cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291961.v1
title: COVID-19 monetary transfer in El Salvador: determining factors

description: Abstract Given the lack of governmental guidelines, this paper identifies and analyzes the statistical determinants associated with receiving the onetime monetary transfer in El Salvador ($300 dollars) as an economic measure to face the COVID-19 pandemic. A logistic regression was implemented (whether received the transfer or not) based on a probabilistic sample (n=1222) of surveyed people throughout the country. Independent variables were selected drawing upon key characteristics employed internationally in monetary transfers: age, gender, rural area, employment, family income, and education. The text identifies a statistically significant and negative relation between receiving the monetary transfer and two variables: family income and educational level. The need to increase coverage of the program is addressed as well as the importance of considering age, gender, rural areas, and employment as criteria for selecting the beneficiaries in such economic measures.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291959.v1
title: Policy Responses to fight COVID-19; the case of Ghana

description: Abstract This paper focuses on the policy responses of Ghana’s government with a focus on three areas: health, economic, and social. Ghana had made several policy interventions in these three areas. The study highlighted the adoption of the 3T-approach in health, CAP-20 in economics, and free water and subsidized electricity for citizens as social interventions. The study concludes that the measures undertaken by the Government of Ghana have yielded significant results even though some challenges with delivery mechanisms are identified. The available statistics as of October 25, 2020 on the COVID-19 situation in Ghana further affirm the gains.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291957.v1
title: Estonian response to COVID-19 pandemic: learning, cooperation, and the advantages of being a small country

description: Abstract Compared to many other countries in Europe, Estonia managed to curtail the spread of the new coronavirus rather effectively. This paper offers an overview of the measures undertaken to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in March-May 2020 and explain why Estonia managed to successfully contain the epidemic. The paper argues that the management of the crisis was facilitated by political factors, quick policy learning, cooperation with the scientific community, and the existing ICT and e-government infrastructure.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291955.v1
title: Multi-level governance tackling the COVID-19 pandemic in China

description: Abstract This paper investigates China’s leadership over intergovernmental and private actions in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and identifies sectors, levels, and roles played. The main argument is that successful control over the pandemic depends on effective and integrated leadership at different levels. The conceptual, theoretical, and analytical framework is given by the multi-level governance theory. Through a case study, the actions adopted in China (n = 374) were mapped from reports issued by the Chinese government, the World Health Organization, and media information. Content analysis was adopted to categorize data. Quantitative and qualitative findings show different roles of actors, as well as usefulness of the multi-level governance to provide fast and complex responses required during the pandemic. In the last section, the conclusion and recommendations for future research are addressed. The lack of studies on the application of multi-level governance in non-democratic regimes especially during a pandemic indicates the relevance and contribution of this study to the literature.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291953.v1
title: Municipal Responses to COVID-19: the case of library closures in New South Wales local government

description: Abstract In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New South Wales (NSW) government ordered the closure of all municipal libraries in order to limit the impact of the contagion. As a result, 372 public libraries in NSW ceased operation on the 23rd March 2020. While the closure of public libraries will undoubtedly contribute to restricting the spread of the coronavirus, given the pivotal role played by municipal libraries in local communities, as well as the special characteristics of library patrons, it will have other negative consequences. In this paper we consider the impact of the closure of municipal libraries in NSW from two perspectives: (a) its effect on the fiscal circumstances of local authorities and (b) its impact on the spread of the corona contagion as well as its broader effects on local community wellbeing. We conclude that rather than complete closure, partial constraints on library use should have been considered.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291951.v1
title: How did the UK government face the global COVID-19 pandemic?

description: Abstract This paper aims to analyse the coordination and cooperation in Primary Health Care (PHC) measures adopted by the British government against the spread of the COVID-19. PHC is clearly part of the solution founded by governments across the world to fight against the spread of the virus. Data analysis was performed based on coordination, cooperation, and PHC literature crossed with documentary analysis of the situation reports released by the World Health Organisation and documents, guides, speeches and action plans on the official UK government website. The measures adopted by the United Kingdom were analysed in four periods, which helps to explain the courses of action during the pandemic: pre-first case (January 22- January 31, 2020), developing prevention measures (February 1 -February 29, 2020), first Action Plan (March 1- March 23, 2020) and lockdown (March 24-May 6, 2020). Despite the lack of consensus in essential matters such as Brexit, the nations in the United Kingdom are working together with a high level of cooperation and coordination in decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291949.v1
title: The effect of state-level social distancing policy stringency on mobility in the states of Brazil

description: Abstract In Brazil, sub-national governments have played a particularly important role as the key actors implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions to halt the spread of COVID-19. Building on the methodology proposed by the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), we coded the stringency levels of state-level school, commerce, services, industry, public gathering, and private event closure policies and describe these actions’ duration at the state-level in Brazil from early February to mid-May 2020. Our results suggest significant heterogeneity across Brazil and across weeks in social distancing policy stringency during this period. We then apply dynamic times-series cross-sectional methods to evaluate the effect of anti-contagion policies on the population’s mobility using cell phone location data. We find that anti-contagion policies had a significant effect on producing higher adherence to remaining at home even though social distancing policies were relatively moderate as compared to other countries. Our results also suggest that social distancing policies have a greater impact when a more complete and coherent set of policies were introduced and sustained by state governments.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291947.v1
title: How many could have been saved? Effects of social distancing on COVID-19

description: Abstract What is the effect of social distancing policies on the spread of the new coronavirus? Social distancing policies rose to prominence as most capable of containing contagion and saving lives. Our purpose in this paper is to identify the causal effect of social distancing policies on the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 and on contagion velocity. We align our main argument with the existing scientific consensus: social distancing policies negatively affect the number of cases. To test this hypothesis, we construct a dataset with daily information on 78 affected countries in the world. We compute several relevant measures from publicly available information on the number of cases and deaths to estimate causal effects for short-term and cumulative effects of social distancing policies. We use a time-series cross-sectional matching approach to match countries’ observable histories. Causal effects (ATTs and ATEs) can be extracted via a dif-in-dif estimator. Results show that social distancing policies reduce the aggregated number of cases by 4,832 on average (or 17.5/100 thousand), but only when strict measures are adopted. This effect seems to manifest from the third week onwards.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291945.v1
title: Police killings and violent crime

description: Abstract A common view among policy makers in Public Security in Rio de Janeiro is that the patrolling pattern based on police raids, regularly associated with the use of lethal force, is both necessary and effective to reduce crime. In order to examine this issue, this article presents econometric exercises to assess in what extent a greater number of police killings is correlated with subsequent variations in criminal indicators. The analysis covers the period from 2003 to 2019 and indicates no correlation between increases in the use of lethal force by the police and reductions in crime rates at the local level. On the contrary, in some cases, a significant and positive correlation is observed, which means more police killings are correlated with greater criminal activity, although the magnitudes of the effects are rather reduced. On the other hand, we show that police killings are associated with greater operational results, as measured by drugs and weapons seizure. The results are consistent with a patrolling pattern that prioritizes the combat of retail markets for illicit drugs.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291943.v1
title: Policies, Children, and Road Safety: contributions from the WPR approach to policy analysis

description: Abstract We consider public attention to child safety in traffic from the Foucault-inspired approach What’s The Problem Represented to Be? (WPR) by Carol Bacchi, whose premise lies in using policy texts and policy proposals to access problematizations through which we are governed. It highlights a potential to rethink conventional emphases in agenda setting and in policy-making processes. The WPR approach suggests that in the internalization of children’s safety discourse, the ‘problem’ of traffic is not given a priori, but is also produced discursively in the context of policies and policy proposals with practical effects on the daily lives of children in urban areas.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291941.v1
title: Courts of accounts divergent methodologies and its impacts on personnel expenditure rules

description: Abstract This article describes how Brazilian Courts of Accounts at the subnational level diverge with the National Secretariat of Treasury of the Ministry of Economy, on how to measure the personnel expenditure cap, a rule according to the Fiscal Responsibility Law of 2001. Since the Courts of Accounts can decide how to measure the personnel expenditure rule in their jurisdictions, the article describes how those decisions, presented in the Fiscal Management Report from 2016 to 2018, diverge with the federal standards described in the Manual of Fiscal Reports (MDF) and compiled in the System of Public Sector Fiscal and Accounting Information (Siconfi). It concludes that some Courts of Accounts would exceed the personnel expenditure cap if they adopted the federal standards described by the central government, which indicates the existence of fiscal accountability practices with a contagious effect upon subnational entities under its jurisdiction, increasing the risks of fiscal imbalances in the federation.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291939.v1
title: Saving more than R$ 85 billion of the Brazilian Social Security System: the case of the PRBI

description: Abstract Since 2016, the number of recipients of incapacity allowance in Brazil has been continuously falling. This article presents the program of incapacity benefits assessment (PRBI) to help understand the dynamics around incapacity allowance and similar benefits. The study shows that the PRBI can save more than R$ 85 billion of the budget allocated to social security in the country.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291937.v1
title: Advocacy coalition formation and key actors within the policy

description: Abstract The article discusses advocacy coalition formation and the roles of key actors in science, technology and innovation (ST&I) policies for social inclusion in a subnational context. The policy subsystem category and concept of advocacy coalition are used in the context of the advocacy coalition framework and address the need to understand the influences of key actors (policy broker and policy entrepreneur) on it. The policy subsystem was outlined using case-oriented research and the discourse was analyzed in order to understand the policy actors’ beliefs. The analysis of two cases of ST&I policy processes for social inclusion (assistive technology and social technology) highlighted policy broker and policy entrepreneur key roles in the emergence of policy subsystems, but had different effects on advocacy coalition formation. The policy entrepreneur had a closer relationship with advocacy coalition building when setting up regular mechanisms to share beliefs and policy-oriented learning, as well as taking initiatives to coordinate the collective action of members in the early advocacy coalition. Although relevant in agenda setting and maintaining a specific social inclusion agenda in the policy process, the policy broker did not achieve a positive relationship with advocacy coalition building. The article corroborates the possibility of incorporating the concept of policy entrepreneur in analyses of the advocacy coalition framework and highlights this actor’s characteristics through this analytical model.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291933.v1
title: Policy learning and policy change: exploring possibilities on the Advocacy Coalition Framework

description: Abstract This article aims to advance the discussion about the influence of knowledge and policy learning on policy change, taking the Advocacy Coalition Framework as reference. We propose unlinking the comprehension of learning through change in two perspectives. First, we suggest apprehending the relation between knowledge and policy learning, through the use of knowledge, assuming that different forms of learning are possible, depending on the context of decision-making. Then, relying on the contributions of the theory of gradual institutional change, we suggest using the notion of institutional dynamics, in order to capture the explanatory power of knowledge and policy learning both in stasis and change situations. We aim to contribute to diminish the skepticism presented in the literature about the influence of knowledge and policy learning in the policy process.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291930.v1
title: Raw-data-for-Fe-H.xlsx

description: Raw data for Fe-H
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291929.v1
title: Stories in the agenda: a Narrative Policy Framework study

description: Abstract This study applies the “Narrative Policy Framework” (NPF) to the affirmative action policy process of the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPEL) and proposes theoretical intersection between the NPF and agenda setting literature, seeking to find out the role of policy narratives in policy processes. NPF is an empiric-oriented framework that posits that the policy-makers’ stories have generalizable components and are built and crafted in accordance to their ideas. These are policy narratives, and are at the center of the policy process. By analyzing formulation stages of public policy and referring to ideas and narratives, the NPF refers to the agenda setting literature and provides means for empirical research of agenda setting concepts. The study undertook analysis of regulatory outputs and semi-structured interviews. Findings indicate that policy narratives have affected institutional regulatory outputs regarding UFPel’s affirmative action policies.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291927.v1
title: Narrative reinventions as cognitive mechanisms for public policy stability: the case of anti-drug policy in Colombia

description: Abstract Public policies face major challenges to their consolidation and stability that force rulers to make significant political efforts to keep them alive. Some of these challenges occur by the adjustment of the policy’s idea as an attempt to reduce the possible difficulties caused by public confrontation, thus better adapting them to the reference frame of the actors. Such is the case of Colombia’s drug control policy which did not have sufficient legitimacy to be carried out, despite international pressure, but it was later coupled to the international agenda as a national need. By using the critical discourse analysis, this study verifies how the discursive transformation of this policy took place and the cognitive mechanisms used to reinterpret it as a matter of national security and not international co-responsibility, which allowed consolidation of the current prohibitionist strategy. The results of the study reveal an interpretation of the drug trafficking problem as a threat to the institutional order, which reduces the confrontation capacity of the critics of the proposed policy.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291923.v1
title: Parliament’s (lack of) agenda-setting power over the executive decision agenda: evidence from Belgium, France and Portugal

description: Abstract One of the functions of parliamentary questions in modern legislatures is to pressure executives to pay attention to specific issues. But can these questions effectively influence executive decisions? There is surprisingly little empirical research in this area. Adopting an agenda-setting perspective, this article examines the extent to which issue attention in oral parliamentary questions influences the issues addressed in the weekly meetings of the Council of Ministers in three countries (Belgium, France and Portugal). Our findings suggest that the agenda-setting power of parliaments vis-à-vis the executive is usually weak in the contexts studied here. In Belgium, we find evidence that the executive does pick up on issues debated in parliament but that the media seems to play a crucial role in focusing attention. These conclusions testify to the dominance of the executive power in many Western democracies. The findings also demonstrate that agenda-setting patterns are more complex than single-country studies often suggest, and that comparative research is the way forward.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291921.v1
title: The Colombian Political Agendas Project: analysing presidential attention during the administrations of Uribe and Santos (2002-2018)

description: Abstract This article has two interrelated objectives: to introduce the Colombian Political Agendas Project (COL-PAP) and offer an exploratory example of the applications of its databases. As a prelude, we describe some characteristics of the Colombian political system and the presidents analyzed. The study presents the objectives of COL-PAP, the creation of the codebook and the databases built so far, with special attention to the databases gathering bills and CONPES documents. The example discussed explores the dynamics of presidential attention in the period 2002-2018, especially the attention distributed among public policy issues over time, and its allocation among instruments. The study shows that attention varies among issues, but also that it is assigned differently between instruments, according to the opportunity structure they offer. Inspired in the discussion and findings related to the databases built so far for COL-PAP, the study suggests future lines of research for Colombia, Latin America, and the CAP in general.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291919.v1
title: Case study: what did Rafael Correa say? Comparing political attention across 10 years of the Ecuadorian president’s discourses

description: Abstract The “citizen revolution” was a political project executed mainly between 2007 and 2016 by the former president of the Republic of Ecuador, Rafael Correa Delgado, under the paradigm of 21st century socialism. The main characteristic of this project was to introduce a new political agenda to the country that was differentiated from past agendas, by focusing on issues such as the recognition of new rights, improvements to education, instituting a new economic model, and strengthening government and sovereignty, among others. Under this context, this work aims to analyze the political attention of the ex-president, explaining why some issues are more important than others, and why they varied over time. Based on a conceptual framework that takes ideas from the agenda-setting theory, the areas on which the political agenda concentrates are measured by the Shannon entropy index, and its various changes are explained as the results of preferences, institutional factors, and external events. The analysis is based on extensive database analyses of 10 years (covering Rafael Correa’s presidency) of government speeches, which are coded according to the methodology of the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP). To the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first work to apply the CAP methodology in Ecuador.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291917.v1
title: The comparative agendas project in Latin America: data and coding

description: Abstract This paper introduces the Comparative Agendas Project system of coding as well as a wealth of gathered and in process data from Latin America using this established and reliable system for capturing policy attention comparatively and over time. While this is not the first introduction of the coding system, it is the first introduction aimed at Latin America and a new type of political system beyond North American and European democracies. First, we present an overview of the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) and the Master Codebook used to create comparative policy attention data across countries, over time, and between agendas. These details of CAP are discussed for Latin America in general and for Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, countries that recently started to gather data using these coding.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14291915.v1
title: Agenda dynamics in Latin America: theoretical and empirical opportunities

description: Abstract The Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) collects, organizes, and makes freely available millions of bits of information concerning the objects of government attention over long periods of time (often back to the Second World War) for more than 25 political systems, worldwide. As researchers affiliated with the CAP expand their projects into Latin America, they confront some challenges similar to those from other regions, and some unique to their national political systems. In this introductory essay, we explore the background of the CAP and the opportunities posed by its expansion into Latin American political systems.