

Crowdsourcing is beginning to be used for policymaking. The “wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2005], and crowdsourcing [Brabham 2008], are seen as new avenues that can shape all kinds of policy, from transportation policy [Nash 2009] to urban planning [Seltzer and Mahmoudi 2013], to climate policy. In general, many have high expectations for positive outcomes with crowdsourcing, and based on both anecdotal and empirical evidence, some of these expectations seem justified [Majchrzak and Malhotra 2013]. Yet, to our knowledge, research has yet to emerge that unpacks the different forms of crowdsourcing in light of each stage of the well-established policy cycle. This work addresses this research gap, and in doing so brings increased nuance to the application of crowdsourcing techniques for policymaking.