Suchergebnisse

Natural disasters may be windows of opportunity for policy change and learning by local governments, which are the entities primarily responsible for the recovery and rebuilding process after a disaster strikes in the United States. During disaster recovery, local governments are faced with myriad policy challenges, from technical issues concerning the repair and replacement of infrastructure to broader substantive questions of reducing vulnerability to future hazards. Their actions are constrained by federal and state policies related to disaster recovery, and yet they must make their own decisions regarding disaster recovery finance within those constraints. These decisions may then influence a local government's long‐term fiscal planning, such as their target level of budget reserves, borrowing, categories of spending, and mechanisms to generate revenue. To assess how local governments respond to and learn from fiscal constraints during disaster recovery, we analyze flood recovery in seven Colorado communities in the three counties most impacted by extreme flooding in 2013. Data from in‐depth interviews with local finance personnel and other administrators, budgets, and public documents are used to analyze recovery decisions and postdisaster fiscal policy learning. While most local governments drew instrumental lessons from the disaster experience, such as how to better manage grant reimbursement processes, some also drew broader lessons that may contribute to achieving longer term community resilience, fiscal stability, and disaster preparedness.

Whether due to climate change, human development in risk‐prone areas, or other factors contributing to vulnerability, communities globally face risk from hazards that can lead to disasters that impact human livelihoods. Some disasters become focusing events that can catalyze a search for solutions to the policy problems uncovered by disaster. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) was developed to provide policy scholars with the tools to analyze the role of narratives in such policy debates. The NPF, however, has not been systematically applied to narratives surrounding hazards and disasters. This study examines media coverage from two cases of catastrophic wildfire in Colorado, the United States, to understand the evolving policy narratives over time, with specific attention to three key NPF variables: policy problems, solutions, and characters. Findings indicate that narratives concerning disasters are different than other policy issues in ways that are vital to understand as scholars apply and refine the NPF.Related Articles

Shanahan, Elizabeth A.,
Mark K. McBeth, and
Paul L. Hathaway. 2011. "." Politics & Policy 39 (): 373‐400. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00295.x/abstract


Smith‐Walter, Aaron,
Holly L. Peterson,
Michael D. Jones, and
Ashley Nicole Reynolds Marshall. 2016. "." Politics & Policy 44: 1053‐1088. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12187/full


Ertas, Nevbahar. 2015. "." Politics & Policy 43: 426‐451. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12120/full

Many communities face increasing vulnerability to the risks posed by natural hazards, such as floods, wildfires, and hurricanes. In the public policy literature, natural disasters can garner the attention of the public and elites and therefore become focusing events that can open windows of opportunity for policy change to reduce community vulnerability to local risks. Past decisions by governments to ignore or leave hazard risks unaddressed can also be viewed as policy failures when the disaster results in loss of life or property. Whether risk from such disasters persists depends on whether governments learn and adapt based on their experiences with disasters. This research examines two catastrophic wildfires that occurred in Colorado, USA, to determine how policy narratives about these events may influence policy change. Media coverage is analyzed as a measure of the policy narratives within communities. Findings indicate that patterns of policy narrative construction in these cases may preclude public dialog focused on mitigating wildfire risk through policy change.

AbstractMost studies of policy entrepreneurship seek to understand how entrepreneurs influence the behavior of policy‐makers in the agenda‐setting or decision‐making phases of the policy process. Recent scholarship has sought to understand what role entrepreneurs might play in policy implementation by focusing on their ability to influence bureaucrats' discretion and behavior. However, these studies overlook the potentially critical influence of policy entrepreneurs during the implementation of "opt‐in" policies that require voluntary compliance by individuals to be successful. Here, we consider whether and how a visible policy entrepreneur can impact opt‐in policy implementation, focusing on their credibility—or ability to gain public trust—as a potential driving factor of their influence. Using the empirical context of COVID‐19 vaccination recommendations, we identify Dr. Anthony Fauci as a highly visible policy entrepreneur and assess his influence on individual vaccine intention and uptake. Drawing on data from a novel panel survey of the American public on attitudes about the virus, risk, politics, and vaccination during the first several months of the COVID‐19 vaccine rollout in the United States, we test the relationship between respondent trust in Dr. Fauci and changes in reported intention to vaccinate and vaccination uptake across time. We find that trust in Dr. Fauci is an important predictor for influencing individuals' intention to vaccinate and actual vaccination behavior.

AbstractUrban water supply systems in the United States are designed to be robust to a wide range of historical hydrological conditions in both their physical infrastructure and in the institutional arrangements that govern their use. However, these systems vary greatly in their capacity to respond to new and evolving stressors on water supplies, such as those associated with climate change. Developing a more precise understanding of the complexity of interactions between the environmental and human components of urban water systems, specifically via their institutions, has the potential to help identify institutional design choices that can foster proactive transitions to more sustainable operating states. This article adapts the Institutional Grammar (IG) within the Robustness of Coupled Infrastructure Systems Framework to assess how a heavily engineered system's institutional configuration may impact its ability to transition to more sustainable management practices. While use of the IG has historically been limited in larger‐N studies, our application demonstrates its flexibility in revealing variation in specific components across cases. The analysis finds the structure of formal institutions shape the interactions between actors differently, and that institutional diversity exists across environmental contexts. The extent to which this institutional diversity drives transitions remains an open question. The results highlight both the importance of and challenges involved with developing longitudinal data on social and natural system interactions.

AbstractPolicy entrepreneurs have traditionally been recognized for their ability to influence policymakers by framing policy problems and pairing them with preferred solutions. Does their influence extend to the public? We examine this question in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States. We analyze whether an individual's perception of a visible, national‐level policy entrepreneur, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci, influences their perceived risk of contracting the virus and their uptake of recommended COVID‐19 risk mitigation behaviors. Findings indicate that approval of Dr. Fauci predicts individual risk perceptions and uptake of mask wearing practices, with his influence particularly strong among conservatives. However, Dr. Fauci's influence as a policy entrepreneur waned over time and was moderated by a host of factors such as an individual's worldview, perceptions of policy environment, and media consumption.

AbstractWhereas policy change is often characterized as a gradual and incremental process, effective crisis response necessitates that organizations adapt to evolving problems in near real time. Nowhere is this dynamic more evident than in the case of COVID‐19, which forced subnational governments to constantly adjust and recalibrate public health and disease mitigation measures in the face of changing patterns of viral transmission and the emergence of new information. This study assesses (a) the extent to which subnational policies changed over the course of the pandemic; (b) whether these changes are emblematic of policy learning; and (c) the drivers of these changes, namely changing political and public health conditions. Using a novel dataset analyzing each policy's content, including its timing of enactment, substantive focus, stringency, and similar variables, results indicate the pandemic response varied significantly across states. The states examined were responsive to both changing public health and political conditions. This study identifies patterns of preemptive policy learning, which denotes learning in anticipation of an emerging hazard. In doing so, the study provides important insights into the dynamics of policy learning and change during disaster.