Localities and infrastructures in science, technology, and environmental policy making

Abstract

When national and subnational governments adopt policies to address challenges in science, technology, and environment, policy success depends on the extent to which these are implemented. At this point, localities and infrastructures are crucial to achieve the policy objectives associated with measures, and to sustain the developments that gear to improvements in environmental preservation as well as scientific and technological advances. The articles included in this Review of Policy Research (RPR) issue address these structures, and the drivers and barriers they present:Lerner (2021) opens this issue by answering a central question of implementation research, namely why local governments are differently willing to allow renewable energy sites in their county. Focusing on 1603 counties in 23 US states, he finds important influences of lobbying by wind developers and wind energy regulations in neighboring counties on local policies. A policy area that is-similar to wind energy regulation-subject to local authority is that of cannabis governance. Kavousi et al. (2021) review the challenges and opportunities put forward in scholarly and media publications and make informed conclusions for researchers and practitioners around cannabis policy.At the intersection of local governance and infrastructure provided by public and private entities, Scott et al. ( 2022) analyze how the ownership type of gas distributors affects infrastructure quality and methane emissions, and whether this environmental policy performance varies by regional provider concentration. They argue that publicly owned providers underperform, mainly because of barriers to raising prices and funding capital investment. Besides infrastructure for energy provision, a central type of infrastructure that is indispensable in contemporary life is telecommunications. Conceptualizing it as the independent variable Donou-Adonsou et al. (2021) show how the effect of an increasing number of competing firms on increased corruption is reversed in countries with e-governance. Finally, besides the infrastructure relevant to environmental policy and technology, the scientific infrastructure plays a key role in policy making. Baxter et al. (2021) investigate the nuclear research community in North Korea and outline improvements in consolidation, knowledge transfer, and research collaborations, providing interesting insights into a geographically under-researched country.