公共政策

PMR — pp. 1-29 2026-08-11 Original Citizens’ support for behavioural public policy and trust in government: evidence from two online experiments Paolo Belardinelli, Martin Lodge Abstract We explore citizens’ support for behavioral interventions by distinguishing interventions that exploit citizens’ bounded rationality through choice architecture (Nudge) from those that challenge bounded rationality by promoting reflection through deliberative forums (Think). We also examine the role of trust in government in shaping these preferences. Findings from two experiments involving 3,010 US participants show that citizens are more willing to support Think rather than Nudge. Whereas the adoption of Nudge, as compared to Think, does not seem to influence trust in government, encouraging higher levels of trust in government has a stronger effect on support for Nudge than for Think.

PNAS 123/33 pp. e2515300123-e2515300123 2026-08-10 Original The policy construction of illegal markets: Exploring variation, success, failure, and unintended consequences Letizia Paoli, Peter Reuter Abstract Illegal markets, broadly defined to include markets where only specific transactions are illegal, are the consequence of policy, either a prohibition or highly restrictive regulation. They are generated by a variety of concerns, some moral, some pragmatic. They are often tied to legal markets, complicating the policy process. These markets are ubiquitous, rarely well controlled and little studied as markets. This article examines variations in illegality from the case studies in this Special Feature and synthesizes what can be learned about the success and failure of different approaches to controlling these markets. Control is often weak because powerful legal interests are opposed to tight regulation and, especially in markets with large underlying demand, rarely leads to substantial reductions in the targeted activity, unless draconian methods are used. As demonstrated by drug markets, tough enforcement can have large adverse collateral consequences. The paper concludes by suggesting that an extension of the harm reduction framework developed specifically for drug policy can be applied usefully to making policy choices in controlling other illegal markets.

PNAS 123/33 pp. e2512375122-e2512375122 2026-08-10 Original The illegal market for sex in the United States: Insights from economic research Manisha Shah Abstract The illegal market for sex in the United States generates significant economic activity yet remains understudied due to its illegality and clandestine nature. This paper synthesizes existing empirical evidence documenting aspects of market structure, impacts of regulation, and notable changes over time. Criminalization, while intended to suppress the market, often exacerbates harms by displacing activity underground, increasing violence against sex workers, and elevating disease transmission risks. Natural experiments, including decriminalization episodes in Rhode Island and policy shifts in Europe, reveal that decriminalization can reduce sexually transmitted infections and violence against women. Additionally, technological shifts-particularly the rise of online platforms due to the internet-have reshaped market organization. These findings challenge conventional legal and moral frameworks and underscore the need for evidence-based policymaking to guide effective regulation of sex markets.

PNAS 123/33 pp. e2512078123-e2512078123 2026-08-10 Original Stability and turbulence in illegal drug markets Beau Kilmer Abstract This article provides a primer on illegal drug markets, with a focus on the structure and nature of these markets and the enterprises involved. The markets for illegal drugs are large, with annual retail expenditures likely exceeding $100 billion in the United States alone. Many drugs are easy to produce, and their high value-to-weight ratios make them attractive to smugglers. Some features of illegal drug markets have been quite stable, such as the small size of retail purchases, in part because most sales are to people who use frequently and typically do not buy in bulk. Between production and consumption, most of these substances cross multiple borders-and often continents-and the mark-ups along the supply chain continue to be substantial. But there have been major changes over the past 15 y. While illegally manufactured synthetic drugs are not new, the proliferation of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids created an overdose crisis in North America and has other countries on high alert. The internet has also made producing and accessing a wide range of drugs and their precursor chemicals easier. The emergence of cryptocurrencies has created new opportunities to hide transactions and launder the proceeds. In addition to highlighting the stability and turbulence in these markets, this article offers ideas for future research and emphasizes the need for monitoring purity-adjusted drug prices, which is critical for understanding supply changes and evaluating interventions in these markets.

AJPS — 2026-08-10 Original Endogenous coalition formation in policy debates Philip Leifeld, Laurence Brandenberger Abstract Abstract Political actors form coalitions around their joint normative beliefs in order to influence the policy process on contentious issues such as climate change or population aging. Policy process theory maintains that learning within and across coalitions is a central predictor of policy change but has yet to explain how policy learning works. This article explains the formation and maintenance of coalitions by focusing on the ways actors adopt policy beliefs from other actors in policy debates. A policy debate is a complex social system in which temporal network dependence guides how actors contribute ideological statements. Belief adoption matters in three complementary ways: bonding , which exploits cues within coalitions; bridging , which explores new beliefs outside one's perimeter; and repulsion , which reinforces polarization between coalitions and cements their belief systems. We formalize this theory of endogenous coalition formation in policy debates and test it on a micro‐level empirical data set.

PNAS 123/33 pp. e2617191123-e2617191123 2026-08-10 Original Americans favor predistributive over redistributive economic policies David Broska, Jonne Kamphorst, Robb Willer Abstract Redistributive policies designed to reduce economic inequality through taxes and transfers (e.g., safety-net benefits funded by progressive taxation) receive less support in the United States than in many Western democracies. Recent work suggests Americans may be more receptive to "predistributive" policies, which seek to reduce economic inequality before taxes and transfers (e.g., minimum-wage increases). Yet existing evidence leaves open whether this support gap characterizes contemporary Americans overall, and whether it persists when the same policy proposals are described in predistributive vs. redistributive terms, with their core provisions held constant. Across 31 national U.S. survey waves from 2015 to 2024 (total [Formula: see text]), we find greater support for policies classified as predistributive than redistributive. We then fielded a preregistered experiment with a national U.S. sample ([Formula: see text]), randomly varying whether otherwise identical policy proposals were described as increasing earnings for people lower in the income distribution, shifting resources from higher- to lower-income individuals, or presented only with the policy description given in all conditions. Support was higher under predistributive than redistributive descriptions. Comparison with the control condition clarifies this difference: Predistributive descriptions received support comparable to control, whereas redistributive descriptions received lower support. Exploratory analyses suggest perceived respect for hard work and beneficiary deservingness were associated with the support gap. Together, these results suggest Americans prefer policies that reduce inequality by influencing earnings more than through taxes and transfers.

PSJ 54/3 2026-08-09 Original Power Through Visibility: How Policy Narratives Matter in Climate Change Debate on X Simon Bulian, Anne‐Marie Parth, Maria Becker, Lars Tapken

PSJ 54/3 2026-08-07 Original Supply‐Side Policy Feedback Isabel M. Perera Abstract ABSTRACT The scholarship on policy feedback has been among the most plentiful and successful of the policy sciences. Much of it has focused on the demand‐side, or on the political relationship between a public policy and its recipients. Less attention has been paid to the supply‐side: the political relationship between a public policy and its providers. Parents may care about education, patients about health care, and prisoners about criminal justice—but an emerging literature shows that teachers, hospital employees, and the police care just as, if not more, about these areas. This article builds on new work to introduce a theory of supply‐side policy feedback and outline a research agenda for its further investigation.

PSJ 54/3 2026-08-06 Original Transparency and Responsibility Attribution: A Field Experiment in Western Uganda Bill Schultz, Eric A. Coleman, Rani Parker, Jacob Manyindo, Emmanuel Mukuru

PSJ 54/3 2026-08-04 Original The Effects of Policy Success Versus Failure Narratives Sarah Pralle, Emily Thorson Abstract ABSTRACT While public policies usually have mixed effects, succeeding at some aspects and failing at others, this nuance is often lost in public discourse when political actors like advocacy groups and politicians strategically emphasize either the successes or failures of particular policies. For example, advocacy groups often emphasize the failures of existing policy with the goal of galvanizing public attention and concern. However, little empirical evidence exists assessing the actual causal impact of these different approaches on public attitudes. This paper presents the results of a pre‐registered experiment in which participants watch a TikTok‐style short news video about either the success or failure of one of three different public policies and then are asked about their trust in government to handle the issue, their perceptions of the issue's importance, and their feelings of collective efficacy. While success and failure narratives are both effective at raising an issue's salience, focusing on a policy's failure has the downstream effect of increasing cynicism about the government's ability to address the issue.