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AbstractPolicy studies tend to be divided between domestic matters and foreign affairs. Scholars seldom employ one another's literature, and they largely draw on different traditions within political science. This article explores the potential for cross‐fertilization and calls for greater integration of these related subfields.The argument considers the case for unity, parallelism, and overlap between domestic public policy studies and foreign policy studies. It examines the reasons for the divide and surveys a variety of attempts to find solutions for the problem of intersection at the boundary between national life and the international environment. It places the dichotomy in a broader context of political science as a whole and offers suggestions about potentially fruitful exchanges. It treats globalization and suggests that a theory of the state could be helpful to both tendencies in policy studies.

EU member states frequently disagree over the management of financial crises, both regionally in the Eurozone and globally in the G20 despite decades of European integration, institution-building, and commitments to joint action. Mainstream integration theories of neofunctional institutionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism cannot sufficiently explain this puzzle of persistent European policy divergence on financial governance. I argue that the policy divergences can only be understood by analysing the societal foundations of governmental positions with the societal approach to governmental preference formation. The societal approach focusses on domestic societal ideas and material interests as explanatory variables for governmental positions. Regarding European policy divergence, I argue that both the coordination problems in the Eurozone and the European policy divergence in the G20 reflect the heterogeneity of domestic societal influences on member state governments. These arguments are empirically evidenced in case studies on the management of the Eurozone crisis and on Europe's role in the governance of the global financial crisis in the G20.

AbstractWe explore the dynamics of affective partisanship and policy divergence in a behavioral voting model. Voters are adaptive and influenced by partisan affect, while political parties are rational and office motivated. We show that the affective partisanship of the electorate and the divergence of party platforms can be mutually reinforcing, thus providing an explanation for the observed co-movement of affective and elite polarization in recent decades. Whether the induced behavioral path exhibits low polarization or high polarization depends on the salience of group identity and the number of moderate voters. Thus, shocks to those factors, perhaps due to such events as economic crises or war, can lead to the polarization or depolarization of the electorate and of the elite.

Objective. This article investigates the extent to which opposing candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives adopt differing policy stances & examines explanations for policy divergence. Methods. We use a Congressional Quarterly survey of 1996 House candidates to measure policy divergence on eight issues. We then test explanations for this divergence: party pressures, primaries, third-party candidates, campaign contributions, candidate preferences, & uncertainty. Results. Primaries, third-party challenges, & contributions play little role in explaining policy divergence. We find that party & candidate preferences contribute to differences in the policy platforms of opposing candidates while uncertainty weakens the pressure for policy convergence. Conclusion. Imperfect information weakens pressure on candidates to adopt positions favored by the majority of voters in a district. This lack of pressure allows candidates to indulge their personal & party preferences in taking policy stances. 4 Tables, 31 References. Adapted from the source document.

Objective. This article investigates the extent to which opposing candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives adopt differing policy stances and examines explanations for policy divergence.Methods. We use a Congressional Quarterly survey of 1996 House candidates to measure policy divergence on eight issues. We then test explanations for this divergence: party pressures, primaries, third‐party candidates, campaign contributions, candidate preferences, and uncertainty.Results. Primaries, third‐party challenges, and contributions play little role in explaining policy divergence. We find that party and candidate preferences contribute to differences in the policy platforms of opposing candidates while uncertainty weakens the pressure for policy convergence.Conclusion. Imperfect information weakens pressure on candidates to adopt positions favored by the majority of voters in a district. This lack of pressure allows candidates to indulge their personal and party preferences in taking policy stances.

AbstractPrior research on policy conflicts indicates a tendency among policy actors to misperceive the influence of actors engaged in policy debates based on the degree of distance between their relative policy positions. This research develops a measure for assessing the degree and direction of the misperception effect. This measure is then utilized as a dependent variable to assess the relationship between theoretically relevant factors and the degree to which actors will exaggerate the influence of their opponents and allies. The research uses original survey data of policy actors engaged in the debate over hydraulic fracturing in New York. The results indicate misperceptions of relative influence are prevalent and most associated with the experience of a policy loss and holding relatively extreme policy beliefs. The findings provide new insight into factors that influence the demonization of political opponents. These insights are timely in the context of polarized debates over environmental and energy policy in the United States.