The study of policy entrepreneurs as agents of change has developed greatly in recent years, supported by increasingly more sophisticated theoretical and empirical research. In this article, we first ...consider how the concept of the policy entrepreneur can be integrated into broader theories of the policy process, with particular focus on the compatibility of the concept with the narrative policy framework. We then propose that further empirical research on policy entrepreneurs focus on five tasks: (i) delimiting policy entrepreneurs as a distinct class of actor; (ii) investigating contextual factors that encourage the emergence of policy entrepreneurs; (iii) further specifying the strategies policy entrepreneurs deploy; (iv) improving the measurement of the impact policy entrepreneurs have in the policy process; and (v) identifying when policy entrepreneurs prompt widescale change. New theoretical and empirical contributions along these lines could do much to advance our understanding of agency and structure in contemporary politics.
近年来有关政策企业家作为变革主体的研究得到了极大的发展，这些研究受到了日益复杂的理论及实证研究的支持。本文中，我们首先衡量了政策企业家这一概念如何能被融入更广的政策过程理论，尤其聚焦于此概念与叙事政策框架的兼容性。我们随后提出，有关政策企业家的实证研究聚焦于五项任务：（i）将政策企业家界定为一个独特的行为者阶层；（ii）调查鼓励政策企业家出现的背景因素；（iii）进一步确定政策企业家部署的策略；（iv）提升对政策企业家在政策过程中发挥的作用的衡量；（v）识别政策企业家何时会推动大范围变革。关于这些方向的新的理论与实证贡献能大力促进我们对当代政治中行为主体能力及架构的理解。
El estudio de los emprendedores políticos como agentes de cambio se ha desarrollado enormemente en los últimos años, respaldado por una investigación teórica y empírica cada vez más sofisticada. En este artículo, primero consideramos cómo el concepto de emprendedor de políticas puede integrarse en teorías más amplias del proceso de políticas, con un enfoque particular en la compatibilidad del concepto con el marco narrativo de políticas. Luego, proponemos que la investigación empírica adicional sobre emprendedores de políticas se centre en cinco tareas: (i) Delimitar a los emprendedores de políticas como una clase distinta de actor; (ii) Investigar factores contextuales que fomentan el surgimiento de emprendedores políticos; (iii) Especificar aún más las estrategias que implementan los emprendedores de políticas; (iv) Mejorar la medición del impacto que tienen los emprendedores en el proceso de políticas; e (v) Identificar cuándo los emprendedores de políticas impulsan un cambio a gran escala. Las nuevas contribuciones teóricas y empíricas en este sentido podrían hacer mucho para avanzar en nuestra comprensión de la agencia y la estructura en la política contemporánea.
The Swedish response to the COVID‐19 pandemic is different not only to the response of other European countries, but also to other Scandinavian countries, which are geographically proximate and ...culturally similar. The question that emerges from an analysis of the Swedish case concerns the reasons why the country chose to take such a relatively liberal crisis response to the onset of the pandemic compared to the rest of Europe. In this paper, I treat the national response to the pandemic as the outcome variable, which I seek to explain through an analysis of the intersection of dualism in the model of Swedish public administration and the devolved governance system that bestows operational autonomy on public agencies and local public authorities. The duality that characterizes the relationship between politics, policy, and administration in Sweden resulted in a response that was necessarily decentralized. The decentralized response in conjunction with high political trust among the citizenry necessitated, and was conducive to, broad guidelines. I conclude the article with a discussion placing the Swedish response in perspective for further comparative research.
摘要
瑞典对新冠肺炎大流行的响应不仅不同于其他欧洲国家，还不同于其他斯堪的纳维亚国家，后者在地理和文化上都与瑞典相似。浮现的问题则有关于瑞典选择自由式危机响应的原因。本文中，我将国家对大流行的响应作为结果变量，试图通过分析瑞典公共行政与下放治理体系（将操作自治权交予公共机构与地方公共机构）模式中二者的交集，对该变量进行诠释。瑞典政治、政策与行政之间的关系的双重性导致对危机的响应必然是去中心化的。去中心化响应加上全体公民高度的政治信任，不仅使广泛的指南成为必需，同时有益于该指南。我以一项探讨作为本文结论，这项探讨诠释了瑞典的危机响应对进一步比较研究的重要性。
Resumen
La respuesta sueca a la pandemia de COVID‐19 es diferente no solo a la respuesta de otros países europeos, sino también a la de otros países escandinavos, geográficamente próximos y culturalmente similares. La pregunta que surge se refiere a las razones por las que Suecia eligió una respuesta liberal a la crisis. En este artículo, trato la respuesta nacional a la pandemia como la variable de resultado, que busco explicar a través de un análisis de la intersección del dualismo en el modelo de administración pública sueca y el sistema de gobernanza descentralizada que otorga autonomía operativa a las agencias públicas y locales. autoridades públicas. La dualidad que caracteriza la relación entre política, política y administración en Suecia resultó en una respuesta que fue necesariamente descentralizada. La respuesta descentralizada junto con una alta confianza política entre la ciudadanía, respectivamente, requirió y condujo a lineamientos amplios. Concluyo el artículo con una discusión que coloca la respuesta sueca en perspectiva para futuras investigaciones comparativas.
The aim of the study was to access the SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroprevalence in healthcare workers (HCWs) of a tertiary pediatric hospital after the first wave of the pandemic and to compare the results ...among seven commercially available antibody detection assays, including chemiluminescence (CMIA), electroluminescence (ECLIA), Εnzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), and rapid immunochromatography (RIC). SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection was performed in serum samples of 1216 HCWs, using a reference CMIA assay and 8/1216 (0.66%) were detected positive. Positive serum samples were further tested with other assays; however, only one sample was positive by all tests. The rest 7 cases were negative with ECLIA and ELISA and gave discordant results with RIC test. Six months later, new serum samples of seropositive HCWs were analyzed with the same 7 tests, with inconsistent results again. Identification of reliable SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests is important to determine the actual number of past infections, the duration of antibodies, and guide public health decisions.
The object of policy research is the understanding of the interaction among the machinery of the state, political actors, and the public. To facilitate this understanding, a number of complementary ...theories have developed in the course of more than two decades. This article reviews recent scholarship on the established theories of the policy process, mostly published in 2011 and 2012. Additionally, scholarship extending these theories is identified and new theories of policy process are discussed. This review finds that the established theories have generated substantive scholarship during the period under review and have also been the springboard for much of the recent thinking in policy research.
Following its achievement of Self-Rule status in 2009 Greenland embarked on a series of measures to diversify its economy with an eye towards eventually gaining full independence from Denmark. ...Tourism was underlined as a key sector for reaching this goal and, consequently, over the last few years there has been a concerted effort to develop the island as an important polar destination. Significantly, the Greenlandic government created the tourism development policy for 2016-2020, which it views as a key instrument for shaping the sector's future. In this paper, we adopted a policy network approach to determine the relational architecture among various stakeholders from the public and private sectors who are seen as relevant to tourism's development. Inter alia, we examined how these actors were linked to each other while examining what kind of tourism networks existed in Greenland and what obstacles might hinder or foster their formation. A thematic analysis of qualitative data on Atlas.ti reveals that though there exist networks in the Greenlandic tourism sector, they are not policy networks and that the Greenlandic government's approach to developing this tourism policy has been top-down, reflecting a 'government' rather than a 'governance' approach. Barriers to the formation of policy networks included lack of a shared image for the future; lack of trust among actors; lack of time and spatial fragmentation hindering iterative interactions, and lack of institutional enabling of information and knowledge sharing.
To determine the predominant strains of Bordetella pertussis in Greece during 2010-2015.
Infants and children (n=1150) (15 days to 14 years) of Greek, Roma and immigrant origin with different ...vaccination statuses were hospitalized in Athens, Greece with suspected pertussis infection. IS481/IS1001 real-time PCR confirmed Bordetella spp./B. pertussis infection in 300 samples. A subset of samples (n=153) were analysed by multi-locus variable number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) and (n=25) by sequence-based typing of the toxin promotor region (ptxP) on DNA extracted from clinical specimens.Results/Key findings. A complete MLVA profile was determined in 66 out of 153 samples; the B. pertussis MLVA type 27 (n=55) was the dominant genotype and all tested samples (n=25) expressed the ptxP3 genotype. The vaccine coverage in the Greek population was 90 %; however, the study population expressed complete coverage in 2 out of 264 infants (0-11 months) and in 20 out of 36 children (1-14 years). Roma and immigrant minorities represent 7 % of the Greek population, but make up 50 % of the study population, indicating a low vaccine coverage among these groups.
The B. pertussis MT27 and ptxP3 genotype is dominant in Greek, Roma and immigrant infants and children hospitalized in Greece. Thus, the predominant MLVA genotype in Greece is similar to other countries using acellular vaccines.
In this article, we investigate the leadership response to the COVID‐19 pandemic crisis in Greece and Sweden based on the strategic leadership framework put forth by Boin, 't Hart, Stern and ...Sundelius. We seek to understand the contextual (institutional, administrative and political) factors explaining the differences in stringency of measures and centralization of response in Greece and Sweden, respectively. What trade‐offs did public leaders implement between effectiveness and efficiency to successfully manage the crisis? We find that reliance on expertise plays out differently in centralized and decentralized structure, while a salient lesson drawn for practitioners is that there is more than one path to successful crisis leadership response contingent on institutional capacity, bureaucratic autonomy and political system. The article concludes with implications for leadership response during crises and practical lessons for crisis managers.
Central to policies relating to risk governance at the regional and local levels is the interaction between the public and private sectors also referred to as networked governance. At the same time, ...the role of political actors in general and policy entrepreneurs in particular, in terms of policy change, has gained considerable traction in recent policy scholarship. The purpose of this study was to investigate the change in governance arrangements resulting in the formation of a coordination network in regional flood risk management-the first of its kind in Sweden. Our research is guided by the following questions: first, would the policy change (the establishment of the networks)have taken place if a policy entrepreneur were not part of the policy transfer process? Second, what is the role of policy entrepreneurship in the implementation of the policy after its nationwide adoption? Third, what other factors played a role in the variation of the results in the implemented policy that is, the enforced networks? We find the role of a policy entrepreneur key in the policy transfer from the regional to the national level. In order to investigate the resultant networks, we draw from B. Guy Peters (1998) and his conceptualization of factors which affect the politics of coordination. In addition to the presence of a policy entrepreneur, we compare: (i) pluriformity of network members;(ii) member interdependence; (iii) redundancy of structures, and (iv) degree of formality (in terms of meetings). Our findings suggest that entrepreneurs contribute to the variation in the functionality of the enforced river groups, though other factors play a significant role as well.Most importantly, perhaps, we did not identify entrepreneurs in any of the river groups which were not functional.
Abstract
In their efforts to affect policy change, policy entrepreneurs employ a series of strategies, which have been well documented in the literature. However, little is known regarding the ...relationship between the types of strategies policy entrepreneurs use and the institutional contexts in which they operate. The Interreg Europe programme aims to promote policy changes and thus offers a space for policy learning and experimentation to policy entrepreneurs. Using a mixed methodology that includes a survey addressed to the sixty-five Interreg Europe projects in research and innovation during the programming period 2014–20 and twelve follow-up semi-structured interviews, this article explores the strategies used by policy entrepreneurs in different institutional contexts. The study, rare in the policy entrepreneurship scholarship with its quantitative aspects, highlights the most widely-used strategies by policy entrepreneurs in research and innovation policy changes. Findings suggest that the strategy of storytelling is more widely used in high-innovator regions than in low-innovator regions and in Northern European regions compared to Southern European regions. Moreover, policy entrepreneurs who employ the storytelling strategy find it easier to introduce a policy change.
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