Previous research on deregulation in industrialised countries emphasises differences between left-wing and right-wing parties, but data on product market regulation (PMR) indicate that these differences have been modest. If partisan preferences on the merits of deregulation differ sharply, why such modest differences? We argue that partisan differences only become pronounced when the government is strong and rules a relatively unified legislature. Thus, legislative fragmentation should reduce the left-right difference in PMR. We test this theory against PMR data in 29 industrialised countries, 1978–2007. We find that right-wing governments only have a strong negative effect on regulation if the legislature and the government are not fragmented.

Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift at two levels. On the actor level, interest groups, political parties and powerful actors suffer more from the devil shift than state actors and powerless actors. On the process level, the devil shift is stronger in policy processes dealing with socio-economic issues as compared with other issues. Finally, and in line with previous studies, there is less empirical evidence of the power dimension of the devil shift phenomenon than of its evilness dimension.

Federal agencies perform many important tasks, from guarding against terrorist plots to mailing social security checks. A key question is whether Congress can effectively manage such a large and influential bureaucracy. We argue that Congress, in using oversight to ensure agency responsiveness to legislative preferences, risks harming agency morale, which could have negative long-run effects on performance and the implementation of public policy. More specifically, we argue that oversight’s effects on agency morale are conditional on whether oversight is adversarial or friendly. We assess our claims using a novel data set of the frequency and tone of hearings in which federal agencies are called to testify before Congress from 1999 to 2011 and merge it with data on agency autonomy and job satisfaction. Our findings suggest that agency morale is sensitive to congressional oversight attention, and thus speak to questions regarding democratic accountability, congressional policymaking and the implementation of public policy.

A growing literature in public policy, comparative politics and international relations has studied how the policies of one unit (e.g. country, federal state or city) are influenced by the policies of other units – that is, how policies diffuse. This article provides a meta-analysis of 114 studies, demonstrating persisting inconsistencies in the measurement of the mechanisms driving policy diffusion processes. Different indicators are used to measure the same mechanism, and the same indicators are used to measure different mechanisms. To improve this state of affairs, this article puts forward a conceptual structure that serves as a guide for the application of diffusion arguments, a starting point for theoretical refinement and a benchmark to assess measurement validity. In addition to paying more attention to the conceptual consistency of indicators, overcoming the problems currently found in the literature requires the construction of original, innovative research designs instead of the replication of widely used templates.

This article argues that public opinion on retirement is related to people’s causal beliefs about how labour markets work. Whereas voters do not think that there is an employment trade-off between older and younger workers in some European countries, in others, this is a dominant paradigm. When they believe this trade-off exists, people are more hostile to reforms that lead to longer working lives. The article uses Eurobarometer data to investigate the determinants of this belief – for instance, more people being led to believe in such a trade-off under high levels of labour market regulation. The article then goes on to show that this belief is related to policy preferences about early retirement. Finally, the article illustrates the political consequences of this belief and shows that it affects many policy areas even beyond early retirement.

The efficient use of market-based policy instruments is an area of increasing importance as scholars and policymakers work to balance effective climate policy with economic growth. Carbon allowances and carbon offsets, despite being statutorily substitutable, behave in practice like imperfect substitutes. This paper provides a synthesis of extant work, market data and the regulatory frameworks of the world’s major carbon markets, and provides a comprehensive assessment of the drivers of demand for carbon offsets. It also provides a detailed assessment of the process through which international carbon offsets are produced, the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism. Demand for carbon offsets is heavily influenced by key programme design parameters that are specific to carbon market design and its implementation. These design parameters heavily influence the degree to which transaction costs, regulatory uncertainty and risk factor into the decisions of firms operating within the carbon trading programme. This paper also identifies key extra-statutory drivers that are outside of the policymaker’s control, which should be considered in both the policy design and the implementation process. This paper provides an instructive set of guiding criteria for policymakers and scholars for the design of future market-based environmental policy.