The role of the public policy process as a factor in geographical change is examined by means of a study of US public policy in the lagging region of Appalachia. A review of the socio-economic problems of this region, and of US government attempts to overcome these problems, identifies the difficulty of drawing conclusions on the basis of attempting to reconcile opposing value systems at the full regional level. In order to enhance the depth of geographical analysis possible, a detailed study of a sample of Local Development Districts (LDDs) within Appalachia is taken up in order to assess the working out of public policy at the local level. Quantifiable census data of economic and demographic variables are used to provide a foundation against which the opinions of LDD staff can be evaluated. In a synthesis of this data it is shown that major improvements have taken place in the quality of life of the people of Appalachia between 1960 and 1980; that over this period the LDDS have provided an important catalytic role, both in bringing local-scale infrastructure to largely rural areas, and in developing local involvement in decision-making; and that there is little ground for suggesting that local development would have taken place on such a scale without the LDD presence. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the public policy process should be regarded as a major factor in the explanation of geographical change; that the best application of public policy is through the marriage of different scales of infrastructure provision and geographical unit; that both public policy and theoretical modelling should recognise the dynamic nature of society; and that geographers can make important contributions to the public policy process.

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An examination of the environmental policy process provides insight into the mechanisms of decision-making that create and implement policies, which in turn affect planning outcomes and development directions. Such in-depth scrutiny has rarely emerged in the East African context, with few studies providing an analysis of the entire policy process and the actor network involved. This study offers a thick, descriptive narrative of the environmental policy arena in Nairobi, where rampant environmental degradation due to unconstrained development is occurring despite the existence of an environmental regulatory framework. The effects of newly implemented constitutional and strategic development reforms in this rapidly evolving African metropolis are also interrogated. The study lens shifts from the macro-level perspective of the policy system and context, to the micro-level of the institutional and individual actors, examining their roles, authority, and the interconnections between them. A qualitative case study approach is utilized, consisting of 25 semi-structured interviews conducted with environmental policymaking leaders in Nairobi. Both deductive (themes are applied to the data) and inductive (themes are derived from the data) analyses are applied to examine the research data in detail. The primary data is supplemented with numerous secondary sources, which provide a practical grounding for the primary analysis. The narrative that coalesces around the data themes uncovers the underlying causes for poor environmental regulation thus far, prominent among them being a lack of institutional capacity in state agencies; corrupt and nepotistic governance; and the splintering of the environmental mandate among numerous state institutions, leading to competition and conflict among them. Adam and Kriesi’s Network Approach (2007) is then critically adapted and applied, revealing the concentration of power in state authorities and disproportionate distribution of influence among non-state actors in the environmental policy subsystem. This policy network analysis shows how these conditions create the potential for low to moderate incremental policy change going forward.

This thesis examines the establishment of 'Next Steps' agencies in government and how they were intended to allow the delivery of government goals at arm's length. The research is concerned with how changes in relationships at the heart of Government can be understood. It seeks to address the impact of these changes on the policy process. It does so by examining the nature of the relationship between departments and agencies and asking why some relationships appeared to have worked well and others have not. These questions are not adequately addressed in the existing literature on agencies. The thesis takes a multiple case study approach and draws on the concepts of historical institutionalism, power dependency and policy networks to approach these questions. It is argued that the introduction and development of agencies changed the formal and informal institutional 'rules of the game', affecting the roles actors expected to play and radically altered the distribution of resources in central government. The changed distribution of resources led to the development of new power dependent networks between departments and agencies. Path dependency in the development of the Next Steps concept led to a tension between the idea of agencies operating at 'arm's length' with the continuation of traditional accountability arrangements. The key argument presented is that, where department-agency networks are based on shared values, goals and institutional support, they will be able to manage the tension created by the new institutional arrangements and are able to successfully deliver government goals. In concluding, it is suggested that understanding department-agency relationships as power dependent networks presents three implications. Firstly, for the applicability of this analytical framework to other 'institutional arrangements', secondly for policy making in the core executive and, finally, for insights on normative issues of accountability and autonomy in contemporary governance.

Climate change is one of the most important and urgent issues of our time. Since 2006, China has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter. China’s role in an international climate change solution has gained increased attention. Although much literature has addressed the functioning, performance, and implications of existing climate change mitigation policies and actions in China, there is insufficient literature that illuminates how the national climate change mitigation policies have been formulated and shaped. This research utilizes the policy network approach to explore China’s climate change mitigation policy making by examining how a variety of government, business, and civil society actors have formed networks to address environmental contexts and influence the policy outcomes and changes. The study is qualitative in nature. Three cases are selected to illustrate structural and interactive features of the specific policy network settings in shaping different policy arrangements and influencing the outcomes in the Chinese context. The three cases include the regulatory evolution of China’s climate change policy making; the country’s involvement in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) activity, and China’s exploration of voluntary agreement through adopting the Top-1000 Industrial Energy Conservation Program. The historical analysis of the policy process uses both primary data from interviews and fieldwork, and secondary data from relevant literature. The study finds that the Chinese central government dominates domestic climate change policy making; however, expanded action networks that involve actors at all levels have emerged in correspondence to diverse climate mitigation policy arrangements. The improved openness and accessibility of climate change policy network have contributed to its proactive engagement in promoting mitigation outcomes. In conclusion, the research suggests that the policy network approach provides a useful tool for studying China’s climate change policy making process. The involvement of various types of state and non-state actors has shaped new relations and affected the policy outcomes and changes. In addition, through the cross-case analysis, the study challenges the “fragmented authoritarianism” model and argues that this once-influential model is not appropriate in explaining new development and changes of policy making processes in contemporary China.

Published Article / This paper is concerned to show that seminal public policy principles have sometimes failed to translate into improved customer service in South Africa and to discover why this should be so. After discussing various dimensions of public policy formulation and implementation, the article cites instances whereby service levels are seen to be compromised by poor execution of policy. It is submitted that inappropriate criteria for the recruitment of office bearers, and a worrying tendency to fail to distinguish adequately between public and private goods, have contributed to degraded levels of customer service which violate the spirit of Batho Pele. It is concluded that government needs to 'walk the talk' with respect to Batho Pele by ridding its administration of officials who have shown themselves to be either incompetent or corrupt.

Community sport policy is characterised as complex and multi-faceted partly due to the number of agencies involved. This thesis explores the community sport policy process in England, specifically the significance of the relationship between CSPs and NGBs in the community sport policy process. The four key objectives of this study are (i) to analyse the significance of the relationship between CSPs and NGBs with regard to the national community sport policy process; (ii) to analyse the significance of the relationship between CSPs and NGBs in local-level policy making and policy implementation; (iii) to identify CSP and NGB attitudes and perceptions toward the community sport policy process; and as the study focuses on the meso-level of analysis, (iv) to evaluate the explanatory value of selected meso-level theories of the policy process in developing a better understanding of the community sport policy process. This study uses a mixed method comprising a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Initially, a quantitative questionnaire was used to gather information regarding CSPs and NGBs and support the selection of CSP cases. From this CSP-based case studies were developed involving semi-structured interviews with CSP, NGB and local authority representatives. The study draws attention to the hierarchical nature of the community sport policy process, the implications for collaboration, the mediating role of CSPs in national and local policy settings, and the associated challenges that agents face in implementing community sport policy. The study emphasises the value of theoretical pluralism in analysing the community sport field, particularly the combined used of meso-level frameworks such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Policy Networks Approach with micro-level considerations from implementation theory and the partnership literature. It concludes that empirically, it is only by giving policy agents a voice that we can develop a more accurate understanding of the policy process and that practically only by harnessing the commitment and energy of the grassroots can we step toward a more effective policy community.

Identifying how policy proposals are selected by policy-makers is an important question for scholars. This thesis evaluates the use of discourse and the role of actors in the exchange of ideas to support interprofessional collaboration (IPC) among Ontario’s regulatory colleges. A variation of discourse analysis was developed, based on the seven areas of reality that are constructed by language, to evaluate the interactions between state and policy actors. I argue that actors did not appear to engage in meaningful discourse because the state established the parameters of the consultative processes, which suggests the expert consultative processes were tools to legitimize the policy process for Bill 179. The state appears to have increasingly greater control of both the content and context of policy- making in this field. Further evaluation of the interactions between health professional organizations and the state is needed to better understand the importance of discourse in the health policy process.

Many problems facing policymakers are complex and cannot be understood by reducing them to their component parts. However, many of the policy responses to complex problems continue to be based on simple, reductionist methods. Agent-based modeling (ABM) is one alternative method for informing policy that is well-suited to analyzing complex problems. ABM has practical implications for different stages of the policy process, such as testing alternatives, assisting with evaluation by setting up a counterfactual, and agenda setting. The objective of the research presented in this dissertation is to explore the opportunity for using ABM to examine complex problems of relevance for policy. To do so, three separate models were developed to investigate different aspects of food safety inspection systems. Complex problems involve interrelated feedback loops, many actors, exponential growth, asymmetric information, and uncertainty in outcomes and data, and food safety exhibits these traits, providing an interesting case study for the use of ABM. The first model explores three inspection scenarios incorporating access to information. The main finding was that the number of sick consumers is greatly reduced by giving consumers and inspectors more information about whether a retail outlet is contaminated, even if that information may be uncertain. The second model incorporated theories on risk and the role of transparency in encouraging consumer trust by giving consumers access to inspection scores. Overall, the findings were more nuanced: having access to restaurant inspection scores results in a slightly higher mean number of sick consumers, but less variation overall in the number of sick consumers. As well, a greater number of compliant restaurants results in fewer sick consumers. Rather than investigating the structure of the inspection system, the third model examines the potential for mobile technology to crowdsource information about suspected foodborne illness. This model illustrates the potential for health-oriented mobile technologies to improve the surveillance system for foodborne illness. Overall, the findings from the three models support using stylized ABMs to study various aspects of food safety inspection systems, and show that these models can be used to generate insight for policy choices and evidence-based decision making in this area.