Policy innovation labs (PILs) are relatively new policy actors and are part of a larger global “labification” movement. They are touted as spaces for the novel development and testing of policy solutions. PILs have evolved into various forms–including those at different levels of government (central, sub-national, and local), sectoral (such as food, transportation, and environment), and cross-sectoral labs (social innovation and data labs). After a decade, some practitioners lament the effectiveness of their efforts and question if policy labs are indeed engines of innovation and change. We argue that the approach to policy design by PILs, in part, is an explanation for their perceived ineffectiveness. It is unclear what their role is in the policy design process. From a sample of 149 PILs worldwide, we employ Cashore and Howlett’s (2007) 3 × 3 nine-dimensional hierarchical policy classification framework characterized by policy focus (abstract goals, program objectives, and micro policy goal targets) and policy means (instrumental logic, program mechanism, and tool calibration). Our website content analysis found that key PIL characteristics, namely their broad focus and oversight, had little to no influence on their policy design activity. We develop five policy design typologies from the above policy mix framework, namely “Classic Policy Designers,” “Advisors,” “Dreamers,” “Planners,” and “Technicians.” The remaining labs' policy design foci were too broad or misaligned.

Lobbying is a multi-faceted phenomenon that involves interest groups and corporations contacting politicians and officials in order to try to achieve their policy preferences. While interest group policy-related lobbying has received a great deal of attention, studies of corporate contract lobbying are rarer even though this is a much older phenomenon. The article critically examines the commonly-held position that in the latter case "lobbying is for winners"; that is, that large scale corporate lobbying helps secure contracts that might otherwise have gone to a different firm. It argues instead that firms enjoying technological and other market-related strengths enjoy an "insider advantage" and lobby less than firms in more competitive situations. In other words that in many situations "lobbying is for losers," a tool used by weaker firms trying to match or offset the technological and other advantages enjoyed by dominant firms. The article draws on government lobbying registers to examine recent defense-related procurement efforts in Canada to purchase fighter jets, naval surface ships, patrol vessels, and search and rescue aircraft and the contract lobbying they engendered. Evidence from the four cases provides support for the "loser" thesis with respect to large-scale technologically advanced goods but also the need to carefully define what constitutes an "inside advantage" allowing firms to forego or delay their lobbying activity, often until only after a contract has been awarded.

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview and bibliography of international policy capacity research that has developed over the past 40 years and to highlight themes that constitute the field. Through an international and multi-disciplinary synthesis of 311 English abstracts in 172 peer-reviewed journals, we find that policy capacity research has been driven by a handful of widely cited researchers, maintained a predominantly qualitative methodology, and focused on governments located in the West. Empirical research is needed to understand the dynamics of policy capacity outside of governments in the West, with a focus on developing actionable recommendations for practitioners to improve the quality of public policy in their respective jurisdictions. This paper fulfils the need for a comprehensive bibliography of policy capacity research for use by both academics and practitioners.

[First paragraph of Introduction]: The neo-liberal assault on the Keynesian welfare state and the demand that government be 'reinvented' has come to focus increased attention upon the so-called `third sector'. This has occurred because of the moves by neo-liberal governments to downloading former public responsibilities onto the market, nonprofit organizations and individuals; their desire to forge new partnership relationships with non-state actors like voluntary bodies in order to develop alternative service delivery options; and the neo-liberal assertion that intrusive government has worked to undermine voluntary citizen participation, charitable giving, and self-help.Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of ManagementCitation:

Government-based policy labs have established themselves across the Canadian policy landscape. This article argues these labs contribute to public value management. We begin by reviewing the public value management literature, followed by Canadian contributions to the policy lab literature. Then, our inventory of 35 current Canadian government-based policy labs is descriptively analyzed, including trends in spatial concentration, the tools and methods employed, their focus areas, the number of years in existence, and their primary role in the policy process. We randomly selected nine of these labs, provide more details of their activities, and present a preliminary public value management typology to analyze policy labs. Les laboratoires de politiques gouvernementaux se sont implantes dans le paysage politique canadien. Nous passons tout d'abord en revue les contributions canadiennes a la documentation sur les laboratoires de politiques. Notre inventaire de 35 laboratoires politiques gouvernementaux canadiens actuels est analyse de maniere descriptive, y compris les tendances en matiere de concentration geographique, les outils et methodes utilises, leurs domaines d'interet, le nombre d'annees d'activite et leur role principal dans le processus politique. Nous avons selectionne au hasard neuf de ces laboratoires et fourni plus de details sur leurs activites. Nous proposons une typologie preliminaire de gestion de la valeur publique pour analyser les laboratoires de politiques.

FloodWise is a pilot program that proposes nature-based solutions (NBS) for flood hazard mitigation (risk reduction) in eastern North Carolina to control stormwater runoff for brief periods of time. The program would provide financial incentives and technical assistance to rural landowners to adopt NBS on their properties. In this study, we assessed landowners' willingness to accept (WTA) payments for adopting NBS on their properties using a payment card contingent valuation method (CVM) via a mail survey. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) incentivize landowners to participate in conservation efforts, as well as provide additional opportunities for revenue. Factors such as income, age, contract term length, revenue lost from previous storm events, and size of farm operation influenced one's willingness to accept payments. The payment levels required for traditional farm conservation practices and NBS flood control practices were not significantly different, indicating that past program methods could help guide new FloodWise or similar NBS efforts. These results can help guide new NBS program development and funding deliberations in North Carolina, and perhaps other rural locations in the US Southeast.

Since the 2008 economic crisis, the political legitimacy of representative democracy has eroded. The roots of this legitimation crisis are found in growing inequality and the unwillingness of representative democratic capitalist states to address the structural causes giving rise to this polarization. In many respects, in the third decade of the 21st century, the class nature of the state has rarely been so apparent since before the Keynesian era. Various historical and contemporary cases provide examples of a ‘different kind of state’ where the state’s agenda setting function and policy outputs were informed by working class and other perspectives and interests. The result is greater social and economic inclusion generally and a democratization of the administrative state.

[First paragraph of Introduction]: Until recently the discipline of Public Administration, and the Social Sciences more generally, have been remarkably silent about the role of nonprofit organizations in the provision of ‘public services’ and their contribution toward public benefit. In fact, an understanding of the place which nonprofit organizations play within society has been an ignored subject matter; the state of affairs is such that one commentator has tellingly referred to the voluntary realm as the “invisible sector” (Hall 1997: 74).Keywords: CVSS, Centre for Voluntary Sector Studies, Working Paper Series,TRSM, Ted Rogers School of ManagementCitation:

FloodWise is a pilot project that proposes innovative new approaches for flood disaster resilience by applying nature-based solutions (NBS) in Eastern North Carolina to control water runoff for brief periods after major storm events. We collected production and cost data from primary or secondary sources and used discounted cash flow and capital budgeting procedures at a 6% discount rate for NBS practices to estimate the amounts of payments necessary for farmland owners to break even to adopt NBS practices. Conventional crop farming was profitable already on suitable lands and served as the business as usual (BAU) case to compare to selected NBS practices. Warm-season pasture, loblolly pine forests and agroforestry, and no-till farming exceeded the 6% hurdle rate. Other conventional farm practices of hardpan breakup, cool-season pastures and trees, and bottomland hardwoods would require total payments of up to $600/acre to break even at 6%. Modifications of existing conservation practices, such as stream buffers, cover crops, silvopasture, and tile outlet terraces and tiling, fell in the second tier of total costs of up to $1,512/acre. Major NBS projects that required substantial earthmoving and flood control structures were more expensive - $3,734/acre for water farming (i.e., retention) with berms, $13,252/acre for a forest wetland bank, and about $88,000/acre for a major flood control wetland - and would displace most of the existing area for farm and forest management. However, larger floodwater structure projects could store more water for more extended periods; these storage quantities and benefits need to be assessed in future research.

This chapter notes the disconnect between the treatment of those responsible for the 2008 crisis who were largely insulated from its effects, and those who were the victims of it and whose degree of already meagre insulation from market turbulence was much reduced. This is evidenced through changes in household poverty and insecurity (personal debt), labour market precarity (workers' rights, youth), housing insecurity, food insecurity, and diminished voice (advocacy). Furthermore, vulnerable populations and communities were to be much more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic than other groups. The chapter surveys the situation as it affects young people, women and migrants, and outlines how poverty manifests in housing and food insecurity. In many countries, commodification, individualization, and privatization were intensified over the crisis period in the name of reducing the budget deficit. For significant sectors of the population, this has engendered various forms of often overlapping and mutually reinforcing poverty.

This chapter looks at reactions to austerity by labour, social movements, and political parties, and, in some cases, the impact of these contradictory interactions on the political system itself through the rise of populist parties. It surveys two types of resistance: defensive activities, carried out primarily by trade unions; and campaigns, often including unions but also a range of broader social movements. Campaigns focused frequently on quite specific aspects of austerity. However, these later evolved into general challenges to austerity, the consequences of which were the destabilization of political systems in Spain and Ireland, and greater political space, however confined, for alternatives to austerity. Finally, the chapter examines the impacts of austerity and resistance within the formal political realm of left and right populist parties.

This chapter examines the main aspects of austerity budgeting in each country and delves into the budget discourse offered at the height of austerity. Public budgets might be thought of as technocratic documents that set out planned revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year. But with fiscal policy connected to all aspects of government activity, budgets hold significant repercussions for a wide range of actors including the state, private enterprise and labour. Thus, the chapter examines themes such as: fiscal narratives and budget framing; characterizing the nation; justifying crisis management via austerity; priorities of crisis-era governance; rationalizing reforms beyond cuts; and European citizenship. Given that budgets focus the relationship between government and economy, their design and discourse implicates existing institutions, empowers (new or recently established) agencies, insulates or exposes particular segments of society, and insinuates degrees of blame and responsibility for both the good and bad times.

Increased global temperatures resulting from anthropogenically induced climate changes have increased the frequency and severity of adverse weather events, including extreme rainfall events, floods, and droughts. In recent years, nature-based solutions (NBS) have been proposed to retain storm runoff temporarily and mitigate flood damages. These practices may help rural farm and forest lands to store runoff and reduce flooding on farms and downstream communities and could be incorporated into a conservation program to provide payments for these efforts, which would supplement traditional farm incomes. Despite their potential, there have been very few methodical assessments and detailed summaries of NBS to date. We identified and summarized potential flood reduction practices for the Coastal Plain of North Carolina. These include agricultural practices of (1) cover cropping/no-till farming; (2) hardpan breakup; (3) pine or (4) hardwood afforestation, and (5) agroforestry; establishing the wetland and stream practices of (6) grass and sedge wetlands and earthen retention structures, (7) forest wetland banks, and (8) stream channel restoration; and establishing new structural solutions of (9) dry dams and berms (water farming) and (10) tile drainage and water retention. These practices offer different water holding and storage capacities and costs. A mixture of practices at the farm and landscape level can be implemented for floodwater retention and attenuation and damage reduction, as well as for providing additional farm and forest ecosystem services.

This chapter charts the impact of austerity on social concertation, used as an umbrella term to encompass processes and institutions of social partnership/ social dialogue/social concertation/ and neo-corporatism. These arrangements varied considerably between states, and were variously interpreted as providing a real voice for labour or, alternatively, representing a means by which labour might be managed and controlled. Considered as a means of expressing labour influence on policy, social dialogue or partnership has not fared well in the period of austerity. In quite diverse contexts – Canada, Ireland, Spain and Denmark -- notwithstanding national differences, social concertation mechanisms have been by-passed, effectively abolished or, where they remain, reduced in scope and significance. Whatever its limitations in the past, this avenue for expressing labour’s voice on policy issues is even less effective than formerly.