Introduction

In this module, we have two primary goals. First, we will introduce the basic methodology behind comparative public policy. This is important because good case selection is the foundation of doing comparative research. If you choose poor cases, your research is on a shaky foundation. If you choose good cases, your research is on a solid foundation. Comparative methodology was first systematized by John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic, Vol 1, written in 1843. While this may seem like it was written a very long time ago, the insight Mill generated still holds true. There is great utility in examining Mill’s work, especially his ‘method of agreement’ and ‘method of difference.’ While there are very important limitations to these methods, which we discuss, they do distill the essence of comparative studies.

Second, we will survey the dominant approaches to comparative public policy, including mainstream and more critical approaches. The mainstream approaches look to cultural, economic, political, and institutional variables that influence the public policy processes:

• The cultural approach highlights the importance of shared norms, beliefs, and history as variables and suggests there is analytic utility in comparing clusters of states which exhibit similar cultural attributes.
• The economic approach assesses the impact of a rise or fall in the economic fortune of a state as influencing its policy trajectory. Particular to a comparative public policy approach is the convergence thesis, which suggests that states with similar levels of wealth demonstrate a similarity in policy agendas.
• The political approach assesses how political parties, political interest groups, and partisan alliances influence policymaking. From a comparative public policy approach, the partisanship thesis seeks to explain similarities and differences in political alliances across states. Similarly, the ‘over-loaded government’ thesis argues that many states confront a Janus-faced dilemma, where the promises made during an election become an untenable institutional agenda once elected.
• The institutional approach traditionally looks to the rules that structure institutional relations, including those between jurisdictions, branches of government, and the bureaucracy. New institutionalism has broadened its approach to include more informal rules and norms as well as new actors, both supranational and sub-national in form.

Finally, we conclude with how critical approaches question mainstream assumptions of what public policy aims to do and the motivations for doing it. Rather than a problem-solving exercise, Critical perspectives argue public policy is an exercise in power and is coercive in nature. For example, Feminist, LGBTQ, and post-colonial theorists deconstruct public policy processes and decisions, arguing a more equitable public policy is possible by recognizing new actors, interests, and public policy goals. By examining the foundational methodologies of comparative politics and surveying the theoretical approaches to comparative public policy, this module will help establish the boundaries of this course.

Figure 2-1: The House of Commons, the lower chamber of the Canadian Parliament at the capital city of Ottawa. Source Permission: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Courtesy of S. Kaya.

Figure 2-2: IMG_4136 Source Permission: CC BY-SA 2.0 Courtesy of tarsandsaction.

Methodology for Comparative Analysis

Figure 2-3: Occupy_10_26_DSC_0014 Source  Permission: CC BY-SA 2.0

Comparative public policy researchers are faced with the central questions of what to compare, and how to undertake that comparison. In theory, ‘there are no limits to comparison’ if comparison is understood simply a requiring the presence of common attributes between units. For example, we could compare the health care policies of Canada and Laos. Both states are seeking to craft and implement policies that improve their citizen’s health. However, there is so little in common between these two states that the utility of such a comparison is very minimal. On the other hand, comparing different phenomena in similar situations or similar phenomena in different situations would likely produce greater insight. For example, a comparison of health care policy between Canada and the UK or Canada and the US would be more interesting than the previous example of Canada and Laos. Canada and the UK share many political, cultural, and economic characteristics and yet also have significant differences in their health care policies despite both being single-payer systems. Comparing their policies would allow researchers to hone in on important nuances and assess the significance of the similarities and differences discovered. A comparison of Canada and the US would also likely produce interesting insights. While there are many differences between the two countries, including their diametrically opposed health care systems, Canadian and American citizens, face many of the same health issues. A comparison between the efficacy of their respective policies to deal with these similar issues would likely produce interesting insights. This suggests that researchers must carefully consider which units they wish to compare in practice and why.

Hakim (2010) focuses particularly on three methods for case selection:

• First, cases may be chosen because they are viewed as ‘substantively interesting in their own right.’
• Second, cases may be selected to indicate the validity of a theory or to test its hypotheses. Theories illustrated or tested in this way can focus on the macro or micro-level, and the authors may claim that their findings are generalizable in that they can explain development in many countries.
• Finally, Hakim suggests that, in practice, many studies are ‘opportunistic.’ This occurs when researchers use their own geographical position and access to policy developments in a specific context. This likely explains why most students at the UofS chose aspects of Canadian public policy as the focus of their research: it is what they know, what they have access to, and what they find interesting.

While comparative public policy research may sometimes merely involve describing the differences between countries, it generally attempts some kind of explanation for the existence of differences or similarities across countries. Przeworski (1987) has identified this ‘explanatory’ mission as at the core of comparison, stating ‘the general purpose of cross-national research is to understand which characteristics of the particular cultures, societies, economies or political systems affect patterns of behaviour within time.’ This understanding of why differences and similarities arise and persist can be developed in a variety of ways. The two core approaches to developing this ‘understanding’ can be clearly seen in the methods of agreement and of difference, as identified by John Stuart Mill.

Figure 2-4: John Stuart Mill. Source Permission: Public Domain. Courtesy of London Stereoscopic Company – Hulton Archive.

The rest of this section examines each approach and considers if these approaches can support each other. Mill’s discussion of comparative research is arguably the first systematic attempt to explain the process of comparison. Mill suggested that there were, broadly, two feasible approaches to comparison: the method of agreement and the method of difference.

The Method of Agreement

The method of agreement proceeds by elimination. It explains some common outcomes by discovering the causal circumstances in common across cases.

For example, maybe you want to understand why three students in an honours class did very well compared to their classmates. Since it is an honours class that is very competitive to enter, all the students have similar capabilities, so you can minimize the impact of individual variance. You do some further investigation, and you find out the following information:

According to Mill, unless you have missed some possible causal explanation, it can be inferred that ‘perfect attendance’ explains their high grades.

We can utilize a similar methodology in comparing public policies. For example, one could consider the causes of high levels of violent crime. After selecting two or more countries to study, you discover four factors that might explain high levels of violent crime. After testing each country for the four criteria you identified, you find that only one factor was present in all countries: high levels of inequality. From this, you can infer that inequality has a causal relationship to high levels of violent crime. There are clearly some limitations to this approach. First, it does not reveal any necessary link between cause and effect. Even if, out of five countries, all five had both high rates of violent crime and high rates of inequality, this does not mean that inequality necessarily caused the high violent crime rates. It could be that another unidentified factor produced high violent crime rates and the presence of inequality was simply coincidental, without playing any causal role. In addition, ‘multiple causation’ may occur, where different factors cause the outcome observed in different contexts. However, it does suggest some potentially fruitful avenues for research.

Let us use our simple example of the three students to explore this. Since all three students had perfect attendance, we inferred that this was the cause of their high grades. But we have not explained the causality at work. Perhaps each earned high grades due to different factors or a combination of factors. Perhaps for student A, it was the use of a tutor that caused high grades. For students B and C, perhaps it was the fact they studied every day that caused their high grades. Or perhaps it was a combination of perfect attendance and a tutor for student A, and a combination of perfect attendance and studying every day for students B and C, which caused their grades. This is why Mill maintained that the only way to be sure that a causal effect has been established is to recreate it experimentally. Unfortunately, this is often difficult or even impossible in the social sciences. But we will discuss this more after looking at the ‘method of difference’.

The Method of Difference

Mill’s method of difference involves cases being compared that differ in only one potentially causal condition: the variable whose impact is being examined. Let us look at our examination of students’ achieving high grades in an honours class. This time we identified students who normally had similar grades, but in this case, one had not achieved high grades while their classmates had achieved high grades.

When looking at the potential causal factors, it is noted that all the students had studied every day and had employed tutors. However, student C had a less than perfect attendance record. In fact, it turns out they had been absent for 10% of the classes. It is the only meaningful difference found between the students. It can then be inferred that attendance is potentially a causal factor in achieving high grades.

Let us apply the method of difference to our example of high violent crime rates. Perhaps we find four countries that share similar factors which might causally predict high violent crime rates: for example, lax gun control laws, a weak central government, and low levels of social services.  But one of the countries identified does not have high violent crime rates as expected. Upon further research, you find that the outlier has low inequality while the other three have high inequality. It could then be inferred that inequality plays a causal role in violent crime rates.

Using the Methods of Agreement and Difference

It is important to note that these two methods are not mutually exclusive. They can be used separately, but they can also be used in tandem. For example, you note a case where something should have happened but didn’t, like our student C in the method of difference example. You then apply the method of agreement with the other students in the class to see if your hypothesis holds true. Or vice versa, you apply the method of agreement and then test your findings with the method of difference.

More sophisticated versions of Mill’s methods will also seek to quantify the degree of variables being used, like how many hours our students studied or how many times they visited the tutor. In practice, however, the search for the single decisive similarity or difference is an extremely challenging “research strategy.” This is because social reality is generally too complex for there to be a single cause of a given phenomenon that social scientists would be interested in. That is why such comparative works should be considered correlative or probative. Correlation indicates a relationship that needs to be explored to discover, or at least test for, causal relationships. Christensen (2007) illustrates why this is important: a man drank rye and water one night, scotch and water the second night, and bourbon and water a third night. Each night he became drunk. Using Mill’s method of agreement, we may infer that water is the causation of the man becoming drunk. However, water is actually correlated with the effect of drunkenness, not the cause of it. The cause, of course, is alcohol. That is why Mill himself argued that his exposition of the two approaches was a guide for those engaging in comparative research – they constituted frameworks for researchers to use, rather than hard-and-fast technologies. But with that being said, it is still a really good framework to start a research program.

Figure 2-5: Ishikawa fishbone-type cause-and-effect diagram. Source Permission: CC BY-SA 3.0. Courtesy of FabianLange. 

Theories of Comparative Public Policy

As we have already noted, scholars look to comparative public policy research in order to understand the diverse ways in which particular policies arise across nations, regions or social groups. In so doing, a number of schools or theoretical approaches have been found to explain trends in public policy analysis. We are going to cover a few of the more notable ones in this section, specifically the cultural, economic, political, and institutional approaches.

The Cultural School

The cultural school suggests economic behaviour, political participation, social solidarity, and value formation/evolution are deeply influenced by the values, norms, and beliefs that are specific to particular communities. This is supported by the fact that governments around the world are dealing with a common range of challenges, including how to manage water, food, infrastructure, health, education, social welfare, economic development, the environment, international relations, security, and governance systems to name but a few. Yet, the approaches these respective governments and other stakeholders have taken to address these key public policy challenges vary markedly. This shouldn’t come as any surprise. It is widely understood that social and cultural factors shape human behaviour. However, incorporating the impact of cultural influences has at times been resisted by some in the policy community as it is argued this can undermine an objective/rationalist approach to policymaking. There is some validity to this argument. Good policy seeks to achieve policy goals in the most efficient way possible. Yet, it is important to remember that to achieve these policy goals, it is often necessary to shape the behaviour of people. It is therefore arguably impossible to divorce cultural factors from policy objectives. Think back to our example of gun control in Canada and the US. There are deep cultural differences between Canadian and American attitudes to the right to bear arms and the government’s right to draft policy limiting the type and quantity of guns people may own. Therefore, having a good understanding of cultural influences will help policymakers to shape public policies that might be more generally acceptable to the public and produce culturally desirable outcomes.

Figure 2-6: Gun Policy By Country. Source Permission: CC BY-SA 4.0. Courtesy of Alumnum.

An increasing number of publications seek to use culture-based theory and ‘national culture’ analytics to understand aspects of public policy. Some of the most interesting comparative public policy research has examined the policy process in different groupings of nations. In 1993, Francis Castles suggested a ‘family of nations’ approach, where groups of countries with shared geographical, linguistic, cultural and/or historical attributes demonstrate shared patterns of policy outcomes. Castles and his team of researchers identified four distinct cultural families in the post-war industrialized world:

• the Anglo-American family (Australia, Canada, Ireland, NZ and UK);
• the German family (Austria, Germany and Switzerland);
• the Latin family (France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain);
• the Scandinavian family (Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden).

By focusing on similarities and differences between the English-speaking, German-speaking and Scandinavian-speaking countries, the authors discuss whether it makes sense to identify shared policy approaches and policy outcomes along shared cultural/linguistic and historical lines. Overall, the historical/cultural approach can provide meaningful insight into public policy analysis, albeit not in every policy area. Castles’ approach has been extended to other clusters of nations by using religion, shared colonial experiences, or regional clustering. This approach stands in contrast with studies focusing mainly on social or economic variables or idiosyncratic historical developments (country-specific case studies), explaining varying public policy patterns.

Figure 2-7: Europe subregion map world factbook Source Permission: CC BY 3.0.

Another approach to utilizing a cultural approach to public policy focuses on the impact of contemporary and specific attitudes reflected in public opinion polls. Government and other policy stakeholders use polling to measure what the public believes to be important, how the public ranks different issues, and what they are willing to trade/forego to pursue specific policy preferences. Since the government is working, at least nominally, in the public interest, public opinion should, and often does, influence public policy decision-making. When the public wants more spending on health, for instance, Canadian governments feel pressure to spend more on health; when the public wants less spending, governments feel pressure to provide less. Working in this vein, cross-national studies of public attitudes toward policymaking have proliferated in the last decades. Public opinion surveys have found that significant majorities in industrialized countries have supported government intervention in a broad range of policy areas such as the provision of health care, the protection of the environment, the care for the elderly, and the reduction of income differences. However, policymakers can often be confronted by mutually incompatible demands. For example, policymakers often face a united desire for government action yet also strong resistance to more spending or even a call for reduced spending. Public opinion polling allows policymakers to measure and track both specific demands of constituents but also the shifting attitudes towards government policy. This allows them to answer questions like does the public support government intervention in the economy? Has that opinion shifted over time and, if so, in what direction? If shifts are present, do they represent trends, or are they an aberration due to some systemic shock? For example, with the 2008 global financial crisis, citizens in many states demanded greater regulation of the economy and to provide more protection from systemic shocks, even at the expense of economic efficiency. This ran counter to dominant trends of support for deregulation since the 1980s. However, as local and international markets recovered, opinions in some countries shifted back to demands for deregulation while others retained a greater appetite for a stronger regulatory framework. Such differences can, at least partly be explained by cultural differences. But it also is explained by economic factors, the next approach we will look at.

Figure 2-8: USA Gallup abortion opinion poll stacked area Source Permission: CC BY-SA 3.0. Courtesy of Omegatron.

The Economic School

The economic school argues that the resources available in a country shape the expectations of citizens and policymakers. Studies that look at the influence of economic conditions on policy-making have identified both short-term and long-term frames.

In the short term, governments often make policy changes in response to immediate economic conditions. During periods of strong economic growth, policymakers will expand government activity for two reasons. First, economic growth can lead to a rise in optimism about a society’s ability to solve its problems through public action. Second, a rise in economic growth results in additional government revenues, even if there is no increase in tax revenues. In either case, it can be argued that there are more resources available, so why not use them to build infrastructure, increase social programs, and undertake innovative policy solutions. Conversely, governments can also create policies to regulate or slow down the economy to prevent negative economic consequences. For example, a recession may lead to a decline in government revenues. During periods of weak growth, policymakers may recommend lowering interest rates to encourage borrowing if they want to maintain or increase spending in order to restore economic growth. Or they may increase interest rates if they are worried about inflationary pressure. They may also have to cut back on spending either out of necessity or due to public concerns of rising deficits.

In the long term, economists often use gross domestic product (GDP) to predict the quantity and quality of public policy spending. GDP measures the value of a country’s production of goods and services in a given time period. This metric has provided a critical framework for decades to guide policy decisions that affect people’s living standards. Harold Wilensky (1975) and others demonstrated in comparisons of countries from around the world that the affluence of industrialized countries was associated with greater welfare spending than was typically found in less wealthy countries. This is the essence of the convergence thesis: that wealth helps shape national policy agendas and public spending levels in the industrialized world. These policy goals and choices look very similar, especially if compared to other parts of the world. However, while spending levels between countries may be similar, there can be enduring differences in these countries in terms of their policy outputs. As issues such as the environment and wealth inequality gain political prominence, some economists argue GDP fails to account for important factors of societal wellbeing that are not directly tied to economic production, such as air and water quality, health, education, and leisure. According to this postmodern view, measuring only the goods and services produced by a country does not fully reflect an economy’s productivity or how much society gains from each input of capital and labour. Others say that GDP remains the best social measurement instrument for policymakers to gauge improvements in living standards. But they also add that policymakers should not rely on GDP as the only factor in measuring economic prosperity or societal wellbeing. As we will see in the next section, some argue that politics itself is highly influential.

Figure 2-9: Countries by GDP (Nominal) in 2014 Source Permission: CC0 1.0 Public Domain. Courtesy of Ali Zifan. 

The Political School

The political school argues there is more at work in public policy than just cultural and economic factors. After all, these influences are not the only concern facing policymakers in each issue area. Advocates of the political school began to look at the political strategies, the actions of political parties, and the interest groups that have also played a central role. Political parties, for example, play a fundamental role in the policymaking process because of their role in interest group aggregation. Political parties take a wide range of citizen viewpoints and demands and translate them into a more manageable and specific number of policy alternatives. Parties then enter elections, and voters choose between the various parties competing for partisan programs. Once elected to office, parties form the basis of the executive and legislative branches of government as well as the institutional opposition to the government that exercises control over policymaking.

Another dominant argument in the political school is the partisanship thesis of policymaking. For example, a lot of research has gone into how political parties can be aligned with specific interest groups, such as organized labour or pro-business groups. For example, parties with ties to organized labour are much more likely to support increased government activity, especially in areas supported by their membership: education, health care programs, job creation and protection, old-age pensions, unemployment insurance, et cetera. While the ideologies and constituencies associated with major political parties are important, the partisan balance of forces in the legislative and executive branches also can play a role. When one party controls the executive branch and holds a majority in the legislative branch, the party government model argues that such one-party governments will find it easier to engage in quick reforms. Think of a strong majority government in a parliamentary democracy, like Trudeau’s Liberal Government of 2016. Alternatively, in governments where control of the executive and legislative branches is divided, there is less opportunity for sweeping reform because multiple parties must be consulted to generate a working majority. Think of the American presidential system that has explicit checks and balances on legislative and executive power or a minority/coalition government in a parliamentary system.

Finally, researchers also noted the tendency for parties to promise too much during elections and then deliver too little once in office due to the ‘overloaded government’ thesis. Essentially, political parties put winning elections as the foremost consideration during elections. If successful, they are confronted with both a heavy legislative agenda, constraints on existing resources, and a reluctance to raise taxes to fulfill their campaign promises. Besides the role of political parties and interest groups in shaping public policy decision-making, political institutions’ formal and normative structures can be highly influential.

Figure 2-10: Canada Election 2015 Results Map Source Permission: CC BY-SA 4.0. Courtesy of DrRandomFactor. 

The Institutional School

The final approach we will cover in this section is the institutional school. Advocates of this approach arguethat  a full understanding of how public policy is made would be incomplete without understanding policymaking institutions. Traditionally, the concept of ‘institutions’ referred to organizations such as legislatures, courts and executives. Research in this direction often looks at two sets of rules:

• The first set of rules structures the relations between the national and subnational For example, the difference in rules between a federal political system versus a unitary political system. This research has noted that federal political systems, like Canada or the US, are often slower to innovate due to jurisdictional issues that can open up the legislative process to challenges. Unitary systems, like the UK, are centralized and as such national governments are in charge of all policy-making unless that power is delegated to a subnational government unit.
• The second set of rules frames the interaction between the executive and legislative branches in presidential versus parliamentary systems. In presidential systems such as the United States, decisions can be vetoed in Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives before they are ultimately ratified. In contrast, Parliamentary systems have rules that require the executive branch to retain the support of a majority of legislators. These rules ensure that the executive and legislative branches will act together, thereby increasing the possibility of a speedy reform.

Beyond the study of rules, traditional institutionalism also looks at the role of bureaucratic politics. The bureaucratic politics approach examines the institutional influence of non-elected officials in the government bureaucracy who are motivated to protect or promote their own agency’s special interests, often from competition with other agencies. These actions work to shape policy formulation and implementation and, therefore, the timing and the content of government decisions.

Finally, ‘new institutionalism’ has emerged as a distinct approach that has expanded on the examination of institutions in a couple of ways:

• First, a narrow concern for formal institutions has broadened from a focus on rigid rules to include considerations of how informal norms and patterns can frame policymaking. For example, Vijge (2013) argues that in the field of international environmental governance, there is a tension between a need to act at the systemic level to attenuate the growing risk of environmental calamity and the clash of interests between the primary stakeholders required to do so. Yet, despite the constraints that shackle policymakers, the stream of promises, frameworks, and plans proliferate. Vijge argues this is due to a norm that states ‘must do something’.
• Second, although government rules are still an important potential influence, scholars have begun to consider the role of institutional considerations that frame the participation of non-governmental organizations and non-mainstream actors in policy-making. For example, there has been some interesting work on how including a feminist approach to institutional analysis of public policymaking would generate interesting results. Mackay, Kenny, and Chappel (2010) argue that such an approach would unpack global power inequalities and provide insight into both the formal and informal institutions that constitute public policymaking. This work is an example of how new institutionalism has evolved to take into account new actors and perspectives as well as build bridges to critical schools of thought – the subject of our next section.

Figure 2-11: COP21 participants – 30 Nov 2015. Source Permission: CC BY 2.0. Courtesy of Presidencia de la República Mexicana.

Critical Approaches to Public Policy Making

Figure 2-12: Power to the people Source Permission: CC BY-SA 2.0. Courtesy of Anita Hart.

In many ways, the mainstream approaches to public policy analysis reflect the traditional concerns of policymakers and policy researchers. When they want to know something about a policy, they look to the actors, processes, and institutions that they know. They look to the state, political parties, and traditional interest groups, like unions, for actorness. They look to the rules of governance between jurisdictional actors and between the branches of government, for processes. They look to differing forms of government for institutions. As we have seen, researchers and analysts will also look to other factors like culture that might challenge dominant perspectives in policymaking/policy-analysis circles. However, for the most part, these are insider positions. The questions they ask are bounded by traditional assumptions. They are asking how to best achieve policy goals within the theoretical and technical boundaries of the practice of public policy making/analysis. In this last section, we are going to step outside the box to survey some of the critical approaches to public policy analysis.

Most critical approaches to public policy begin by questioning the foundations of mainstream policymaking and policy analysis. They ask questions of power and influence. Who does the current policy framework benefit and why? Who does it marginalize and why? How would changes to the policy shift the balance of power and influence one way or another? What would be, or could be, the implications of such shifts in power and influence? They ask questions of how contemporary or mainstream approaches may no longer reflect the policy environment. Can national governments efficiently draft and implement policy without accounting for the supranational and subnational forces that struggle to shape all stages of the policy cycle?

Figure 2-13: Canadian Prime Minister and UN Women Executive Director call on global leaders to do more for gender equality Source Permission: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. Courtesy of UN Women.

For example, the policies around resources extraction in Canada are becoming much more complicated. In terms of actors, the government needs to take into account the much more robust influence of Indigenous groups, environmental groups, and domestic and even international interest groups lobbying both for and against policy favourable to the extraction and transportation of resources. Even gender has been introduced as an aspect of resource extraction policy when PM Trudeau suggested the need for including gender-based analysis while taking part in a gender panel at the G20 summit in Argentina, 2018. In terms of processes, traditional evaluation/consultation/negotiation processes have expanded far beyond federal/provincial boundaries to include consulting a wide variety of stakeholders. On top of this, resources extraction policy is increasingly influenced by international agreements like the Paris Climate Agreement and sub-national claims of sovereignty by Indigenous peoples. Traditional approaches to public policymaking and policy analysis may have difficulty accounting for this much broader and nuanced take on resource extraction policies. Taken together, the critical approaches to public policy are essentially asking us to consider thinking outside the box of mainstream approaches, to recognize the role of power and domination inherent in public policy and to see if we can find better solutions to the issues we are trying to address.

Figure 2-14: Thinking Outside the Box Source Permission: CC0 1.0 Public Domain. Courtesy of Clker-Free-Vector-Images.

Failure to Take Into Account Globalization

Figure 2-15: Network Earth Block Chain. Source Permission: CC0 1.0  Public Domain. Courtesy of geralt.

One critical approach to public policymaking and analysis is premised on the failure to take into account the profound impact of globalization. Globalization, most broadly defined, looks at the increasing density of interconnection around the world. It argues the world is shrinking in terms of time and space. It suggests that the national and parochial is increasingly challenged by the global and the universal. It strongly hints that the most important issues we face today will require a global and coordinated response. This shift in thinking has been made possible by technological advancement, economic integration, the rise of international political structures, and the growth of global civil society, especially Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). In terms of public policymaking and policy analysis, this requires a fundamental shift in frame. National policies are less insulated from systemic factors. Politically, policymakers must take in to account the multitude of agreements and frameworks to which they are parties. As examples:

• When dealing with climate change or policies that impact the environment, Canada must at least account for the commitments agreed to at the Paris Climate Summit.
• When dealing with Indigenous policy, Canada must account for its commitments to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• When dealing with refugee policy, Canada must account for its commitments under international law, most notably the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

Beyond international commitments that Canada has made, there is a need to account for the rise of NGOs which act as policy entrepreneurs and policy police, highlighting inconsistencies in policy intention with the law and with prominent norms. There are a number of international NGOs that have been active in Canada: environmental policy, Climate Action Network; poverty, Oxfam Canada; Indigenous peoples, Amnesty International; Official Development Assistance, Oxfam. Economically, globalization has forced governments to assess and draft policies beyond national frameworks. The increasingly free movement of capital, goods, and labour has informed debates on being globally competitive. The denationalization of MNCs, combined with global supply chains, has challenged Canadian policymakers – especially in regards to the fundamental integration of the North American economy following the North American Free Trade Agreement and Canadian sensitivity to resource volatility. This has a deep impact on policy areas that range from social welfare, labour rights and immigration to pipelines and subsidies to Canadian-based corporations. From a critical approach, all of these examples are often either superficially dealt with in policymaking or are used to reinforce existing structures of inequality.

Figure 2-16: Protest against the proposed KeystoneXL tar sands pipeline Source Permission: CC BY 2.0. Courtesy of Fibonacci Blue.

Failure to Take Into Account New Domestic & International Actors

A second critical approach, albeit in some ways overlapping with the first, focuses on the failure to meaningfully take into account the rising significance of new domestic and international actors in public policy. For example, policymaking and policy analysis has often underplayed the importance of municipalities in the policy cycle. Yet, it is often at the municipal level that constituents feel the impact of public policy, especially since more people now live in urban areas than rural areas – a trend that is only going to grow as the UN predicts 68% of the world population will live in cities by 2050. Further, some policy entrepreneurs posit the city as the best means to achieve greater policy coherence and even rejuvenation, especially in social policy. In a similar vein, some critical policy researchers are questioning the traditional models of citizen engagement. As citizens retreat from traditional party affiliation, especially in OECD countries, there is a growing disconnect premised in the political school of public policy between citizens/interest groups on one side and the government on the other. This has resulted in a host of issues, from rising populism to less participatory forms of policymaking. Policymakers are also confronting the need to engage with marginalized actors. Feminist, LGBTQ, and post-colonial theorists all unpack the inherent power relations in mainstream policymaking and policy analysis. They not only question mainstream public policy theory and practice, but they also trace the intersectional impact such policy has on marginalized communities. Conversely, in a form of praxis, they also highlight and encourage the mobilization of marginalized voices to challenge the status quo.

“There is no such thing as a single issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. Malcolm knew this. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew this. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.” Figure 2-17: Audre Lorde. Source Permission: CC BY 2.0. Courtesy of K. Kendall.

Cumulatively, such critical approaches suggest new ways to theorize and practice public policy. It suggests that we need to examine the boundaries of public policy, from acknowledging both supranational and subnational factors to questioning the centrality of the sovereign nation-state. That is not to say that the state is insignificant but rather that its hegemony in the policy realm is increasingly being challenged. A critical approach to public policy would also suggest that we need to re-examine dominant ideas and processes at work. For example, critical theorists would be highly suspicious of the neo-liberal ideology at work behind many national economic policies and behind many of the norms operating in the global economy. They would also be highly critical of colonial and neo-colonial policies that have subjugated most non-European peoples around the world. They would seek to deconstruct policies that marginalize a host of actors on the basis of gender, ethnicity, and socio-demographics. Critical theorists would argue that traditional public policy is in many ways less of a problem-solving exercise and more of an expression of economic and political domination. Finally, they would suggest that a productive way forward would be to acknowledge the role of power in public policy and seek ways to democratize public policymaking – listening to new voices, identifying new problems, and pioneering new processes to tackle them.

Policy Frameworks versus Policy Instruments/Tools

Before moving on in the course, it is essential to distinguish between the frameworks of comparative policy analysis and the tools/instruments used by policymakers and governments. Examples of the frameworks of comparative policy introduced in this class include the role of Ideas/Interests/Institutions, Multiple Streams Approach, Critical Approaches, and the impact of global politics. They are used to understand, explain, and assess the public policy choices of decision makers. This is very different than the instruments and tools that decision makers use to achieve their policy goals, most often by influencing the behaviour and processes of individuals, groups, and institutions. While the next few modules will focus on the theories and frameworks of comparative public policy analysis, it is essential to identify at the outset some of the tools and instruments available to policymakers.

While not exhaustive, here are some of the common instruments/tools used by policymakers:

• Awards – are established by decisionmaker to incentivize and recognize particular behaviour
  • Examples of Awards
    •  The Order of Canada “honours people who make extraordinary contributions to the nation”
    • SkBC-SYPE Silver Spades Entrepreneurship Awards “honours those individuals and groups who contribute to a growing culture of entrepreneurship in Saskatchewan”
• Enforcement – refers to the methods and means that decision makers have to ensure compliance with public policy
  • Types of Enforcement
    • Warnings: for example, to people who violated stay at home public health orders during the Covid 19 pandemic
    • Fines: for example, to individuals for breaking speeding laws, corporations for breaking commerce laws, or politicians for breaking electoral laws
    • Incarceration: for example to individuals who break the criminal code and are convicted in a court of law
• Incentives – are benefits given to individuals, groups, or businesses to encourage economic activities deemed to be in the public interest
  • Examples for Businesses: Canadian Government subsidies (including tax breaks, direct payments, and exemptions) to particular industries or companies
  • Examples for Consumers: tax breaks for charitable donations or spending on particular activities like children’s arts/exercise programs or home efficiency improvements
• Media and Social Marketing: is the use of mass media (for example, the CBC) and social media (for example, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok) by decision makers to disseminate policy preferences, policy benefits, or to encourage/discourage certain behaviour
  • Examples include encourage voter turnout or discourage drinking and driving
• Provision of Services
  • Direct Provision of Services: include things like education, healthcare, and national pensions
  • Indirect Provision of Services: include contracting out government services like health care diagnostics, MRI machines, for example
• Public Campaigns: seek to inform and persuade individuals and groups to act in specific ways
  • Examples include the ‘This is our Shot’ campaign to encourage vaccination against Covid
• Regulations: are authorized by legislation to govern the behaviour of individuals and groups, and breaches are sanctionable
  • Examples include workplace safety regulations, fire codes, and building codes
• Royal Commissions and Inquiries: are official Governmental inquiries into issues of national concern
  • An example of a Royal Commission in Canada include the Romanow Commission (2001-2) into the Future of Health Care in Canada
  • An example of an Inquiry is the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (2016-19)
• Signalling: attempts to set normative standards of behaviour, often with implied or explicit sanctions if the standards are not upheld. It often foreshadows new policy implementation
  • Examples of signalling include:
    • Promoting vaccination against Covid 19 before proposing/implementing restrictions for the unvaccinated
    • Talking about Cannabis legalization far in advance of introducing legislation
• Taxation: is an economic levy to encourage or discourage particular activities
  • Examples of taxation as public policy include high taxation on alcohol or cigarettes

Conclusion

At this point, you should have a strong foundation for the rest of this course. The methodologies introduced by John Stuart Mill not only provide practical methods for undertaking comparative research, they, more importantly, provide insight into the goals of comparative research. The mission of comparative research is explanatory. It seeks to establish causal mechanisms that explain why certain outcomes happen. The method of agreement uses a process of elimination to discover common variables that suggest a causal relation to a particular outcome. Similarly, the method of difference uses a process of elimination to discover variance between cases to suggest a causal relation to a particular outcome. For us, what is important is the principle of Mill’s methods: to isolate similarities and differences between cases in order to suggest the causal explanations for outcomes. However, as we also noted, these findings are only indicative. For example, the possibility of complex causality or multiple causalities means that what is discovered is correlation rather than causality. However, with that being said, the form and function of Mill’s methods do provide insight into comparative research.

Our examination of the mainstream approaches to comparative public policy making highlighted several common approaches: the cultural, economic, political, and institutional schools. Each seeks to establish variables that explain public policy processes and outcomes. The cultural school suggests shared norms, beliefs, and histories as explanatory variables. The economic school suggests changes in resources and degrees of wealth as explanatory variables. The political school suggests the organization of political parties, interest groups, partisanship, and legislative agendas as explanatory variables. The institutional school suggests the formal rules that exist between jurisdictions and branches of government as explanatory variables. New institutionalism broadens this approach to also include informal norms and actors that exist both above and below the formal level of decision makers as explanatory variables.

Outside of the mainstream approaches, critical perspectives suggest the need and utility of questioning the power relations at work behind public policymaking. It also suggests a need to include a much greater number of stakeholders in the public policymaking process to achieve effective and equitable public policy outcomes. Together, this module has established a survey of comparative public policy analysis. This will set up the next three modules that will look specifically at the role of ideas, interests, and institutions as lenses to undertake comparative public policy analysis.

The core of comparative studies is its explanatory mission to find the causal mechanisms that explain characteristics of the particular cultures, societies, economies or political systems that affect patterns of behaviour. John Stuart Mill was one of the first to systematize comparative methods and his insight has stood the test of time, specifically the method of agreement and the method of difference.

The method of agreement argues if two or more instances of a phenomenon under investigation have only a single circumstance in common the circumstance in which all the instances agree is the cause or effect of the phenomenon. The method of difference argues if an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation occurs and an instance in which it does not occur have each circumstance except one in common, that one occurring only in the former, the circumstance in which the two instances differ is the effect or cause, or necessary part of the cause, of the phenomenon.

However, it is important to remember that such comparative work is indicative research. There may be multiple causality or complex causality at work and the relationship identified may be correlative in nature. This often means further research is necessary to explore the relationship identified, tracing the causal mechanisms between the variable identified and the outcome being explored.

The cultural school suggests economic behaviour, political participation, social solidarity, and value formation/evolution are deeply influenced by the values, norms, and beliefs that are specific to particular communities. In many ways, this makes sense given the well-established influence of social and cultural factors on human behaviour.

Two dominant approaches in the cultural school are the family of nations approach and the use of opinion polls. The ‘family of nations’ approach suggests groups of countries with shared geographical, linguistic, cultural and/or historical attributes often demonstrate shared patterns of policy outcomes. With public opinion polls, government and other policy stakeholders seek to measure what the public believes to be important, how the public ranks different issues, and what they are willing to trade/forego to pursue specific policy preferences.

The economic school argues that the resources available in a country shape the expectations of citizens and policymakers. Studies that look at the influence of economic conditions on policy-making have identified both short-term and long-term frames. In the short term, the expansion or contraction of the economy may influence government priorities. In the long term, GDP is often used as a predictor of the quantity and quality of public policy spending. This is the basis of the convergence thesis: that wealth helps shape national policy agendas and public spending levels in the industrialized world.

The political school argues there is more at work in public policymaking than just cultural and economic factors. Advocates of the political school look at the political strategies, the actions of political parties, and the interest groups that have played a central role in contextualizing policymaking. They look to the partisan ties between political parties and interest groups. They look to the partisan balance between the branches of government and whether the government holds a majority, minority, or a coalition government. The political school also looks to the disconnect between strategies to win elections and the impact electoral promises have on the legislative agenda if they win the election.

The institutional school argues a full understanding of how public policy is made would be incomplete without an understanding of policymaking institutions. The traditional institutional approach looks to the impact of formal rules in legislatures, courts, and executive bodies. It looks to the formal rules between national and sub-national governments, for example, the difference between federal political systems and unitary political systems. It also looks to the formal rules between the branches of government and in particular how they play out differently in different political systems as well as in the politics of bureaucracies. New institutionalism has broadened this school to include informal rules and less mainstream actors, such as NGOs and international institutions.

Critical approaches to public policy begin by questioning the foundations of mainstream policymaking and policy analysis. They ask questions of power and influence. They unpack policy to find out who has benefited and why. They look at who has been marginalized and why. They look at how change in policy shifts the balance of power and influence. Critical public policy scholars argue policy is not technical and it is never benign. Feminist, LGBTQ, and post-colonial theorists, for example, unpack policy to show its coercive impact. They argue that for policy to be effective and equitable, it is necessary to be cognizant of power and to broaden access to the policy cycle to include a host of new actors, ranging from municipalities and formal advocacy groups to marginalized communities.