Social Coordination and Public Policy: Explorations in Theory and Practice

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Published by Bloomsbury Publishing in Economy, Polity, and Society

This volume explores, both in theory and in practice, what “social coordination” is and how public policies can help or hinder the processes of social coordination. In particular, these chapters examine the institutional incentives that motivate public policy decisions and their implementation to achieve specific individual and social goals. Some chapters in this volume are more theoretical, applying insights from the Austrian, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy to public policy issues. Other chapters are more practical, exploring the broader implications of these theories to real-world public policy puzzles. Authored by individuals from a variety of disciplines with diverse interests in public policy, this work includes discussions of topics such as environmental policy, housing policy, and education policy, among others. A unifying theme across the chapters is that policymakers often advise one-size-fits-all solutions to complicated public policy questions but ignore the multitude of incentives faced by the “players of the game” and the subsequent development of diverse forms of social coordination. Social coordination is often left out public policy analysis but is crucial to the success of informal and formal institutional arrangements. The chapters aim to disentangle these issues of social coordination in public policy in theory and practice.

Contents

Introduction
Roberta Q. Herzberg, Gavin Roberts, and Brianne Wolf 

Chapter 1: Social Coordination in a Complex Society: A Framework for Action
Emily Chamlee-Wright 

Chapter 2: Rawls, Hayek, Buchanan, and Social Justice: From Rules to Recognition
Alexander Köhler 

Chapter 3: Are RCTs Missing a Point? Local Knowledge and Computer Assisted Learning Interventions
Carlos Noyola 

Chapter 4: Destruction to Beauty: The Polycentric Adaptive Reuse of the Torpedo Factory
Olivia Gonzalez 

Chapter 5: Local Constituencies, Lobbying, and the Fight to Keep Local Bases Open during the 2005 Round of Base Closure and Realignment
Julie Thompson-Gomez 

Chapter 6: Social Media and Social Movements: How Technology Has Aided Coordination
Ellen Hamlett 

Chapter 7: Stakeholder Primacy as a New Institutional Framework for the Entrepreneurial Market Process?
Mikolaj Firlej  

Chapter 8: Compliance Markets Without Romance: Lessons from the Renewable Fuel Standard
Arthur R. Wardle  

Chapter 9: A Calculus of Communication: Deliberation, Knowledge, and Public Choice in the Context of Water Management
Emil Panzaru  

Chapter 10: Entrepreneurial Discovery in Land-Use Planning
M. Nolan Gray