Category: politics

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Policy-taking styles: a typology and an empirical application to anti-Covid policies

Several studies have investigated the variety of governance strategies adopted by European countries to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic. Some nations relied on a more liberal approach, based on recommendations and a lack of mandatory constraints; others trusted more top-down regulations and longlasting restrictions. The feasibility and success of the different strategies also depend on the way in which policy-takers react. 

The article uses this exemplary policy case to propose a novel theoretical framework which maps the variety of policy-taking styles applying March and Olsen’s (2006) logics of conditionality and appropriateness. Using mobility data, it then employs the new typology to explore the diverse styles adopted by policy-takers reacting to anti-Covid workplace regulations in 29 European countries. The categories proposed can be applied also in different contexts, especially where policy success crucially depends on countless individual behaviours, and policymakers need to choose the most effective mix of enforcement tools.

Marco Giuliani (2024): Policy-taking styles: a typology and an empirical application to anti-Covid policies, Journal of European Public Policy 31(7): 1831-1855. 

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Voting between two global crises. A NUTS3-level analysis of retrospective voting in four South-European countries

Vote

Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain went several times to the polls during the 2010–2019 decade. It was a period characterised by the strenuous effort to recover the economic situation before the onset of the Great Recession; an effort, however, often constrained by externally imposed austerity policies, and by a refugee crisis that contributed to the growing salience of the immigration issue. The article adopts an original sub-national approach to examine if and how the economic situation and the incidence of immigration affected the electoral outcomes in the four South-European countries. Adopting a theory of retrospective behaviour, the research reported in the article confirms the association between employment and immigration levels, on the one hand, and punishment of the incumbent government on the other. However, the electoral effects of immigration are conditioned by the partisan composition of the government and, under centre-right cabinets, are aggravated by a negative economic conjuncture.

Marco Giuliani (2023). Voting between two global crises. A NUTS3-level analysis of retrospective voting in four South-European countries, Italian Political Science Review, 53(1): 68–84, DOI: 10.1017/ipo.2022.9

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Twelve Votes for an Exit: Compromise and Responsiveness in the Brexit Process

johnson

Brexit has been at the centre of the last two British elections and the past legislative term. The UK’s exit from the European Union was characterized by a series of parliamentary setbacks, with several government defeats, continuous rebellions and cross-party agreements made to secure control of the agenda. In the research reported in this article, we analyse the parliamentary Brexit process through careful examination of the 12 indicative votes held in Westminster in 2019 to find an alternative solution to Theresa May’s exit agreement. We map the choices of each MP along two relevant dimensions, connecting them to the socioeconomic structure of their constituencies as well as to the preferences expressed in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Moreover, we associate these parliamentary behaviours – and thus MPs’ attitudes towards compromise and responsiveness – to the gains and losses experienced during the subsequent 2019 general election.

Giuliani, M. (2023). Twelve Votes for an Exit: Compromise and Responsiveness in the Brexit Process. Government and Opposition. An International Journal of Comparative Politics, 58(4): 682-701. doi:10.1017/gov.2021.61

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