Recycling bins, garbage cans or think tanks? Three myths regarding policy analysis institutes

The phrase 'think tank' has become ubiquitous – overworked and underspecified – in the political lexicon. It is entrenched in scholarly discussions of public policy as well as in the 'policy wonk' of journalists, lobbyists and spin-doctors. This does not mean that there is an agreed definition of think tank or consensual understanding of their roles and functions. Nevertheless, the majority of organizations with this label undertake policy research of some kind. The idea of think tanks as a research communication 'bridge' presupposes that there are discernible boundaries between (social) science and policy. This paper will investigate some of these boundaries. The frontiers are not only organizational and legal; they also exist in how the 'public interest' is conceived by these bodies and their financiers. Moreover, the social interactions and exchanges involved in 'bridging', themselves muddy the conception of 'boundary', allowing for analysis to go beyond the dualism imposed in seeing science on one side of the bridge, and the state on the other, to address the complex relations between experts and public policy

Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language

This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin

Re-visiting Meltsner: Policy Advice Systems and the Multi-Dimensional Nature of Professional Policy Analysis

10.2139/ssrn.15462511-2

The STRESS-NL database: A resource for human acute stress studies across the Netherlands

Stress initiates a cascade of (neuro)biological, physiological, and behavioral changes, allowing us to respond to a challenging environment. The human response to acute stress can be studied in detail in controlled settings, usually in a laboratory environment. To this end, many studies employ acute stress paradigms to probe stress-related outcomes in healthy and patient populations. Though valuable, these studies in themselves often have relatively limited sample sizes. We established a data-sharing and collaborative interdisciplinary initiative, the STRESS-NL database, which combines (neuro)biological, physiological, and behavioral data across many acute stress studies in order to accelerate our understanding of the human acute stress response in health and disease (www.stressdatabase.eu). Researchers in the stress field from 12 Dutch research groups of 6 Dutch universities created a database to achieve an accurate inventory of (neuro)biological, physiological, and behavioral data from laboratory-based human studies that used acute stress tests. Currently, the STRESS-NL database consists of information on 5529 individual participants (2281 females and 3348 males, age range 6-99 years, mean age 27.7 ± 16 years) stemming from 57 experiments described in 42 independent studies. Studies often did not use the same stress paradigm; outcomes were different and measured at different time points. All studies currently included in the database assessed cortisol levels before, during and after experimental stress, but cortisol measurement will not be a strict requirement for future study inclusion. Here, we report on the creation of the STRESS-NL database and infrastructure to illustrate the potential of accumulating and combining existing data to allow meta-analytical, proof-of-principle analyses. The STRESS-NL database creates a framework that enables human stress research to take new avenues in explorative and hypothesis-driven data analyses with high statistical power. Future steps could be to incorporate new studies beyond the borders of the Netherlands; or build similar databases for experimental stress studies in rodents. In our view, there are major scientific benefits in initiating and maintaining such international efforts

Permanent technological unemployment reconsidered

This thesis consists primarily of a critical review of recent literature on the subject of the employment effects of technological change. The analysis of this literature is derived from a 1942 article by Hans P. Neisser, directed against the orthodox denials of the possibility that technological progress could cause "permanent" or unreabsorbed displacement of labour. Arguments classified under one of the Say's Law, neoclassical, or wage fund schools are examined using the Neisser framework. As a secondary aspect, some elaboration is undertaken of the process by which uncompensated technological unemployment could arise. The main conclusion made is that, in agreement with Neisser's appraisal of the literature of his time, modern economic analysis is not able to refute the theoretical possibility that technological change can lead to the creation of a persistent pool of unemployed labour as outlined a by the Marxian schema

Policy Coordination in Federal Systems: Comparing Intergovernmental Processes and Outcomes in Canada and the United States

Federations exist to divide power and to promote diversity. Nonetheless, in federations interdependence requires degrees of policy coordination across governments. We examine two means of coordinating policies in the U.S. and Canadian federations: administrative and jurisdictional federalism. The former, with its centralized coordinative mechanisms, is thought to produce more uniform national policy outcomes; the latter, operating in the context of non-hierarchical relationships, greater policy variation. An analysis of cases in three policy areas in both countries indicates that despite contrasting coordinative practices, outcomes in actual policies implemented in the two federations are relatively similar. Hierarchical administrative federalism in the United States does not always produce the degree of coordination one might anticipate while a decentralized non-hierarchical system in Canada can achieve surprising degrees of coordination. Copyright 2010, Oxford University Press.