‘The policy process’ is a term that slips easily off the tongue and fits

comfortably into the analysis of the contemporary world, a world in

which ‘policy’ has a high salience, and scholars are active in

identifying, analysing and perhaps improving, the way in which it is

formed and in which it operates. But scholars have differed both in

the ways in which they use the terms ‘policy’ and ‘process’ in their

analyses, and in the extent to which they recognise these differences

as a problem for the analysis. Moreover, scholars are not the only

users of these terms. They are widely used in the structuring and

validation of official activity, both within government and outside it.

And it is increasingly recognised that ‘the governed’ are not simply the

passive recipients of policy, but are active co-creators of what is meant

by ‘policy’ and ‘process’.

In other words, ‘the policy process’ is a concept in use in both the

practices and the explanation of governing, and giving a ‘good

account’ of it calls for attention to the part it plays in governing, as

well as to the specific use that policy scholars have made of it. It calls

for inquiry into how policy is theorised: the categories that are

incorporated, the relationships that are recognised, and the way that

outcomes are discerned and evaluated.