Letter from the Editor

 

Greetings.  As you can see, Policy Currents is coming to you electronically rather than by mail.  I think you will find that the shift from paper to electrons has had no affect on the quality of essays that are included in the newsletter.  These two essays ask us to rethink important aspects of public policy research. 

The first, by Nikos Zahariadis, is an effort to reenergize the conduct of comparative public policy. His thesis fundamentally is that scholars need to engage in a serious discussion of the enterprise of comparative policy research.  He argues that too many of the models of the policy process are implicitly driven by the American experience.  He also argues that the inertia endemic in academic departments contributes to the neglect of sustained, careful comparative research.  Building truly comparative models, however, poses difficult challenges.  His essay ranges over methodological, as well as conceptual, problems in drawing comparisons across different countries.

The second essay, by Mike Fotos, takes to task one of the fundamental assumptions of the Sabatier/Jenkins-Smith advocacy coalition framework.  He argues that self-interest, not a common belief system, is the glue that holds together the groups that comprise advocacy coalitions.  The basis for this argument is his research on the coalitions that contend with one another to influence surface mining policies in American states.  By analyzing belief statements of groups as a form of “branding,” he asserts that such statements are adopted strategically to better enable groups to overcome their own internal collective action problems and to obtain resources from potential donors.  At its core, this view holds that beliefs should be understood as part of the “strategic calculus” of groups, and thus that shared or common interests are the fundamental force that cause groups to coordinate their behaviors in advocacy coalitions.      

Both of these essays raise important issues relating to how we think about policy research. I suspect that both these essays will provoke some of you to consider how you might respond to these issues. If you would like to respond to either of these essays, please contact me at kbickers@indiana.edu.

This issue also begins a series of reports on the research and teaching activities of policy section members.  This first report, authored by Brian Shoup, gives a basic profile of information on types of institutions where members are employed, the types of degrees held by members, and the overall experience of section members in their current profession.  In subsequent issues of the newsletter, we will have reports on the likelihood of hiring faculty to engage in public policy research and the types of teaching and research interests most likely to be desired in those new faculty positions, on pedagogical approaches utilized across different programs, and on your views of the most important books and articles in the policy field.

 

Policy Currents in an Electronic Medium

I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss the shift of the newsletter from a paper medium to an electronic medium.  At the annual section meeting in Washington, DC, in August, there was considerable discussion of whether or not the newsletter should be published over the web or should continue to be published in a paper form.  While not unanimous, the outcome of that meeting was the recommendation that Mark Schneider, the President of the section, appoint a committee that would examine the issues involved in moving the newsletter onto the web and, if feasible, to undertake that move.  The committee appointed by Mark was comprised of Rick Feiock, for several years the unofficial webmaster of the section’s website, Hank Jenkins-Smith, the most recent editor of the newsletter, and me, the current editor of the newsletter.  As a committee, Rick, Hank, and I discussed in detail what we took to be the major issues involved in publishing the newsletter electronically.  We identified several issues. 

Among the concerns, there were basically four.  First, we were worried about the perception of Policy Currents among section members and within the academic community more generally.  The newsletter has achieved recognition as an important outlet for essays on scholarship related to policy research.  Would electronic publication diminish this reputation or the visibility of Policy Currents?  We were uncertain, in part because it is possible that electronic publication might actually enhance its visibility, rather than the opposite.  Second, would migration toward electronic publication stunt the natural evolution, if there is any, of the newsletter into a full-blown refereed journal that is devoted to policy research?  Again, we were, and are, uncertain on this.  We were not of one mind that this type of evolution, though it has occurred in some of the APSA sections, should be viewed as inevitable for Policy Currents.  Moreover, we were far from certain that this evolutionary process, if it exists, is effected one or another by a movement of the newsletter to the web.  Third, we worried about the fact that Policy Currents, available publicly and for free over the web, would constitute a pure public good.  To what extent would this reduce the incentive for current and potential members of the policy section to pay their annual five-dollar membership dues to join the section?  Again, we weren’t certain, but clearly this is a concern.  I’ll come back to this concern below.  Fourth, we worried about the issue of transferring the newsletter from editor to editor over time.  One thing we were certain about was that we could not expect section members to go through all of their bookmarks and webpages to change the URL for Policy Currents every time officers change or a new editor is selected. 

Despite these concerns, it was our view that the positives of moving to the web for publishing Policy Currents outweighed the negatives.  First, this change is hardly revolutionary. Our sense was that members of the academy increasingly have become accustomed to getting news and obtaining information over the web.  Publishing the newsletter in this fashion will save the section thousands of dollars simply by reducing the costs of printing and mailing.  Annually these costs consume the vast majority of our section dues.  As a section, we can surely find more productive ways to advance public policy scholarship than by devoting the lion’s share of our dues to underwriting the bottom line of the Kinko’s corporation and the Post Office.  At the same time, we also agreed that this shift is not irreversible.  If there is a sense that the section is ill served by delivering the newsletter in this fashion and that the costs of printing and mailing are worthwhile expenditures, then we can quickly and easily go back to a paper format.  In the best tradition of Lindblomian incrementalism, this is a reversible decision.

Second, and this was perhaps the decisive consideration, our view was that the shift to an electronic medium, if not revolutionary, offers the opportunity for a fundamental change in the way members of the policy section interact with one another.  One of the chief limitations of a mailed newsletter is that it constitutes a one-way form of communication.  For most of us, our communication with one another to date has been limited to our receipt in the mail of a printed newsletter once per quarter – a form of communication best described as unidirectional, episodic, and static. The cost savings from publishing the newsletter electronically could be used, in part, to take advantage of the interactive opportunities afforded by the web. Indeed, by moving to a web-based medium, it is possible to completely alter the nature of our interactions. 

What we saw was that Policy Currents, in a web-based form, could be one component of a broader utilization of the web for enabling members of the policy section to interact directly with one another.  In addition to using the web as the medium for delivering Policy Currents, we came to see that the website could also be used to develop an interactive discussion forum that members of the section could use to discuss any issues that they would like to discuss.  Members could debate whatever policy-related issues in as wide-ranging a manner as they desire, whether that is the ongoing Perestroika debate, discussions of pedagogical issues, exchanges about recently published articles or books, requests for syllabi, notices of upcoming conferences or workshops, or whatever.  This forum could be threaded, so that each of us could read only the parts that we want to read.  And it would be on the web, not overrunning our email inboxes.  Indeed, the possibilities are even broader.  This website could be used as a forum for posting working papers, useful databases, data archives, and the like, as well as an archive of previous issues of Policy Currents.  In short, it could be a vehicle for two-way (or perhaps more appropriately multi-way) communication among the members of the sections.  We believe that this migration toward the web offers a host of opportunities that over time should enhance the ability of members of the section to be more productive teachers, scholars, and practitioners of public policy. 

            As a practical matter, the realization of these opportunities is going to take some time, and may require some refinement as we move along this path.  The first steps have already occurred.  We have registered a new domain name for the section’s website.  It is www.APSAPolicySection.org.  Through Rick Feiock’s generosity, we have relocated the section’s homepage that he developed some years ago onto a new server that is accessed by this new domain name.  This website will be altered and may take on a somewhat look over time.  But the domain name need not change over time.  It can stay the same even as officers and editors come and go.  Go ahead and bookmark it now. 

The next step is the development of threaded discussion forums.  The construction of these forums is just now in its initial stages.  Right now, the plan is to limit these forums to current members of the Public Policy Section.  This has a couple of benefits.  It creates a selective benefit for potential members to join the section, so that Policy Currents can remain in the public domain without reducing the value of membership in the section.  And it screens out spammers from the general public that might exploit a purely open forum for off-topic, inappropriate, or abusive posts.  The committee’s view was that a members-only discussion forum would be self-regulating and thus would not require a moderator to act as a censor.  Look for these forums to be available sometime after the new year begins. 

In the meantime, we are in the process of scanning back issues of Policy Currents so that these can be archived on the section’s website.  Some back issues already are available.  We’re also exploring different options for how best to create a venue for the posting of working papers, links to databases, etc.  Currently, the plan is to do these things through a mechanism much like the threaded discussion forums, i.e., by creating a members-only location where you can post a URL link to any paper, database, or webpage that you would like to share with the other members of the policy section. 

Doubtless some of these things will change as we move through this process.  The key, however, is that by freeing up resources through the elimination of most printing and mailing costs, we are in a position to embark on the development of this new, and more democratic, model of communication among the community of policy scholars.

 

Best regards, Ken Bickers

Associate Professor and Co-Associate Director,

IU Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis