Editorial Introduction to the Fifth Issue of European Policy Analysis

Both the practical “Policy Analysis” and the more academic “Theories of the Policy Process” originated in the United States. American perspectives still are very influential for the development of the field. However, each region and country has specific political and scientific institutions as well as political and scientific traditions, resulting in the existence of several interpretations and adaptations of Policy Studies (Blum & Schubert, 2013; Brans & Aubin, 2017; Halpern, Hassenteufel & Zittoun, 2017; van Nispen & Scholten, 2015; Veselý, Nekola & Hejzlarová, 2016). Very often, the country-specific discussion in the respective native language does only sporadically reach the international state of the art. Consequently, the different perspectives of Policy Analysis and Theories of the Policy Process in several European countries are less divided than in the United States. European scholars adopt theoretical frameworks stemming from the US-American perspective but often face the need to modify the lenses to deal with their respective political environment. Moreover, existing typical perspectives originating in non-American policy analysis have not been systematically included into the international discussion. For example, the French political science has developed the Programmatic Actor Framework (PAF, Genieys, 2010; Hassenteufel, Smyrl, Genieys & Moreno-Fuentes, 2010), which has not yet been included in American textbooks on Theories of the Policy Process (see e.g., Sabatier & Weible, 2014). We founded European Policy Analysis (EPA) to reduce the gap between the international development and the European contributions to the field. Our journal provides a platform to publish high quality articles that apply the established perspectives of the field to European cases, to present new theoretical frameworks originated from European cases or by European scholars, to discuss the state of the art in European countries and regions, and to compare different perspectives of Policy Analysis. Introductions to the earlier issues also outline the general ideas of EPA (Bandelow, Sager & Schubert, 2015a; Bandelow, Sager, Schubert & Biegelbauer, 2015b; Bandelow, Sager & Schubert, 2016; Bandelow et al., 2015a,b). The Policy Studies Organization established the journal together with the European editorial team starting in 2015 as one of the PSO's online journals. The success of the first issues enabled the cooperation with Wiley, starting in 2017. EPA has different sorts of contributions. All articles present fresh theoretical and/or empirical results and undergo a strict double blind peer review process. Some issues comprise a special focus organized by guest editors. Contributions to a special focus also undergo the double blind peer review process. Additionally, EPA provides a platform for shorter essays by leading scholars who discuss recent political and scientific challenges. We also present some selected recent book publications of the field authored by our board members and reviewers, who will give a short summary of their work, to include the development of European policy studies, which is not solely based on journal articles but sometimes takes place in important high quality monographs. EPA is very much interested in theoretical contributions and theoretical developments of Policy Analysis in European countries also in combination with European case studies. The special focus of the third issue brings together some contributions that generated from a workshop organized by Klaus Schubert in Muenster, Germany. Robert Hoppe and Hal Colebatch (2016) address the disconnection between the academic study of the policy process and many political practices. Strassheim (2016) gives an overview on theories of time in Policy Analysis. Bornemann (2016) presents the perspective of integrative political strategies. Among the most applied theoretical lenses of public policy are the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). While there are systematic reviews of the ACF and its applications in other journals, EPA provides a platform for both overviews on national particularities. European applications and developments of the MSF are presented by de Leeuw, Hoeijmakers and Peters (2016) and Deruelle (2016). Nohrstedt and Olofsson (2016) give an overview over ACF applications in Sweden. Blatter, Bombach and Wiprächtiger (2015) combine the MSF, the ACF, and the Rational Policy Cycle (RPC) to analyze how evidence can be used in gender policy. EPA presents analyses of recent challenges and developments of specific policy subsystems in European countries, partially compared to other industrialized regions. There are special issues on perspectives on the governance of welfare markets (Klenk, 2015) and on demographic change and health care in Europe (Hunger & Neumann, 2016). A lot of EPA contributions have an international comparative perspective. Neil Gilbert (2015) distinguishes three different modes of welfare privatization. Bernhard Ebbinghaus (2015) discusses similarities and variances of welfare state transformation toward marketization and privatization in times of austerity. Klenk and Reiter (2015) compare the governance of hospital market in France and Germany. Neby, Lægreid, Mattei and Feiler (2015) show how different waiting list scandals resulting from similar reforms on hospital financing are handled in Norway and Germany. Rinscheid (2015) explains why Germany has reacted much more on the Fukushima disaster than Japan by focusing on the level of subsystem polarization. Skučiene and Moskvina (2016) provide a meta-analysis of retirement policies in central and eastern European countries. Other papers focus on specific national cases, like Breidahl and Larsen (2015) on Denmark and Benjamin Ewert (2015), Paul and Huber (2015), Hegelich and Shahrezaye (2015), Neumann and Hunger (2016), Gkolfinopoulos (2016) on Germany, Sager, Mavrot and Hadorn (2015), Ingold and Pflieger (2016) on Switzerland, Vecchione and Parkhurst (2015) on Ghana (with a perspective based on European Policy Analysis) and Mondragón Ruiz de Lezana et al. (2016) on Spain. Apart from country studies, EPA is also interested in contributions on EU policies. Igor Guardiancich (2015) explicates the hurdles toward any efforts for harmonization of pension schemes in the European Union. Wolf and Wenzelburger (2016) analyze problems of the recently founded European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA). Some papers address general questions going beyond any specific regional focus. Hinterleitner and Rosser (2015) argue for the use of a sociological perspective to complement the rationalist perspective for understanding the role of credit ration agencies (CRAs) after the 2008 crisis. Schweizer (2015) discusses Law Activation Strategies (LAS) by using illustrations from Swiss cases. Hegelich (2016) presents machine learning techniques, adopts them and discusses applications for Policy Analysis and challenges that come with the applications. Ceccobelli and Cotta (2016) show that apart from leftist and young politicians major political actors do not give environmental issues on facebook a very relevant concern. This fifth issue of EPA starts with an essay by Nikolaos Zahariadis who explains the paradox, that the migration crisis at the same time highlighted and intensified the internal conflicts within the European Union and brought the Member States closer together (Zahariadis, 2017). He thereby ties on the forum debate of previous issues (Beyme, 2016; Forss & Magro, 2016; Hansen, 2016; Hübner, 2016). A greater political emphasis is to be expected in farm animal policy. Colette S. Vogeler compares German, Austrian, and Swiss policies in this field adopting revised versions of partisan theory and the lens of multilevel policies (Vogeler, 2017). Party politics explains large parts of the variance of national policies in Austria and Germany, while in Switzerland the focus on the domestic market leads to a high level of animal welfare policy. Annette Elisabeth Töller questions the thesis that the “shadow of hierarchy” is a necessary and sufficient condition for voluntary regulation (Töller, 2017). She analyzes why the German pharmaceutical industry adopted the voluntary FSA codex. The case study demonstrates that a combination of rational choice institutionalism and normative institutionalism, which takes normative pressure into account explains both the adoption and the revisions of the codex. Frans van Nispen and Peter Scholten test the influence of the economic and financial crisis on the use of expert knowledge by analyzing two very different Dutch cases (van Nispen & Scholten, 2017). They did not find evidence that expert knowledge has been used less as a result of the crisis. However, there was evidence for a more political or symbolic use of knowledge. To what extend do European states use policies to lower emissions (mitigation) and/or to reduce expected climate change impacts (adaptation) as reactions to climate change? Andreas Fleig, Nicole Schmidt and Jale Tosun show that all EU states but Hungary have adopted at least one sort of these measures (Fleig, Schmidt & Tosun, 2017). While the literature expected mitigation to be the prevailing strategy, the evidence of the paper gives two strategies similar weight. However, there is no homogenous strategy. Minna van Gerven and Mikael Nygård investigate work/family reconciliation policies in Finland and the Netherlands since 1995 (van Gerven & Nygård, 2017). They show the stability of policy paradigms over time by tracing the dominant ideas to be found in the coalition programs concerning equal treatment, employment promotion, and social investment. Instutionalization of new policy subsystems undergoes different phases and ways. In German Policy Studies, this has been a focus for some years (Scheffel, 2016). Abel Reiberg uses a combination of field theory and institutional theory to interpret the construction of the subsystem as a form of collective production of understanding by an emerging policy elite (Reiberg, 2017). European applications of the ACF often focus on the original element of policy oriented learning as a possible trigger of policy change (Bandelow, 2006). Balázs Babarczy and László Imre use the ACF in this way to analyze the establishment of a new Hungarian health system after since regime change in 1989–1990 (Babarczy & Imre, 2017). Unlike most applications of the ACF in established democracies, the Eastern European case study presents an example of cross-coalition policy learning. The analysis of policy instruments belongs to the main interests of both the American and the European Policy Analysis. European case studies have to deal with the very special (“sui generis”) system of the EU that has to use soft instruments in most areas to reach its goal (Pollex, 2017). Jan Pollex investigates the question how the EU frames and addresses the consumer for its sustainable consumption policy. Looking at central policy documents, he argues that the EU assumes average-rational consumers. While the contributions to this issue emerged from different theoretical and empirical perspectives, the next issue will have a special focus on “Infrastructure Policy-Making: Between Regional Interests and Societal Goals”. This sixth issue of EPA will appear in November 2017. Irrespective of the special focus, EPA is always interested in high quality original papers within the scope of the journal and in proposals for future special issues.