Eva Thomann

• Professor
• Professor at University of Konstanz

Different disciplines ask why public sector corruption occurs, addressing diverse phenomena. However, how different approaches and factors at micro, meso, or macro levels relate to each other in causally complex, context‐dependent ways is seldom theorized. This article develops an integrated “Corruption Hexagon” model with six dimensions. The analy...

The reality of street-level discretion can entail discrimination against people based on their identifiable characteristics. However, there has been surprisingly little systematic assessment of empirical evidence about what can be done to tackle the problem. This paper systematically reviews empirical behavioural research studies (N = 53) on the ef...

This special issue analyses the patterns, causes and consequences of Differentiated Policy Implementation (DPI) in the European Union (EU). DPI is an umbrella term for the diversity in the presence and use of discretion during legal and practical policy implementation processes and outcomes in the EU. The emergent DPI research agenda emphasises dif...

Hierarchical accountability often proves insufficient to control street-level implementation, where complex, informal account-ability relations prevail and tasks must be prioritized. However,scholars lack a theoretical model of how accountability relations affect implementation behaviors that are inconsistent with policy. By extending the Accountab...

A comprehensive introduction and teaching resource for state-of-the-art Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) using R software. This guide facilitates the efficient teaching, independent learning, and use of QCA with the best available software, reducing the time and effort required when encountering not just the logic of a new method, but also ne...

The European Union (EU) is a system of multilevel governance in which the member states (MS) have transferred an increasingly high number of policy competences to the central level. However, today’s deep level of integration is not matched with a correspondingly strong capacity of the EU to implement its policies. This is mainly due to the EU’s com...

Frontline workers who are confronted with crises need enormous resilience and the ability to deal with stress from crisis‐related increases in demands and risks. Simultaneously, populist governments with an illiberal agenda may undermine the work of street‐level bureaucracies for political reasons. Little is known about how deconstruction of the ad...

In this introduction, we develop a behaviourally informed, integrated conceptual model of the policy process that embeds individual attitudes and behaviour into context at the meso and macro level. We argue that behavioural approaches can be situated within a broader tradition of methodological individualism. Despite focusing on the micro level of...

Insights emanating from our model support and accelerate the unfinished process of applying behavioural sciences in public policy and administration. This final chapter investigates the opportunities for applying our behavioural model of the policy process in three steps. First, we discuss how the model has been perceived by scholars of public poli...

First published as a special issue of the Policy and Politics journal, this book situates reforms known as 'nudges' or 'behavioural interventions' which have emerged in public policy and administration within a broader tradition of methodological individualism.

First published as a special issue of the Policy and Politics journal, this book situates reforms known as 'nudges' or 'behavioural interventions' which have emerged in public policy and administration within a broader tradition of methodological individualism.

First published as a special issue of the Policy and Politics journal, this book situates reforms known as 'nudges' or 'behavioural interventions' which have emerged in public policy and administration within a broader tradition of methodological individualism.

In studying the effects of policies in practice, evaluations addressing the role of street-level bureaucrats (SLBs), interacting directly with the public at the frontlines of government policy, provide critical insights regarding the relationship between outputs and outcomes. Analyses of SLBs in evaluations shed light onto what happens at the indiv...

ABSTRACT Public procurement is crucial for effective crisis responses, but is also prone to corruption. To ensure a swift provision of medical supplies in the COVID-19 pandemic, the public procurement regulations were dramatically relaxed. However, the implications for corruption require attention. This paper analyses how the regulatory responses t...

Governance is an essential concept in public policy studies. It gained widespread use in the 1990s as a response to the inadequacies of traditional government approaches in addressing complex policy challenges. The concept of governance emphasizes the patterns of political steering, specifically the institutionalized relationship between public, pr...

Member states use implementation to preserve core state powers, such as fiscal policy, vis-à-vis the European Union (EU), by choosing whether to adopt stricter or looser rules than the EU requires. However, these choices and their reasons when the EU extends its fiscal competences are understudied. We theorise how the interplay of uploading and dow...

This article analyses the role of institutional misfit in why member states customise European Union (EU) renewable energy (RE) policies when implementing them. Institutional misfit theory posits that member states only adjust to EU policies when the adaptation pressure remains moderate and national actors’ policy preferences align. Conversely, thi...

This study investigates how configurations of bureaucratic autonomy, policy complexity and political contestation allow international public administrations (IPAs) to influence policymaking within international organizations. A fuzzy‐set Qualitative Comparative Analysis of 17 policy decisions in four organizations (FAO, WHO, ILO, UNESCO) shows that...

The Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) methodology has evolved remarkably in social science research. Simultaneously, the use of QCA too often lags behind methodological recommendations of good practice. Improper use is a serious obstacle for QCA to enrich the social science methodology toolkit. We explore whether the coherence of analytic appr...

When using QCA, we conceive of social phenomena as sets in which the cases have membership, and we look at social phenomena as complex combinations of different sets. For example, to allocate students to the set of ‘good students’, we need to define clear criteria for distinguishing ‘good’ from ‘not good’ students, and think about how different cri...

Being a member state of the European Union is necessary for having the Euro as the official currency: the set of EU member states is a superset of the set of countries with the Euro as a national currency. Generally, if a condition X is necessary for an outcome Y, then X is a superset of Y. In this chapter, we introduce the notion of necessity and...

A comprehensive introduction and teaching resource for state-of-the-art Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) using R software. This guide facilitates the efficient teaching, independent learning, and use of QCA with the best available software, reducing the time and effort required when encountering not just the logic of a new method, but also ne...

A solid QCA does not end with the analytic moment. Researchers must make several analytic decisions at various stages in the analysis, some with more confidence than others. Researchers might also be confronted with data that are structured in analytically relevant ways. For example, cases might group into different geographic, substantive, or temp...

It significantly strengthens the inferences drawn based on QCA results if we connect these results to theoretical knowledge and within-case evidence before, during, and after the analysis. In this chapter, we discuss two prominent tools of doing so after the analytic moment – set-theoretic theory evaluation and set-theoretic multi-method research (...

Let X be the condition ‘soccer player living close to the training site’ and Y the outcome ‘arriving in time for training’. If empirically all players who live close to the training ground also arrive in time for practice, then X implies Y, or X is a subset of Y. This empirical pattern provides support for interpreting X as sufficient for Y. In thi...

This last, consolidating chapter has four goals. The first is consolidation: we specify appropriate case selection strategies for research using QCA and summarize an integrated protocol for analyzing set relations in an iterative manner, which bases inferences on cross-case patterns, knowledge of individual cases, and external knowledge. This proto...

This chapter uses an empirical example to explain what Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is and how it works. We familiarize the reader with the basic analytic goals and steps of QCA and the results this method produces. We also sketch the empirical spread of QCA and related software. We explain how this book is structured and how the reader c...

This special issue addresses questions of causality and validity of different solution types in configurational comparative methods (CCMs). First, what main parameters characterize the debate about correct causal interpretation of solution types? Second, to what extent has this debate been linked to a theory of causation? The special issue contribu...

Research adopting an interdisciplinary, behavioural perspective on Public Policy and Public Administration is booming. Yet there has been little integration into mainstream public policy scholarship. Behavioural public administration (BPA) and behavioural public policy (BPP) have emerged largely as two disconnected subfields. We propose the overarc...

EU citizens have rights when living in a member state other than their own. Bureaucratic discrimination undermines the operation of these rights. We go beyond extant research on bureaucratic discrimination in two ways. First, we move beyond considering mobile EU citizens as homogenous immigrant minority to assess whether EU citizens from certain co...

The EU policy-making process does not end with the fnalisation and adoption of EU legislation. In order to have a measurable impact on environmental quality, EU policies must also be implemented by member states, businesses and civil society. However, implementation remains the ‘Achilles heel’ of EU policy, contributing to the maintenance of divers...

By tackling shared problems through concerted policies, the European Union (EU) is thought to have a superior output legitimacy. However, EU policies change as they are being ‘customised’ during the implementation process. How do such patterns of ‘differentiated implementation’ affect EU governance in practice? While some studies highlight the dang...

This chapter discusses different research approaches to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and their application to comparative public policy analysis. QCA is a case-sensitive, set-theoretic method that allows researchers to model complexity in order to answer causes-of-effects types of research questions. There seems to be a preferential conne...

This article theorises how behavioural public administration can help improve our understanding of frontline policy implementation. The human factors that characterise policy implementation remain undertheorised: individual variation in policy implementation is dismissed as mere "noise" that hinders predictability in policy implementation. This art...

This Themed Issue features theoretical, methodological, and empirical advancements of the state-of-the-art in behavioural public policy and administration. In this introduction, we develop a behaviourally-informed, integrated conceptual model of the policy process that embeds individual attitudes and behaviour into context at the meso and macro lev...

Policy scholars typically assume that implementing actors should follow democratically decided rules in linear, predictable ways. However, this assumption does not factor in the operational challenges and multiple accountability relations facing policy implementers in contemporary, hybrid policy implementation settings. Shifting the focus to throug...

This article adopts a novel regulatory perspective on the conditions that facilitate and obstruct economic equality between migrants and natives. Regulation scholars have long emphasized that regulatory interventions need to be geared toward the needs of regulatory targets. We contribute to this research by examining the fit between regulatory inst...

Public servants are accountable to the public-as their name suggests. However, the question of accountability is not as clear as it seems. Public servants working at the street level of government bureaucracy enjoy discretion in the implementation of public policies (Thomann, van Engen and Tummers, J Public Adm Res Theory 28(4):583-601, 2018a). In...

This article aims to understand what makes member states complement federal healthcare policy beyond the instruments planned by federal policy. We employ a Multiple Streams approach to study how Swiss member states use their discretion in order to complement federal healthcare regulation with the aim of decreasing outpatient healthcare expenditures...

Our point of departure in this chapter is how accountability has been addressed as a hierarchical concept. We then assess how scholars have sought to deal with an understanding of accountability that includes informal aspects and social relations and hone in on the extended accountability regimes framework as a promising solution. Beyond political-...

The study of multilevel governance ( MLG ) is fundamentally concerned with the capacity of MLG to effectively deal with policy problems. However, the notion of problem‐solving itself remains vague. Moreover, MLG research prioritizes questions of structure and agency, while neglecting the role and nature of policy problems themselves. This symposium...

The European Union (EU) is currently facing unprecedented challenges to its problem‐solving capacity, such as those represented by pressing transnational crises and by bottom‐up criticisms towards the European integration process. Moreover, the EU is said to compensate its weak input legitimacy with an enhanced problem‐solving capacity. However, th...

A more comparative approach is needed in order to facilitate theoretical progress in street-level bureaucracy research. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) is a method that allows for systematic yet context-sensitive comparisons of intermediate to large numbers of cases. It accounts for the causes-of-effects types of research questions and the c...

Theories of Europeanization distinguish between two logics of action that states adopt when implementing European Union (EU) policies. However, how these logics interact with each other remains unknown. This chapter explores the conditions under which transposing countries customize EU Directives in rational and opportunistic manners, or whether...

This chapter explores how customization affects the degree to which European Union (EU) food safety policies are successfully implemented. It empirically assesses the contradictory views of the relevance of discretion for effective problem-solving that prevail in the fields of policy implementation and better regulation. Focusing on the policy “in...

The concept of “customization” captures the extent to which member states adapt centrally decided policies during transposition. This chapter introduces the concept and its measurement. I discuss how research on “gold-plating” has treated fine-grained differences in transposition beyond compliance. I argue that this perspective tends to be both nor...

This chapter draws conclusions about the dynamics that drive customization and the conditions under which extensive or limited customization can contribute to successful implementation. Based on the results, I make recommendations for possible governance responses. I suggest refining frameworks of “adaptive implementation” in member state implement...

This chapter introduces the data, methods and cases that form the basis of the empirical study. The research presented here was originally a comparative research project that provided advice to the Swiss federal government about ensuring legal equivalence with community law. In order to explore the patterns, causes and consequences of customization...

This book analyzes how and why five Western European countries “customize” EU food safety policies, as well as the implications for policy outcomes. Customization captures how countries adapt policies to local circumstances, resulting in tailor-made domestic solutions to shared problems. I argue that it is important to study the contested role of d...

This book sheds light on the patterns, causes and consequences of the “customization” of European Union (EU) policies. Even if they comply, member states interpret and adapt EU rules in very diverse ways when putting them into practice. We can think of and measure this diversity as a phenomenon of regulatory change along the implementation chain. T...

The main purpose of the Permanent Study Group (PSG) is to develop and strengthen the ties between the fields of public administration/public management and political science/public policy by bringing scholars from these fields together. Special attention is given to implementation theory and research. Over the past years, the Study Group has contri...

The rising number of referendums on EU matters, such as the Brexit and the Catalonian independence votes, highlight the increasing importance of referendums as a problem‐solving mechanism in the EU. We argue that the Swiss case provides essential insights into understanding the dynamics behind referendums, which are often lacking when referendums a...

Behavioural research suggests that the intensity with which policy instruments indicate a direction of desired behavioural change affects how target populations respond to them. However, comparative research on policy instruments focuses on their calibration, restrictiveness, density and formal intensity, but does not account for the degree to whic...

Multi-level governance systems like the European Union (EU) calibrate integration with member state discretion in order to implement common, yet context-sensitive solutions to shared policy problems. Research on implementation in the EU typically focuses on legal compliance with EU policy. However, this focus gives us an incomplete picture of EU im...

The topic of discretion continues to be hotly debated in policy design and policy implementation. In top-down theories, discretion at the frontline is often seen as a control problem: discretion should be avoided as it can mean that the policy is not implemented as intended. Conversely, bottom-up theories state that discretion can help policy imple...

This chapter discusses different approaches to Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) and their application to comparative public policy analysis. There seems to be a preferential connection between QCA and public policy analysis both in terms of research design and in terms of the actual needs and goals of policy-oriented research. Moreover, the Q...

According to the World Health Organization, there were an estimated 582 million cases of 22 different foodborne enteric diseases between 2010 and 2015. Over 40% of the people 2 suffering from enteric diseases caused by contaminated food were children aged under 5 years of age. Highly industrialized livestock production processes bring with them ant...

Thank you very much, Dimiter, for issuing this blog debate and inviting me to reply. In your blog post, you outline why, absent counterevidence, you find it justified to reject applied Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) paper submission that do not use the parsimonious solution. I think I agree with some but not all of your points. Let me start...

Research on implementation in the European Union (EU) is characterized by a strong focus on legal conformance with EU policy. However, this focus has been criticized for insufficiently accounting for the implications of the EU’s multilevel governance structure, thus providing an incomplete picture of EU implementation, its diversity and practice. T...

The results of this collection allow for preliminary conclusions about the nuanced interplay between Europeanization and domestication forces in EU implementation, which await testing in different contexts. Some policies lend themselves more to a strategy allowing for extensive domestication than others; but to be effective, decentralized implement...

Europeanization research often neglects that the implementation of European Union (EU) policy results in diverse national outcomes, even if member states comply with EU law. Such fine-grained Europeanization patterns have been explored as ‘gold-plating’ and ‘customization’. This contribution builds and expands on this research to propose a general...

This article applies the multiple streams approach to a multilevel implementation setting to analyse why Swiss member states enabled the labour market integration of asylum seekers between 2000 and 2003. It argues for integrating the social construction of target groups into the problem stream, and complementing the policy stream with inherited pol...

Recent years have witnessed a host of innovations for conducting research with Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). Concurrently, important issues surrounding its uses have been highlighted. In this paper, we seek to help users design QCA studies. We argue that establishing inference with QCA involves three intertwined design components: first,...

Rising immigration rates in Western Europe concur with increasing anti-immigrant attitudes. While assessments of welfare eligibility in the United States demonstrably hinge on how public servants perceive different racial groups as deserving, we know less about ethnically motivated discrimination in the European context. This paper argues that Swit...

This chapter gives an empirical account of output performance in the hybrid implementation arrangement of the Swiss Ordinance on Veterinary Medicinal Products for livestock. To analyse how hybridization works in practice, the accountability regimes framework is used to depict multiple social roles and accountability dilemmas of public and private,...

In recent decades, the introduction of market principles has transformed public service delivery into a hybrid. However, little is known about how these changes are reflected in the attitudes of private implementing agents: the hybridization literature neglects individuals, and street-level bureaucracy research has disregarded hybridization. This p...