Between X and Y: how process tracing contributes to opening the black box of causality

Palier, Bruno; Trampusch, Christine

doi:10.1080/13563467.2015.1134465

Cited by 216 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…So, to understand why decisions are taken we must pay attention to the explanations of actors and the traditions they draw upon to make sense of what they do. But, unlike Bennet and Checkel's () version of process tracing (but see Pouliot and Trampusch and Palier for a broader conceptualization that better fits our application), traditions are not path determining. They are discursive repertoires that can and do change.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Why Perceived Size Matters for Agency Termination

Corbett

Howard

2016

Public Administration

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Agency size is generally assumed to be positively correlated with survival: the bigger an agency, the less likely it is to be terminated. Yet, recent research finds a very small effect of size on survival. The reason, we argue, is that it only addresses size in terms of overall operating budget – what this article calls objective size. By contrast, we use an interpretive historicist approach to show how perceived size – the meanings and beliefs of key actors concerning an agency's size – affects termination. Drawing on a case study of Australia's independent aid agency, AusAID, which endured a tumultuous history of cuts, reorganizations and rebirths, culminating in termination, we show how perceptions of the agency's size mattered. These findings both support and extend recent research showing that adaptation and reputation are critical to the survival of government agencies.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Why Perceived Size Matters for Agency Termination

Corbett

Howard

2016

Public Administration

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“…Process tracing reconstructs a chain of events to identify causal mechanisms within a case study (Beach and Pedersen, 2013;Trampusch and Palier, 2016). Process tracing first reconstructs the historical record, establishing what and when decisions occurred, with a particular focus on identifying the sequence of events.…”

Section: Process Tracing In Case Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Politics in the U.S. energy transition: Case studies of solar, wind, biofuels and electric vehicles policy

2018

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Abstract:We examine the politics of US state and federal policy supporting wind and solar in the electricity sector and biofuels and electric vehicles in the transportation sector. For each technology, we provide two policy case studies: the federal Production Tax Credit (PTC) and state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) for wind; state Net Energy Metering (NEM) and the federal investment tax credit (ITC) for solar; federal excise tax incentives and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for biofuels; and California's Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate and federal tax incentives for electric vehicles. Each case study traces the enactment and later revision of the policy, typically over a period of twentyfive years. We use these eight longitudinal case studies to identify common patterns in the politics of US renewable energy policy. Although electricity and transportation involve different actors and technologies, we find similar patterns across these sectors: immature technology is underestimated or misunderstood; large energy bills provide windows of opportunity for enactment; once enacted, policies are extended incrementally; there is increasing politicization as mature technology threatens incumbents.Acknowledgments: Thank you to Peter Dauvergne for feedback on earlier drafts.

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“…Simultaneously, the unfolding of the process was linked to wider events, such as the prospects and possibilities for discussing agriculture in the UNFCCC process and the level of interest for CSA. The need for considering contextual conditions as well as the sequential nature of policy processes is often advocated in policy studies literatures (Trampusch and Palier, ), but few policy entrepreneurship studies have been able to conceptualize and operationalize this. Our conceptual framework that considers the dynamic interplay between conditions, activities and implications – or strategizing – helps us to better understand and explain how policy entrepreneurs operate, and appreciate the process of establishing collaborations between a diversity of actors from different levels, domains, and sectors to address global complex problems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Strategizing of Policy Entrepreneurs towards the Global Alliance for Climate‐Smart Agriculture

2018

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Global collaborations across level, domain, and sector boundaries are on the rise. This article analyses policy entrepreneurship for the establishment of the Global Alliance for Climate‐Smart Agriculture (GACSA), a global multi‐actor collaboration to address climate change and foster food security and development. We explore policy entrepreneurship as a process embedded within specific contexts. To that end we focus on the strategizing process, consisting of conditions, activities, and implications. Through a congruence case study based on interviews, documents, survey, and observation we find that: (1) accommodating a varied global community requires flexibility and adaptability from entrepreneurs towards a dynamic and changing environment; (2) the variety of actors constituting GACSA compromises vigour of the collaboration, and confuses the meaning of CSA; (3) whereas collective entrepreneurship is often depicted as joint operation of multiple actors, it might also be characterized by conflicting activities and/or successive involvement; (4) policy entrepreneurship is useful to establish collaborations, but its role is temporary. Entrepreneurs must therefore be sensitive to their potential obsoleteness and withdraw at the right moment. Our results show that policy entrepreneurship is a useful lens to study global policy processes, while providing guidelines to inspire and support practitioners to engage with global policy processes.

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Between X and Y: how process tracing contributes to opening the black box of causality

Cited by 216 publications

References 32 publications

Why Perceived Size Matters for Agency Termination

Why Perceived Size Matters for Agency Termination

Politics in the U.S. energy transition: Case studies of solar, wind, biofuels and electric vehicles policy

The Strategizing of Policy Entrepreneurs towards the Global Alliance for Climate‐Smart Agriculture

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