In a post-dirigiste economy, French policymakers have come to rely heavily on private consultants, raising concerns about the privatization and democratic erosion of policymaking. To assess consultants' influence, this article focuses on the role of benchmarks as key knowledge instruments through which consultants operate in policymaking. It analyzes the political economy of benchmarks in contemporary France, the social relations between producers and consumers of benchmarks, and the ways in which actors commission, produce, select, and strategically deploy benchmarks. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with benchmark producers in major consulting firms and public advisory bodies, as well as analysis of official reports, the article shows that publicly commissioned benchmarks often serve pre-defined political strategies, while non-commissioned rankings possess the affective power to shape public discourse by generating emotions around national emergencies, amplified by the media, that justify competitiveness-oriented agendas. Benchmarks rarely determine specific policy content; rather they reassure decision-makers, legitimize reforms, and facilitate responsibility-shifting. They are also ideological instruments in struggles over economic governance. Their indicators and comparative frameworks privilege neoliberal solutions aligned with the converging interests of senior civil servants and large corporations, but their influence ultimately depends on domestic actors who mobilize them to defend shared class positions.
Democratic backsliding increasingly unfolds not through abrupt regime breakdowns, but through the gradual reconfiguration of state institutions within formally democratic systems. This article examines Nigeria's Fourth Republic (1999-2025) as a case of bureaucratic capture, demonstrating how public administration functions as a mechanism through which democratic erosion is reproduced without overt democratic rupture. Drawing on Historical Institutionalism and Ekeh's theory of the Two Publics, the study argues that colonial and military legacies produced a path-dependent bureaucratic-political nexus that consolidates executive power while preserving democratic procedures. Methodologically, the study employs a mixed-methods design combining a survey of 316 civil servants across three federal ministries with semi-structured interviews. Quantitative analysis utilizes a Governance Index (0-100) to assess the relationship between bureaucratic capture and institutional resilience. The findings reveal a condition of systemic capture in which bureaucratic capture (76.9) exceeds institutional resilience (66.4), generating a governance asymmetry (-10.5). This imbalance sustains democratic backsliding through institutional mimicry: accountability institutions remain formally operational while their substantive autonomy is constrained by patronage networks and politically mediated administrative control. The article demonstrates that democratic erosion in Nigeria operates through institutional continuity rather than collapse, contributing to debates on democratic backsliding, public administration, and postcolonial governance.
This study examines the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022) in the Philippines, who became internationally known due to his populist agenda and violent approach to law and order. To evaluate the impact of his presidency on the rule of law and economic performance, this study uses data from 2006 to 2022 and creates a counterfactual Philippines, using the synthetic control method. The results suggest that the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte has had a significant and decreasing effect on the rule of law in the Philippines. Additionally, the study discusses his major policies that have led to this decay, while also considering other dimensions of institutional quality. As a large part of his policies aimed at improving economic performance, this study also evaluates the economic outcomes of his efforts using the synthetic control method. The results show that, in particular, the foreign direct investment inflows have significantly increased during his presidency. With the approach used, this study provides counterfactual evidence of how the populist Duterte presidency has significantly deteriorated the rule of law and improved some aspects of economic performance in the Philippines.
Over the past two decades, regulatory instruments such as rankings and benchmarks have gained increased traction across the world for measuring and monitoring progress towards gender equality. Drawing on theories on gender reputation and gender knowledge production, this article examines how these instruments have been employed by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Through a critical discourse analysis of documents published by the Council, the article argues that these materials help stabilize the Nordic self-image as a global leader in gender equality and that rankings and benchmarks play a key role in broader efforts at regional branding. The analysis further shows that gender equality is primarily constructed as a matter of rights and fair distribution, thereby narrowing and fixing the meaning of gender equality.
This paper examines the impact of geopolitical risk on multidimensional well-being, using Lebanon as a long-run case study to derive insights relevant for other fragile and conflict-affected economies. Using annual data from 1964 to 2024, we construct a composite well-being index tailored to the Lebanese context and develop a localized geopolitical tension measure capturing internal, regional, and global dynamics through principal component analysis. The empirical analysis relies on OLS estimations, quantile regressions, and sub-period analysis. The results indicate that rising geopolitical risk significantly reduces well-being, with stronger effects during periods of heightened instability and among more vulnerable groups. Moreover, the interaction between domestic and global tensions amplifies these adverse impacts. By treating Lebanon as an illustrative case, the findings highlight broader mechanisms through which geopolitical risk shapes well-being, underscoring the importance of integrated and resilience-oriented policy responses in uncertain environments.
This article examines the relationship between government spending (consumption and investment) and private spending (consumption and investment) in ten European countries from 1995 to 2022 - key factors in determining the fiscal multiplier. Unlike earlier studies, this research employs multivariate analysis and likelihood-based panel cointegration to assess the dynamics of these variables. The panel analysis uncovers significant variation among countries, with the complementary relationship between public and private consumption (the crowding-in effect) being common. For investment, the findings also reveal considerable diversity, as the crowding-in effect between public and private investment is prevalent in some countries. These results underscore the need for tailored government consumption and investment strategies given the diverse effects of fiscal policies on crowding-in or crowding-out across countries.
Bureaucrats play an inherently political role in policymaking, particularly in domains like climate change, where policies may face sociopolitical backlash imposing unusually high pressure on policymaking. Yet, it is unclear exactly how bureaucrats respond to backlash, and whether and how they find new ways to exert policymaking influence despite broader policy conflict. We examine how bureaucrats respond to climate policy backlash by developing and applying a heuristic of six bureaucratic practices used to exert policymaking influence, through in-depth expert interviews (n = 68) in two cases of backlash against national carbon pricing: Australia (2011-2022) and Canada (2018-2023). We find that bureaucrats leveraged institutionalized advantages, including ownership of administrative processes (procedure-steering) and long-term perspective (time-biding), to maintain policymaking influence in response to backlash. Over the longer term, bureaucrats' responses to conflict diverged, with bureaucratic practices increasingly used to push for greater climate ambition in Australia, but remaining unchanged in Canada. We suggest that long-term bureaucratic reactions to policy conflict depend on their underlying perceptions of policy instability, internalization of conflict, and misalignment with the preferences of politicians. Overall, we reveal complex practices through which bureaucrats can advance policymaking activities crucial for the public good, even in times of political gridlock.
Decentralization reforms have been implemented worldwide since the late twentieth century. It is posited that it fosters efficient, inclusive, and responsive subnational governance, in tandem with promoting national unity and federal stability. This study employs stratified purposive sampling (N = 1906) to examine citizens' satisfaction with the effectiveness of decentralization reforms in Pakistan. One-way ANOVA and Tukey's simultaneous tests are used for data analysis. The study finds that the 18th Amendment passed in 2010 has significantly devolved authority to provinces. The findings also highlight the limits of decentralizing reforms for good governance at the subnational level. Further, a modest agreement is found that decentralization has enhanced participatory federalism. The statistical analysis indicates significant variations in responses across regions and groups. It shows that relatively unprivileged regions and identity groups seem less confident in decentralization's ability to deliver on its promises than the largest region and the wealthiest groups. The results imply that citizens' evaluations of the rewards of decentralization are not necessarily influenced by partisan bias or relative deprivation. However, cultural sensitivities and political exclusions can play a role in this regard. This study demonstrates that regional decentralization reforms do not produce consistent results across different settings since their effectiveness is context-dependent.
Citizen support is essential for implementing climate change adaptation policies, especially in private domains like domestic gardens. Covering up to one-third of urban areas in Western Europe, gardens offer significant potential for climate change adaptation through carbon sequestration, water infiltration, and temperature regulation. Based on survey data from 861 garden owners in northern Belgium, this study examines public support for six types of climate-adaptive gardening policy instruments, ranging from hard to soft. Results reveal a clear three-tiered structure: participation and communication receive the highest support, regulation and taxation the lowest, with subsidies and nudges in between. We further identify psychological, socio-demographic, and spatial factors influencing support. Notably, climate risk perception consistently predicts support across all instrument types, and support is differentiated across spatial and socio-demographic contexts. These findings highlight the importance of designing policy mixes that balance effectiveness with public acceptability. By understanding citizens' support of different policy instruments, policymakers can better tailor interventions to encourage climate-resilient gardening practices and unlock the collective adaptation potential of private green spaces. This improves the overall development, acceptance, and effectiveness of such climate-adaptive policies.
This article examines how the at-risk-of-poverty or social exclusion (AROPE) indicator, used to monitor the EU's anti-poverty targets within the Social Open Method of Coordination (OMC) and later the European Semester, is mobilized in struggles over ideational power. Analysing Parliamentary Questions (PQs) in which Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the European Commission (EC) refer to AROPE, we show how benchmarks function as discursive resources through which actors legitimize cognitive and normative claims about policy problems and priorities. Beyond their commonly noted technicizing effects, our findings show that indicators can also politicize debates by enabling actors to contest policy directions, reopen discussions and attribute responsibility. We identify a repertoire of discursive legitimation strategies - authorization, rationalization, moral evaluation, emotional appeals and de-authorization - through which actors use AROPE to support or challenge interpretations of policy problems and responses. The analysis reveals differences between actors: while the Commission primarily invokes indicators to stabilize debates and justify existing policy frameworks, MEPs mobilize them more assertively to question progress, challenge priorities and reopen debate. By showing how indicators become resources for political contestation in parliamentary arenas, the article contributes to research on benchmarking, EU soft governance, and legitimacy in EU social governance.
This article examines the effects of population ageing on the composition of government spending in 25 European Union member states from 1995 to 2023. Empirical evidence indicates that demographic ageing leads to shifts in government spending priorities. In particular, government spending tends to increase on social protection, general public services, health, and defence, while decreasing on housing and community amenities, environmental protection, and education. These results suggest that demographic ageing contributes to a reallocation of government spending toward age-related functions, accompanied by relative reductions in other areas. Overall, the findings highlight the potential structural implications of population ageing for fiscal sustainability and intergenerational equity, emphasizing the importance of public policies that are adaptable to long-term demographic changes.
Can the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) account for discourse in policy agenda-setting analyses? While MSF revolutionized policy research, it also faces considerable critiques - specifically, a suspicion towards the seemingly inconsistent ontological conceptualization of "streams" and its capacity to expound on the discursive processes shaping agenda-setting dynamics. In later developments by [Winkel, G., and S. Leipold. 2016a. "Demolishing Dikes: Multiple Streams and Policy Discourse Analysis." Policy Studies Journal 44 (1): 108-129. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12136], streams are conceptualized beyond siloed empirical categories and proposed as empirical, observable, and interactive discursive patterns, addressing most of these shortcomings. This article builds on these developments, suggesting ways to diagnose and map discursive agenda-setting processes. The LGBTQ + rights agendas in Thailand and the Philippines were used as case bases to explore why similar objectives to institutionalize rights and protections among LGBTQ + individuals exhibit contrasting agenda-setting outcomes. Ultimately, this article aims to equip policy scholars with a tool to analyze discursive constraints, identify opportunities for reframing, and advance a nuanced, critical, and reflexive agenda-setting analysis.
Global poverty alleviation efforts have long been confronted with dual challenges concerning fund utilization efficiency and the establishment of sustainable mechanisms. China's special fiscal funds for poverty alleviation, which constitute an institutional innovation that has evolved for more than 40 years, have developed into a precisely targeted, well-regulated, and effectively supervised system, and their poverty reduction effects have become a significant focus of international research. To address the limitations of existing studies regarding empirical sample representativeness, systematic mechanism analysis, and dynamic tracking during policy transitions, panel data on 11 national key assistance counties for rural revitalization in Shaanxi Province from 2018 to 2023 were obtained via multidimensional statistical and survey sources. The empirical results indicate that special fiscal funds for poverty alleviation exert a significantly positive effect on income growth among households lifted out of poverty, with two potential mechanisms identified: facilitating the employment transitions of the workforce lifted out of poverty and improving infrastructure development in underdeveloped areas. These findings not only provide practical references for the Chinese government to continuously optimize policies to prevent poverty relapse but also offer valuable insights for other developing countries in designing targeted poverty alleviation funding systems.
This article explores agenda-setting dynamics in the field of perinatal health care in England. Specifically, it analyses the 2024 Birth Trauma Inquiry, which launched after a high-profile campaign spearheaded by then-Member of Parliament Theo Clarke. The article uses the Multiple Streams Framework (Kingdon 2003) to understand how the inquiry led to agenda-setting success, despite numerous previous investigations and media coverage of maternity scandals. It draws on semi-structured interviews with five key actors, as well as extensive secondary and primary data. The article adds to our knowledge of feminist policy studies and agenda-setting on issues that are hidden, taboo, and previously not part of mainstream public discourse. Its key insights concern the importance of a well-connected political figure to push for change; the integral supporting role of advocacy organizations; issue expansion and framing of birth trauma; the use of evidence generated from an open call to the public; and extensive behind-the-scenes political consensus-building and media engagement.
The article examines whether social protection programmes meant for poverty reduction have any impact on income distribution across households in India using the social accounting matrix for the year 2022-2023. The analysis focuses on three social protection programmes, viz. the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) and National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP). Sponsored by the central government, these programmes have distinct features and significance within India's social security framework. The findings show that the indirect income effect is higher than the direct income effect of expenses under these programmes, indicating a strong multiplier effect driven by production and consumption linkages. While the direct income transfers are made in favour of the poor households, the richer households in both rural and urban areas receive larger indirect income arising from inter-sectoral linkages, higher skills and ownership of productive assets. Nevertheless, the total income effect of targeted beneficiaries remains higher than that of other household classes due to a larger direct income effect. It causes marginal changes in income distribution across households, indicating the distributional impact of social protection programmes.
