Designing policy resilience: lessons from the Affordable Care Act

Béland, Daniel; Howlett, Michael; Rocco, Philip; Waddan, Alex

doi:10.1007/s11077-019-09368-w

Cited by 27 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…From an institutional point of view, the addition of new “layers” of policy instruments to existing structures of regulation must observe the agencies already in place to not produce incompatibilities between policies and institutional structures (Edmondson et al., 2019, p. 4). At the same time, the creation of new institutions may help to implement policies and shield the new governance arrangements from alteration through other actors (Béland et al., 2020). This has been integrated in the PAF as a Program Institutionalization Hypothesis (Bandelow & Hornung, 2020).…”

Section: Programmatic Action and The Success Factors Of Policy Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

Hornung

2021

European Policy Analysis

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The Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) is a relatively new theoretical perspective that adds a complementary lens to the explanation of policy processes and policy change. Yet, a key requirement of a valid policy process framework is its capacity to be proven wrong. Besides the empirical cases that provide evidence for the occurrence of programmatic action, it is necessary to present examples in which programmatic action did not occur, and to explain why this is the case. Proceeding from the observation that programmatic groups and policy programs existed in French and German health policy throughout the 1990s, this contribution answers the question why in 2020, programmatic action is still present in France but not in Germany and why the German policy program did not survive the financial crisis of 2008. It argues that misfit to pre‐existing institutional logics and changing institutional logics in the course of programmatic action hinder program success.

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Section: Programmatic Action and The Success Factors Of Policy Programsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

Hornung

2021

European Policy Analysis

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“…Finally, change agents could respond to failed attempts by changing strategies, pursuing piecemeal change, re-interpreting the rules, or engaging in non-compliance in order to achieve their desired institutional outcomes (Helmke and Levitsky 2004: 729-30). This appears to be the case with the ACA (Béland et al 2020). Following the failure to get their health care bills passed, Republicans changed their legislative repeal strategy by switching issue domain.…”

Section: Failure Trajectorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Failed Institutional Change Attempts

Issar

Dilling

2021

Political Research Quarterly

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Theoretical advances in the study of institutional change center around a productive paradox. While change agents can take strategic action to change institutions, institutions display a remarkable level of formal stability. From this paradox, we expect that attempts to change institutions are an empirical regularity and that many formal change attempts will fail. This article contributes to historical institutionalism by analyzing the political effects of failed formal institutional change attempts on institutional sequences. Failed institutional change attempts could be mere blips, having little effect on subsequent institutional trajectories, or even inoculate against future attempts. Failed attempts could also lay the ideational groundwork, aid in coalition building, and garner concessions for subsequent institutional change, or convince change agents to alter their strategy. The article suggests analytical strategies to assess the effects of failed institutional change attempts, drawing on examples from comparative politics and two extended case illustrations from Italian party politics and the Affordable Care Act in the United States.

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“…Wicked problems are characterised by non-linear dynamics, producing uncertainty with respect to risks, patterns of change and consequences of actions (Head 2008). Uncertainty can arise endogenously within a conservation action due to feedback processes (Béland & Schlager 2019) or failures (see Catalano et al 2018), or exogenously due to changes in a problem context (Anderies et al 2007) or mechanism interactions (Béland et al 2020).…”

Section: Managing Dynamism and Uncertainty By Reconfiguring Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tackling the “wicked” conservation problem of tropical deforestation in global commodity supply chains using mixes of mechanisms

Lyons‐White¹,

Jespersen²,

Gallemore³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Tropical deforestation in global agricultural commodity supply chains is a “wicked” problem. Attempted solutions to wicked conservation problems like tropical deforestation often involve idealised, technical mechanisms. For example, company commitments to “zero deforestation” have become a mainstay of global forest conservation efforts. To be resolved, however, wicked conservation problems require strategically-developed, context-specific mixes of mechanisms. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature from the policy sciences, energy and land-use policy, and conservation, we examine why the contextual complexity of wicked conservation problems demands mixes of mechanisms. We present an operational model of conservation that incorporates the mechanism mix concept. We then explore how the dynamism and uncertainty of wicked problems means mixes of mechanisms must be continually reconfigured. Drawing the concepts of contextual complexity, dynamism and uncertainty together, we propose a conceptual model – the “M3 Model” – which aids understanding of how mechanism mixes can be reconfigured to sustain progress towards a desired outcome. The M3 model has four practical implications, which we discuss with reference to supply chain initiatives to reduce deforestation. First, it makes the need to address multiple interacting variables explicit, countering the tendency to seek panaceas. Second, it emphasises the importance of analysing mechanisms’ contributions to problem amelioration, instead of their shortcomings as idealised solutions. Third, it highlights the possibility of failure, reorienting conservation practice towards learning. Fourth, it emphasises polycentric governance, reinforcing the need for distributed mechanism deployment across stakeholder groups. Our synthesis provides tools to support a holistic, systemic approach to tackling wicked conservation problems.

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Designing policy resilience: lessons from the Affordable Care Act

Cited by 27 publications

References 78 publications

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

The (mis)fit of policy programs to political institutions and its influence on programmatic action – How crisis has differently hit French and German health policy

Analyzing Failed Institutional Change Attempts

Tackling the “wicked” conservation problem of tropical deforestation in global commodity supply chains using mixes of mechanisms

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