Table Of Content

Comparative Public Policy Comparative Public Policy Anneliese Dodds © Anneliese Dodds 2013 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2013 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN 978-0-230-31943-1 ISBN 978-1-137-28489-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-28489-1 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dodds, Anneliese. Comparative public policy / Anneliese Dodds. p. cm. 1. Comparative government. 2. Policy sciences. I. Title. JF51.D63 2012 320.6—dc23 2012024722 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 Contents List of Illustrative Material viii Acknowledgements x List of Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Why Compare Public Policies? 5 Is comparative research a separate field of enquiry? 8 Comparative public policy in historical perspective 10 Defining comparative public policy research 13 Comparing public policies in an interconnected world 19 2 Differences between Public Policies: An Introduction 21 Public policy resources 22 How governments act: policy instruments 23 Trends in the use of policy instruments 36 The scope of public policies 39 Conclusion 46 3 Economic Policy 49 The context: theories of economic policy development 50 Comparing economic policies across nations 65 The scope of economic policy 79 Conclusion 80 4 Welfare Policy 83 The context: theories of welfare policy development 84 Theories of systematic difference across nations 85 Comparing welfare policies across nations 90 Governments and occupational and voluntary welfare 106 The scope of welfare policy 107 Conclusion 110 5 Health Policy 113 The context: theories of health policy development 114 Comparing health care policies across nations 120 The scope of health policy 131 Conclusion 132 v vi Contents 6 Education Policy 135 The context: theories of education policy development 136 International pressures 140 Comparing education policies across nations 143 The scope of education policy 157 Conclusion 158 7 Environmental Policy 161 The context: theories of environmental policy development 163 Theories of systematic difference across nations 165 International pressures 170 Comparing environmental policies across nations 173 The voluntary and private sectors and environmental policy 185 The scope of environmental policy 186 Conclusion 187 8 Interests and Public Policy 189 What are interests? 189 Interest-based approaches to explaining public policy 190 Problems with interest-based accounts 207 Conclusion 211 9 Ideas and Public Policy 213 What are ideas? 213 Ideas-based approaches to explaining public policy 214 Attempts to synthesize different approaches 220 When do ideas change? 227 Conclusion 229 10 Institutions and Public Policy 231 What are institutions? 232 Institution-based approaches to explaining public policy 233 Conclusion 247 11 Policy Transfer and Learning 249 Why are policies imposed, taught and learned? 250 Policy transfer 251 Policy learning 254 Identifying policy transfer and learning 265 Conclusion 267 Contents vii 12 Policy-Making beyond the Nation State 269 Defining globalization and Europeanization 270 Capital and trade flows 271 The increasing transnationalization of business 272 The impact of capital and trade flows and the increasing transnationalization of business 273 Flows of people and information 279 International governing institutions 284 Global trends and their impact 292 Conclusion 294 13 Comparative Public Policy: A Minority World Pursuit? 297 Comparative public policy: excluding the Majority World? 299 Majority World analytical approaches 305 Conclusion 313 14 Doing Comparative Public Policy 315 Choices in comparative research 316 Challenges for comparative public policy research 325 The practicalities of comparative research 339 Conclusion 342 References 345 Index 383 List of Illustrative Material Figures 3.1 Trade union density rate, 2002 and 2008 55 3.2 The Phillips Curve 56 3.3 Rate of tax subsidies for one dollar of R&D, 2008 and 2004 70 3.4 The value of the minimum wage as a percentage of the median wage in selected countries, 2006 and 2009 73 3.5 Protection for employment in selected countries, 2003 and 2008 74 4.1 Social security transfer expenditure from 1958–96 91 4.2 Expenditures on old age and survivors’ benefits: public cash benefits, 1990–2005, as a percentage of GDP 92 4.3 Projections of population ageing in developed and less developed nations 93 4.4 Percentage of average earnings replaced by unemployment transfers 95 4.5 The share of different types of housing for six developed nations 97 5.1 Overall (public and private) expenditure on health, percentage of GDP, 1980–2007 116 5.2 Share of foreign-trained or foreign doctors, as a percentage of total doctors 117 5.3 Public share of total expenditure on health, split into general government spending and spending through social insurance, 2007 121 5.4 Employment in the health and social sector as a share of total civilian employment 133 6.1 Foreign students as a percentage of all tertiary enrolment 142 6.2 Expenditure on educational institutions from public and private sources: proportion of GDP in 2007 143 6.3 The share of public investment in education compared with overall (including private) expenditure 144 6.4 US education: tax expenditures compared with financing 145 7.1 Environmental Kuznets Curve 166 7.2 Trends in revenues from environmentally-related taxes, 1995–2004 173 7.3 Pollution abatement and control expenditure, 1990–2004 176 7.4 Public R&D budgets for control and care of the environment, 1981–2005, as a percentage of total R&D budget appropriations 177 viii List of Illustrative Material ix 12.1 Inflows of foreign direct investment in US dollars (billions) 271 12.2 Population inflow and outflow 280 12.3 Increases in internet users, 1996–2009 282 Tables 2.1 Examples of each category of policy instrument 34 6.1 Is there a mandatory national examination? 149 6.2 Is there a standard or partially standardized curriculum? 149 6.3 Can schools promote religious practice? 152 6.4 Must personnel meet employment and certification standards? 152 6.5 School choice within the public school sector (as at 2008) 156 Boxes 1.1 A comparison across time: two attempts at liberalization in the UK higher education sector 17 3.1 Fleckenstein et al. on the dual transformation of social protection and human capital 59 4.1 Kent Weaver’s ‘chutes and forks’ approach to explaining pension reform 94 5.1 Kelman and Friedman on the waiting-time target in English hospitals’ accident and emergency departments 128 6.1 Freitag and Schlicht on the foundations of social inequality in German education 154 8.1 Htun and Weldon’s framework for the comparative analysis of gender equality policy 196 8.2 Julia Lynch on ‘age in the welfare state’ 197 8.3 Jensen’s assessment of the new politics 218 9.1 Jennings et al. on how the core functions of government affect executive agendas 224 9.2 Larsen’s examination of how welfare regimes influence public support 229 10.1 Branch on mapping the sovereign state 235 10.2 Streeck and Thelen on incremental institutional change 240 12.1 Walter’s micro-level analysis of the compensation thesis 277 12.2 Simmons and Danner on the conundrum of the International Criminal Court 288 12.3 Hay and Smith on how policy-makers ‘really’ understand globalization 293 13.1 The regulatory state in Kosovo 304 13.2 Segura-Ubriego’s assessment of Latin American welfare states 309