Policy Styles and Degenerative Politics: Poverty Policy Designs in Newfoundland and Quebec

Abstract

This article examines the proposal suggesting that policy designs are consistent with the social construction of target groups. Associated with policy design theory, the proposal pessimistically suggests that underprivileged citizens will be targeted with policies that do little to help them, creating a vicious circle of degenerative politics. This article argues that the prevalence of degenerative politics depends on policy styles. Significant where the adversarial style prevails, degenerative politics is less common in consensual systems. This proposal is examined through a systematic content analysis of action plans to reduce poverty in Newfoundland and Quebec.

Dissecting Policy Designs: An Application of the Institutional Grammar Tool

“…The theoretical analysis and interpretation of the resulting data may be informed by a wide variety of policy process models, theories, and/or frameworks. For example, scholars applying the social construction framework may find it most useful to configure the coded data around sanctions, or Or else components, in relation to different actor categories presented in the policy document to understand how benefits and burdens are distributed across different policies (Mondou & Montpetit, 2010; Schneider & Ingram, 1997). Further, data could be configured to support the application of agent‐based models that seek to understand how policies shape actors' individual and aggregated decision‐making behaviors (Janssen, 2005; Smajgl et al., 2008).…”

Social Construction and Policy Design: A Review of Past Applications

“…Demonstrating an international interest in the theory, we found authors to be affiliated with universities in 12 different countries, including the United States. The non-U.S. list includes: Australia (e.g., Neff, 2012), Canada (e.g., Mondou & Montpetit, 2010), Denmark (e.g., Jørgensen & Thomsen, 2012), France (e.g., Montpetit, Rothmayr, & Varone, 2005), Ireland (e.g., Hynes & Hayes, 2011), Mexico (e.g., Lage, 2012), the Netherlands (e.g., Hoppe, 2010), South Korea (e.g., Park & Wilding, 2013), Sweden (e.g., Upmark, Hagberg, & Alexanderson, 2011), Switzerland (e.g., Montpetit et al, 2005), and the UK (e.g., Toivonen, 2011. It is evident that this theory is being applied by a diverse crowd of authors in a wide range of publication outlets.…”

Policy Design and Non-Design: Towards a Spectrum of Policy Formulation Types

“…Researchers also looked at how policy instrument choices tended to shift over time (Lowi, 1966(Lowi, , 1972(Lowi, , 1985, examples of which during this period included the rise of privatization and deregulation (Howlett & Ramesh, 1993) and the first wave of governance thinking advocating the use of network management or nongovernmental tools (Peters & Pierre, 1998). 5 Subsequent contributions would further advance the study of the behavioural aspects of the design process and raised the issue of the difference between design and non-design to the fore (Hood, 2007;Ingram & Schneider, 1990a;Mondou & Montpetit, 2010;Schneider & Ingram, 1997;Timmermans, Rothmayr, Serduelt, &Varone, 1998). At this time, for example, Bardach (1980) and Salamon (1981) went so far as to argue that the definition of policy in terms of "issues" or "prob-a greater understanding of implementation instruments and the factors underlying instrument choice would benefit policy design both as a practice and a theoretical body of knowledge, contributing to more positive policy outcomes (Linder & Peters, 1984;Mayntz, 1979;Woodside, 1986).…”