Substitution of capital in the form of automation and robotics has displaced many American manufacturing workers, especially those without college degrees. However, this need not be the path forward. We argue that now is an opportune time for greater policy emphasis on collaborative robots, or “cobots,” which are designed to complement rather than replace manual labor while raising productivity. To realize this potential, policies must properly align incentives, support training, and address often overlooked issues such as monitoring and privacy. Through an interdisciplinary lens, we examine the current state of cobot deployment and describe how well‐designed job tasks, paired with carefully integrated cobots, can preserve employment opportunities while improving ergonomics and enhancing productivity. Strategic policy measures aimed at redirecting investments can balance manufacturers' needs while ensuring stable employment, higher wages, and safer workplaces. With informed and deliberate policy, the adoption of cobots can mark a new phase of technological progress while averting the costly dislocations that accompanied past automation and offshoring.

The United States spends more than $4 trillion per year on health care, largely conducted by private providers and reimbursed by insurers. A major concern in this system is overbilling and fraud by hospitals, who face incentives to misreport their claims to receive higher payments. In this work, we develop novel machine learning tools to identify hospitals that overbill insurers, which can be used to guide investigations and auditing of suspicious hospitals for both public and private health insurance systems. Using large‐scale claims data from Medicare, the US federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, we identify patterns consistent with fraud among inpatient hospitalizations. Our proposed approach for fraud detection is fully unsupervised, not relying on any labeled training data, and is explainable to end users, providing interpretations for which diagnosis, procedure, and billing codes lead to hospitals being labeled suspicious. Using newly collected data from the Department of Justice on hospitals facing anti‐fraud lawsuits, and case studies of suspicious hospitals, we validate our approach and findings. Our method provides a nearly fivefold lift over random targeting of hospitals. We also perform a postanalysis to understand which hospital characteristics, not used for detection, are associated with suspiciousness.

Policymakers are often urged to rely on “evidence‐based policy” (EBP)—adopting only interventions proven effective (i.e., positive and statistically significant in multisite impact evaluations). EBP clearinghouses chronicle and rate tests of social policy interventions. But EBP clearinghouse standards are based almost entirely on internal validity. They largely ignore whether research findings from multisite trials apply to individual localities, where much of social policy is formulated. We develop a Bayesian model of the probability that the EBP rule is sound advice to local policymakers. The model allows a direct test of the probability of a correct policy decision under the EBP rule, its positive predictive value (PPV), and its negative predictive value (NPV)—the probabilities that an intervention deemed effective by that rule will in fact be effective in a particular site (PPV), and that an intervention deemed ineffective will not be effective in a particular site (NPV), given the true impact of the intervention. These intuitive, easily calculated probabilities are major contributions of this paper. In our illustrative analysis of six multisite randomized trials, we find that under the EBP clearinghouse rule the probability of a correct policy decision, PPV, and NPV are all unacceptably low unless the cross‐site impact heterogeneity is quite low.

We evaluate the effects of the nationwide transition in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) from paper vouchers to Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards on store decisions to seek authorization to accept WIC benefits. We combine novel administrative data from “The Integrity Profile” (USDA administrative data on stores participating in WIC and their WIC reimbursements) with new nationwide policy data on WIC EBT implementation. Using a staggered adoption difference‐in‐differences approach, we find that the transition had heterogeneous and occasionally unanticipated effects across states. The number of WIC‐authorized independent vendors declined 10% following WIC EBT implementation. We find no significant effect of WIC EBT implementation on WIC redemptions in a subset of ZIP codes with sufficient vendors for data sharing. Vendors in states that were early adopters of WIC EBT have more negative effects on the probability of WIC authorization, which may be due to learning effects or improvements in technology over time. Past experience with EBT implementation by financial services providers hired by states to help them implement WIC EBT processing (processors) reduces the magnitude of these negative effects of EBT implementation on store participation in WIC.

President Trump altered the U.S. federal civil service system by reducing merit‐based protections for bureaucratic expertise and expanding the scope of political appointments, shifting the balance long established under the Pendleton Act of 1883. Similar reforms have occurred at the state level with moves to at‐will employment. These shifts raise questions about what shapes public support for merit system protections. Using data from the 2023 Cooperative Election Survey, we examine how public service motivation (PSM), political knowledge, and ideology influence support for political neutrality and protection from political coercion. We find that political knowledge and PSM are positively correlated with favorable perceptions of current merit system protections. Interestingly, there is no significant association between ideology and support for merit protections. These findings suggest that informed and motivated citizens are more likely to support meritocratic principles, highlighting the need for public education on merit systems' role in sustaining democratic governance.

This article improves our understanding of visibility in relation to gender equity policy in the film and TV industries and beyond, where visibility is typically imagined to be positive or beneficial. Drawing on new empirical data from an internationally comparative study of gender equity policy in film and TV in the UK, Canada and Germany, we identify three imaginaries of visibility in relation to gender equity policies: visibility is imagined as evidencing problems, as providing a solution and as demonstrating action. We show that imagining visibility in these ways limits the scope of gender inequities considered for policy intervention and creates the potential for counterproductive unintended consequences. We argue that advocating for, developing and implementing effective gender equity policy requires challenging and complicating current ideas of how visibility works in policy making. As the visibility of marginalised groups is so central to gender equity, yet rarely approached critically by policy makers, this article makes an important contribution to the literature around equity in public policy broadly.

Policy dismantling is a growing field in public policy analysis. Scholars approach this topic from different perspectives, such as exploring why it occurs and analysing the strategies used to achieve it. However, the effects of policy dismantling on the policy-making process, particularly in multilevel governance frameworks, remain unclear. This study examines how different levels of government responded to the dismantling of the Childcare Programme to Support Working Mothers in Mexico. Our findings show that local governments mitigated the adverse effects through tailored compensatory actions, leveraging existing networks, technical expertise and political dynamics, particularly opposition to the ruling federal party. Beyond these immediate responses, dismantling has reshaped the childcare policy landscape, reinforcing political divides – especially regarding childcare provision models, such as direct services versus cash transfers. As a result, the debate has shifted from whether childcare services are necessary to how they should be provided and who should have access. These findings contribute to broader discussions on the impact of dismantling policies within federal systems, particularly in shaping intergovernmental policy making and political dynamics.

Collaborative governance (CG) models show promise for addressing complex governance challenges, yet they also face obstacles and difficulties that necessitate rigorous research in this field, particularly in relation to understanding and managing conflicts and disagreements among diverse stakeholders. The research addresses three primary questions: the scales, stages and domains in which conflicts arise; the strategies utilised by CG to handle minor disagreements and fundamental conflicts; and the outputs and effects of addressing deeper-seated conflicts and disagreements. Through a systematic literature review using the PRISMA-S framework, the study reveals how conflicts in CG frequently arise in environmental and ecological management, primarily at local scales, and mainly during the initial stages of decision making. The research identifies three primary levels for addressing conflicts in CG – motives, dynamics and resolution – categorising CG strategies into six distinct types to provide a comprehensive approach for practitioners. The findings indicate that while CG can effectively manage minor disagreements through negotiation and consensus building, it struggles with fundamental conflicts rooted in differing world views. This study examines the manifestations of addressing conflicts and disagreements resolution mechanisms within CG across three distinct dimensions: output, outcome and impact. It underscores the importance of leadership and innovative dialogue frameworks in constructively managing conflicts, transforming disagreements into opportunities for creative and collective problem-solving, thereby enhancing the sustainability and effectiveness of CG.

Scholarship on collaborative governance emphasises the importance of creating win–win situations as a way of generating policy innovation and effective problem-solving. However, the dynamics of collaboration are often more complicated than discovering mutual gains. An analysis of cannabis legalisation in the San Francisco Bay Area finds that ‘getting to yes’ is often a subtle mixture of finding common ground and the manufacturing of consent. This means that some participants take the role of entrepreneurs in the collaborative process and push discursive dynamics towards a dominant perspective. Exploring the importance of power and politics in collaborative governance, the case illuminates how arena design, discourse and coalition building shape the scope and character of consensus formation.

In contexts of autocratisation and political polarisation, maintaining the legitimacy of policy expertise is cumbersome. Experts are clustered on two sides of the political divide: those not aligned with either side are excluded from regular policy processes, while those aligned to the regime are too close to the government to be seen as legitimate. This article analyses how policy-knowledge producers work towards achieving legitimacy for the knowledge they produce in such highly politicised contexts. It identifies three sets of legitimacy-building practices used to navigate the dominance of the political. First, knowledge producers increasingly embrace values-driven practices rather than insisting on neutrality and independence. Second, boundaries between political arenas and epistemic authority are tightened by the separation of individual and organisational identities. Third, the relevance of policy knowledge is reframed by diversifying audiences and outcomes to maintain usefulness. The practices identified are not specific to autocratising contexts, but they are exacerbated and become coerced responses to the hard constraints of an incrementally closing regime. Based on interview data with think tanks in Hungary’s polarised autocracy and highly politicised policy making, this research examines populist tendencies of questioning truth and neutrality of knowledge and expertise – all hallmarks of today’s turbulent policy environments. This makes it a valuable contribution to the broader literature on how think tanks negotiate legitimacy in contexts of de-democratisation.

Wicked problems have forced policy makers to develop new strategies for policy design that deal better with complexity. Both cross-sectoral and multi-actor collaboration are presented by collaborative governance advocates as potential solutions. Nevertheless, even if both approaches have been theoretically linked to policy innovation, there is little empirical evidence to support those relationships and none that compare the innovative potential of different collaborative approaches. Using regression analysis, we analysed 529 policy strategies promoted by Barcelona City Council as part of the Pla de Barris (‘neighbourhood plan’) strategy to identify whose participation in policy design is more meaningful in terms of innovation. Within the public sector, both collaborative government and cross-sectoral collaboration appear to be related with policy innovation. However, when non-public actors – in particular, third-sector organisations – get involved in the policy-design process (through co-creation), the innovative potential of the policy output increases significantly.

This article discusses the concept of success in relation to policy experimentation, a type of policy innovation. Despite a growing literature on policy experiments, few studies define or explore what constitutes a successful experiment. This is important given the potential of experiments for policy learning and change, and also so that experiments can be evaluated and lessons learned across jurisdictions by academics and practitioners. The article develops a concept of success that is rooted in policy learning. Based on an empirical study of policy experimentation in Canadian federal cultural, heritage and sport policy, the article outlines four key ‘success criteria’: basic elements of an experiment; leadership and resources; procedural elements; and evaluation. It argues that experiments need to be evaluated not merely on outcomes, and that they should ultimately aim to encourage reflexive learning, characterised by dialogue and deliberation.

The Nordic countries have traditionally been seen to share a distinct and successful governance model, combining high administrative capacity, extensive interest-group involvement and active channels for incorporating expert input in policy making. Starting in the 1980s, this model came under pressure. Yet, while changes to the statist and corporatist elements of this model are well documented, we know less about the changing role of expertise in Nordic governance. Focusing on one key institutional channel for incorporating expert knowledge in policy making, namely government-appointed advisory commissions, this article seeks to compare and account for changes in academic participation in Nordic commissions since the 1970s. Drawing on a cross-national data set covering more than 6,700 advisory commissions and 73,000 commission members, it finds significant cross-Nordic divergence in academic participation on advisory groups. The article offers a historical-institutionalist account for this divergence. It shows how the Nordic countries responded differently to similar political, economic and ideational pressures, leading their commission systems and the role of academic experts within these systems in different directions. In this way, the article makes an important contribution to scholarship on the politics of expertise and policy advice and debates about the Nordic governance model.

‘Design for policy’ is a prominent framing of the intersection between policy and design. Here, we ask, if design is ‘for’ policy, then what exactly is it doing? We make a critique of literature that explains the interaction of design and policy by listing practices (prototyping or visualisation, for example) but that misses the reasons why those practices are being used. We build on and advance scholarship that anchors design in relation to the demands, constraints and politics of policy making, taking account of the quite different forms a relationship between design (as a thing) and policy design (as a process) can have. Within this debate we propose that design’s relationship to policy is not always in service to (‘for’), but also sometimes ‘with’, and even sometimes ‘against’. We set out an original typology which differentiates roles of design in policy along the lines of their ultimate purpose, scope and terms on which design and policy interact. We identify an instrumental relationship, in which design is a tool to support achieving specified goals of policy making; an improvisational relationship, seeing design as a practice enabling policy making to be more open in the face of unfolding events and experiences; and a generative relationship where design facilitates the re-envisioning of policy making. Through our analysis and proposed typology, we aim to address overly specific and overly homogenising understandings of design in the policy space, enabling a more critical understanding of the different intents and implications at play within the ‘design turn’ in policy.

Transnational private institutions (TPIs) operate at the intersection of technocratic efficiency and democratic accountability, raising important questions about when and why they adopt particular legitimation strategies. This study theorizes and empirically examines the role of regulatory issue area as an explanatory variable by analyzing the legitimation strategies of a prominent TPI: the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which presents a unique case due to its expansion from technical to societal standard‐setting. Drawing on a two‐dimensional conceptual framework from the literature on international organizations and a novel dataset covering ISO's full standard portfolio, the study shows that ISO's legitimation strategies vary systematically depending on whether a standard addresses societal or physical issue areas. These findings reinforce the argument that issue area shapes the use of democratic and technocratic legitimation strategies among TPIs. The insights are especially relevant as TPIs increasingly engage in the governance of societal concerns, a development that, as this study suggests, significantly shapes how they seek legitimacy and merits further scholarly attention.

We approach public communication of bureaucratic organizations as a means of reputation management and argue that social media communication that abstains from making reference to other agencies is in line with a turf‐protective strategy, whereas communication that seeks to establish a link to other agencies is in line with a strategy to embrace new issues and expand policy competencies. Using climate policy communication by EU agencies on the social media platform Twitter (currently X), we show that agencies operating in policy fields traditionally linked to climate policy and holding a policy mandate refer less to their counterparts in their social media communication than agencies without such a climate mandate and operating in policy fields more recently linked to the issue. We find that agencies opt for either turf protective and risk‐averse or expansive and reputation‐building strategies, depending on what fits their interest best.