After four partial No-Smoking laws that have been largely ignored, failing to address the issue of smoking, in September 2010, Greece has voted a law banning smoking in enclosed public spaces. The decision to ban smoking was made after a series of similar laws adopted across the European Union, with Southern European countries (Portugal, Spain, Italy and finally Greece) being the last ones to enhance analogous regulations to the ones found in Northern European states. Perhaps the timing seemed right or the circumstances of policy diffusion were such that a convergence between national and euro-wide policies was possible; or maybe an actual policy window where the streams of problems politics and policies did collide to create the possibilities for such change. Nevertheless, three years after, and similarly to the prior four smoking prohibition plans, the law in Greece continues to be ignored. Public workers, including those in post offices and government buildings, as well as police, bus drivers or doctors in public hospitals continue to smoke without having to worry about being checked or having fines issued against them. Even members of the Parliament smoke openly in the building where they passed the ban, ironically ignoring their own law. What remains further puzzling is that this situation is idiosyncratic to Greece and not a generalized Southern European phenomenon. How can one explain this policy failure? Is it a consequence of “Greek lawlessness” or of a non-internalized –badly diffused policy?
As Weyland (2005: 262) notes, “one of the most striking phenomena in the area of public policy are the waves of diffusion that sometimes sweep across regions of the world.” The banning of smoking in many ways can be seen as a classic example of this process of policy diffusion. As scientific facts on the health externalities caused by smoking became even stronger, smoking gradually became a public health issue, to be addressed by holistic state or citywide public policies. And while policy diffusion scholars address the reasons of policy adoption through mechanisms such as Shipan’s and Volden’s learning, economic competition, imitation and coercion, they do not directly address failures such as the one described above. Certainly, one could argue that the adoption of the smoking ban in Greece was the result of learning: the likelihood of the policy to be adopted increases when the same policy was adopted by other states within the EU. From another lens, the adoption of the policy could be perceived as an imitation of the nearest neighbor or the trendsetter amongst states. In that sense, because imitation involves no concern about the effects of policies, but rather only a desire to do whatever a leader state has done, to paraphrase Shipan and Volden, Greece’s decision simply imitated the general trend and thus failed since the policy was not necessarily driven by the citizens will or demands for better public health through smoking regulation. Even adapting Grossback’s theory of US federalism to the European context by admitting that states learn from each other, but this learning depends more on the degree of ideological similarity between the states than the signals that come with region or mere adoption, we cannot possibly explain the reasons the policy although adopted in other similarly ideological countries, failed to go through in Greece.
But perhaps this ideological lens can help us identify what has been so different in the Greek context; while the banning in other countries has been perceived as a public policy aiming to ameliorate public health, in Greece the discussion took a very different turn. Right after the decision to vote for the banning a series of interest groups (restaurant and bar owners, local tobacco industries) posed the ban as an infringement to the personal liberties and rights of smokers. The law was perceived as imposed through a “patriarchal” state. Therefore the discussion followed a very different logic; one that displaced the attention from the positive effects of the banning to the normative perceptions of the role of the state. As Vardavas and Kafatos (2006) note the smoking problems of Greece adheres to the classic libertarian ideas of free will and choice of lifestyle. There is thus an inherent loath to comply with any laws that restrict personal freedom. The extent of this problem was also depicted in a pan-European health survey that assessed the newly introduced European guidelines on enforced labeling of health warnings on cigarette packages. Remarkably, the Greek male population was the only one in the European Union to regard the warnings as annoying, pointless, and invasive (Devlin et al.).
The example from Greece poses a serious question on the various theories of public policy diffusion. Certainly, we could argue that there are several mechanisms through which diffusion is achieved. But are there some mechanisms that seem to guarantee that the diffusion goes beyond the adoption and to the enforcement of the law?
References:
Devlin A, Anderson S, Hastings G, Macfadyen L. Targeting smokers via tobacco product labelling: opportunities and challenges for Pan European health promotion. Health Promot Int 2005; 20: 41-49
Gilardi Fabrizio, “Who Learns from What in Policy Diffusion Processes?”American Journal of Political Science, 54(3), 2010
Shipan Charles R and Craig Volden, “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion,”American Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 2008
Vardavas C, A Kafatos, “Greece's tobacco policy: another myth?” The Lancet, Volume 367, Issue 9521, Pages 1485 - 1486, 6 May 2006
As Weyland (2005: 262) notes, “one of the most striking phenomena in the area of public policy are the waves of diffusion that sometimes sweep across regions of the world.” The banning of smoking in many ways can be seen as a classic example of this process of policy diffusion. As scientific facts on the health externalities caused by smoking became even stronger, smoking gradually became a public health issue, to be addressed by holistic state or citywide public policies. And while policy diffusion scholars address the reasons of policy adoption through mechanisms such as Shipan’s and Volden’s learning, economic competition, imitation and coercion, they do not directly address failures such as the one described above. Certainly, one could argue that the adoption of the smoking ban in Greece was the result of learning: the likelihood of the policy to be adopted increases when the same policy was adopted by other states within the EU. From another lens, the adoption of the policy could be perceived as an imitation of the nearest neighbor or the trendsetter amongst states. In that sense, because imitation involves no concern about the effects of policies, but rather only a desire to do whatever a leader state has done, to paraphrase Shipan and Volden, Greece’s decision simply imitated the general trend and thus failed since the policy was not necessarily driven by the citizens will or demands for better public health through smoking regulation. Even adapting Grossback’s theory of US federalism to the European context by admitting that states learn from each other, but this learning depends more on the degree of ideological similarity between the states than the signals that come with region or mere adoption, we cannot possibly explain the reasons the policy although adopted in other similarly ideological countries, failed to go through in Greece.
But perhaps this ideological lens can help us identify what has been so different in the Greek context; while the banning in other countries has been perceived as a public policy aiming to ameliorate public health, in Greece the discussion took a very different turn. Right after the decision to vote for the banning a series of interest groups (restaurant and bar owners, local tobacco industries) posed the ban as an infringement to the personal liberties and rights of smokers. The law was perceived as imposed through a “patriarchal” state. Therefore the discussion followed a very different logic; one that displaced the attention from the positive effects of the banning to the normative perceptions of the role of the state. As Vardavas and Kafatos (2006) note the smoking problems of Greece adheres to the classic libertarian ideas of free will and choice of lifestyle. There is thus an inherent loath to comply with any laws that restrict personal freedom. The extent of this problem was also depicted in a pan-European health survey that assessed the newly introduced European guidelines on enforced labeling of health warnings on cigarette packages. Remarkably, the Greek male population was the only one in the European Union to regard the warnings as annoying, pointless, and invasive (Devlin et al.).
The example from Greece poses a serious question on the various theories of public policy diffusion. Certainly, we could argue that there are several mechanisms through which diffusion is achieved. But are there some mechanisms that seem to guarantee that the diffusion goes beyond the adoption and to the enforcement of the law?
References:
Devlin A, Anderson S, Hastings G, Macfadyen L. Targeting smokers via tobacco product labelling: opportunities and challenges for Pan European health promotion. Health Promot Int 2005; 20: 41-49
Gilardi Fabrizio, “Who Learns from What in Policy Diffusion Processes?”American Journal of Political Science, 54(3), 2010
Shipan Charles R and Craig Volden, “The Mechanisms of Policy Diffusion,”American Journal of Political Science, 52(4), 2008
Vardavas C, A Kafatos, “Greece's tobacco policy: another myth?” The Lancet, Volume 367, Issue 9521, Pages 1485 - 1486, 6 May 2006
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