Does Federalism Matter? Evaluating State Architecture and Family and Domestic Violence Policy in Australia and New Zealand

Chappell, Louise; Curtin, Jennifer

doi:10.1093/publius/pjs030

Cited by 36 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…There were various reasons: increased market inequalities, changes in the role of the state in taxing and spending, and changes in the nature and regulation of the labour market that weakened the power of trade unions to bargain collectively. In very recent times, inequality has become more prominent in the public debate, with varying responses from the political parties and with the current National Government often tending to address legal inequalities rather than the substantive inequalities that require budgetary commitments or state regulation in the market (Chappell and Curtin 2013).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2 His position sat at odds with National's long-standing position on family and sexual violence that was a key feature of its women's affairs policy in 2014 (Chappell and Curtin 2013;Hosking 2014b). In contrast to its 2011 campaign to 'crack down' on sole parent beneficiaries, National's Women's Affairs Policy in 2014 was more positive, including commitments to increasing paid parental leave, family tax credits, offering free doctors' visits and prescriptions for children as well as broader rhetorical commitments to advance women's economic independence and representation on boards through the Ministry of Women's Affairs (National Party 2014b).…”

Section: Gender Gaps In Party Choice and Political Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Bark But No Bite: Inequality and the 2014 New Zealand General Election

Vowles¹,

Coffé²,

Curtin³

2017

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender Gaps In Party Choice and Political Attitudesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Bark But No Bite: Inequality and the 2014 New Zealand General Election

Vowles¹,

Coffé²,

Curtin³

2017

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“…In contrast, other scholars found the following three advantages of federal political systems compared to unitary ones (for an overview see Nice 1987;Adler 2005: 139-157): first, fragmented responsibilities and duplicities do not have to result in delays or races to the bottom. They may also trigger experimentation, mutual learning and a positive competition (or a race to the top) by diffusing policy innovations between sub-national entities (Kloepfer 2004: 761;Chappell and Curtin 2012;Millimet 2013). Second, functionalist and economic approaches (in particular, the fiscal federalism approach) emphasise that regional autonomy can enhance the flexibility and the fine-tuning of federal policies to regional specifics (Keman 2000;Adler 2005;Jahn and Wälti 2007: 263).…”

Section: Federalism and Policy Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mitigating climate change in a federal country committed to the Kyoto Protocol: how Swiss federalism further complicated an already complex challenge

Casado‐Asensio

Steurer

2016

Policy Sci

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When policy scholars assess the effects of federalism on climate change mitigation, they often look at countries that rejected binding commitments (in particular, the USA) and find that federalism enabled sub-national entities to partly fill national regulatory voids. In accordance with a similar case study on Austria, we find the exact opposite for Switzerland, a country that committed itself to an 8 % cut in 1990 greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. To reveal the detrimental effects of federalism, we focus our case study on the integration of climate change concerns into building policies, a policy field fully in the hands of Swiss sub-national authorities known as cantons. Apart from a few pioneer cantons, we found mainly federal departments concerned with integrating climate change mitigation into cantonal building policies and cantonal as well as federal actors struggling with the numerous pitfalls of Swiss federalism in their own ways. On the one hand, various federal departments tried repeatedly to facilitate a nationwide greening of cantonal building policies, and their interventions often resulted in lowest common denominator solutions that were difficult to improve once in place. On the other hand, Swiss federalism gave a few pioneer cantons the freedom to green their building policies early on, but their policies hardly diffused to other cantons. Resembling our main finding of the Austrian case study, we conclude that the 15 % emission decline in the Swiss building sector during 2008-2012 compared to 1990 levels happened despite, not because of Swiss federalism. This warrants caution against high hopes in assuming that decentralised or polycentric governance can fully compensate for failed national (or international) climate policies.

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“…In contrast, other scholars found the following three advantages of federal political systems compared to unitary ones (for an overview see Nice, ; Adler, ): first, fragmented responsibilities and duplicities do not have to result in delays or races to the bottom. They may also trigger experimentation, mutual learning and a positive competition (or a race to the top) by diffusing policy innovations between sub‐national entities (Kloepfer, ; Chappell and Curtin ; Millimet, ), sometimes in interaction with federal authorities (Carlson, ). Second, functionalist approaches emphasize that federalism promotes the flexibility and the fine‐tuning of national policies to regional specifics, an advantage particularly important in large, incoherent countries (Keman, ; Adler, ; Jahn and Wälti, ).…”

Section: Climate Policy Integration and Federalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate change mitigation in Austria and Switzerland: The pitfalls of federalism in greening decentralized building policies

Steurer

Clar

Casado‐Asensio

2019

Natural Resources Forum

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The present paper analyses and compares how federalism in Austria and Switzerland affected climate change mitigation in the fully decentralized building sectors of the two countries during the Kyoto Period (1990–2012). This is of interest because the environmental significance of federal political systems is still contested. We first review the literature on federalism in the context of environmental and climate policymaking, and we show that the effects of federal political systems can be positive or negative (depending on interactions between politics and problem characteristics). We then summarize the two qualitative country studies. By analysing who initiated and coordinated respective policies at what time and why, we show that respective policy changes neither emerged bottom‐up nor diffused between provinces/cantons, although the latter are fully responsible for building policies. While most policy changes were triggered by federal and/or European Union interventions, the provinces/cantons usually delayed and/or watered down policy changes to smallest common denominator solutions. Based on these findings we conclude that the building sectors of the two countries became more efficient despite, not because of federalism. Against this background we recommend centralizing building policies, or to engage sub‐national actors in national target‐setting early on.

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Does Federalism Matter? Evaluating State Architecture and Family and Domestic Violence Policy in Australia and New Zealand

Cited by 36 publications

References 15 publications

A Bark But No Bite: Inequality and the 2014 New Zealand General Election

A Bark But No Bite: Inequality and the 2014 New Zealand General Election

Mitigating climate change in a federal country committed to the Kyoto Protocol: how Swiss federalism further complicated an already complex challenge

Climate change mitigation in Austria and Switzerland: The pitfalls of federalism in greening decentralized building policies

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