Despite a near unanimous agreement that human trafficking is a morally reprehensible practice, there is confusion around what qualifies as human trafficking in the United States. Adopting a mixed-method strategy, we examine how human trafficking is defined by the public; how contemporary (mis)understanding of human trafficking developed; and the public opinion consequence of this (mis)understanding. The definition of human trafficking has evolved over time to become nearly synonymous with slavery; however, we demonstrate that media and anti-trafficking organisations have been focussing their attention on the sexual exploitation of foreign women. We show that general public opinion reflects this skewed attention; the average citizen equates human trafficking with the smuggling of women for sexual slavery. Using a survey experiment, we find that shining light on other facets of human trafficking – the fact that human trafficking is a security problem and a domestic issue – can increase public response to the issue.

Labour market regulation varies significantly, both within and between developed democracies. While there has been extensive research and debate in economics on the consequences of labour market regulation, the political causes for levels and changes in labour market regulation have received less scholarly attention. This article investigates a political economy explanation for differences in labour market regulation building on a theoretical argument that labour regulation can be used as a nonfiscal redistribution tool. Consequently, partisanship, the demand for redistribution and government budget constraint jointly determine whether labour market regulation will increase or decrease. Consistent with this argument, panel analyses from 33 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries reveal that labour market regulation increases under left-wing governments that face increased market inequality and high government debt.

Although elected officials have the final say over pensions, boards of trustees also influence plan governance. Not a great deal is known about boards or how they shape policies. Boards are composed of politically and nonpolitically appointed members, as well as active and retired employees. Plan active-employee size turns out to be the best predictor of membership, suggesting that employee voice expands as plans cover more workers. Using both fixed effects and instrumental variables approaches, I show how boards shape plans’ policies and funded levels. Active and retired members shape discount rates, whereas active membership is positively associated with funded ratios. Interestingly, gridlock is also associated with higher discount rates. However, I find that plans’ actual investment returns are poor predictors of expected returns, irrespective of board composition. Although boards offer a venue through which states can manage funds, they are not suited to solving pensions’ governance challenges alone.

Despite the impressive amount of empirical research on lobbying, a fundamental question remains overlooked. How do interest groups choose to lobby different sides of an issue? We argue that how groups choose sides is a function of firm-level economic activity. By studying a highly salient regulatory issue, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and using a novel data set of lobbying activities, we reveal that a group’s main economic sector matters most. Firms operating in finance and retail face unique costs and are incentivised to lobby against the GDPR. However, these groups are outgunned by a large, heterogeneous group of firms with superior lobbying firepower on the other side of the issue.

Monitoring the implementation process in domestic settings of multi-level policies like the EU gender directives is dependent on interactions among a diverse set of policy stakeholders. However, there is no clear understanding of which factors determine the structure of these monitoring networks and what benefits effective exchange. Drawing on insights from social network theory, literature on information politics in transnational networks and policy network analysis, this study analyses what drives information exchange among actors in the monitoring network of women’s groups in the Netherlands. Using Exponential Random Graph Models, the analysis reveals distinctive structural features facilitating efficient information exchange and significant brokerage in the monitoring network. Moreover, the results demonstrate that interactions that serve the purpose of monitoring EU policy implementation occur among a diverse set of actors in a multi-level structure. These findings indicate that effective monitoring requires resourceful and broad-based information exchange to increase transparency in the implementation process.

The literature on transnational regulatory networks identified interdependence as their main rationale, downplaying domestic factors. Typically, relevant contributions use the word “network” only metaphorically. Yet, informal ties between regulators constitute networked structures of collaboration, which can be measured and explained. Regulators choose their frequent, regular network partners. What explains those choices? This article develops an Exponential Random Graph Model of the network of European national energy regulators to identify the drivers of informal regulatory networking. The results show that regulators tend to network with peers who regulate similarly organised market structures. Geography and European policy frameworks also play a role. Overall, the British regulator is significantly more active and influential than its peers, and a divide emerges between regulators from EU-15 and others. Therefore, formal frameworks of cooperation (i.e. a European Agency) were probably necessary to foster regulatory coordination across the EU.

As collaborative governance processes continue to grow in popularity, practitioners and policy scholars alike can benefit from the development of methods to better analyse and evaluate them. This article develops one such method by demonstrating how collaborative governance theory can be integrated with the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to better explain coalition dynamics, policy-oriented learning and policy change in collaborative contexts. I offer three theoretical propositions that suggest alternate relationships among ACF variables under collaborative governance arrangements and illustrate these propositions using interview data from an original case study of a collaborative governance process in Colorado, USA. The integration of collaborative governance theory with the ACF improves its application in collaborative contexts and provides new theoretical insights into the study and practice of collaborative governance.

Does public policy in the United Kingdom respond to changes in public preferences? If so, is this the result of the government changing its policy to reflect preferences (“policy accommodation”) or the result of governments that pursue unpopular policies being replaced at elections by governments more in line with the public (“electoral turnover”)? We explore these questions by estimating annual aggregate public preferences (“the policy mood”) using responses to 287 questions administered 2,087 times and annual policy using budgetary data (“nonmilitary government expenditure”) for the whole of the postwar period. We find that mood moves in the opposite direction to policy and variations in mood are associated with variations in annual vote intentions. Policy is responsive to party control but not directly responsive to mood. Shifts in mood eventually lead to a change in government and thus policy, but this process may be very slow if the public has doubts about the competence of the opposition.

For decades, political scientists have observed the diffusion of complex governance arrangements including public participation procedures to ameliorate the democratic deficit inherent in these often-opaque structures. This article asks how the information provided in consultation statements is used by the consulting actors. To account for the multi-step character, the article combines exchange theory with a principal-agent approach, acknowledging that several actors in a delegation chain might be interested in the provided information. We use a typical case of a multi-step procedure – participation in German grid development – to test both theories. Neither the private firms nor the regulator use information provided in their own consultations, contradicting exchange theory. But the regulator considers ecological submissions made in the firms’ consultation, as the principal-agent approach suggests. Thus, a principal-agent approach allows us to find influence of consultation statements that exchange theory cannot detect.

Norway reformed its pension system in 2011, introducing a Swedish-style, NDC system. Contrary to expectations, the reform was largely supported by the dominant confederation of trade unions, the LO. In this article, we look at LO involvement in the process at different stages. Through qualitative interviews with key reform architects, we have traced the process between 2005 and 2008, emphasising actors, meeting places and interests. Starting from the insight that unions can influence through lobbying, bargaining and (the threat of) mobilising, we suggest that lobbying can be a mutual process, where parties and unions move each other’s positions. In addition, bargaining can take the form of behind-the-scenes cooperation, as well as of negotiations in the classic, Nordic-style industrial relations sense. Expanding on this framework, we suggest that the literature on pension reforms should pay more attention to negotiated and voluntary labour market occupational schemes, and to the importance of expertise and networks.

The EU infrastructure policy has relied on Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a means to successfully deliver infrastructure of benefit for the EU. To reach its infrastructure policy objectives, the EU has implemented support mechanisms aimed at facilitating the delivery of PPPs. This article is aimed at evaluating to what extent these mechanisms have actually contributed to improving the economic performance of PPPs. To that end, we have selected the case of Spanish road PPPs for empirical analysis. The main result shows that EU support positively influences the economic performance of PPP projects. This is caused by the fact that the EU conditions its financial support on a project’s meeting a set of requirements that help assure the success of the project. From this result, we obtain a set of conclusions that may be generalised to other cases, and provide a contribution to the body of knowledge on PPPs.

Scholars have hotly debated the structure of group engagement in policymaking. Two aspects of this conversation are examined here. First, some claim that the “explosion” of organised interests brings with it increasing fragmentation but also policy “balkanisation”. Others suggest increasing fragmentation, but with overlap between subsectors. A second area of this debate concerns the existence and number of “central” or “core” groups. Although existing studies show that, in aggregate, there is no more policy specialisation among United Kingdom organised interests, we do not know whether this means that there are fewer or more central groups. In this article, we utilise public policy consultations in Scotland over a continuous 25-year period, and the tools of network analysis, to examine the above propositions. We find that the expanding system of policy consultation is not associated with more balkanisation or with a decline of central policy actors that span policy communities.

In policymaking, actors are likely to take the preferences of others into account when strategically positioning themselves. However, there is a lack of research that conceives of policy preferences as an interdependent system. In order to analyse interdependencies, we link actors to their policy preferences in water protection, which results in an actor-instrument network. As actors exhibit multiple preferences, a complex two-mode network between actors and policies emerges. We analyse whether actors exhibit interdependent preference profiles given shared policy objectives or social interactions among them. By fitting an exponential random graph model to the actor-instrument network, we find considerable clustering, meaning that actors tend to exhibit preferences for multiple policy instruments in common. Actors tend to exhibit interdependent policy preferences when they are interconnected, that is, they collaborate with each other. By contrast, actors are less likely to share policy preferences when a conflict line divides them.

Rulemaking gives agencies significant power to change public policy, but agencies do not exercise this power in a vacuum. The separation of powers system practically guarantees that, at times, agencies will be pushed and pulled in different directions by Congress and the president. We argue that these forces critically affect the volume of rules produced by an agency. We develop an account of agency rulemaking in light of these factors and test our hypotheses on a data set of agency rules from 1995 to 2007. Our results show that even after accounting for factors specific to each agency, agencies do, in fact, adjust the quantity of rules they produce in response to separation of powers oversight. Further analysis shows that the president’s influence is limited to those agencies that he has made a priority.

Empirical support for the purported benefits of retail electric deregulation is mixed at best. Prior studies that identify states as simply “retail deregulated” overlook complex policy environments in which deregulation is implemented by regulators with a high degree of discretion. Prior studies also rely on Energy Information Administration data that do not account for core regulatory interventions that can take place during the process of implementing deregulation. Using robust time series household final bill survey data from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, this article provides a quasi-experimental analysis of the price impacts of retail electric restructuring in Ohio. The results suggest that residential electricity prices have increased following retail restructuring in all service territories in Ohio, with significant favourable welfare effects observed only in the Cincinnati area, where key policy implementation stages were not circumvented.

How does political trust affect the competing pressures of policy versus political performance in emergent democracies? Studies suggest that political trust buffers against these pressures, but empirical evidence is lacking in regard to if or how, given the focus in the literature on mature democracies where democratic institutions and practices are unlikely to be upended by either policy or political underperformance. However, in emergent democracies where the risks of democratic reversal loom large, the distinction is highly relevant. This article investigates how political trust matters in emergent democracies, specifically, if political trust buffers against public pressures, and whether it is system-directed versus incumbent-directed, for East and Southeast Asia. The evidence from multiple waves of survey data provides three useful insights: first, it shows that political trust supersedes economic expectations in support for the democratising system; this supports political trust as a buffer for the political system and is system-directed. Second, political trust goes hand-in-hand with economic performance to explain support for the incumbent government. This finding clarifies that political trust does not buffer the government against public pressure for performance. Third, taken together, the results show that economic growth may keep a government in office but institution-building leads to political trust that undergirds the political system, so that institution-building is a priority for stability in emergent democracies. These results expand the political trust literature to underpin democratic progression and consolidation issues that are unique to emergent democracies.

In recent decades, there has been a gradual decline in working-class organisations, including social democratic parties and trade unions, and an increase in support for populist radical right parties across western democracies. These trends have a plausible common cause: an increase in labour market insecurity associated with deindustrialisation may cause disenchantment with establishment organisations and support for politicians who criticise them. In this article, I examine how individual labour market status interacts with labour market policies to affect attitudes towards trade unions and populist radical right parties. I find that individuals with insecure employment status become less likely to support trade unions and more likely to support populist radical right parties as employment protection for secure workers increases. This effect is offset somewhat by spending on active labour market policies. I find evidence for these predictions in data for 27 Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development countries from 1995 to 2009.

The Pivotal Politics model (Krehbiel) has significantly influenced the study of American politics, but its core empirical prediction – that the size of the gridlock interval is negatively related to legislative productivity – has not found strong empirical support. We argue that previous research featured a disconnect between the exclusively ideological theory and tests that relied on outcome variables that were not purely ideological. We remedy this by dividing landmark laws (Mayhew) into two counts – those that invoke ideological preferences and those that do not – and uncover results consistent with Pivotal Politics’ core prediction: the size of the gridlock interval is negatively related to the production of ideological legislation. We also find that the size of the gridlock zone is positively related to the production of nonideological legislation. These results hold up in the face of various sensitivity analyses and robustness checks. We further show that Pivotal Politics explains variation in ideological legislation better than alternative theories based on partisan agenda control.

Environmental justice (EJ) has represented an important equity challenge in policymaking for decades. President Clinton’s executive order (EO) 12898 in 1994 represented a significant federal action, requiring agencies to account for EJ issues in new rulemakings. We examine the impact of EO 12898 within the larger question of how EO are implemented in complex policymaking. We argue that presidential preferences will affect bureaucratic responsiveness and fire alarm oversight. However, EJ policy complexity produces uncertainty leading to bureaucratic risk aversion, constraining presidential efforts to steer policy. We utilise an original data set of nearly 2,000 final federal agency rules citing EO 12898 and find significant variation in its utilisation across administrations. Uncertainty over the nature of the order has an important influence on bureaucratic responsiveness. Our findings are instructive for the twin influences of political control and policy-making uncertainty and raise useful questions for future EJ and policy implementation research.