The concept of instrument constituency provides students of public policy with a new analytical tool for the analysis of policy change. In this article, we use the example of cash transfer programs to show how this concept also makes a direct contribution to the analysis of transnational policy transfer. More specifically, the analysis shows how, over the last dozen years, actors forming an instrument constituency promoted the diffusion of cash transfers as a policy instrument from Latin America to sub-Saharan Africa and, more specifically, from Brazil to Ghana. This case study of Ghana's adoption of a cash transfer program is grounded in semi-structured, expert interviews conducted with both domestic and transnational actors. Overall, the analysis demonstrates how the concept of instrument constituencies can enrich the literature on policy transfer, a key source of policy change in both developed and developing countries.
Do policy feedbacks interact with transnational policy ideas? How do they impact domestic policy development? Using a qualitative research method based on a comparison of two poverty alleviation strategies in Latin America, this article asserts that in all likelihood, if a previously implemented policy initiative was 'locked-in' through domestic policy experimentation and resultant state-building and interest group policy effects, it will not easily be replaced by alternative, transnational policy ideas that appear on the radar screen of national policymakers at a later date. However, if transnational policy ideas and models can draw on or build upon already established ideational and symbolic beliefs, they can actually be used to further the motivations of key political actors and societal interests -here, diffusion opens up great reform opportunities and opens the door to further policy institutionalization.
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The Covid-19 pandemic produced more significant immediate intergovernmental conflict in the U.S. than in Australia and Canada. This article considers three variables for this cross-national divergence: presidentialism versus parliamentarism; vertical party integration; and strength of intergovernmental arrangements. We find that the U.S. presidential system, contrary to parliamentarism in Canada and Australia, provided an opportunity for a populist outsider skeptical of experts to win the presidency and pursue a personalized style that favored intergovernmental conflict in times of crisis. Then, the intergovernmental conflict-inducing effect of the Trump presidency during the pandemic was compounded by the vertical integration of political parties, which provided incentives for the President to criticize Democratic governors and vice-versa. Third, the virtual absence of any structure for intergovernmental relations in the United States meant that, unlike Australian states and Canadian provinces, American states struggled to get the federal government’s attention and publicly deplored its lack of leadership.
By drawing on the five Brazilian case studies presented in this special issue we propose five 'faces' of presidentialism as a guide for examining the role of president in the public policy process: face to the general public; face to the bureaucracy; face to the subnational executives; face to congressional coalitions; and face to the outside world. How effectively the president succeeds in formulating and implementing their public policy priorities depends on their ability to execute the roles of each of these faces. A president's ability to successfully pursue their policy agenda is both constrained and facilitated by exogenous factors that impact the amount of attention, authority, and engagement that they are able to exert across the five faces they wear in the public policy process.
Throughout Latin American federations, programmatic welfare spending is increasingly nationally oriented and bureaucratically delivered. By explaining the logic and the effects of combining two types of federal spending, discretionary and non-discretionary, this article uncovers an additional driver that contributes to understanding policymaking and its implementation not only in Argentina, but potentially in other robust federal systems such as Brazil, Canada, and the United States. Using original data on federal infrastructure and programmatic social welfare spending for the twenty-four provinces of Argentina between 2003 and 2015, we provide empirical evidence that both forms of spending penalize opposition districts and more populated urban provinces (regardless of partisan affinity), and thus undercut the ability of key governors to become future presidential challengers. This research suggests that presidents of territorially diverse federations with strong governors can utilize the dual-punishment spending strategy to alter the balance of power, reinforcing the dominance of the center.
The changes in Brazil's pro-poor strategy from the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to that of Dilma Roussef have received little analysis. Based on a qualitative research approach that includes media analysis, semistructured interviews with local level elites, NGO representatives and Brazilian policy experts, the central argument here is that, although it is true that this 'new' approach closely approximates a European-style social investment agenda that goes beyond the policy intentions of Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs), in reality it continues to prioritize 'expanding access to complementary services' over improving the 'quality' of publicly provided services. Using the example of Brasil Carinhoso, one of the federal government's priority programmes within the Brasil Sem Miséria programme designed to be complementary to Bolsa Família, the article outlines the initial challenges facing this emerging agenda, along with its key political constraints. K E Y W O R D S CCTs, Brazil, social policy, politics, Bolsa Família, Brasil Sem MisériaFENWICK
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