Influences on the Rollout of Good Policies

Abstract

Research on sustainable transport planning has concluded that, for the most part, the policies that will lead to more sustainable outcomes are known and what is required is a more widespread and intense application of such measures. In response, upper tiers of government with responsibility for achieving policy goals and for steering the lower tiers of government are often faced with a dilemma of how to encourage these lower tiers to 'do the right thing'. This paper examines the presumptions surrounding the spread of 'good policies', considers the motivations of actors at a lower tier when faced with pressure to adopt policies and, drawing on a series of case studies from Europe, discusses the potential for a range of different approaches to stimulate the more rapid uptake of 'good policies'.The research concludes that greater attention needs to be given to the notions of policy diffusion and the different stages of adoption (or rejection) of policies. Much better use should be made of pilot studies to understand the likely adoption pathway for policies and the extent to which the policies will spread without active intervention. Where intervention is needed, better communication of the benefits and the use of incentives to encourage compliance are likely to be more effective than sanctions and regulations. Sanctions and regulations can be difficult to design, expensive to enforce or oversee and will, faced with an underlying reluctance to comply, lead to compliance on paper but limited action. Good policies are only good policies in particular circumstances and plans to support their roll out should recognise this.

Do institutional structures matter? A comparative analysis of urban carbon management policies in the UK and Germany

“…Previous work by Marsden (2011) would suggest that there will be a distribution of commitment to carbon policy across cities and that those cities with more limited commitment would be more likely to I et al (2014) suggest that cities will also look to each other and to higher tiers of government for signals about how seriously they should take carbon reduction 2 . By taking a comparative analysis of cities in the UK and Germany the paper aims to provide insights into the type of carbon reduction policies being adopted, their intended effectiveness and the extent to which the institutional structures matter to what is implemented.…”

“…This section explores this through use of the interview data from both sites. Having reviewed the data separately (Groer and Boltze, 2013;Marsden andMullen, 2014 andMarsden, Ferreira et al, 2014) we have identified three critical common themes most of which transcend the differences in institutional structures in the two countries.…”

Identifying Policy Best-Practices to Support the Contribution of Aquatic Foods to Food and Nutrition Security

“…While we can identify some foundational characteristics of best practice in terms of framing aquatic food and FNS policies, defining specific details of policy objectives requires further research. Best practices are not universally applicable because what works in one place will not necessarily be as effective in another [ 69 ], where national governments may face different nutritional, socio-economic, political, or environmental challenges. Differences in attention and approaches to these challenges were reflected in the instruments of some countries; for example, where a clear focus on a particular topic was evident across multiple documents.…”

How policies become best practices: a case study of best practice making in an EU knowledge sharing project

“…Research has shown that best practice examples may be less useful for professionals compared with personal contacts, (international) peers, and professional networks (Marsden 2011;Marsden 2011;Wolman and Page 2002, 497). Reasons being that relationships, partnerships, and even informal visits augment the validity and trustworthiness of the information.…”

“…It is recognized that best practice rarely leads to the direct copying of policy (Marsden 2011;Nagorny-Koring 2019), and they are used in various ways, beyond replication (Macmillen and Stead 2014). We build on this understanding by asking: who decided the practice was best, how was it done, and on what grounds were the decisions taken?…”