Capitalising on constraint

Understanding successful policy innovation: The case of Portuguese drug policy

“…Of course, the wealth of nations vary from one political system to another and, as the hypothesis goes, richer countries will be better able to innovate [50]. However, governments are generally pressured by international actors, such as the European Union (EU) and investors, to keep their accounts balanced [51,52].…”

“…see Rychert & Wilkins about prohibitionist policies) [18]. Intermediary factors in the motivation to innovate are the perceived opinion of the public (the 'public mood'), in particular of the party's constituency on a given matter [22,27,52,58]; and/or the pressure by powerful groups or international organizations for action or inaction (e.g. the alcohol or cannabis industry) [18].…”

“…The law, however, makes Portugal unique in having a formal system that directs the person using drugs to a panel under the purview of the Ministry of Health, as opposed to the Ministry of Justice (interview with B. Hughes by Catherine Moury, 2021). The fundamental innovation of Law no.…”

Social Policy in Changing European Societies

“…Drawing from these changes which deeply reshaped the institutional framework, the literature started to consider not only the impact of soft social OMCs but also the joint effects of the EMU criteria and softer recommendations, as well as tougher types of conditionality on welfare reforms (Hassenteufel & Palier, 2014;Pavolini et al, 2014;Sacchi, 2014;Theodoropoulou, 2014;Moury et al, 2021). Thus, there was a shift from focusing on individual OMCs and their impact to considering the impact of joint EU processes on welfare states, including pensions and labour market policy (especially through EMU constraint), but also childcare and family policies (through softer social processes).…”

“…Although it is through domestic politics that decisions about pension reform were made, a country's economic vulnerability has been an important condition enabling decision making (De la Porte & Natali, 2014;Hassenteufel & Palier, 2014). Domestic actors made decisions in the shadow of financial markets and the threat of negative ratings by credit-rating agencies, which represented important intervening factors in reform politics (Pavolini et al, 2014;Sacchi, 2014;Dukelow, 2015;Moury et al, 2021). Even in countries subject to the agreements signed with the 'Troika', 1 domestic politicians were able to negotiate which reforms to pursue.…”