Bureaucratic entrepreneurship and morality politics: Dividing lines within the state

Based on a qualitative and quantitative research design, this article examines the implementation of a morality policy—the medical cannabis policy in Switzerland—to investigate three understudied aspects of bureaucratic entrepreneurship. First, moving away from mono-professional studies, the focus is on a policy characterized by a dispute between two groups of bureaucrats: physicians and jurists. Second, key conditions triggering bureaucratic policy entrepreneurship are identified, with a focus on mid-level administrative entrepreneurs. Third, vertical alliances between bureaucrats and politicians of the executive and legislative branches are examined and these processes are reflected in the wider perspective of the politics-administration dichotomy. Results show that law obsolescence, disputes between groups of bureaucrats and the need for political arbitration are favorable conditions for bureaucratic policy entrepreneurship. The study also shows that within the traditional separation of powers, bureaucratic entrepreneurship reinforces the executive power and creates dividing lines within the different branches of government

Three years of COVID-19 pandemic: Coping with crisis governance in the long term

This special issue of European Policy Analysis on COVID-19 policies follows two previous ones addressing that topic. The first one was published in the fall 2020 to examine the initial reactions of governments to the shock of the crisis (Colfer, 2020), and the second one in fall 2022, to analyze how governance processes had evolved with the prolongation of the crisis (Malandrino & Mavrot, 2022). This spring 2023 marks the 3rd year of the pandemic, which gives us even more hindsight to assess the questions raised by one of the most challenging public health events faced by nations worldwide in the recent past. This new special issues hence gathers contributions that address key transversal issues related to pandemic management: how to integrate scientific evidence into crisis management, and whether the inclusion of evidence even guarantees good outcomes. Is there a national administrative style that can help explain the output performance of crisis management? What does policy learning look like when the policy cycle happens within a reduced timeframe and under high political pressure? How legitimate are the policy instruments implemented during the pandemic in the public's eyes? The questions raised in this special issue are key not only to studying the crash test the pandemic has represented for governments and democracies but also to drawing lessons for future crises that wait around the corner. These crises will no doubt share some common characteristic with the COVID-19 pandemic: the need for arbitration between various policy requirements (e.g., somatic and psychological health needs, public health and the economy), the challenge of adopting sustainable governance principles in the general context of political short-termism, finding a balance between decisive public action and the requirement of democratic processes, the integration of scientific evidence into policy-making processes and the necessity of fighting against skepticism (e.g., corona-skepticism, climate-skepticism)

The local tackling of global issues: a governance paradox in federal states

This study focuses on a paradox of federalism. In disputed policy issues, subnational government units can initiate bottom-up policy change while the federal government remains inactive. This typically occurs in public health or climate change fields, where there might be a mismatch between the required and the effective scale of action. In such cases, subnational entities bear the costs of a politically risky action to produce a higher-level public good. Based on a study of tobacco control in 14 Swiss member states, we investigate why some subnational governments take the lead, while others adopt a wait-and-see attitude. We find a set of four configurations favourable to state activism (window of opportunity effect, reallocation effect, innovative identity effect, regionalisation effect) and four unfavourable (municipal resource burden effect, diffusion of responsibility effect, local autonomy effect, economic dependency effect). These bottom-up dynamics are crucial for understanding collaborative policy processes

Blame-avoidance and fragmented crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland

This article studies how the prolonged pandemic situation impacted crisis governance in the federalized governance system of Switzerland. It examines how in this acute crisis situation, the responsibility for decision-making fluctuated among governance levels, placing subnational states in a situation of uncertainty that caused a fragmented crisis management, and therefore suboptimal policy learning processes. The study is based on the case of COVID-19 governance in Switzerland, where, as in many other European countries, the management of the first pandemic wave was very centralized. However, the federal government avoided taking a strong lead during the subsequent waves. Consequently, pandemic management was marked by numerous fluctuations regarding who was in charge of the main COVID-19 decisions between the federal and subnational governance levels. A media analysis (February 2020–March 2022) and an analysis of the gray literature show that crisis governance and policy learning processes were scattered across levels of governance, which impeded the accumulation of knowledge and know-how. The article analyses how crises can give way to blame games between the levels of governance, thus hampering a coordinated crisis management and policy learning processes across the different stages of the pandemic

Blood, sweat, and cannabis: real-world policy evaluation of controversial issues

The motivation of this article is to address the ambivalent position of policy analysis when it intervenes in the real-world policy process through policy evaluation. It tackles the underresearched question of the challenges faced by policy analysis in relation to applied research mandates. It argues that policy analysis is constantly at risk of instrumentalisation by politico-administrative players. The article is based on the evaluation of the medical cannabis policy in Switzerland as a case study. The results point out four specific challenges faced by applied policy analysis: political pressure, scientific integrity, access to sensitive data, and epistemic legitimacy. However, applied policy analysis can contribute to de-escalating controversies by presenting a bigger and contextualised picture of the considered political issues. Policy evaluation can identify deficient implementation processes, but also wider mismatches among legislative and societal processes. Hence, although evidence is subordinated to other factors in the decision-making process, evaluations provide an outside perspective, which can help solving controversies around policies. The article contributes to the literature on the politics of policy analysis by showing that confronting policy analysis with practical problems brings both scientific and policy benefits

The Implementation of a Campus Police in Greece. A Breach of the Anti-authoritarian Historical Heritage of Greek Universities : Interview with Filippa Chatzistavrou and Yiorgos Vassalos

Émulations received Filippa Chatzistavrou and Yiorgos Vassalos for an interview on the events currently happening in Greek higher education institutions. Invoking law-and-order purposes, Greek authorities have recently decided to introduce a police corps to public universities. This breach in universities’ autonomy has prompted numerous criticisms and mobilizations of Greek students and university staff. Filippa Chatzistavrou and Yiorgos Vassalos shed light on these events and examine them in the context of the Greek financial crisis and the subsequent privatization trend. Publié: 2023-09-04 Comment citer: Chatzistavrou, F., Vassalos, Y. . et Mavrot, C. (2023) « The Implementation of a Campus Police in Greece. A Breach of the Anti-authoritarian Historical Heritage of Greek Universities: Interview with Filippa Chatzistavrou and Yiorgos Vassalos », Emulations - Revue de sciences sociales, 997. doi: 10.14428/emulations.interviews.05 . Numéro: Rubrique Entretien

Effect of gastro-intestinal nematode infection on sheep performance: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Gastrointestinal nematode (GIN) infections are common in domestic sheep and impact directly and indirectly on the health of infected animals as well as on the associated economic production. In this study, we aim at summarizing the current knowledge on the influence of GIN infections on sheep production by conducting a systematic review. A subsequent meta-analysis of relevant studies was performed to provide an estimate of the effect of GIN infections on weight gain, wool production and milk yield. Methods: A literature search was performed on the CAB, Pubmed and Web of Science database for the period 1960–2012. Inclusion criteria were: 1) Measurement of at least one production parameter. 2) Comparison between groups of sheep with different nematode burdens. 3) Same conditions regarding all aspects except parasite burden between groups. 4) Quantitative measurements of one or more production traits. Results: Altogether, 88 studies describing 218 trials were included in this review. The majority of studies (86 %) reported that GIN infections had a negative effect on production but this was reported to be statistically significant in only 43 % of the studies. Meta-analysis indicated that performances of sheep infected with nematodes was 85, 90 and 78 % of the performance in uninfected individuals for weight gain, wool production and milk yield respectively. Our results suggest a possible reporting bias or small study effect for the estimation of the impact of GIN infections on weight gain. Finally, a general linear model provided an estimate for the decrease in weight gain in relation to the increase in faecal egg count of nematodes. Conclusion: This study underlines the importance of GIN infections for sheep production and highlights the need to improve parasite management in sheep, in particular in face of challenges such as anthelmintic resistance. Keywords: Sheep, Gastro-intestinal nematodes, Impact, Weight, Wool, Milk, Productio

Confronting theories of European integration: A comparative congruence analysis of veterinary drugs regulations in five countries

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis (Routledge) via the DOI in this record.This study moves beyond current perspectives of European Union implementation research to paint a comprehensive picture of the fine-tuning of domestic regulations beyond compliance. It compares the hitherto unexplored veterinary drug regulations of four member states, France, Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom, with those of the non-member Switzerland. It links causal mechanisms back to three differing theoretical assumptions about European integration. These theories are confronted using congruence analysis in a comparative case study design. Evidence is found for historical institutionalism and for the domestic politics hypothesis. The assumption of a neo-functionalist development of regulations is only weakly supported

Évaluation : l’indépendance à l’épreuve de la relation entre mandants et mandataires

L’article suivant rend compte des résultats d’un atelier tenu à l’occasion du congrès 2015 de la SEVAL. L’atelier portait sur l’indépendance des évaluateurs et des évaluatrices du point de vue de leur relation avec les commanditaires de l’évaluation. Sur la base d’un exemple de mandat concret présenté par deux intervenants – l’évaluatrice ainsi que le conseiller d’État mandant de l’évaluation en question – les différents garde-fous contractuels, communicationnels et procéduraux aptes à garantir une pleine indépendance de l’évaluation ont été discutés. Il en est ressorti que quatre dimensions étaient cruciales pour le succès de la démarche : les conditions-cadres de l’évaluation, la récolte des données, les relations avec les évalués, ainsi que la phase de restitution des résultats