The Policyscape and the Challenges of Contemporary Politics to Policy Maintenance

Abstract

Contemporary political life takes place amid a "policyscape," a landscape densely laden with policies created in the past that have themselves become established institutions, bearing consequences for governing operations, the policy agenda, and political behavior. Far from being static, policies often develop over time in ways that could not have been foreseen by their creators, due to dynamics they themselves generate, including design effects, unintended consequences, and lateral effects. Owing to such dynamics, existing policies require upkeep and maintenance if they are to continue to function well. The extent to which lawmakers engage effectively in such work varies, however, depending on the fit between the demands of the policyscape and the attributes of the historical political context. Bipartisan reform efforts occurred in many policy areas as recently as the early 1990s. More recently, partisan polarization and other developments have undermined such political capacity, leaving numerous policies untended for long periods and in many instances, even formal reauthorization long overdue. A cursory overview of policies associated with Americans' top 20 policy priorities reveals that more than half are subject to deferred maintenance. The mismatch between the demands of the policyscape and the character of contemporary politics imperils effective democratic governance.

Collaborating with the Machines: A Hybrid Method for Classifying Policy Documents

“…The conclusion from Figure is that classification accuracy is greatest when using bills temporally closer to the new observations. This is what we should expect also because the factors driving the policy agenda change over time (Mettler, ). Note, further, that average classification accuracy on “future” bills is lower here than we would expect for training sets of 15,000 items, based on Figure .…”

Social Bots und Fake News - Was EU- und UNESCO-Referenzrahmen zum Lernen im digitalen Zeitalter darüber (nicht) sagen

“…Policies matter. Following Suzanne Mettler in her analysis of the political system of the USA (Mettler 2016), one is tempted to apply her pattern of analysis to attempts at setting the agenda for education in the digital age, with the possible outcome of reshaping education in general. Studying DigComp and MIL illustrates that setting the agenda of education in the digital age, takes place in what can be called a policyscape -a landscape in which declarations, reference models and frameworks, programmatic statements and policies have themselves become institutions.…”

Thepolicyscapeof transgender equality and gender diversity in the Western Australian education system: a case study

“…Based on stage one of the study, which involved analysing existing education policies, in this paper, we focus on initial policy analysis and enactment in Western Australia. Despite recent efforts to address diversity in the education system (see Equal Opportunity Commission 2013;, the emerging policyscape (Ball 2006;Mettler 2016;Authors et al, in press) as it pertains to addressing gender and sexual diversity, and specifically to transgender people, suggests a distinctive Western Australian context grounded in a legal history of explicit discrimination. For example, in 1989, when the WA criminal code was amended to decriminalize same-sex sexual relations, the legislation provided for an age of consent for heterosexual sexual relations of 16 years, while the age of consent for same-sex sexual relations was established as 21, contributing to WA's image as the most highly discriminatory Australian state in the area of LBGTQI human rights (Dharmananda and Kendal 2001;Law Reform, Decriminalization of Sodomy Act 1989, WA Parliament).…”

“…To support transgender and gender non-binary young people in the education system, deep knowledge about the conceptual and analytic potential of transgender specific policyscapes can sharpen understanding of the terms of policy governance and maintenance. In addition, such consciousness foregrounds how policy governance is embedded in networks that extend beyond the local site, and which are simultaneously imbued with specific historical and political legacies, impacting on policy formation, negotiation and enactment (Mettler 2016;Authors, in press).…”

“…Located within this complex landscape, our research aims to unpack the Western Australian educational policyscape (Bacchi 2009;Ball 1994;Mettler 2016;Ozga 2000) that references equality and diversity in support of human rights for transgender and non-binary students, as well as their families. To proceed with our arguments, we employ a number of research strategies and methods.…”