Paths and Forks or Chutes and Ladders?: Negative Feedbacks and Policy Regime Change

Weaver, Kent

doi:10.1017/s0143814x10000061

Cited by 224 publications

(162 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

155

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…6 While the original contributions in this literature all expected positive feedback-effects (i.e. institutions generating their own support), more recent studies emphasized that negative feedback is also possible, that is, institutions undermining themselves (Fernández and Jaime-Castillo, 2013;Jacobs and Weaver, 2014;Weaver, 2010). The effects might even be more complex, following, for example, a 'thermostatic model' with differing short-term and long-term feedback-effects, as theorized by Wlezien (1995;compare also Soroka and Wlezien, 2010;Wlezien and Soroka, 2012).…”

Section: Macro-level Determinants: Feedbackeffectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes towards student support: How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

Garritzmann

2015

Journal of European Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides a detailed analysis of individual preferences towards public financial aid to students from low-income families. Who favours/opposes such aid? What are the determinants of the respective preferences? I argue that three sets of factors jointly shape these preferences: materialistic self-interests, political attitudes, and the status quo of the higher education subsidy systems by generating positive feedbackeffects. Results of multilevel ordered logit models utilizing the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) data for up to 22 countries over two decades indicate that self-interest matters: students strongly favour subsidies as do their parents, while those paying for the spending and those not expecting to benefit oppose such aid. Moreover, political attitudes are important: Supporters of redistribution and of increased public education spending in general, as well as leftwing voters, are much more likely to support students. On the macro-level, the findings suggest that positive feedback-effects exist: in countries with generous subsidy systems, public support for subsidies is higher. This article is the first to systematically analyse preferences towards higher education subsidies across countries and time and demonstrates how positive feedbackeffects increasingly lock-in countries' tuition-subsidy paths, making the systems resistant to (radical) change. As such, it speaks to the literature on the political economy of skill formation, the welfare state, public opinion and the public opinion-policy link.

show abstract

Section: Macro-level Determinants: Feedbackeffectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes towards student support: How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

Garritzmann

2015

Journal of European Social Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Historical studies reveal that changing discourses attached to old technologies, such as the New York Streetcar system or the British coal regime, can play an important role in undermining them [30,31]. In both of these cases, these discourses had a clear policy effect, acting as a negative policy feedback [32,33] by which policies that were initially supportive of the regime contributed political developments that ultimately undermined it. On a more theoretical level, Bigelow et al's [34] concept of a dormant issue suggests that it might be possible for big problems that that are not solved satisfactorily to create simmering resentments that might become important at a later date.…”

Section: Discourse and Policy In Socio-technical Regimesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discursive destabilisation of socio-technical regimes: Negative storylines and the discursive vulnerability of historical American railroads

Roberts

2017

Energy Research & Social Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Incumbent socio-technical regimes based on fossil fuels probably cannot be destabilised to the extent necessary to achieve major reductions in carbon emissions without significant policy action. Policy actors, however, remain loyal to fossil fuels. Effective transitions to sustainability will therefore require the identification of political vulnerabilities in fossil fuel regimes. This article identifies one such vulnerability in the form of negative storylines. It describes the development of these storylines using the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions, as well as four dimensions of frame resonance developed in social movement theory. It then illustrates this phenomenon using an historical case study describing the development of negative storylines portraying the American railways as abusive monopolists during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. These storylines played an important role in destabilising the railways, particularly when they also faced pressures from road transport, as policymakers were unwilling to relax regulations on a regime whose key actors they believed could not be trusted. This article argues that this pattern is unlikely to be unique to this case, but is rather a common development in incumbent socio-technical regimes. This article concludes by considering some implications of these findings for the destabilisation of existing fossil fuel regimes.

show abstract

“…It has also been argued that existing social policies shape the politics of reform through a 'policy feedback' (Pierson, 1993). However, policy feedback may not necessarily lead to path dependence (Weaver, 2010).…”

Section: Historical Institutionalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘‘Classic’’ theories and current challenges concerning welfare state development

Lalioti

2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To cite this article:Lalioti, V. (2018). ''Classic'' theories and current challenges concerning welfare state development. Κοινωνική Πολιτική, 9, 47-66. doi ''Classic'' theories and current challenges concerning welfare state development Varvara Lalioti Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences AbstractThe aim of the present article is to provide the reader with a bird's-eye view of 'classic' theories concerning welfare state development, whilst also stressing the need for social policy to address current challenges faced by the welfare state, and thus 'transform' old theories in accordance with new research directions. The first part of the article provides a succinct critical examination of 'classic' theoretical approaches. These include industrialism, power resource theory, historical institutionalism, national values, business power, but also the broader trend of classifying welfare states that drew on features of the aforementioned approaches and introduced new variables such as gender. The second part of the article is devoted to powerful contemporary challenges for the welfare state, such as migration and growing ethnic diversity, neoliberal globalization and the recent crisis, as well as changing gender roles. It is argued that these challenges give rise to key questions for the field of social policy and test the limits of traditional assumptions for the welfare state. This part asks for a fruitful dialogue between the old and something newer that is needed to complement it. Such a dialogue is a prerequisite for rigorous and sophisticated social policy research. The article's concluding section summarizes the findings. ΠερίληψηΣτόχος του παρόντος άρθρου είναι μία πολύ συνοπτική παρουσίαση 'κλασικών' θεωριών που αφορούν στην ανάπτυξη του κράτους πρόνοιας, υπογραμμίζοντας ταυτόχρονα την ανάγκη η κοι-νωνική πολιτική να λάβει υπ' όψιν της τις σύγχρονες προκλήσεις που αντιμετωπίζει το κράτος πρόνοιας, και να 'μετασχηματίσει' τις παλαιές θεωρίες, σε συμφωνία με νέες κατευθύνσεις στην έρευνα. Στο πρώτο μέρος του άρθρου παρουσιάζονται με τρόπο πολύ περιληπτικό και κριτικό 'κλασικές' θεωρητικές προσεγγίσεις. Αυτές περιλαμβάνουν την επιρροή της βιομηχανικής ανά-πτυξης, των εθνικών αξιών και των εργοδοτών στην ανάπτυξη κοινωνικής πολιτικής, καθώς και τη θεωρία των πόρων εξουσίας και τον ιστορικό θεσμισμό. Περιλαμβάνουν όμως ακόμη τη γενι-κότερη τάση κατάταξης των κρατών πρόνοιας, η οποία βασίστηκε σε στοιχεία των προαναφερθει-σών προσεγγίσεων και εισήγαγε νέες μεταβλητές όπως το φύλο. Το δεύτερο μέρος του άρθρου αφορά σε ισχυρές, σύγχρονες προκλήσεις που αντιμετωπίζει το κράτος πρόνοιας όπως είναι η μετανάστευση και η αυξανόμενη εθνική ποικιλομορφία, η νεοφιλελεύθερη παγκοσμιοποίηση και η πρόσφατη κρίση, καθώς και οι μεταβαλλόμενοι ρόλοι των φύλων. Οι προκλήσεις αυτές εγείρουν σημαντικές ερωτήσεις για το πεδίο της κοινωνικής πολιτικής και θέτουν σε δοκιμασία τα όρια παραδοσιακών αντιλήψεων για την κοινωνική πολιτική, προβάλλοντας ταυτόχρονα την ανάγκη για έναν εποικοδομητικό διάλογο ανάμεσα στο παλαιό ...

show abstract

Paths and Forks or Chutes and Ladders?: Negative Feedbacks and Policy Regime Change

Cited by 224 publications

References 24 publications

Attitudes towards student support: How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

Attitudes towards student support: How positive feedback-effects prevent change in the Four Worlds of Student Finance

Discursive destabilisation of socio-technical regimes: Negative storylines and the discursive vulnerability of historical American railroads

‘‘Classic’’ theories and current challenges concerning welfare state development

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About