Analyzing national policy styles empirically using the Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI): insights into long‐term patterns of policy‐making

Abstract

The concept of national policy styles differs between states in respect of whether their governments react to policy changes in an anticipatory or reactive fashion and whether they seek to achieve consensus with societal actors or impose decisions on them. To date, this conceptualization has been applied to a limited number of states and produced only a small set of case studies due to the absence of large‐n data. We assess whether the dimensions on strategic planning and public consultation of the Bertelsmann Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) provide conceptually sound and empirically insightful indicators of national policy styles. Our explorative analysis reveals that the SGI are useful for operationalizing the concept of national policy styles and could advance the debate on it. Our analysis shows that differences exist between countries in terms of their policy styles, and that the policy styles remained stable in most countries between 2014 and 2020.

Assessing the Impacts of Individual and Organizational Factors on South Korea Hotels’ Green Performance Using the AMO Model

“…Studies have also verified that green CSR can only partly mediate the influence relationship between green transformational leadership and green performance [ 71 ]. Moreover, green CSR can partially mediate the influence relationship between green shared vision and green corporate performance [ 72 ].…”

Advancing the operationalization of national policy styles

“…This may be partly due to the inability to quantitatively operationalize the concept in ways that permit the collection and analysis of data in different national contexts. Tosun and Howlett (2022) aim to change that by utilizing indicators taken from Bertelsmann's Sustainable Governance Indicators (SGI) project. They argue convincingly that some of the indicators found in the 'good governance' grouping of that database, specifically strategic planning and public consultation, are useful proxies for measuring the two dimensions of policy styles: mode of problem-solving and state-society relations.…”

“…While their argument is theoretically and empirically beneficial, especially in terms of steering the quantitative literature forward, their recommendation regarding operationalization is problematic due to construct validity threats. We argue that the indicators treated in Tosun and Howlett (2022) fall short of operationalizing and measuring the two dimensions of policy styles and we instead propose a new set of composite variables to quantitatively operationalize and measure national policy styles. We are not the first to propose using SGI data for this purpose, but instead, we advance the operationalization of national policy styles.…”

“…We are not the first to propose using SGI data for this purpose, but instead, we advance the operationalization of national policy styles. Although we retain the core of Tosun and Howlett's (2022) operationalization argument and the conceptual value of SGI's good governance measures as proxy indicators (referred to simply as SGI hereinafter), we chart a different direction that overcomes the limitations posed by construct validity threats, carefully calibrating the effects of three criteria: conceptual clarity and distinctiveness, informational robustness, and statistical power. After reviewing different conceptualizations of policy styles and their limitations, we operationalize the concept and examine how our new measurement affects classificatory expectations of national policy styles.…”

How do good governance and democratic quality affect policy performance?

“…The second contribution to this special issue is by Tosun and Howlett (2022) who are public policy scholars with no involvement in the SGI project. Their contribution starts with a comprehensive historical, theoretical, and methodological overview of research on policy styles (Howlett & Tosun, 2019; Richardson, 1982).…”