Call For Papers: Power and Politics in the Policy Process - A Special Issue of Policy & Politics

Abstract submission deadline: 1 September 2026

There is a clear gap in the literature: politics is either not explicitly addressed or under-integrated in policy process studies. The implication is that if politics is missing, then so is power. Our concern is theoretical, empirical and fundamentally practical: not enough has been done to advance knowledge about how politics influence policy responses to public problems. This is to the field’s detriment, given the increasing tendency toward illiberalism in democratic systems that fractures the pluralist norms that policy process research has long relied on.

We argue that ideas about politics and political power are embedded in how we theorise about and empirically analyse policy process concepts, such as the ways that actors behave, leverage resources, mobilise, and more. For example, policy entrepreneurs in the Multiple Streams Framework may leverage access, resources and timing to advance change. However, those ideas have not been explicitly connected to politics and the use of political power. Further, how coalitions leverage resources may be an exercise of their power in the Advocacy Coalition Framework, but it has not been clearly connected to theoretical conceptualisations of politics or explicitly examined across different political systems. Without examining the politics of policy making, scholars may be missing critical explanations for core questions in policy process research, such as:

-How does an advocacy coalition actually affect policy change?
-How do marginalized actors leverage political power to trigger punctuations in the policy equilibrium to disrupt policy monopolies?
-How do policy actors use formal or informal power to deny agenda space to opponents when the streams of policy activity would ordinarily foster agenda change?

In response to this gap, we seek submissions for a Special Issue of Policy & Politics that examines the role of politics, and therefore power, in the policymaking process. Consistent with the scope and aims of Policy & Politics, we are interested in submissions focused on the politics of policy processes that provide broader and more generalisable lessons about the relationship between power and policy making. Submissions should be rigorous in their design, methodologically diverse and intellectually novel in their contribution.

Submission instructions:

Interested authors should send an abstract of 500-750 words to the Journal Manager, Sarah Brown, at sarah.brown@bristol.ac.uk by 1 September 2026. Authors will be informed if their submission has been selected by 15 October 2026.  Authors will be invited to attend an in-person workshop to present their papers and provide feedback at a major conference in the field in 2027. Subsequently, submissions will go through peer review under Policy & Politics’ regular editorial process.

Learn more about writing for Policy & Politics here.

We look forward to receiving your submissions!