(SPE3) Policy Formation, and Its Relation to Policy Goals and Outcomes

Various networks and institutions, enabled by various institutional cultures, ideologies, and other values and norms - and in turn creating their own - intersect in the process of policy formation. Much research has been exploring the ways in which social policies are formulated and implemented, and the way that these processes of formation influence policy content: substantive goals, procedural implementation mechanisms, and outcomes. While improving the lives of populations, particularly of members of vulnerable social groups, is a generally accepted social policy goal, some social policies, together with infrastructures and services that realize them, may effectively maintain and even exacerbate inequalities. This session invited contributions, both theoretical and empirical, that explore various aspects of social policy formation and their effects on policy goals, implementation, and outcomes. Tags: Equality and Inequality, Policy

Organizer: Ivanka Knezevic, University of Toronto; Chair: Ivanka Knezevic, University of Toronto

Presentations

Theresa Shanahan, York University

Higher Education Policy Formation in Canada

This presentation examines policy formation in Canadian higher education using a neo-institutionalism framework. The focus will be on the publicly funded system that dominates higher education policy in Canada and will give particular attention to the university sector. The implications of policy formation on institutions, system structure, processes and outcomes will be identified. This paper presentation takes neo-institutionalism as its analytical framework (Howlett, Ramesh and Perl, 2009; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991). This framework understands “institutions” broadly as including formal organizations, markets, legislative frameworks, cultural codes, traditions, and rules/norms. It suggests institutional features may enable or constrain decision-making, influence behaviour, and interpretations of policy problems and solutions. Furthermore, this analysis considers how policy is shaped by history, power dynamics, ideologies, and networks, within institutions and between policy actors (Searle, 2005; Thelen and Mahoney, 2010). This presentation brings together findings from three research studies of: the development of postsecondary education systems in Canada (Fisher, Rubenson, Shanahan, and Trottier, 2014); Canadian higher education policymaking (Axelrod, Desai-Trilokekar, Shanahan, Wellen &, 2013) and the legislative framework of higher education in Canada (Shanahan, Nilson, and Broshko, 2015). Using fundamental socio-legal analysis and descriptive critical policy analysis, in a meta-analysis across data collected during these three projects, this presentation identifies the socio-political and legislative framework of higher education policy making. These findings are combined with scholarly literature, government reports and statistical data to illustrate the unique features of the policy arena that shape policy formation and outcomes in Canadian higher education. Together the data from these three projects provide a rich profile of policy formation in Canadian higher education and identify the shifts that have occurred in the last three decades. Canadian federal and provincial governments’ have employed a variety of structural, legal, treasury and information-based policy mechanisms to reform governance in Canadian higher education. The politics associated with the reforms have intensified intergovernmental relations in higher education, penetrated university autonomy, challenged leadership, eroded collegial decision-making in universities and produced mixed outcomes for access and equity. History, context, and structure all matter in understanding Canadian higher education policy making which has been shaped by federalism, the constitutional division of powers, the parliamentary system, the unique dynamics of federal-provincial relations in Canada, and the dual, shared governance model of universities. Higher education policy in Canada is embedded in a broader political, economic, social, bureaucratic, and historical context and set within regional diversity (reflected in differing identities, values, language, and culture) across the country. Provincial histories, laws and cultural environments have influenced the development of provincial systems of higher education which each have unique regulatory arenas. The contradictory dynamics of convergence and divergence are evident in Canadian higher education: path dependence associated with provincial historical legacies as well as rationalization associated with external and global, isomorphic pressures on organizations. In Canada we see stronger state control and steering of higher education driven by system expansion and demand for access propelled by the belief that higher education is an important economic and social driver. Universities are increasingly seen as public, democratic spaces captured by broader public sector legislation as opposed to private, ivory towers. At the same time higher education is increasingly seen as a private good, and governments have retreated from providing operating funds which has increased tuition over the last three decades. Higher education institutions have scrambled for (sometimes unsustainable) revenue streams to make up the short fall. In the complex contemporary context, university governance and leadership are critically important and have come under increasing scrutiny. These developments have constrained institutional autonomy, challenged collegial and managerial governance structures, altered institutional culture, and impacted access and equity in education. This contribution offers insight into the formation of higher education policy in Canada and identifies the unique features of the Canadian socio-political context that shape policy formation and outcomes in higher education across the country.

Luc Theriault, University of New Brunswick

Missing the Mark on Housing Policy: The Canada Housing Benefit in Atlantic Canada.

We examine the design and implementation of a new Canadian housing allowance program called the Canada Housing Benefit (CHB). Focusing on three provinces, we explore to what extent the CHB adheres to "just housing", based on the perspectives of stakeholders who work with people living in poverty. We find that the CHB fails to provide assistance to many marginalized renters, thus perpetuating their exclusion. The allowance also falls short in providing housing that is affordable and secure, and the program lacks involvement in decision-making on the part of those with lived experience. Finally, the current state of the rental market, including a lack of units and landlord discrimination, poses significant limitations to its implementation. We conclude that the design of the CHB needs to be overhauled in order to comply with just housing, but that the housing terrain in which allowances are provided needs to be transformed or just housing will remain unrealized.

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Non-presenting authors: Catherine Leviten-Reid, Cape Breton University; Misha Maitreyi, University of New Brunswick

Ivanka Knezevic, University of Toronto

Stuck in a Spinning Cycle: Post-socialist Labour Policy and a New Variety of Neoliberalism

Building on author’s previous work on policy formation networks in post-socialist Serbia, this paper focuses on content and – particularly – effects of labour policies in this country. This case study is presented in the context of broad international developments: changes in capitalist production system, rise of neoliberal ideology, and unfolding globalisation.  Labour policies are considered from the standpoint of a social right “to work and to just, safe, and healthy working conditions and fair remuneration” ( European Social Charter. 1996) In the current state of East- and Central-European post-socialist countries, social rights – including labour rights – are routinely eroded. Contemporary capitalism is increasingly intolerant of social rights, with intolerance greatest in poor countries and toward poor citizens everywhere. It gradually spreads from peripheral countries to semi-peripheral and central, developed ones. Post-socialist countries should, in my opinion, be considered not as semi-peripheral ones (as the past structure of their economies indicates), but as peripheral, caught in dependence on core countries (in case of Serbia, core European Union countries). In terms of Esping-Andersen’s typology of welfare regimes – that mechanism for provision of social rights – post-socialist Hungary, Poland, and Serbia are considered as cases of “incongruent post-transitional regime.” They exhibit consistently low social-rights expenditures as percentage of the GDP and low average living standard, as well as inconsistent welfare regimes with fragmentary and unstable social-rights components, shaped more by changes in economic policy and isolated - politically expedient - changes, than by any consistent commitment to ideals of “social Europe.”  Like other welfare regimes, post-socialist ones have been undergoing changes toward increasing individual responsibility for one’s welfare, and decreasing importance of state (public) provision and collective solidarity. Giddens’s (1998) notion of the “project of the self” and Taylor-Gooby’s (2009) observation of “active social citizenship” are now an accepted norm. State intervention moves correspondingly away from “passive social policy,” whose goal is to maintain socially acceptable income levels and reduce inequalities, toward “active policy,” which tends toward building individual workers’ capacities, responsibility, and motivation. In general terms, post-socialist transformation (or “transition”) of Serbian society has led to a decreased level of economic activity, lowering standard, and increase in both unemployment and poverty. While this was typical of all post-socialist countries in the early years of transformation to capitalism, it continues in Serbia to this day.  In labour terms, Serbia is notable for: (1) high proportion of the unemployed and those who are no longer looking for work, (2) a significant number of the employed whose wages are insufficient for theirs and their families’ needs, (3) low level of support to those who lose their jobs, and (4) consequently, increasing relative size of lower socio-economic strata, whose chances of upward social mobility are much lower than that of their parents. It should be noted that socialist Serbia had relatively high and sustained rates of upward social mobility. With post-socialist transformation, mobility from the working toward the middle class has decreased. Fluctuations in the level of economic activity since return to capitalism have all been “jobless.” Fairly consistent growth until 2008, crisis 2008-2012, and stagnation ever since have left Serbia now with half a million fewer employed than there were in 2000.  Secondary labour market has, predictably, become more significant, while the primary one is limited to public sector, business services, and a small number of large, now foreign-owned, privatized firms. In the past few years, around one-third of the employed have been in what the International Labour Organisation defines as “vulnerable employment status.” 62% of the population at risk of poverty are self-employed. Existing institutions for protection of workers’ rights, such as labour inspection, are nearly non-functional. Situation is not much better when it comes to policies for protection of the unemployed. Both passive (benefits for those who have had employment insurance while employed) and active (measures meant to improve employability of the unemployed) policies exist, but their scope is very small: in 2022, only 7% of registered unemployed received unemployment benefits. The paper will combine data from the author’s previous analysis of Serbian policy formation networks with document analysis (of labour regulation and related policies) in an effort to develop a causal and processual explanation of the situation of Serbian labour described here.

Gabriel Lévesque, McGill University

Toxic Substances Regulation and the Structuration of Interdependent Policy Networks

An appreciable temporal gap often exists between the discovery of a given substance’s toxicity and its regulation. Even when toxic substances are being regulated, it is commonplace to realize ex post that initial precautions were insufficient, and that workers and communities were still exposed to significant risks. The causal processes behind this protracted back and forth motion between expert knowledge and state regulations is the core puzzle of studies on toxic substance controversies. The flagship literature in this area focuses on the role of corporations in feeding controversies, manipulating knowledge production, and fostering public ignorance about the hazards of toxic products. This literature has been criticized for neglecting the role of states in protracting these controversies. More recent contributions have partly addressed this gap by emphasizing interactions between corporations and policymaking bodies. In this paper, I build on these recent insights and ask two often-overlooked questions about toxic controversies: (1) How are toxic substance policy networks configured? and (2) how are these policy networks shaped by key regulatory changes? I develop an approach to regulatory networks that emphasizes growing interdependence between regulating bureaucracies and regulated industries. I test this approach using longitudinal network data for the policy trajectories of silica and lead in the United States. I build network data frames from the raw text of the Toxic Docs database, which includes millions of pages of previously classified corporate documents. I rely on SpaCy’s named entity recognition algorithm to extract organizations from textual data, which I use to create substance-specific data frames. I manually code a sector (e.g., a federal bureaucracy, an industrial association) for each organization. These sectors are then associated to communities of sectors (e.g., all bureaucracies, all types of corporate actors, etc.) I use modularity to investigate the evolving structure of toxic policy networks. I then model the impact of key policy changes on those networks over time using interrupted time series analyses. Modularity analyses show that corporations and enforcing bureaucracies are increasingly intermeshed throughout policy trajectories. Time series analyses show that major policy events like the passage of the 1970 Occupational Health and Safety Act increases the intermeshing between corporations and bureaucracies. These results sustain two novel arguments in the literature on regulatory politics. First, it suggests that the relationship between industries and enforcing bureaucracies is not primarily one of interference, but rather one of interdependence. Second, it suggests that policy events is primarily as cause, not as consequence, of network structure. This paper leverages the case of toxic substances to contribute to the literature on the relationship between states, corporations, and other actors in regulatory practices. Methodologically, it circumvents a potential event-based bias in comparative historical policy research, i.e., a myopic focus on visible data points that emerge from events like media scandals, new policies and regulations, or scientific publications, by measuring underlying aspects of regulatory processes which are hard to capture otherwise. This allows us to refine theories of regulatory change and the regulatory welfare state. Foremost, this paper reconceptualizes the role of time and policies in regulatory processes, by emphasizing stable patterns over disruptive ones in the structuration of policy networks.