Poverty in developed countries is commonly defined in relative terms. It is argued that a relative definition formalises the insight that poverty is a context-specific phenomenon, and that the understanding of what constitutes poverty changes with overall economic development. Yet this article argues that tagging a poverty line to mean or median incomes does not automatically anchor it in its social context. Relative measures rely on the implicit assumptions that social norms are formed at the national level, and that median income earners set social standards. A comparison with studies on ‘Subjective Well-Being’ (SWB) shows that these assumptions are rather arbitrary. At the same time, relative indicators do not take account of changes in the product market structure that disproportionately affect the poor. If low-cost substitutes for expensive items become available, the poor will be relatively more affected than median income earners. Conventional ‘absolute poverty’ indicators will be equally dismissed for not solving these problems either. A combined ‘Consensual Material Deprivation’ and ‘Budget Standard Approach’ indicator will be proposed as a more robust alternative.

One would expect the common agenda of improving the quality of care in hospital sectors across nations to bring about a convergence of their quality assurance systems. However, one finds great variations in the ways in which such schemes are constructed and communicated to the general public in different countries. This paper examines three universal health care systems (England, Sweden and Japan) and explores the degree to which political institutions and public opinions affect the processes of quality assurance system building within them. It argues that the inputs from governments in response to public concerns are the key to understanding the changes in this seemingly profession-dominated policy domain; therefore policy changes are significantly affected by dynamic interactions between events, public discourses and governance structures within these countries. The findings also demonstrate that public access to information has begun to have a large impact on policy debates in all three countries.

Despite a pervasive trend towards state retrenchment in Latin America since the 1980s, there remains significant variation in the levels of privatization across the region. However, very few cross-national studies of the determinants of privatization have been conducted and we still do not truly know why states privatize. This paper examines the determinants of privatization for 14 Latin American states over the period 1975 to 2003. I contend that privatization is best conceptualized as a two-stage process involving an initial decision to privatize, followed by a subsequent decision concerning the extent and intensity of privatization. In addition, privatization cannot be simply explained by either international or domestic level-variables. Rather, endogenous and exogenous variables will have different impacts at different stages of this process. The results of the statistical tests yield two important insights. Firstly, the initial decision to privatize is primarily shaped by international factors, in particular, international diffusion, while variation in the level of state divestiture across the region can primarily be explained by domestic economic and political conditions.

In trade policy France ranks as one of the most protectionist countries in the European Union. From an outside perspective, the French attitude is usually explained as a consequence of the strength and influence of the agrarian lobby. The article argues that farm groups in France have lost their formerly privileged position and the power to pursue their interests politically. A closer look at domestic politics shows that agricultural reforms were successfully implemented against the opposition of the farm lobby during the last ten years. But at the same time, French policy-makers were keen to create the impression that they were unable to make concessions in international trade talks due to the resistance of the agricultural sector. The EU-Mercosur negotiations demonstrate how the French government fended off demands for liberalization using farm interests as bargaining chips.

Policy protagonists are keen to claim that policy is successful while opponents are more likely to frame policies as failures. The reality is that policy outcomes are often somewhere in between these extremes. An added difficulty is that policy has multiple dimensions, often succeeding in some respects but not in others, according to facts and their interpretation. This paper sets out a framework designed to capture the bundles of outcomes that indicate how successful or unsuccessful a policy has been. It reviews existing literature on policy evaluation and improvement, public value, good practice, political strategy and policy failure and success in order to identify what can be built on and gaps that need to be filled. It conceives policy as having three realms: processes, programs and politics. Policies may succeed and/or fail in each of these and along a spectrum of success, resilient success, conflicted success, precarious success and failure. It concludes by examining contradictions between different forms of success, including what is known colloquially as good politics but bad policy.