Multilevel interdependencies and policy capacity in Europe

This issue celebrates the tenth volume of the European Policy Analysis (EPA) journal. EPA started in 2015 as the successor to German Policy Studies (GPS), which was edited by Nils C. Bandelow, Fritz Sager, and Klaus Schubert from 2000 to 2013. GPS was a platform for policy process research from the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It published two issues per year, which were often organized by guest editors. Although GPS was founded on the initiative of the Policy Studies Organization (PSO), the journal was published in cooperation with the Southern Public Administration Education Foundation: https://spaef.org/gps. GPS included several high-quality and influential contributions and special issues. This was a remarkable achievement by the authors and guest editors as GPS had to be organized without any online submission platform. Reviewers were invited individually by e-mail and there was no support from any editorial team. The journal was not even available on most scientific databases for a long time. With the foundation of EPA, the GPS editors at the time not only wanted to professionalize the outlet and to increase its reach, but above all to broaden its focus. The new journal was to provide a platform for all European perspectives on policy process research. The PSO was won over to this idea, as EPA addressed a gap in the PSO's portfolio. In addition to general policy process journals (Policy Studies Journal, Review of Policy Research, and Politics and Policy), the PSO offers topic-specific and region-specific journals. EPA was and is the first and only PSO journal with a European focus. Similar to GPS, EPA initially was published only twice a year and concentrated mainly on special issues, which were organized with the support of guest editors. A key factor in the journal's success was the fact that, from the time EPA was founded, a then undergraduate student, Johanna Hornung, was appointed editorial director and was involved in all tasks of the editorial team from the beginning. Since the second issue of the first volume, Peter Biegelbauer served EPA as coeditor in chief until 2017. These developments and the support of the PSO motivated both established and emerging scholars of the field to submit their work to EPA. As a result, EPA became one of the most successful journals of the PSO and in 2020 was given the opportunity to move from the PSO platform ipsonet.org to the established scientific publisher Wiley, where it became part of the large PSO portfolio. Wiley also made all older volumes of EPA available on its website. In 2020, EPA has been included in Scopus (retroactively for all issues from 2015). Since 2021, we extended EPA to four annual issues. In the same year, EPA was included in the Web of Science, and it received its first impact factor in 2023. Both Scopus and the Web of Science show EPA in their top quartile, with citation scores steadily increasing to date. With the completion of her PhD in 2021, Johanna Hornung was promoted to coeditor in chief of EPA. Since then, her duty as editorial director has been taken over by Ilana Schröder, who is similarly involved in all editorial processes. Klaus Schubert took this opportunity to step down from active editorship. EPA owes a great deal to his initiative and engagement during the development phase. Since 2021, Nils C. Bandelow, Johanna Hornung, and Ilana Schröder also have become responsible for the Review of Policy Research (RPR). This connection to RPR, which is particularly well established in the United States, has increased EPA's visibility beyond Europe. EPA is now not only a platform for European research, but also for international research on European topics or with European approaches. This expansion becomes clear in this anniversary issue. The first contribution to this issue comes from scholars based at American universities. Gabehart et al. (2023) apply the lens of the Policy Feedback Theory (PFT, Mettler & SoRelle, 2023) to analyze how varying degrees of administrative (de-)centralization in Germany effect the enforcement of international wildlife treaties and the impact on bureaucrats’ power and strategies. For the latter, they use Alfred Hirschman's (1970) distinction between voice, loyalty, and exit. They find equal disadvantages in German federal states with extreme centralized authority (like in Brandenburg) and in decentralized structures (e.g., Bavaria and North-Rhine Westphalia). Informal responses lead to inefficient institutional structures not being recognized and changed. The best results are found in cooperative governance structures, where authority is either shared between municipal and state authorities or there are intermediate structures (for instance Lower Saxony and Hesse). Our second contribution also deals with specific multilevel challenges of the policy process in German federalism. Obstacles to the implementation of fundamental reforms in Germany, such as the energy transition, have so far been attributed primarily to the specific institutional structures of German federalism (Behnke & Hegele, 2023). Ruffing and Brendler (2024) use a game-theoretical perspective to show that the conflicts over electricity grid planning in Germany are the result of a “wicked” problem structure. The challenge is that large transmission lines are beneficial on a macrosocial level, but only generate costs from a local perspective. Therefore, none of the existing approaches lead to a lasting solution: Neither technocratic or participatory decision-making, nor redistribution and compensation mitigate these conflicts. The latest approach, a change in technology, in particular the mandatory use of underground cables instead of overhead lines, can be interpreted as a “hidden” compensation mechanism that reduces local costs by increasing macro costs. The article analyzes plenary debates in the German parliament (Bundestag) and Federal Council (Bundesrat) which reveal that the central distribution dimension is politically neglected. Neither participatory procedures nor underground cabling fundamentally solve the distribution problems. At least for the specific challenge of expanding the power lines, there does not yet appear to be a conflict-free solution in sight. The third article also deals with multilevel challenges focusing on crisis management during the COVID-19 pandemic in Switzerland. Mavrot and Sager (2024) apply a theoretical perspective of policy learning during crisis (Crow et al., 2022; Dunlop et al., 2018; Wang, 2023). They show a particular challenge of governance in federal states with a low concentration of power: while on the one hand consensus democracies can contribute to policy learning by including different interests and perspectives, these structures can also lead to suboptimal learning processes. This is the case when the different levels are in competition with each other. On the basis of media analysis and analysis of gray literature, the authors show that the Swiss federal structure has promoted such a strategy of blame avoidance during COVID-19 governance. Continuing the focus on crisis management during the pandemic, Värttö (2023) contributes to this issue with an examination of the Finnish parliament and its capacity to oversee emergency measures and provide democratic stability. The author critically reviews how the Finnish political system handled measures such as restrictions of fundamental rights and minimized separation of power during the pandemic. Värtto puts a special emphasis on the functionality of the constitutional law committee (CLC) and its task to assess the constitutionality of proposed emergency policies by the Government. Following a document analysis of the CLC's statements between 2020 and 2021, the author shows that the committee was rather critical of the Government's proposals at the early stage of the pandemic due to a lack of information and clear justifications. However, the rejections by the CLC decreased at later stages when more resources and information became available. The study concludes that except from occasional time restrictions, the CLC continued to operate relatively normally during the pandemic and secured that the Government followed the rule of law in emergency situations which is crucial for democratic stability. The aftermaths of the COVID crisis have exceeded beyond health-related consequences and shown the importance of resilience across policy sectors. Focusing on crisis management in the cultural and creative sectors (CCSs) within the NextGenerationEU Program, Betzler et al. (2023) investigate how EU member states interpret resilience and which measures they propose to improve it in the CCSs. The authors apply a mixed-methods approach combining document analysis of national recovery and resilience plans (NRRPs) with country data on cultural employment, businesses, and expenditures. The study shows that two-thirds of the EU countries foresee cultural measures and expenditures in their NRRPs, especially those with higher cultural activity. Resilience plans are mainly focused on easier achievable EU targets that address larger cultural industries, while ecological or digital innovations and support for the independent cultural scene are rarely discussed. This highlights a concentration on adaptive and absorptive forms of resilience as opposed to transformative resilience. The authors conclude that EU countries are still lacking a shared understanding and sustainable, major initiatives to support CCSs in becoming more resilient after the pandemic. Looking at other multilevel complexities in EU policymaking, Fink (2023) examines the influence of socioeconomic conditions, public opinion, and partisan preferences on member states’ positions on EU migration policy in the Council of Ministers. These independent variables are tested for a directive on returning illegally staying third-country nationals and a directive on coordinating social security systems using OLS regression and fractional logit models. The results show that while there is no significant impact of socioeconomic conditions on a state's policy position, partisan preferences, and public opinion do matter. Especially the returns directive was subject to public opinion pressure while the social security regulation was more governed by party positions on welfare state expansion and, specifically, the preferences of the rightmost party. This highlights that EU member states’ policy preferences can follow different logics across legislative proposals which are, however, more influenced by the respective countries’ domestic politics than by unemployment rates or welfare state types. 本期《欧洲政策分析》(EPA)庆祝其创刊以来的第十卷。EPA于2015年成立,其前身是《德国政策研究》(GPS),后者由Nils C. Bandelow、Fritz Sager和Klaus Schubert在2000年至2013年期间担任编辑。GPS是德语国家(即德国、奥地利和瑞士)的政策过程研究平台。它每年出版两期,通常由客座编辑组织完成。尽管GPS是在政策研究组织(PSO)的倡议下创立的,但该杂志是与南方公共行政教育基金会合作出版的:https://spaef.org/gps。 GPS收录了一些高质量且有影响力的文章和特刊。这是作者和客座编辑的一项了不起的成就,因为GPS不得不在没有任何在线投稿平台的情况下进行组织。审稿人是通过电子邮件逐个邀请的,没有任何编辑团队的支持。该杂志甚至在很长一段时间内都无法在大多数科学数据库中找到。 随着EPA的成立,当时的GPS编辑不仅希望使沟通渠道专业化并扩大其影响范围,而且最重要的是扩大其研究范围。这本新杂志旨在为关于政策过程研究的所有视角提供一个平台。由于EPA解决了PSO期刊杂志系列中的一个空白,因此PSO接受了这个想法。除了一般的政策过程杂志(即《政策研究杂志》、《政策研究评论》和《政治与政策》)外,PSO还提供聚焦特定主题和地区的杂志。EPA过去是,现在也是第一个也是唯一一个以欧洲为重点的PSO杂志。 与GPS类似,EPA最初每年只出版两次,主要出版特刊,这些特刊是在客座编辑的支持下组织的。该杂志成功的一个关键因素是,从EPA成立之日起,当时的本科生Johanna Hornung就被任命为编辑主任,并从一开始就参与了编辑团队的所有工作。自第一卷第二期开始,Peter Bigelbauer一直担任EPA联合主编直至2017年。 这些发展和PSO的支持促使该领域的知名学者和新兴学者向EPA提交稿件。因此,EPA成为PSO最成功的杂志之一,并于2020年有机会从PSO平台(ipsonet. org)转移到知名的科学出版商Wiley(由Wiley代为出版),成为PSO杂志系列的一部分。Wiley还在其网站上提供了EPA的所有旧卷。 2020年,EPA被纳入Scopus数据库(追溯2015年以来的所有期刊)。自2021年起,我们将EPA扩展到每年发表四期。同年,EPA被纳入Web of Science,并于2023年首次获得影响因子。Scopus和Web of Science均显示EPA名列前四分之一,迄今为止,其引用分数稳步上升。 2021年完成博士学位后,Johanna Hornung晋升为EPA联合主编。此后,她担任编辑主任的职责由Ilana Schröder接任,后者同样参与所有编辑过程。Klaus Schubert借此机会辞去了活跃的编辑职务。EPA在很大程度上要归功于他在杂志发展阶段的倡议和参与。自2021年起,Nils C. Bandelow、Johanna Hornung和Ilana Schröder也开始负责编辑《政策研究评论》(RPR)杂志。RPR在美国尤为知名,与其的联系提高了EPA在欧洲以外的知名度。现在,EPA不仅是欧洲研究的平台,也是针对欧洲主题或采用欧洲方法的国际研究的平台。这一扩展在本周年纪念刊中变得明显。 本期收录的第一篇文章来自美国大学的学者。Kayla M. Gabehart、Allegra H. Fullerton和 Christoph H. Stefes(2024)应用政策反馈理论(PFT, Mettler and SoRelle 2023)的视角来分析德国不同程度的行政(去)集权如何影响国际野生动物条约的执行以及对官僚权力和战略的影响。对于后者,他们使用了Alfred Hirschman(1970)提出的对“发声、忠诚和退出”的区分。他们发现,德国联邦州存在同样的劣势,其中部分存在极端集权(如勃兰登堡)、而另一些则存在权力分散的结构(如巴伐利亚和北莱茵威斯特法伦州)。非正式的响应措施导致低效的制度结构得不到认可和改变。最好的结果出现在合作治理结构中,其中权力要么在市政府和州政府之间共享,要么存在中间结构(例如下萨克森州和黑森州)。 我们的第二篇文章也研究了德国联邦制政策过程中特定的多层次挑战。迄今为止,德国实施能源转型等根本性改革的障碍主要归因于德国联邦制的特定制度结构(Behnke and Hegele 2023)。Eva Ruffing和Viktoria Brendler(2024)使用博弈论视角表明,关于德国电网规划的冲突归因于一个“棘手”问题的结构。挑战在于,大型输电线路在宏观社会层面上是有益的,但从地方角度来看只会产生成本。因此,现有的方法都无法带来持久的解决方案:技术官僚或参与式决策、再分配和补偿都无法缓解这些冲突。最新的方法是技术变革(特别是强制使用地下电缆代替架空线路),可以解释为一种“隐性”补偿机制,该机制通过增加宏观成本来降低地方成本。文章分析了德国联邦议院(Bundestag)和德国联邦参议院(Bundesrat)的全体辩论,揭示出中央分配维度在政治上被忽视。参与式程序和地下电缆布线都不能从根本上解决分配问题。至少对于扩大输电线这一具体挑战而言,目前看来还没有一个无冲突的解决方案。 第三篇文章也研究了多层次的挑战,聚焦于瑞士在2019冠状病毒病(COVID-19)大流行期间的危机管理。Céline Mavrot 和Fritz Sager(2024)应用了危机期间政策学习的理论视角(Crow et al. 2022, Dunlop, Radaelli, and Trein 2018, Wang 2023)。作者显示了权力集中程度低的联邦州面临的特殊治理挑战:一方面,虽然共识民主能通过包容不同的利益和观点来促进政策学习,但这些结构也能导致次优的学习过程。这是不同层面相互竞争时产生的情况。作者在媒体分析和灰色文献分析的基础上表明,瑞士联邦结构在COVID-19治理过程中推动了这种避责策略。 下一篇文章继续聚焦于大流行期间的危机管理。Mikko Värttö(2023)通过分析芬兰议会及其在“监督紧急措施和提供民主稳定性”方面的能力,为本期内容作贡献。作者批判述评了芬兰政治系统在大流行期间如何处理一系列措施,例如限制基本权利以及权力分立的最小化。Värtto特别强调了宪法委员会(CLC)的职能及其在“评估政府拟议紧急政策的合宪性”方面的任务。作者对CLC在2020年至2021年间的声明进行文献分析后发现,由于缺乏信息和明确的理由,该委员会对政府在大流行初期的建议持相当的批评态度。然而,随着更多资源和信息的出现,CLC在后期阶段减少了批判。研究结论认为,除了偶尔受到时间限制外,CLC在大流行期间继续相对正常地运作,并确保政府在紧急情况下遵循法治,这对民主稳定至关重要。 新冠危机的后果不只是与健康相关的结果,还显示了各政策部门复原力的重要性。Diana Betzler、Ellen Loots和Marek Prokůpek(2023)聚焦于“下一代欧盟”计划中文化和创意部门(CCS)的危机管理,调查了欧盟成员国如何解释复原力以及其提出哪些措施来提高CCS的复原力。作者采用一项混合方法,将国家恢复和复原力计划(NRRP)的文献分析与关于“文化就业、商业和支出”的国家数据相结合。研究表明,三分之二的欧盟国家在其NRRP中预见了文化措施和支出,特别是那些文化活动较高的国家。复原力计划主要侧重于更容易实现的欧盟目标(针对更大的文化产业),而很少讨论生态创新或数字创新以及对独立文化场景的支持。这强调了对适应性复原力和吸收性复原力的关注,而不是变革性复原力。作者得出的结论是,欧盟国家仍然缺乏共识和可持续的重大举措来支持CCS在大流行后变得更具复原力。 下一篇文章中,作者Simon Fink(2023)聚焦于欧盟政策制定中的其他多层次复杂性,研究了社会经济条件、舆论和党派偏好对“欧盟成员国在部长会议上的欧盟移民政策立场”的影响。使用OLS回归分析和分数Logit模型,以一项遣返非法居留的第三国国民的指令和一项协调社会保障系统的指令为情境,对这些自变量进行了测试。结果表明,虽然社会经济条件对国家政策立场没有显著影响,但党派偏好和舆论确实至关重要。遣返指令尤其受到舆论压力,而社会保障监管则更多地受到政党在福利制度扩张上的立场的影响,特别是最右翼政党的偏好。这强调,欧盟成员国的政策偏好在立法提案中可以遵循不同的逻辑,然而,这些立法提案更多地受到各国的国内政治的影响,而不是失业率或福利制度类型的影响。 Este número celebra el décimo volumen de la revista European Policy Analysis (EPA). EPA comenzó en 2015 como sucesora de German Policy Studies (GPS), que fue editada por Nils C. Bandelow, Fritz Sager y Klaus Schubert de 2000 a 2013. GPS la de de de y que a por GPS por de la de (PSO), la revista en la de la https://spaef.org/gps. GPS y y de Este fue por de y que el GPS que de en por y no de revista en la de de la de EPA, de GPS de la no el y revista la de PSO de idea, que la EPA en la de la de de (Policy Studies Journal, Review of Policy Research y Politics and Policy), PSO y EPA fue y la y revista de PSO que GPS, EPA y en que el de factor el de la revista fue el de la de EPA, Johanna Hornung, fue editorial y el en la Peter Biegelbauer EPA como coeditor 2017. y el de PSO a y en el a a EPA. EPA en de de PSO y en 2020 la de de la de PSO a la editorial Wiley, a de la de Wiley a de EPA en 2020, EPA en Scopus 2015). 2021, EPA a EPA en Web of Science y factor de en 2023. Scopus como Web of Science a EPA en de en la en 2021, Johanna Hornung fue a de la EPA. como editorial la Ilana Schröder, en Klaus Schubert la EPA a y la de 2021, Nils C. Bandelow, Johanna Hornung Ilana Schröder a de Review of Policy Research (RPR). RPR, que en la de la EPA de EPA no la la en número de a número de de M. H. y Christoph H. (2024) la de la de la de (PFT, Mettler y SoRelle 2023) de en la de la de y el en el y de la de Alfred (1970) y en en y en y a que no en de la y y Hesse). en el a la de en como la a (Behnke y Hegele, 2023). Ruffing y Brendler (2024) de de que la de la en el de que de a de a la de la y la de en particular el de cables en de como de que debates en el (Bundestag) y el Federal (Bundesrat) que que la de la central el de el de no a la de en la de crisis la de en Mavrot y Fritz Sager (2024) de crisis (Crow et al. 2022, Dunlop, y Trein 2018, Wang 2023). particular de la en de por de de y a de Este el la de y el de la que la federal la de en la de crisis la Värttö (2023) a y de y el como de y la de la de la Värtto en la de (CLC) y de la de de por el de 2020 y 2021, el que el fue en la de la a la de y de por CLC en de el CLC la y que el el de en de crucial la de la crisis de la COVID de la y la de la en en la de crisis en cultural y y (2023) de la la y en de que el de de de y y que de de la y en de en de la de y que que y el a la cultural de en de y de en a la que de la de y de y a a de la en la de de la Fink (2023) la de la y en de la de la en el de variables el de de que en y la de de social de y logit que no de en la de y la la a la de la que la de la social por de la de por de que de de la por la de que por de de de The authors no of

Business · Interdependence · Political science · European Union Policy and Governance · Policy Transfer and Learning · Social Policy and Reform Studies

• Learning in Public Policy

  Open Access•Monica K Miller, Claire A Dunlop et al.•Learning in Public Policy•2018

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• Blame‐avoidance and fragmented crisis management during the Covid‐19 pandemic in Switzerland

  Open Access•C Mavrot, Fritz Sager•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• Parliamentary oversight of emergency measures and policies

  Open Access•Mikko Värttö•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• Party politics and the shaping of migration policy in the Council of Ministers

  Open Access•Simon Fink•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• Arts and culture in transformation

  Open Access•Diana Betzler, Ellen Loots et al.•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• Policy feedback and the enforcement of international wildlife treaties in Germany

  Open Access•Kayla M Gabehart, Allegra H Fullerton et al.•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• The game of energy transition

  Open Access•Eva Ruffing, Viktoria Brendler•European Policy Analysis•2023

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• Achieving cross‐sectoral policy integration in multilevel structures—Loosely coupled coordination of “energy transition” in the German “Bundesrat

  Open Access•Nathalie Behnke, Yvonne Hegele•Review of Policy Research•2023

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• Policy learning and change during crisis

  Open Access•Deserai A Crow, Rob A Deleo et al.•Review of Policy Research•2022

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• The role of policy learning in explaining Covid-19 policy changes

  Open Access•Chan Wang•Review of Policy Research•2025

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