Light me up: power and expertise in risk communication and policy-making in the e-cigarette health debates

This paper presents a detailed account of policy-making in a contemporary risk communication arena, where strong power dynamics are at play that have hitherto lacked theoretical analysis and empirical validation. Specifically, it expands on the understanding of how public health policy decisions are made when there is a weak evidential base and where multiple interpretations, power dynamics and values are brought to bear on issues of risk and uncertainty. The aim of the paper is to understand the role that power and expertise play in shaping public health risk communication within policy-related debates. By drawing on insight from a range of literatures, the paper argues that there several interacting factors that shape how a particular narrative gains prominence within a wider set of perspectives and how the arguments and findings associated with that perspective become amplified within the context of policy choices. These findings are conceptualised into a new model – a policy evaluation risk communication (PERC) framework – and are then tested using the Electronic cigarette debate as a case study

Public Policy Analysis Re-Imagined with Web 2.0 Applications

For any public policy analysis to be effective it must include the broad study of the actions, as well as interactions, of the various interveners in that particular public policy object. In the past this has not been possible because of the lack of tools to identify, communicate with and collect data from all those interacting with an object of public policy. Web 2.0 applications have, for the first time, given rise to the real possibility of creating a ‘new consciousness’ among public policy actors, allowing policy analysts to ‘actively’ survey, observe and follow public policy interactions in real time, allowing for a new means of public policy analysis to take place

Learning Not to Think Like an Economist

This essay describes my progress bringing the core ideas of economics into conversations with noneconomists about important public policy issues within my faith community, through local politics, and through interdisciplinary conversations in academia. Thinking like an economist is essential to conducting research and performing careful analysis of public policy issues. However, it can reduce the economists’ effectiveness in teaching and interacting with neighbors and political leaders. Effective pedagogy requires that faculty be present as good economists to their neighbors, their fellow citizens, in daily conversations and public policy debates. Our continuing education as teachers of economics requires that we enter those conversations as committed students as well--committed to learning how our neighbors process economic facts and principles and how their insights into public policy debates might alter our own understanding

Learning Not to Think Like an Economist

This essay describes my progress bringing the core ideas of economics into conversations with noneconomists about important public policy issues within my faith community, through local politics, and through interdisciplinary conversations in academia. Thinking like an economist is essential to conducting research and performing careful analysis of public policy issues. However, it can reduce the economists’ effectiveness in teaching and interacting with neighbors and political leaders. Effective pedagogy requires that faculty be present as good economists to their neighbors, their fellow citizens, in daily conversations and public policy debates. Our continuing education as teachers of economics requires that we enter those conversations as committed students as well--committed to learning how our neighbors process economic facts and principles and how their insights into public policy debates might alter our own understanding

Fearless Friday: Ashley Fernandez

This week, SURGE is delighted to honor Ashley Fernandez ’16 for Fearless Friday! Ashley is a senior at Gettysburg and is majoring in Political Science and Public Policy. When asked where she’s from, Ashley usually responds “Manhattan.” When most people think of Manhattan, they think of Times Square or the Empire State Building. Ashley, however, clarifies she’s from an area of Manhattan called Washington Heights, or “Little Dominican Republic,” which is named as such for it’s large Latino community. A Latina herself, Ashley definitely felt the change between Little DR and Gettysburg College. At predominantly white college like Gettysburg, she knew she wanted to form connections with students of color, but also did not hesitate to form connections with students from all over campus. Anyone that has the pleasure of interacting with Ashley immediately feels comfortable, happy, and listened-to. [excerpt

The Behavior of U.S. Deficits

The tax-smoothing theory suggests that deficits would respond particularly to recession, temporarily high government spending, and anticipated inflation. My empirical estimates indicate that a relation of this type is reasonably stable in the U.S. since at least 1920. In particular, the statistical evidence does not support the idea that there has been a shift toward a fiscal policy that generates either more real public debt on average or that generates larger deficits in response to recessions. Further, the deficits for 1982-83 and projections for 1984 are consistent with the previous structure. The high values of these deficits reflect the customary response to substantial recession (interacting with big government) and to expected inflation.

Quality of Life in Buenos Aires Neighborhoods: Hedonic Price Regressions and the Life Satisfaction Approach

This paper studies quality of life in urban neighborhoods in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area. First, hedonic price regressions for residential prices are augmented with neighborhood characteristics, based on a real estate database with indicators on each property’s distance to public facilities and amenities, and on a smaller survey with greater detail. Second, following recent developments in the field of happiness research, the document assesses the importance of different neighborhood characteristics on quality of life by interacting objective and subjective indicators. Indices of quality of life related to local amenities are derived for the different neighborhoods for both the hedonic regression and life satisfaction approaches. The results indicate a strong but not perfect correlation between real estate prices, income levels and neighborhood characteristics, suggesting scope for welfare-improving policy interventions.

Identifying the Policy Instrument Interactions to Enable the Public Procurement of Sustainable Food

© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)A public food procurement policy has been identified as having significant potential to drive food consumption and production towards greater sustainability, delivering social, economic, environmental, and health benefits to multiple beneficiaries. However, empirical research reveals that the potential of public procurement of sustainable food (PPSF) is not currently being realised, with studies from a range of different countries identifying stubborn barriers. Situating PPSF within the complex multi-instrument setting of the broader policy system, and utilising the concept of policy interactions, can help to explain, articulate, and provide pathways to address barriers identified in empirical studies on PPSF. A desk survey of PPSF in different countries identified the range of instruments which interact with procurement policy. The findings detail PPSF instruments interacting with many other policy instruments, resulting in both positive reinforcing and negative undermining effects. Taken as a whole, these interactions suggest a ‘policy package’ of instruments which should be considered in PPSF policy design to maximise effectiveness and capitalise on its transformative potential.Peer reviewe

Engagement in public sector IT projects

Public sector information technology projects are important for delivering government policy, and one reason for their failure is lack of effective engagement between stakeholders. But current literature is unclear on what engagement is. The study examined engagement in five cases of successful project development, collecting data though documentation and semi structured interviews with internal clients and external IT consultants. Thematic and template analysis was used. Findings identified six interacting components of engagement to be three conditions of environment, participants and expertise that afford three interacting and cycling behaviours of sharing, sense making and adapting. The research thus contributes an original model of engaged behaviour that draws attention to components that help enactment of engagement between participants on IT projects