Campaigns against risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) caused by smoking and obesity have become increasingly common on multiple levels of government, from the local to the international. Non-governmental actors have cooperated with government bodies to make policies. By analysing the policies of the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, the European Union, and the United Kingdom and United States governments, we identify how the struggles between public health advocates and commercial interests reached the global level, and how the relatively successful fight to ‘denormalize’ tobacco consumption has become a model for anti-obesity advocates. It highlights three factors important in policy change: framing the policy problem, the policymaking environment and ‘windows of opportunity’—to analyse the struggle between ‘harm regulation’ and ‘neoprohibition’ approaches to an international obesity prevention regime.

This thesis describes a data provenance framework and other associated frameworks for utilizing provenance for data quality and reproducibility. We first identify the requirements for the design of a comprehensive provenance framework which can be applicable to various applications, supports a rich set of provenance metadata, and is interoperable with other provenance management systems. We then design and develop a provenance framework, called SimP, addressing such requirements. Next, we present four prominent applications and investigate how provenance data can be beneficial to such applications. The first application is the quality assessment of access control policies. Towards this, we design and implement the ProFact framework which uses provenance techniques for collecting comprehensive data about actions which were either triggered due to a network context or a user (i.e., a human or a device) action. Provenance data are used to determine whether the policies meet the quality requirements. ProFact includes two approaches for policy analysis: structure-based and classification-based. For the structure-based approach, we design tree structures to organize and assess the policy set efficiently. For the classification-based approach, we employ several classification techniques to learn the characteristics of policies and predict their quality. In addition, ProFact supports policy evolution and the assessment of its impact on the policy quality. The second application is workflow reproducibility. Towards this, we implement ProWS which is a provenance-based architecture for retrieving workflows. Specifically, ProWS transforms data provenance into workflows and then organizes data into a set of indexes to support efficient querying mechanisms. ProWS supports composite queries on three types of search criteria: keywords of workflow tasks, patterns of workflow structure, and metadata about workflows (e.g., how often a workflow was used). The third application is the access control policy reproducibility. Towards this, we propose a novel framework, Polisma, which generates attribute-based access control policies from data, namely from logs of historical access requests and their corresponding decisions. Polisma combines data mining, statistical, and machine learning techniques, and capitalizes on potential context information obtained from external sources (e.g., LDAP directories) to enhance the learning process. The fourth application is the policy reproducibility by utilizing knowledge and experience transferability. Towards this, we propose a novel framework, FLAP, which transfer attribute-based access control policies between different parties in a collaborative environment, while considering the challenges of minimal sharing of data and support policy adaptation to address conflict. All frameworks are evaluated with respect to performance and accuracy.

優質化治理的追求不僅講求政府間的互動學習，亦講求學習標的的擴散。近年來政府引進公民參與理念，打破閉門造車的政策制定模式，隨著時間的發展，諸多機關開始辦理公民會議，本研究應用擴散理論分析公民會議在行政體系內部擴散的成因，並討論公民會議在台灣擴散的發展及限制。本研究針對十餘場公民會議，利用次級資料分析及深度訪談，從動機、資源、環境、效益四項因素分析過去各機關單位辦理公民會議的經驗，並探究自公民會議引進至今所遭遇之阻礙。研究結果顯示政府機關透過多種管道與社會團體、學界進行互動，取得公民會議的相關資訊，同時機關首長基於個人理念、內部業務需求、外在環境壓力等考量指示辦理公民會議，這些面向的交互作用促成台灣公民會議於行政體系內部的擴散。然而在公民會議發展歷程中，因公民會議執行過程的瑕疵、後續產出可觀察性低、政黨理念未能貫徹、體制及配套措施不足、人事更替頻繁、公民會議的工具性消失等因素阻礙公民會議的發展。本研究發現公民會議在行政體系內部的擴散乃是政策企業家的努力，其夾帶豐富的資訊資源與機關單位互動，或直接或間接地成就公民會議的發展。然而基礎體制建設的缺乏對公民會議的發展形成限制，因此未來應致力於審議民主體制建設以及強化人力資源發展。由於本研究為初探性嘗試，建議未來隨著實務發展強化擴散模型建構，並深化我國政策學習及擴散的學術累積。 / Good governance emphasizes not only the interactions between governments, but diffusion of objects among governments. Recently, the government has imported the concept of citizen participation and breaks the traditional way of policy making. As time goes by, the development of citizen participation has been more mature. Many agencies have started holding consensus conferences. The thesis applies diffusion theory to analyze the reasons why consensus conferences diffused within the government and discusses its development and restriction. The study focuses on more than ten consensus conferences and uses secondary data and in-depth interview to collect research data. The author analyzes the experience of individual agency according to their motivation, resource, environment, and benefit; and the author also examines the obstacles in the development of the consensus conferences. The findings reveal that the government interacts with social groups and academic community to get information about consensus conferences. At the same time, the chiefs of the executive branches give an instruction about holding the activities based on their preferences, internal requirements, and the pressure of external environment. The interaction of these aspects makes a contribution to the diffusion of the consensus conferences within the government. However, the flaws of implementation processes, lower observability, lack of relative measures and infrastructure, frequent personnel rotation, and the disappearance of the instrumentality constrain the expanding of the ideas and operations. This research also finds that the diffusion of ideas and operations is accomplished due to the efforts invested by policy entrepreneurs; they use abundant resources and information to interact with agencies directly or indirectly promoting the development of consensus conferences. However, incomplete infrastructure constrains the expansion of consensus conferences. Therefore, this study proposes that the government should enhance infrastructure and human resource development regarding deliberative democracy. As an exploratory study, this thesis suggests the public administration field should strengthen the diffusion model and accumulate studies of policy learning and diffusion in the future.

This is a study of approaches to fisheries management in the United Kingdom (UK) between 1945 and 1996. It examines the choices and incentives faced by UK Governments when designing policy instruments to deliver international commitments to sustainable fishing. The failure of international agreements to sustainably manage fisheries resources is often attributed to international institutions, the politicization of negotiations and their distributive outcomes. This thesis makes an original contribution by arguing that the success of international agreements was also dependent upon local negotiations that shaped the design of national delivery mechanisms. The central research question concerns the role and influence of local interests in delivering global economic and environmental agendas and how national governments accommodate local tensions within this process. A sustained content analysis of UK Government archives is used to argue that local political and sectional industry interests had a significant bearing on the development of UK fisheries policy and the design of domestic delivery mechanisms. The exception was UK policy on the international distribution of fisheries resources at the United Nations Law of the Sea Conferences (1958, 1960 and 1973-82). Economic considerations drove early environmental policy with sectional fishing industry interests of secondary importance to the potential economic benefits associated with the more valuable energy resources. In then seeking to implement controls on fishing activity, this thesis argues that UK fisheries management mechanisms were designed to compensate for tension between global commitments mandating a reduction in fishing effort and the local fleets and communities that had to bear the costs of industry contraction. This created a policy-making environment in which social and political motivations continually trumped the application of economic and scientific advice. This advice advocated a contraction in the size of the fleet which had become necessary as technical change and falling stocks resulted in overcapacity. The use of fisheries policy as a political tool to ease local tensions incentivised policy choices that directly contributed to the UK's failure to reduce fishing pressure and deliver international commitments. This thesis demonstrates the importance of local negotiations and interests in the construction of national and international approaches to environmental and natural resources problems.

This thesis explores the influences of provincial grant programs on Canadian streetscape camera systems. Using qualitative interviews (N=32) and document analysis, the study explores the policymaking processes and outcomes of six Ontario cities that have engaged with the Civil Remedies and Proceeds of Crime grants. Grant programs have not only provided the financial support to facilitate the establishment or expansion of camera systems, but they have also encouraged particular patterns of implementation, design and operation of Canadian streetscape systems through the processes and conditions of the grant program, as well as through the encouragement of regional networking, policy learning and policy diffusion via policy tourism. While the Civil Remedies and Proceeds of Crime grants have influenced some similarities in streetscape camera systems, variation exists, particularly concerning privacy policies, due to idiosyncratic interpretation and adoption of diffused policies and an ambiguous and unclear privacy protection framework. / Graduate / 0626 / 0627 / dennymah@uvic.ca

China and Russia – two giants in the group of emerging markets – continue to attract wide attention as evolving science and technological superpowers. However, both countries demonstrate mixed success in innovation development and are struggling to overcome the legacies of the former state planning system and accelerate their transition to effective national innovation systems. This study employs a number of theoretical constructs and evidence sources to evaluate the existing path dependencies and compare the achievements of China and Russia in fostering development and effective systems of innovation and governance. A detailed analysis of the state planning legacies is provided together with a study of innovation system transformation and the role of public policy in (re)building national innovation capabilities in China and Russia. The system-evolutionary approach is applied to provide a detailed assessment of the strategic effort undertaken by the governments of both countries. Several government failures and path dependencies seem to prevent the nations from implementing a more effective reform. Yet, there are a number of complementarities and opportunities for mutual learning where both countries can benefit from closer collaboration. The challenges of turning universities into research institutions, increasing productivity of state-owned enterprises, constructing effective science parks, promoting indigenous innovation, ensuring more even distribution of innovation development across regions, turning ‘brain drain’ into ‘brain gain’, and improving intellectual property rights protection are common in Russia and China. As a lens through which to identify and assess innovation systems transformation, the thesis examines emerging nanotechnology development in China and Russia. Nanotechnology is a new science and technology area where policies seem to be independent of many system weaknesses and contribute to breaking existing development lock-ins due to its explorative nature and assumed transformative capacity. Yet, a number of path dependencies do exist in this area but seem to play a marginal role in its progression. An early assessment is provided of nanotechnology impacts on broader socioeconomic development of China and Russia in six key areas: institutional development, knowledge flows, and network efficiency; research and education capabilities; industrial and enterprise growth; cluster and network development; regional spread; and product innovation.The conclusion summarizes the main findings, revisits the major research questions, links the analysis to the conceptual framework, and offers a number of policy recommendations that seem relevant to both Russia and China with a need to increase the transparency of innovation policy, improve the regulation for innovation process, and promote growth of the private sector to ensure effective technology transfer.Results from this study have been reported in various forms in the author’s articles published in Research Policy, Science and Public Policy, Review of Policy Research, International Journal of Economics and Business Research, and European Journal of Development Research as well as presented at a number of international conferences (see Appendix).

This dissertation examines a major policy change in the context of energy decision-making for shale gas development in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. After a long series of public engagement exercises aimed at regulating and promoting the safe development of shale gas resources in New Brunswick, the provincial government implemented a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in 2014 and extended it indefinitely in 2016. The dissertation is interested in how policy-oriented learning may have influenced this policy change from both an empirical and a theoretical perspective. Theoretically, in line with recent scholarship on policy learning, this study trains its sites on the nature of policy learning and how it may influence change. To this end, the dissertation is grounded in the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), a theoretical approach with (i) clearly defined mechanisms of learning, and (ii) significant application to resource development and to case studies of resource development in jurisdictions across North America and globally. The study builds on the ACF by proposing a conception of learning drawing on post-positivist literature. The study argues that learning is too narrowly focused on policy elites in the ACF and should be expanded to consider the role of non-traditional actors. The analysis questions the notion that learning can be isolated to rational and technical understandings amongst policy elites, and aims to integrate interactive knowledge into the analysis as a fundamental component of learning. The research aims to contextualize learning and understand the factors that shape policy learning and policy change. The dissertation focuses on the role of three factors - public engagement, uncertainty and trust - in shaping policy actors' learning. Empirically, the study examines the case of New Brunswick between 2007 and 2017. The province undertook multiple public engagement exercises regarding shale gas development in the context of unknown risks and uncertainty associated with the practice of hydraulic fracturing, an emerging technology that enabled the production of shale gas on a large scale. Two major coalitions emerged that advocated for and against shale development in the province, with the dominant pro-development coalition asserting that shale gas could proceed safely through stringent regulation. Through documentary analysis, interviews and a media analysis, the research reveals that interactive knowledge was a key component of how people learned in the case. The anti-shale coalition in New Brunswick brought its lived experience - notably its lack of trust in public authorities to successfully regulate fracking - to bear on decision-making, and was able to undermine and question the pro-development coalition's position that the risks associated with hydraulic fracturing could be managed. The anti-shale coalition mobilized this knowledge through the government's public engagement exercises and successfully contested the dominant coalition's beliefs. Fundamentally, the study demonstrates that public engagement, uncertainty and trust are three key factors that can shape policy learning and change.

This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay, or Chapter 2, advances the literature by examining the conditional effects of lobbying on the relationship between policy learning and policy reinvention. Scholars have consistently shown that learning of successful policies in other states leads to higher likelihood of policy adoption. This essay extends this finding two ways. First, policy learning can also lead to more comprehensive adoption of successful policies. Second, the effect of policy learning on policy comprehensiveness is conditional on lobbying by interest groups, an alternative source of information about policy success. To test these hypotheses, I conduct a directed dyad-year analysis using a dataset on American state drunk driving regulations from 1983 to 2000. The results show that more comprehensive policy adoption by states is positively related to policy success in other states when lobbying by Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is relatively low. Moreover, lobbying by MADD increases policy comprehensiveness when policy success is relatively low. The second essay, or Chapter 3, examines the effects of GASB 45 on local government borrowing costs. Government financial disclosure is a key instrument to improve fiscal transparency and accountability. In 2004, the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) issued Statement No. 45 to require state and local governments to disclose information about other postemployment benefits (OPEB) for the first time. The theoretical framework incorporates both direct and indirect effects of disclosure on borrowing costs. The empirical tests use a panel of counties across states and the bonds they issued in the primary market between 1999 and 2012. To account for the impact of GASB 45 on county governments’ decisions to issue bonds, a Heckman selection model is estimated. GASB 45 increases borrowing costs of county governments, with the effects decreasing over time. GASB 45 has a larger effect on borrowing costs of county governments issuing bonds of lower credit quality and adopting the generally accepted accounting standards (GAAP). The third essay, or Chapter 4, examines the impact of information about funding of OPEB plans on borrowing costs of local governments. Local governments have disclosed information about other postemployment benefits (OPEB) plans under the Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 45 issued in 2004. Funding status is measured by percentage of annual required contribution (ARC) contributed and funded ratios. Two panels of counties and cities with comprehensive annual financial reports available from the Government Financial Officers Association are matched with the bonds they issued between 2008 and 2014. The results show that higher percentage of ARC contributed of OPEB plans are associated with lower borrowing costs for counties; and higher OPEB funded ratios are correlated with lower borrowing costs for cities. Higher percentage of ARC contributed and funded ratios of pension plans are associated with lower borrowing costs for both counties and cities. This essay demonstrates that information about OPEB and pension plans is incorporated in municipal bond pricing.

The task of producing policies for the management of Earth’s natural resources is a problem of the gravest concern worldwide. Such policies must address both responsible use in the present and the sustainability of those finite resources in the future. Resources are showing the adverse results of generations of exploitation, and communities fail to see the outcomes of past policies that have produced, and continue to produce, these results. They have not learned from past policy failures, and consequently fail to produce natural resource management (NRM) policies that support sustainable development.¶ It will be argued that NRM policy makers fail to learn from the past because they do not have a good historical perspective and a clear understanding of the dynamics of the complex human-environment system that they manage. It will also be argued that historians have not shown an interest in collaborating with policy makers on these issues, even though they have much to offer. Therefore, a new approach is proposed, which brings the skills and understanding of the trained historian directly into the policy arena.¶ This approach is called Applied Environmental History (AEH). Its aims are to help establish an area of common conceptual ground between NRM practitioners, policy makers, historians and dynamicists; to provide a framework that can help NRM practitioners and policy makers to take account of the historical and dynamical issues that characterise human-environment relationships; and to help NRM practitioners and policy makers improve their capacity to learn from the past. Applied Environmental History captures the characteristics of public and applied history and environmental history. In order to include an understanding of feedback dynamics in human-environment systems, it draws on concepts from dynamical systems theory. Because learning from the past is a particular form of learning from experience, AEH also draws on theories of cognitive adaptation.¶ Principles for the application of AEH are developed and then tested in an exploratory study of irrigation development that is focused on the NRM issue of salinity. Since irrigation salinity has existed for centuries, and is a serious environmental problem in many parts of the world, it is a suitable NRM context in which to explore policy makers' failure to learn from the past. AEH principles guide this study, and are used, together with insights generated from the study, as the basis for the design of AEH Guidelines.

在全球化與資訊通訊科技的脈絡下，各級政府之間為解決政策問題或改善政策績效而相互進行政策學習已成為趨勢。本研究應用政策趨同以及政策學習理論，分析在國內已形成顯著趨同現象的1999專線政策，並選取新北市政府為個案進行深入探討。研究結果顯示，行政區劃層級為直轄市、位於北部或中部、人口數百萬以上的縣市在1999專線上比較有採納趨同的傾向，趨同縣市在土地面積、高山地區比率、道路里程密度，行政機關公務人員數，以及歲入上也較未趨同縣市為多。在細部的服務機制和委外範圍上，各縣市仍多少有差異，較不完備之縣市則呈現人口數以及歲入較少的特徵。1999專線的趨同力量中並無中央政府的強制力介入，促成趨同的可能原因有觀念普及、政治壓力、競爭壓力、問題壓力，以及創新的認知屬性等因素導致。在政策學習分析的部分，新北市政府學習過程中的關鍵行動者為文官體系所形成的移植網絡，並以臺北市為最主要的學習對象，地理區位的接近性以及由此衍生的過往關係為雙方互動交流的有利基礎。然而新北市與臺北市之間存有結構性差異，無法全盤移植臺北市政府的經驗。本研究也發現，臺北市政府在國內1999專線的政策趨同或政策學習上扮演了重要的關鍵角色，其作為一個中介者向外國政府師法、本土化後將此政策資訊傳播給國內地方政府，成為許多地方政府的學習對象。本研究作為一初探性研究，建議未來除在學術上應豐富有關趨同及學習模式之研究外，並應將政策學習理論結合實務的管理面，建置政策知識庫以及制度化的政策學習網絡，讓地方政府的施政經驗得以保存、累積與流通應用，以作為政策知識管理和學習的有效後盾，提昇政策績效。 / Under the influence of globalization and information and communication technologies, governments at all levels get more chances to learn policy across boundaries as a way to solve policy problem or to enhance policy performance. The thesis applies policy convergence and policy learning theory to analyze the 1999 citizen hotline in Taiwan, takes New Taipei City as a case, and intends to examine the process and contributing factors for policy learning. The results show municipality, located in northern or central Taiwan with population of several million or more, tend to convergence in 1999 citizen hotline. There are some differences between convergence city and non-convergence city in land area, the ratio of total land area of alpine areas, density of the road mileage, number of public servants, and revenue. The possible reasons leading to convergence include the diffusion of concept, political pressure, the pressure of competition, the pressure of problem-solving, and the cognitive attributes of innovation. In the policy learning process of New Taipei City, the key actors are policy transfer network consist of civil servants. Taipei City is the main learning objects of New Taipei City. The proximity of geographic location and past relations is the basis for the interaction between New Taipei City and Taipei City. However, there are structural differences between the two cities; therefore, New Taipei City didn’t photocopy all the details in 1999 citizen hotline of Taipei City. This research also finds that the important role of Taipei City in the policy convergence or policy learning of 1999 citizen hotline. Taipei City, as an intermediary earned from a foreign government, localized the policy, and disseminated policy information to the domestic local governments. Based on the findings, the author suggests the government should construct policy knowledge base, and institutionalize the transfer network to improve policy performance. As an exploratory study, the author also suggests the academics could establish more appropriate convergence models by quantitative statistical analysis, or include more cities to compare models of policy learning in the future.