How does policy information shape its adoption? A citation analysis of large-scale energy policies in China

Leilei Liu, Zhichao Ba and Lei Pei

Journal of Informetrics, 2024, vol. 18, issue 4

Abstract: Understanding the antecedents of policy adoption is essential for facilitating policy diffusion and designing follow-up policies. Previous research on drivers of policy adoption primarily focused on local attributes and government interactions, often neglecting the influence of the policy information itself. This study systematically investigates how policy information (policy design, topics, and attributes) shapes its adoption. Drawing on the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), we developed a framework to explain how such policy information embedded in policy documents influences policy adoption through central and peripheral routes. The adoption performance of each policy is quantified based on a novel policy citation approach. An empirical analysis of large-scale energy policies in China demonstrates that differentiated policy designs and topics exert heterogeneous effects on the intensity and speed of policy adoption. Moreover, their impact on subsequent policy adoptions is more pronounced than on first-time policy adoptions. Policy attributes such as institutional collaboration, reasonable timing agendas, and referencing high-impact policies positively influence policy adoption performance. Additionally, the validity level of a policy positively moderates the relationship between content information and adoption performance. Our research provides practical implications for policymakers to strategically craft appropriate policy-making and targeted promotion strategies for effective policy diffusion.

Keywords: Policy adoption; Citation analysis; Policy information; Elaboration likelihood model; Energy policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751157724001019
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:18:y:2024:i:4:s1751157724001019

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2024.101589

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Informetrics is currently edited by Leo Egghe

More articles in Journal of Informetrics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().