Essay Notes: "Regulation and Time: Temporal patterns in regulatory development" by Joshua Newman and Michael Howlett

Photo: geralt/CC0 

Newman, J. and Howlett, M. (2014). Regulation and time: temporal patterns in regulatory development. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 80(3), 493–511. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852313517995

In this article, Newman and Howlett develop a model of regulatory regime evolution, and then test the model against six case studies representing various situations. I have been working on my own model of policy regime evolution, but need to either find the right space so that my ideas are not lost in interdisciplinary translation, or redevelop the concept so that I can articulate my ideas more precisely.

I find this article fascinating, as it looks at issues of time and space in the context of the comparative method, but where the temporal dimension is of special importance in understanding regulatory regimes. This article was sent to me after my recent presentation at the PPN Conference in Adelaide.

I’ve read the article in detail and it has given me new hope for a model I have been working on for some time based on a comparison of communications technology policies in Canada and Australia. I appreciated the focus on the temporal element observed in regulatory regime evolution. My model has a temporal element based on a most-similar comparison but I am losing much in translation between the political science and policy studies, and telecommunications and technology policy disciplines, and need to articulate my ideas more clearly – or less clearly, I am still not sure.

Previously, I called my model a model of co-evolution of institutions and communications technologies, using Thomas Hughes’ idea of technological momentum. Originally, I was looking at the model being a way to “operationalise” historical institutionalism, but I need to do some more ground work.

The article mentions exogenous “cris[es] in affecting policy change”, and this fits the historical institutionalist concept of critical junctures. But I have found that regulatory regimes (I have been referring to policy regimes but also trying to capture regulatory regime design as a subset of policy) tend to be path dependent. So while they may evolve and mature, in telecommunications at least, regimes tend to be self-reinforcing and mature along the trajectory set at the beginning (for telecommunications this is the telegraph).

If one views a new communications technology as a “crisis” or critical juncture (as these tend to be exogenous), then I can see a deep connection between the model tested by case studies in this article and the model derived from the case studies in mine. I have used words like “evolution” previously but I seem to have a missing piece of the puzzle when it comes to getting traction!

This is the first article that comes close to the space I am working in, and the paper gives me a sound example of how I can develop the sugar, automotive manufacturing, and taxi industry case studies I presented in Adelaide. This is one of the few articles I have read that is "speaking" my language.

Work-in-progress: "Restructuring Protected Industries: The efficacy of policy responses to disruption in the sugar, automotive manufacturing and taxi sectors"

© Depositphotos.com/@Wavebreakmedia

Institutional funding for conference attendance is now a distant memory, and I have sorely missed the opportunity to present my work in progress and receive frank and honest feedback, to the point where I have been self-funding my conference attendances. This article covers my most recent presentation at the Australia and New Zealand Public Policy Network (PPN) 2017 Annual Conference at Flinders University in Adelaide. It still fills me with a sense of wonder when I have the opportunity to have my work critiqued by some of the greats in political science whose names were familiar from my undergraduate textbooks some 23 or so years ago. So when I write about my journey here, it is in the spirit of memories past which I present my work in progress.

So I've decided to write about my research work in progress. It is likely filled with factual errors and poorly articulated ideas, but that is the nature of the process. Since starting this blog I have found that my writing somehow "gets going" if I blog regularly. I recall, too, that regular blogging opened up numerous opportunities for me in the early stages of my career, including the first of a series of paid gigs for ABC Unleashed (which would later become The Drum). This was an important time for me as I observed many others, who were also writing regularly for Unleashed, who went on to change careers and become journalists or freelance writers. But my heart was never in it; certainly not as a journalist, and I am glad I didn't go there. Indeed, if I were writing about the new president in another country for a living today, I would not be glad at all.

But what writing for the media did for me was to create an area of specialisation and to gain the support of my colleagues. It was an interesting phenomenon, amid immaturity, life crises, career change, returning to full time study, and being broke-arse poor, but it has proven a useful vignette for my leadership classes.

I would run around seeking validation for my work. I wanted to be accepted by my colleagues. But it didn't happen. It was all critique and no joy, and, strangely enough, exactly the type of critique I now deliberately seek out! But the point is that my colleagues would not validate my expertise. That is, until my work was validated externally by the media. Then when speaking of me, my colleagues would routinely say "Oh you should speak to Michael. He is an expert in..." Bizarre.

I do not mean to flatter myself. Indeed, one of the comments I received while writing for Unleashed was something like: "Expert! Ha! This guy doesn't have a PhD. He is lucky to have a job!" Besides, my favourite definition of "expert" is: "X being the unknown quantity and spurt being a drip under high pressure". But I do have a spot on expertguide.com.au, so for the point of what I am trying to say, there it is.

So by looking for validation within the organisation, I found nothing and came across as a needy freak. But by obtaining validation outside of the organisation, my colleagues just went with it. It is so strange to think back to these times, and the recent PPN conference was attended by some of the very same people. Nothing much has changed, and their feedback and criticism is as frank as ever. And God love them for it. If anything, their feedback is probably better, because I have grown up just a tad and I suspect they aren't so worried about hurting my delicate little ego!

Why we aren't taught such things, I think, is a function of class. Silvertails won't talk about such things because they might lose some of their silvertailed mystique. I played that game as an army officer and they can have it. Now, rather than asking "Why aren't we taught such things?" - I just get on and teach them.

Of course it takes age and experience, and for some, like me, age and experience are probably not the best ways to gain wisdom. Fools learn from their mistakes and I am a fool. But Rousseau (1782/1995: 11) says it best:

No doubt adversity is a great teacher, but its lessons are dearly bought, and often the profit we gain from them are not worth the cost.

While I am visiting Rousseau (1782/1995: 2), I am reminded of why I do things as I do, and while not so very good at it, I am less inclined to fight against my nature:

For a long time I put up a resistance as violent as it was fruitless. Being without guile, without skill, without cunning, without prudence, frank, open, impatient and impulsive, I only enmeshed myself further in my efforts to be free, and constantly gave them new holds on me which they took good care not to neglect. But realizing eventually that all my efforts were in vain and my self-torment to no avail, I took the only course left to me, that of submitting to my fate and ceasing to fight against the inevitable. This resignation has made up for my trials by the peace of mind it brings me, a peace of mind incompatible with the unceasing exertions of a struggle as painful as it was unavailing.

Interestingly, Rousseau's words echo Stoicism. But again I digress. Below is the work in progress so far.

Abstract
Disruption created by globalisation and emerging technologies has resulted in various policy responses to manage the decline of long-standing, protected industries in Australia. The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement, cheaper labour rates overseas, and challenges to existing regulated monopolies have affected the sugar, automotive manufacturing and taxi sectors respectively. In the first two cases, the Commonwealth introduced policy responses to manage the decline of the sugar and automotive manufacturing industries, whereas state governments have responded to the emerging ride-sharing providers by lowering the barriers to new market entrants. In each case, different approaches to compensating existing industry players for the impact of market restructuring have produced various policy approaches. This paper, then, compares the rationale for the respective policy responses to disruption in the sugar, automotive manufacturing, and taxi sectors. While the Commonwealth managed industry restructuring with deliberate, well-organised policy responses, the states ignored the need for reform until a disruptive business model had garnered such support from consumers that the states, politically, had little choice but to rush through policy responses that do not augur well for approaches to managing future disruptions. Indeed, the states created a high level of sovereign risk that has had a significant financial impact on small business investors in the taxi industry that may set a precedent for policy responses to the sharing economy in other state-governed industries such as hospitality. The paper argues that the states’ protracted policy responses to disruption, compounded by limited resources for policy-making, have resulted in inefficacious outcomes compared to the industries governed by the Commonwealth. Based on the experience of the three cases, the paper concludes with recommendations for governing future industry disruptions to ensure that small businesses do not bear the financial brunt of poorly implemented anticipatory industry policies.

There are a number of issues with my abstract. The most important feedback I received was not for me, but another. Much like the military appreciation process, where one must constantly ask oneself, "So what?". It is not uncommon in political science research to address some form of injustice, with an aim of improvement, as I discussed previously via Charles Merriam and Gabriel Almond. But to present little more than a series of moral judgements of political happenings, leaving the audience to state "So what!" rather than the researcher to point out clearly the answer to the question "So what?" is not political science, but a form of political journalism. I need to tidy up that part of the story.

Presentation

Restructuring Protected Industries from University of Canberra

The introduction of ride-sharing in Australia presents a number of issues that are of concern for the future. For example, if the state governments did not have the power to reform the regulated taxi monopolies, and then did not have the power to enforce their (or more appropriately "our") own laws, then does this not represent a level of sovereign risk that should be of concern? Again, so what? The word "should" immediately brings in a normative element. While normative questions are fine, does it fit with my understanding of the purpose of political science? I don't think so.

When comparing telecommunications policy in Canada and Australia, I accepted that nation-states wanted to increase the penetration of communications technologies. I did not consider whether broadband, for example, was a "good thing". What I wanted to do was to understand questions like: Why has Canada consistently outperformed Australia in the penetration of new communications technologies? How do governments enable, coordinate, and regulate new communications technologies? And so on. Out of this I hoped to develop a meso- or industry-level theory to explain the interaction of the institutions of the state and new communications technology inventions over time.

When I look back to my abstract and my presentation, I can see that I need to remove the over- and under-tones of moral judgement and focus on explaining the process. To ask "Why?" But also to ask questions such as: How do governments respond to disruption? How does timing influence the policy options available to governments?  And so forth. But I need to be clear and focus on one element of the issue. I need to avoid that great academic disease: conflation.

I will write more on this project later, but in the meantime, it was recommended to me that the temporal aspect might be useful, hence my reading of the following article:

Newman, J. and Howlett, M. (2014). Regulation and time: temporal patterns in regulatory development. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 80(3), 493–511. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852313517995

I hope to have a write-up on this paper in a future post.

Essay Notes: "Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics" by Gabriel Almond and Stephen Genco

Summer Tablelands Storm by Margarita Georgiadis

Almond, G. A. & Genco, S. J. (1977). Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics. World Politics, 29(4), 489–522.

Written in 1977, this article considers the scientific turn in political science. Traditionally, political science focused on descriptions of political systems, laws, and history. I have discussed Charles Merriam, founder of the "Chicago School" of political science, in an earlier "journal note". Along with Harold Lasswell, Merriam encouraged greater scientific rigour in political science research. Almond was notably a product of the "Chicago School" of political science, earning his PhD in 1938, the year Harold Lasswell left and two years before Merriam retired. The adoption of the scientific method of the hard (or natural) sciences, which had influenced psychology and economics, and, by this time, was influencing political science, is the subject of this article. Almond and Genco bring to the attention of political scientists the issue of "philosophers of science and some psychologists and economists [having] second thoughts about the applicability to human subject matters of strategy used in hard science" (p. 489).

The metaphors of "clouds" and "clocks" are from Karl Popper's idea of a continuum of "determinacy and indeterminacy in physical systems", from "the most irregular, disorderly, and unpredictable 'clouds' on the left to the most regular, orderly, and predictable 'clocks' on the right"  (p. 489). This reminds me of Rene Descartes and the beginnings of systems thinking, with mechanical objects functioning as closed systems, whereas living organisms function as open or "living" systems.

I have as yet been unable to connect systems thinking with my research. Almond and Genco connect to this stream of thinking via Newton. But in "systems thinking", the terms tend to come across as buzzwords or jargon and overcoming the limitations cross-disciplinary translation seem like too much effort at this stage.  

I recall from my strategic management studies that the characteristics of living systems tend to follow the laws of thermodynamics, and living systems can be disturbed, but not directed. Here, Almond and Genco refer to Popper, who suggested that understanding "rational" human behaviour required:

...something intermediate in character, between perfect chance and perfect determinism - something intermediate between perfect clouds and perfect clocks... For obviously what we want is to understand how such non-physical things as purposes, deliberations, plans, decisions, theories, intentions, and  values, can play a part in bringing about physical changes in the physical world (p. 491).

I use the concepts of "living" systems in my teaching of leadership. If a living system does not interact with its environment, it dies. So, too, do organisations. For example, if your company is the manufacturer of the highest quality typewriters in the world, nobody cares: you have not kept pace with your environment. Think Kodak. Organisations tend to resist change, and, in my view, leadership can overcome this resistance. To me, leadership is a political process, and, like organisations, policy stasis may also benefit from leadership. My diagram below explains the concept:

Model of Strategic Leadership: Michael de Percy

But I digress. Popper seeks a form of plastic control, that allows for the free-thinking individual, who cannot be forced to submit to the control of our theories: "Not only do our theories control us, but we can control our theories" (p. 491). This relates to the idea of technological momentum, based on the work of Thomas Hughes, which provides a middle position along the continuum between social constructivism and technological determinism, thus:

Intermediate approaches that allow for freedom and constraint.

Popper states that we cannot look at the world as a "closed physical system", but an "open system". The author's cite Popper's approach as accepting "there is a kind of feedback here": terms that clearly relate to systems thinking (and systems theory). If the task of political science is to explain political reality, then plastic control, or the third conceptualisation between chance and determinism, can cope with ideas and:

...human decisions, goals, purposes - in constant and intense interaction with other ideas, human behaviour, and the physical world. At the centre of this complex system are choices and decisions - decisions to command, obey, vote, make demands. The political universe has organization; elites make decisions to command or not to command, what to command, how to implement commands. Citizens and subjects make decisions to comply, how to comply or not to comply; to make demands, or not to make demands. That is the heart of politics, the subject matter our discipline is committed to exploring and understanding.

In such a system, "Political decisions are not made and implemented in a vacuum; they are subject to a complex array of constraints and opportunities". But what of cause and effect in providing explanations for political phenomena? In earlier work I attempted to use Mill's method of difference to provide plausible (as opposed to Popper's falsifiable) causal explanations, but often this was regarded as unsophisticated or insufficiently mathematical. Yet this is precisely the issue taken up by Almond and Genco, albeit back in 1977:

What we seem to observe in this particular area of political research, then, is a rhetorical or metaphorical - rather than explanatory - usage of causal language in formalizations and definitions. This accounts for a lack of a subsequent commitment to actual causal analysis in substantive research. The somewhat incongruous gap can perhaps best be explained as an attempt on the part of political scientists to create a "halo effect" around their theoretical formulations. Our longing for full scientific status has led us to create a kind of "cargo cult," fashioning cardboard imitations of the tools and products of the hard sciences in the hope that our incantations would make them real (p. 504).

The pressure to conform to other disciplines seems to have reached its peak around this time:

Psychology and economics had been the first disciplines in the social sciences to move in this direction, demonstrating the possibilities of experimental methods, sophisticated quantitative methods, computer simulation, and mathematical modelling. The combination of philosophical legitimation and the demonstrated progress of psychology and economics was impossible to resist (p. 505).

Further, Holt and Richardson (1970) argued for more mathematics. Not just statistical, but mathematical, rigour:

[S]tatistics provides a science with a basis for rigorous induction. Our critique suggests that the crying need in comparative politics is for more rigorous deduction and this is where mathematics, not statistics, is relevant (p. 507).

Almond and Genco raise an important issue at this point. Rather than focusing on problem solving, which is a key purpose of political science, commitment to mathematics and the rigour of hard science tended to move political science away from its very purpose. This creates a conundrum where to be more scientific becomes more important than the purpose of political science, where it seems that:

For political science to advance, it must shed this professional commitment to solving social and moral problems (p. 508)... [leading to] priority of method over substance in political science (p. 509).

This "narrowing and technicization" means that the "older intellectual traditions" of political science, including "descriptive institutional analysis have all become defensive, peripheral, and secondary subject matters". The trouble with this approach is the type of science it evokes. Political science is "ultimately a commitment to explore and attempt to understand a given segment of empirical reality". To do so, "Social scientists need to construct their own notions of 'good science', [and] their own methodological approach to their particular subject matter". I have tried to point out "how extensively political decisions now override the mechanisms of the market" in my work, and despite feedback to the contrary, I agree with Almond and Genco that as the "subject matter is becoming more political, it is becoming less susceptible to scientific and formalistic methodologies" (p. 516).

There are some implications for my research philosophy here. First, political science plays "a central role in the study and evaluation of public policy" (p. 520). Regardless of method, work that "contributes to the aims of understanding, interpreting, and exploring political reality and policy alternatives... is crucial to policy analysis (see McRae 1976 The Social Function of Social Science). Lasswell, in developing the behavioural approach to political science, adopted the "scientific hardening of method... set in a context of problem solving, value clarification, and the enhancement of the human condition" (p. 520). Lasswell sought greater rigour to achieve the purpose of political science, not to create a science through processes that happened to involve politics.

The problem now is not that the hard science approach, in particular the quantitative drive, is bad, but that it has not been legitimated "by  successes in the explanation of political reality, but by example and the demonstration effect of the hard sciences (p. 520). Such "clock" approaches try to reduce everything to mechanical laws which deny "the special characteristic of social reality... [especially] man's adaptive behaviour" (p. 520).

In summary, Almond and Genco provide an appropriate guiding principle for my research philosophy:

To progress scientifically, the social disciplines require their own philosophy of science based on explanatory strategies, possibilities, and obligations appropriate to human and social reality (p, 522).

Next week I will be investigating some quantitative methods I plan to use in a new study. In establishing my research philosophy, I must address the issues of methods and scientific rigour. But it would certainly be useful to start with my own view of the purpose of political science.