LIST OF PANELS

Policy scholars are increasingly applying a temporal perspective to explain policy stability and change. Temporal analysis has a strong focus on the timing and sequence of policy events in order to identify the dynamics of policy making. The notion of path dependency is often used to explain policy trajectories. Policy stability is explained by analysing the historical sequence of policy events in order to establish the self-reinforcing mechanisms maintaining the policy path. As the sequence of events develops over time, driven by internal dynamics, policy development may increasingly be out of synch with the broader political or institutional context. The result is to trigger a critical juncture, enabling rapid and radical policy change. In contrast to this path dependency/punctuated equilibrium model of policy development and change, recent theoretical developments suggest that policy trajectories tend to be characterised by gradual policy transformation. This second literature has focused on mapping different types of gradual change and identifying the dynamics behind reform processes. An alternative, but related, approach to explaining gradual policy evolution over time is reactive, or process, sequencing. It focuses on the temporal and causal connections between policy events which are produced by reactions and counter-reactions to previous events in the sequence that cause subsequent policy events. Reactive, or process, sequencing focuses on the way in which policy evolves without assuming that the sequence would be predetermined by path dependency. This panel welcomes papers which explore the recent theoretical, methodological and empirical developments in temporal policy analysis—either within the path dependency or reactive sequence formulation--with the aim of improving our understanding of policy stability, change and controversies from a temporal perspective.

Polycentric governance has been embedded into a coherent theory throughout the sixties and seventies by contributions that laid the foundations of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis. Despite recent renewed interest in polycentricity, convenors of this panel identified an important research gap - the social foundations of the emergence of polycentric governance. With foundations we specifically refer to the role of characteristics of social problems (e.g. characteristics of goods provided) and constitutional (and meta-constitutional) rules –in-use, on the basis of which operational polycentric governance would be founded. The panel addresses this gap in two sessions. The first session treats the conceptual and methodological foundation for addressing a) constitutional conditions and b) characteristics of social problems in regard to their effect on polycentric governance. Papers are welcomed that engage with conceptualising either foundational category underlying polycentric governance and the mechanisms and social processes at work in structuring governance. For example, the role of either weak vs. strong states, shared cultural understandings, provision of public or private goods, formal and informal constitutional level practices or specific scale-specific constraints on self-organisation of collective decision units could be addressed. While contributions are expected to be conceptual in nature, empirical illustrations can cover diverse fields. The second session specifically aims to build on recent advances in our understanding of polycentric water governance. Contributions will be welcomed that empirically illustrate the role of the foundations of polycentric governance for the way water governance is organized, for the way it evolves and performs. Questions could address, for example, the role of perceptions about the specific features of ecological and technical systems in the water governance is structured, the role of the constitutionally codified state structure, the role of changes in perceived uncertainties about social-ecological system behaviour for the way water governance evolves and performs.

This panel extends the debate on global policy processes and transnational administration that started in the 1st ICPP conference in Grenoble and which provided the momentum behind a symposium of papers that will appear in Public Administration. The second conference we hope will fuel a new publication currently in negotiation with Oxford University Press. We draw upon policy studies and public administration scholarship to ask if there are signs of global public policy and transnational administration emerging which need to be understood through the lens of this scholarship and not only that of global governance and international relations. Would a change in the lens signify new findings and insights in the changing face of public administration and public policies processes globally? In this panel we ask policy and public administration scholars to focus on and analyse policy power, decision-making processes and implementing authority that operates above and beyond the state and is executed by transnational policy actors. Whilst there are notable exceptions, public policy and public administration studies have tended to undertake analysis of the capacity of public sector hierarchies to globalise national policies rather than to ask if there is transnational policy-making and administration above and beyond the state. We seek conceptually informed papers that identify and interrogate (i) global policy processes, (ii) the constitution, character and effectiveness of global programs and partnerships, (iii) the emergence and nature of transnational public administration. The co-chairs of this panel will not be accepting papers with a specific focus on European public policy or other regional policy processes in order to encourage a discussion of the global, inter-regional or transnational levels of policy and administration. However, papers that address the transnational policy initiatives of regional organisations and the way they feed in to global public policies will be considered.

Theoretical approaches to the process through which policy is generated have been brought together and catalogued in a number of ways, notably the successive editions of Paul Sabatier’s Theories of the Policy Process and the periodic survey articles in the Policy Studies Journal. This panel aims not simply to repeat these exercises, but rather, to think about the way in which the policy process is theorised, focusing on the ‘cartography’ of policy: how observers generalise and systematise practice, what are seen as the key phenomena, what evidence is gathered and how is it used, and how do the different analytic approaches relate to one another, and to the inherent tensions in the policy process – between choice and structuring, direction and consensus-building, and between the pursuit of specific goals and the continuing management of the problematic. We are also interested in how practitioners – in government and elsewhere - theorise the process, and how their theorising relates to that of the academic observers. We invite papers that address any aspect of this problematique, particularly those concerned with how the activity of policy is framed as a process the place of ‘government’ and ‘non-government’ in the framing the tension between choice and structure expertise and the construction of meaning This panel arises from an invitation from a publisher to put together a handbook on the policy process; many of the chapter authors will be giving papers (and will get priority if choices have to be made), but all interested are invited to submit proposals

This panel is closed to paper proposal.

For several decades, one of the defining features to the study of public policy has been the emergence and development of policy process theories. Samples of these theories include the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), punctuated equilibrium theory (PET), multiple streams (MS), social construction theory (SCT), institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, and others. Similarly, public policy scholarly consists of concepts that comprise its theories and that are used in research (such as ideas, networks, institutions, etc.). An emerging challenge with the growth of public policy scholarship is that many of the traditional theories and concepts are being applied in ways that were not originally imagined by their creators. This panel seeks to explore strategies and difficulties of using traditional policy theories and concepts in untraditional ways. This may include applications that somehow apply a given theory in an uncommon way for that theory, which may include applications outside of North America or Western Europe, applications at different scales (individual to international), applications using different methodologies, and applications in atypical substantive areas. It may also include challenges in applying concepts in different contexts, theories, and empirical research. The main point of this panel is to focus on the challenges in applying traditional theories and concepts in untraditional ways. Questions to address should include boundaries and scope of public policy theories and concepts.

One long-standing theme in policy process research is how policymaking evolves in different political-institutional contexts and policy subsystems. This work has been guided by theories and frameworks of the policy process, among them the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Recent work on the ACF has identified areas where more empirical research is needed to further increase our understanding about how institutional factors influence the formation, development, and behavior of advocacy coalitions in the policy process. Relevant areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, the role and importance of specific institutional features such as veto players, the level of consensus, and system openness. These attributes have been added to the ACF within the notion of “coalition opportunity structures” in an effort to clarify the terms for application of the framework outside American pluralism. Yet, more work remains to clarify how stable system parameters translate into more specific constraints and resources affecting policymaking in the long run. This panel collects empirical papers addressing the interplay between coalition opportunity structures and advocacy coalition behavior in different policy subsystems and countries. Papers can cover methodological and theoretical issues related to the relationship between political opportunity structures, advocacy coalition formation and maintenance, learning, policy change and stability. Questions the papers could address include, for example: (i) How do political institutions condition advocacy coalitions’ membership structure? (ii) How does the level of consensus and system openness influence advocacy coalitions’ resources and strategies? (iii) How do political institutions enable and constrain policy change? The panel welcomes empirical research based on a variety of methods for data collection and analysis.

Approaches to and theories of the policy processes are not always very explicit about what drives the process itself. In public choice theory the driving force are fully informed individual political actors which try to realize their own interests and purposive-rational objectives. According to public choice, a lack of problem solutions is the result of the policy process. In models of the policy-cycle, the aim of political actors to solve political problems is assumed to be the driving force that leads to the progression of the different stages of the policy-cycle, from problem definition until policy evaluation or even policy termination. It is well known that there is a lack in these models that lies in the overestimation of the problem-solving function of political processes. As well, what happens between the different stages or which factors lead to the next stage of the policy cycle, are questions that are underdeveloped. Rather differently, Kingdon’s Multiple Streams approach sees coincidence and the role of single actors as policy entrepreneurs who discover windows of opportunity and couple the various streams (politics, problems, and policy) that lead to policy change, as the driving force while e.g. the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory suggests that the search for equilibria is the crucial force driving political processes. Some of these ideas (such as public choice or the policy cycle model) are too simple or technocratic and are limited in providing a deeper understanding of what happens in policy processes and how policy results are shaped. Others come closer to reality but are difficult to be integrated in policy analyses, especially when they provide a lot of aspects and factors that are difficult to be incorporated due to their complexity (e.g. the Advocacy-Coalition-Framework). In our view, policy processes are by no way ordered rational problem-solving processes. Rather, they are characterized by contestation, they are shaped by the interests and power resources of involved actors, by the different nature of policy problems, the ideological background of political alternatives, and coincidences – and things happening in totally different spheres. This panel ties up with the different existing attempts to find better suited theories of the policy process and invites contributions that devote themselves to a better understanding of policy processes and the driving forces behind them. The panel invites contributions with a purely theoretical focus or an empirical with a strong theoretical focus. They might come from all policy fields and start from all sorts of methodological, disciplinary and epistemic backgrounds.

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), as first advanced by John Kingdon, remains among the most influential approaches to understanding the policy process. The MSF has been adopted in North America and Europe as a way of understanding and explaining agenda change, problem definition, and the selection of alternative policies.The organizers of this panel invite scholars working with the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to propose papers for one or two panels at the IPCC in Milan. We invite papers that extend the MSF beyond its origins in John Kingdon’s work, to encompass, among other aspects, agenda setting, problem definition, and policy change. We invite a variety of theoretical and empirical studies of policy using the MSF at the subnational, national, or comparative scales, and we emphasize critical engagement with the framework and with other theories of policy making.

The proposed panel invites papers that address specific issues or nations as well as papers that adopt a comparative approach. In particular, we are interested in papers that address the dynamics of issue attention, agenda setting, problem definition, the role of institutions in information processing, policy feedback, the supply of information in political systems, those that examine or trace policy change over time, and papers addressing the scale of policy change. In addition to these substantive areas, we also welcome papers addressing the measurement and methodological issues associated with policy dynamics.

This panel aims to lay the foundation for a more systematic understanding of policy analysis in France. This requires a thorough exploration of the distinction usually made in French academic and practitioner debates between policy studies and policy analysis. Since the 18th century policy analysis was mainly developed as practitioner’s know-how within the State, i.e., as studies for policies as opposed to studies of policy (Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock 2013). Indeed, it was only during the 1970s and 1980s that policy studies emerged as an academic field of expertise within political science and administration studies. Policy analysis or “political sociology of public policy” is now mainly understood in France as an academic field and not as applied research. From this perspective, the study of policy explores the role of the State and its restructuring, processes of government and governance, and State-Society relationships and policies as both a process and an outcome by focusing on policymakers, their practices, ideas and discourses, how they engage in sustained relationships with a large variety of market and society actors, and the concrete devices they use in order to make policy objectives operational. We are looking for papers on five different themes. 1. The history of the development of policy analysis in France and its main characteristics in a comparative perspective. 2. Policy analysis in French government or, in other words, the study for policy and production of knowledge meant as way to improve policy-making and outcomes. We are particularly interested in papers highlighting the importance of knowledge production for policy within the State apparatus, local governments, and the Parliament. 3. The role of “Committees, Public Inquiries, and Consultants” in the public policy process. Papers should focus on specific arenas of political participation that were created by the State in order to consult and include organized civil society organizations either on a permanent or ad hoc basis. 4. The study for policy and knowledge production within political parties, think-tanks and interest groups. Although knowledge production for policy remains underdeveloped vis-à-vis the situation observed in other Western democracies, it has played a growing role over the past 15 years both due to internal factors as well as the State’s initiative. 5. The place of policy analysis within the academic world. We are especially interested in papers tackling the issue of current relationships between the public policy academic community and places of knowledge production for policy within the State, in order to explain why the distinction between policy analysis and policy studies is very much intact. This panel gives the priority to the participants of a collective book, which will be published by Policy Press in the “International Library of Policy Analysis” series, edited by Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett.

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” is the process of injecting high-pressure water, sand and other chemicals into shale rock formations in order to extract unconventional oil and gas. Fracking has been around for some time, but only in the past several years has the issue come into the public eye. It’s a highly contentious political issue with a global scope because of the high volume of water it uses, the types of chemicals used, the economic potential, and the unknown health and environmental impacts. This panel seeks papers that use theories of policy and politics to understand the debates and conflicts over hydraulic fracturing issues. Some of the important questions that papers might examine include: What are areas of agreement/disagreement? What organizations/individuals are mobilized and represent the different sides of this issue in a country? What are the capacity, networks, and resources being employed to influence the politics and policy? What strategies, activities, venues are being pursued? What is the current policy status of hydraulic fracturing development? What is the propensity of policy change and maybe consensus into the future? We are looking for papers that pursue these questions and others using a variety of theories and methods. A strong emphasis on advancing theoretical development in the study of policy and politics using this issue is encouraged.

The panel will seek to provide a detailed examination and discussion of the practice of policy analysis in Mexico. We will take a broad view regarding how policy analysis (practices, capacities, etc.) is developed at different levels of governments, as well as in other political institutions (e.g. legislatures), and non-governmental organizations such as unions, business, the third sector, and the media. We are looking for papers which can address any of the following topics in relation to the Mexican case: Policy Analysis in the Federal Government Policy Analysis in State Governments Policy Analysis in Local Governments Policy Analysis and the legislatures Public Analysis and Advisory Councils (e.g. the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy, the Institute for the Evaluation of Public Education, etc.) Policy Analysis, Public Opinion and the Media Policy Analysis, Consultants and Think Tanks Policy Analysis and Political Parties Policy Analysis and Business Associations Policy Analysis and Unions Policy Analysis in the Third Sector Policy Analysis Instruction and Academic Research in Mexico Regardless of their theoretical and/or analytical point of departure, papers are expected to be heavily based on original empirical research. The revised versions of the manuscripts are expected to appear in an edited volume on Policy Analysis in Mexico, in both Spanish and English language versions.

Policy transfer has become an important framework for understanding how policy ideas, models, methods and tools travel. The “travelling” process is not without contention and conflict and resistance, but it is an important way of understanding why policy models being adopted and promoted in Afghanistan look similar to those in Albania and Alabama. International organizations – governmental (e.g., World Bank, OECD, EU, development banks), non-governmental (e.g., Transparency International, Open Society Foundations, think tanks), and private (e.g., professional associations, consulting firms) – are all engaged in the complex process of policy transfer, particularly in transitional situations, state-building, and accession scenarios. However, despite some useful macro-models of how transfer can occur, we know relatively little about the complex micro-dynamics on the ground. For example, in any given “transfer theatre” such as a developing state, there are a multitude of transfer agents at work, sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating, and a multitude of recipient agencies with their own agendas. The dynamics of the interaction of these players determines how the transfer plays out – what is adopted, how it is adapted, and often whether it is successful or not in any real sense. Understanding these micro-dynamics often depends on mixed method approaches that bring anthropological, sociological, and political techniques to bear in building a coherent narrative of events and outcomes. This panel invites papers on the micro-mechanics of policy transfer, highlighting specific and empirically grounded case studies to push the analysis and frameworks forward, with theoretically relevant findings. Some sample questions to be explored: How do “transfer contexts” get shaped at the micro-level? Which ones are more or less receptive to new policy ideas and what determines receptivity? What kind of “expertise” do governments expect or want? And what kind of expertise is effectively supplied by the different international actors? Do these international bodies try to adapt their methods to the context of the countries concerned? How do multiple players on the ground in a given situation interact, competitively and cooperatively? How do domestic actors include international standards in their reform strategies (“translation”, “interpretation”, rejection, oversight)? What facilitates and what impedes transfer?

From a broad perspective, we aim to collect papers that support for this ‘policy turn’ in the study of judicial systems. In this vein, the panel aims to look at the role and the goals of the different actors, the resources they put in the arena and the mechanisms they activate to reach they policy outcomes. First of all, we encourage papers focusing on modernization and innovation policies in the judicial sector, and adopting theoretical models and frameworks drawn from public policy analysis. We welcome papers with a comparative view, as well as on specific national case study (that will be used for summative analysis and discussions, to maintain the comparative orientation of the panel). Another aim of the panel is to stimulate a debate covering the approaches that could be used for this type of analysis. Specifically, although for a long time, the most influential way for analysing was the so-called ‘stage heuristic/policy cycle model’, new theoretical frameworks emerged at the end of the 1980s, with the aim to develop testable and falsifiable causal theories, and to identify causal factors that govern the policy process: the Advocacy Coalition Framework; the Multiple-Streams Framework; the Punctuated-Equilibrium Framework. In the last decade, nevertheless, some relevant proposals have maintained their foundations on the policy cycle approach with new and interesting perspectives, inclined to preserve both an actor-centered orientation and the micro-foundation of the researches. We can remember here for instance, the works on policy design and policy instruments; a renewed interest on the analysis of implementation processes and on policy evaluation, due to the researches on capacity building and on the identification of social mechanisms; the researches about policy learning and policy transfer, that influenced the studies on agenda setting, decision making processes and implementation too. As some of those approaches seem to be promising for the study of policy change and innovation in the judicial sector, this panel aims to be the venue for new research proposals adopting these models and to stimulate a long-lasting discussion on the study of the judicial policies.

The center of government remains crucial for governance and policy-making as an institution uniquely able to contribute to policy priority setting, coordination, and the advancement and management of government policy agendas. How the center of government is structured and its functions have however been subject to various endogenous and exogenous adaptive pressures, and successive public sector reforms. Decentralization, deregulation, devolution, organizational redesign, and increased non-state participation in policy making and governance have contributed to a decentering of the public sector in many jurisdictions. That is, they have eroded or altered the center’s capacity of governance function or capacity to govern. This panel will explore the theoretical and empirical policy implications of this decentering, along with various responses to it including ‘recentering’ among others. Papers are welcome that conceptually or empirically examine the 'policy work' undertaken at the 'center of government'. That is, the day-to-day policy practices of actors within the institution(s) that provides direct support to a country's chief executive. This center of government typically includes the president/prime minister and their office, the central public service agency (e.g. cabinet office), department of finance, and the treasury/budget management offices. Papers are also welcome that examine the implications of decentering/recentering for particular policy activities or policy theory more generally. For instance, shifts or patterns in policy coordination, policy advisory practices, policy agenda creation and management dynamics, public budgeting and planning, policy instruments, or policy process theory. Given the importance of the center of government for governance and optimal policy making, understanding its structure, operation, and the nature of its policy work remain important lines of inquiry.

Energy policy is characterised by the following developments: First, energy issues benefit from elevated levels of political attention, which results in the production of a large number of energy-related legislation. Second, concerns about the environment and climate change are essential for the policy dynamics in this field. Third, energy policy is becoming more and more diverse and now also includes considerations about the affordability of energy and other social aspects. In short, energy policy presents itself as a very dynamic and diverse field, which must be analysed in greater detail. We are seeking both conceptual and empirical papers that revolve around the following questions: What are the challenges to energy markets? Which policy responses are discussed or adopted? Which actors are influential in energy politics and what are their strategies? We encourage the participants to answer these questions in a variety of ways, for example, by applying quantitative methods, case studies, discourse analysis, or surveys. Yet we ask the authors to be as transparent as possible in the methods of data collection and analysis. In a similar vein, we welcome theoretical plurality, but strictly require all proposals to pay increased attention to the theoretical underpinning of their studies. We aim to contribute to the state of research by providing a theoretically informed analysis of the key challenges in a policy area that is rising in importance and the responses to these challenges by policy makers. We invite both advanced and young scholars of different disciplinary backgrounds (economics, political science, public administration, and sociology) working energy politics. In terms of output, we plan to put together a special issue of a relevant journal in the field or an edited volume.

All European Welfare Systems (EWS) are facing severe challenges and it is uncertain as to what extent political re-actions change our acquainted worlds of welfare. The financial crisis in particular has shown that 1) the same challenges often hit EWS in different ways and that, accordingly, (2) also EWS’ reactions to the crisis differ broadly. European countries with similar sets of criteria (e.g. demographic structure, (un)employment rate and public deficit/debt) have generated wildly diverging policy responses; some have relied on stimulus packages, others on austerity policies, some have protected insiders’ interests while others have opted for more universal policies. Although the future development of the EWS seems to be open to change, it is reasonable to see future processes taking place in a corridor between national path-dependency, a large variety of political intentions and EU-stimulated coordinated action. Against this background, research into EWS cannot be restricted to a general systems perspective but has to include the perceptions, estimations and expectations of political actors, stakeholders, interest groups and involved institutions. Thus, adopting a policy analysis perspective seems most fruitful. Although the challenges EWS have been facing have been increasingly researched, we still lack up-to-date analyses that provide a more actor-oriented perspective on 1) how EWS have developed since the outbreak of the crises, and 2) how similarities and differences in policy-making can be explained. We encourage comparative public policy scholars of all stages to submit papers. We invite empirical contributions that adopt an actor-centered perspective on EWS since the outbreak of the crises. Both synchronic and diachronic comparisons of welfare systems and of specific policy fields are welcome, ranging from comparative case studies to large-N and applying quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods designs. Also contributions with a theoretical focus on the conceptualization of continuity and change of welfare systems are welcome. 299 words

There has been a steadily increasing interest in policy convergence in higher education in the last 15 years. The bulk of these studies originate from Europe, comparing either countries or regions in Europe (e.g. West and East, EU and non-EU), while a much smaller portion focuses on comparisons between Europe and US, on non-European countries or on convergence within countries with more complicated distribution of competence in the area of higher education (e.g. Germany, Spain, UK). Some studies argue that policies and systems of higher education are becoming more similar over time, while others point towards a complex mixture of patterns of convergence and divergence. Steps have been made towards providing partial explanations of such patterns – a combination of diffusion of global scripts (sometimes promoted by international organizations such as OECD and World Bank), Europeanization, policy transfer and policy learning on ‘the convergence side’ and local translation and editing, path-dependence and complexity of higher education change on ‘the divergence side’. However, what is lacking is (1) a clearer answer to the question ‘what we talk about when we talk about convergence’, and related to it (2) a comprehensive and robust theoretical framework that can be systematically tested. With this in mind, the panel invites contributions that analyse higher education policy dynamics in a comparative perspective, in Europe as well as beyond. The contributions may focus on one or more parts of the policy process – agenda-setting, decision-making, implementation and evaluation – mirroring the distinction made by Pollitt (2002) between discursive, decisional, practice and results convergence. Other approaches to conceptualizing and operationalizing convergence are welcome, e.g. the distinction between horizontal (sigma) and vertical (delta) policy convergence (Heichel et al., 2005; Heinze & Knill, 2008) may be of interest. With regards to mechanisms leading to a specific pattern of convergence/divergence, the contributions should specify as clearly as possible their theoretical underpinnings and expectations (formulation of explicit propositions/hypotheses is welcome). Heichel, S., Pape, J., & Sommerer, T. (2005). Is there convergence in convergence research? An overview of empirical studies on policy convergence. Journal of European Public Policy, 12(5), 817-840. Heinze, T., & Knill, C. (2008). Analysing the differential impact of the Bologna Process: Theoretical considerations on national conditions for international policy convergence. Higher Education, 56(4), 493-510. doi: 10.1007/s10734-007-9107-z Pollitt, C. (2002). Clarifying convergence: Striking similarities and durable differences in public management reform. Public Management Review, 4(1), 471-492. doi: 10.1080/14616670110071847

Coordination problems have been a recurrent issue in the study of public policy. Particularly, cross-sectorial coordination has become ever more pressing due to ongoing specialization of public policies in more and more sectors. To efficiently respond to complex policy problems, researchers and policymakers have coined concepts such as whole of government, joined-up government, or horizontal governance. At the same time, analytically, field concepts have gained in importance for the analysis of public policies, referring to overlapping sub systems, boundary-spanning policy regimes, or functional regulatory spaces. However, whereas the body of conceptual frames and terms for the analysis of coordination of policy sectors is vast, comparative empirical research of this problem is scarce, especially the comparison between countries. Therefore, this panel invites papers that focus on the coordination of policy sectors, particularly if they pursue comparative empirical analysis, either with regard to certain issues in one country or in different countries. Successful papers conduct research on the relation of these policy sectors from a comparative perspective, posing questions such as: What differences with respect to typical instruments or mechanisms of policy sectorial coordination can be observed and how can we explain them? How do relations between policy sectors differ with regard to conflict-intensity and what are the politics of coordination? Consequently, this panel contributes to a better understanding of the coordination patterns in public policy, by sharpening our understanding of sectorial relations in policy and politics through cross-sectorial empirical studies.

The political economy of Asia has experienced profound change over the last thirty years or so. Much of this transformation, of course, rests in the on-going expansion of Asian economies, deepening economic growth and generally increasing national incomes. Indeed, this transformation has often been enthusiastically celebrated, marking an epochal change in terms of the rise of the East as economies in Asia leap-frog ahead of their developed counterparts. A recent article in the Financial Times (October 8, 2014), for example, reported findings by the International Monetary Fund that in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China was now the world’s largest economy, while Indonesia had overtaken the United Kingdom to become the 10th largest economy in the world. If such absolute epochal transformations are to be believed, commensurate achievements in the development of human capital should also be apparent. Indeed, historically, investment in Asia’s higher education sector was identified as a key driver of the region’s transformation, attracting considerable resources and policy attention. But after thirty years of sustained investment into the sector, what outcomes have resulted? What role has higher education played in supporting economic and social transformation in the region? While participation rates have trended upwards, commensurate increases in higher education institutional quality or global research innovation, impact and leadership still trails in international league tables. The recent UNESCO report, Higher Education in Asia: Expanding Out, Expanding Up – The Rise of Graduate Education and University Research (May, 2014), for example, notes that the research performance and postgraduate educational outcomes in Asia’s higher education sector are not reflected in ‘over all rankings,’ with Asia underrepresented in international league tables such as Academic Ranking of World Universities, QA World Universities Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (pp.65-66). This panel seeks to examine developments in the higher Education sector in Asia in terms of 1) the achievements of the sector over the last thirty years or so (participation rates – access and equity, resources, research, impact and quality); 2) recent developments in the sector in terms of funding (public versus private), policy innovation, research, internationalization and rankings, and 3) challenges and future prospects for higher education in Asia. Comparative and case study country papers are welcome.

This panel seeks to go beyond the conventional analytic framework for the regulation of judges which relies on the tension between independence and accountability. Drawing on contemporary regulation and governance theory, the panel explores the possibility of analyzing the regulation of judges through a four faced prism: values, processes, resources and outcomes. Values generates a focus on independence; impartiality; accountability; representativeness; transparency; and efficiency. Processes generates a focus on institutional relations (e.g. constitutional, conventional or statutory) with the other state institutions (e.g. executive, legislature, Crown, religious authorities, etc.); appointments processes; continuing education and training; appellate mechanisms; ethical assistance programs and networks; complaints and discipline processes; relations and engagement with the public; relations with media; judicial immunity/liability; and evaluation of judges. Resources generates a focus on court budgets; numbers of judges, part time and full time, per capita; salaries and pensions of judges; physical infrastructure; support staff; technological needs/supports; and security. Outcomes generates a focus on public satisfaction with, and confidence in, the judiciary. This panel welcomes participants from any jurisdiction or any legal family who are intrigued by this novel conceptual framework.

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a panel devoted to the "Policy Making between challenges and opportunities: An African Perspective". The panel welcomes submissions on various aspects of the policy making process in Africa.

Interest in policy instruments is growing. Both policy paradigms and technology not to mention ideology generate a range of tools to reach the goals of public policy. Also, redefinition of the state’s role in the direction of partnership with both the private and community sectors, alternatives have multiplied. Lascoumes, Le Galès and co-authors (2005; 2007; 2013) have proposed a political sociology approach to the analysis of instruments. As these authors remind us, no instrument is neutral in its effects, and decision-makers' selection rests on a theorising (explicit or not) about the relationship between governed and governor. This panel is aligned with this political sociological approach. Much work has been done on policy instruments but the approach’s roots in taxing, mapping, policing, and economic and spatial regulation has meant that it is less familiar to those concerned with instrument choice and consequences in the fields of social policy. The goal of the panel is to fill this gap. The social policy domain has seen numerous changes in and diffusion of instruments, such as reliance on fiscal income transfers and conditional transfers; provision of early childhood education; pension financing; care provision; and so on. Moreover, these instruments have emerged not only from the traditionally powerful states of the Global North but in some interesting cases from within the Global South. This panel is particularly concerned, therefore, to present case studies or comparative analysis of: innovations in social policy instruments and instrumentation; diffusion of social policy instruments across scale and space; variation in instruments in accordance with targeted populations, whether mainstream or marginal; shifts in the meaning of the instrument and its objectives over time. Papers are welcome that deal with social policy instruments in a range of geographical cases and of scales (local, provincial, national, supra, inter and transnational).

The aim of the panel is to interrogate the complex and often unexpected interplay between policy instruments, stakeholder participation and forms and practices of citizenship. Through various case studies we will explore issues around i) the changing historical trajectories of different policy instruments, ii) the complex and often paradoxical effect of participation, and iii) both the technical and political impact of policy instruments on policy outcomes. These issues will be looked at in order to map the significance of the impact of policy instrument choices on policy design, implementation and policy learning in delivering policy reforms across a variety of policy sectors such as active labour market policies, social inclusion, social security and gender equality policies.

The outset of the 21st century has been full of a new set of complex public policy issues confronting the developing world. Policy makers have been asked to respond to these daunting new challenges in a context marked by increasing volatility, uncertainty and unpredictability. A proper response to these issues demands important innovations in public policy, including (but are not limited to) new modes of governance and social coordination, new uses of social media and social networks, new monitoring and evaluation strategies, among other things. In other words, as the strategic importance of fostering public policy innovation became acknowledged, many important questions stay unanswered, such as: What exactly should be considered as a public policy innovation in the developing world, and what impact they have on politics and collective life, locally, nationally and internationally? What conditions, causal mechanisms or different modes of public policy innovations might be identified both historically and in the present? What do new forms public policy innovation mean for the development processes in different institutional and cultural contexts? How does public policy innovations interact with other traditional institutions and organizations in the public sector and society? How public policy innovation affect core functions and processes inside the government? Can public policy innovations in developed world inform new demands in Latin America, East Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East (or vice-versa)? This panel is open for the experience of countries in the so-called developing regions, but also for comparative studies examining experiences of different countries. We specially welcome papers that are explicitly interdisciplinary and that foster discussion of research that is informed by diverse theoretical and analytical approaches. Papers may address topics that are historical and/or contemporary. We also welcome proposals that showcase case studies that explore salient issues related to public policy innovation in developing countries.

This panel is a merge between two panels presenting international examples of dealing with public budgeting and social policies in the global market.

Comparative public policy and comparative politics have often run on parallel tracks. Researchers in both fields are typically explaining public policies; public policies such as labor market or welfare state decisions are staple topics in comparative politics. But the two fields are often using different conceptual languages, theories, and citations. Issues and theories such as implementation, agenda-setting, incrementalism and advocacy coalitions rarely appear in comparative politics literature, while partisanship, state structure, and broader political economy issues such as industrial relations are rarely prominent in public policy writing. The result is a lost opportunity- for comparative politics to benefit from expertise in policy analysis and research, and for comparative public policy to more fully engage with comparative politics theories and methods.This panel explores the relationship between the two fields, asking how they do and might relate. Topics that papers might address include: Theoretical frameworks and levels of analysis. How do comparative politics approaches, focused on institutions, parties, and coalitions fit with the more finely grained analyses, such as network or agenda-setting approaches, often found in public policy theories? How can their relationship be complementary, or are they rivals? What is the relationship between subject field expertise, in an area such as environmental, educational, or social policy and broader political analysis such as found in comparative political economy? What cross-fertilization can there be between the methods associated with comparative politics and comparative public policy? Literature reviews and practical, theoretically informed, applications of public policy and comparative politics theories will be especially welcome.

Roundtable sponsored by the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis At a time of increasing global policy convergenace, .this Roundtable seeks to engage in a dialogue that probes the emerging third generation of comparative policy research and the validity of comparative public policy. The Roundtable participants will relate to the following questions faced by the field: 1) How does convergence affects and challenges comparative policy studies? 2) Would it be appropriate to say that the normative social sciences methodology is not applicable for policy analytic studies? And if so, to what extent? 3) If this is the case and strict social sciences methodologies are not applicable How do we validate methods of comparative public policy if? What do we/ or should we draw, for rigor and validity from pure social sciences research? 4) How can we go beyond the prevailing perception that comparative public policy means international comparisons of item lists and enhance, through valid and reliable methods, comparative theory; comparative evaluations of research methods; and practical implications of theory-based research. How do these serve the challenges of global policy conversion?

Policy transfer has become an important framework for understanding how policy ideas, models, methods and tools travel. The “travelling” process is not without contention and conflict and resistance, but it is an important way of understanding why policy models being adopted and promoted in Afghanistan look similar to those in Albania and Alabama. International organizations – governmental (e.g., World Bank, OECD, EU, development banks), non-governmental (e.g., Transparency International, Open Society Foundations, think tanks), and private (e.g., professional associations, consulting firms) – are all engaged in the complex process of policy transfer, particularly in transitional situations, state-building, and accession scenarios. However, despite some useful macro-models of how transfer can occur, we know relatively little about the complex micro-dynamics on the ground. For example, in any given “transfer theatre” such as a developing state, there are a multitude of transfer agents at work, sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating, and a multitude of recipient agencies with their own agendas. The dynamics of the interaction of these players determines how the transfer plays out – what is adopted, how it is adapted, and often whether it is successful or not in any real sense. Understanding these micro-dynamics often depends on mixed method approaches that bring anthropological, sociological, and political techniques to bear in building a coherent narrative of events and outcomes.

There are a number of common, potentially existential, policy challenges confronting advanced market capitalist democracies at the dawn of the 21st Century. These threats include, among other things, growing income inequality, declining trust, economic stagnation, large cutbacks in the size and role of the public sector, increased immigration flows, ineffective financial regulation and climate change. Unfortunately and, perhaps, as a result of some of these trends, a number of these countries’ polities have become increasingly polarized politically, making consensus on needed reforms or remedies difficult or impossible to reach. This panel explores the challenges of developing and implementing public policies that address such fundamental threats in an era characterized by growing political polarization, as evidenced by populist political movements in numerous countries in North America and Western Europe. Both academics and practitioners need to better understand the sources of this growing political polarization as well as ways it may be managed or curtailed so that policy solutions to these threats to a sustainable, prosperous and peaceful future may be developed and implemented. Research guidelines for the panel include seeking out papers with a comparative focus so that meaningful comparisons on political polarization and policy formulation and implementation could be made across countries. Case-studies of single countries are welcome if they contribute to our generalizable knowledge. Efforts will also be made by the panel chairs to ensure an appropriate mix of studies from different countries, so that academics and practitioners can obtain a good theoretical foundation on how countries around the world deal with this issue.

Roundtable on Theoretical Perspectives on the Politics of Policymaking.

Among the numerous issues connecting policy and politics, our panel investigates the influence of populist parties on policy outputs. Our theoretical challenge is to enrich policy analysis and democratic theories in analysing the potential influence that populist parties –notably through discourses during electoral campaigns, and participation in government and parliament – could exert on the production of policy outputs, at different levels of power. The issue of populist parties’ influence on policies remains overlooked despite their growing political importance and current research in the “do-parties-matter” and responsiveness literatures. The panel’s empirical contribution is to go beyond the usual suspects (e.g. migration policy) and include other policy sectors. Our methodological goal is to use different approaches, quantitative and qualitative (e.g. discourse analysis, impact assessment, process-tracing) to best study the impact on populist parties on policy outputs. The purpose of the panel is to provide a state of the art of emerging research in this issue as well as to suggest avenues for further research. Specifically, our panel is interested in contributions addressing at least one of these challenges: Theoretically: How analytically is the issue at hand to be handled? What do we learn from the literature at the intersection of policy analysis and political science? What avenues of research appear innovative? Empirically: What new case studies clarify the issue? What are the respective contributions of small-N studies and large-N studies to the empirical description of the question at hand? Methodologically: How do we identify populist parties’ policy preferences? Is data from manifestos sufficient? In addition, how do we measure policy activities? (through the analysis of policy agendas – see the comparative agenda project, public spending, choice of policy instruments?). Last, how do we assess causality between populist parties’ discourse and policy proposals and policy outputs?

Crises have been said to provide politicians with a ‘window of opportunity’ to ‘depolitize’an issue, but this process often has important consequences – including providing an opportunity for opposition groups to repolitize the subject. Earlier work on depoliticization has been criticized as being overly focused on a ‘top down approach’ as well as neglecting important counter-processes of politicization/repoliticization. We are, therefore, looking for papers addressing: i) how the recent crisis impacts on ongoing processes of depolitization; ii) the manifestation of discontent to these processes, and; iii) (the variation in) the extent to which actors successfully repolitize crisis issues. In particular, we welcome papers seeking to uncover the nature of domestic bargaining that takes place under the shadow of austerity and the dynamics of a discourse of ‘no alternative’. Secondly, we welcome studies linking this process to manifestations of its discontent, such as declines in trust, abstention, protest movements or rise in populist parties. Examples of relevant questions are: Do policy-makers scapegoat the EU or the Troika to pass preferred reforms? Which groups mobilize to resist reforms? Which groups get heard and which are ignored? Why are some countries so diligent to embrace reforms while others are reluctant? Does the economic crisis undermine democratic accountability, and if so through which mechanisms? Is discourse strategically shaped to convince voters that there is no alternative? Is the increase of abstention a direct consequence of this process? What can explain variation in the occurrence, intensity and/or influence of protest movements?

The dominant story of regulation in the postwar period involves the dramatic expansion of new social regulations in the late 1960s and early 1970s, followed by waves of deregulation, primarily in the late 1970s and 1980s. While the movement from regulatory expansion to deregulatory retrenchment has been subject to a good deal of attention, there has not been as much attention paid to the dynamics of regulatory change in subsequent decades. Indeed, there have been few efforts to explore the post-deregulatory era as being distinct from these earlier dynamics. Since the 1990s, nations have engaged in many different experiments in regulatory design, involving, for example, management-based regulation, international standards like ISO 14001, and association-based self-regulation. In the end we are left with the following question: How do we understand an era where existing statutory authority is retained but there has never been a greater role for private sector actors in the formulation and implementation of policy? The proposed panels invite papers that are both nation-specific and comparative. We are particularly interested in those that: (1) track the dynamics of regulatory change in the past several decades; (2) explore cross-national variation, both system-wide or with an industry focus; and/or (3) consider the practical and theoretical significance of the changes in question. We invite papers that explore topics such as policy learning, regime change, and the advantages and hazards of relying on third parties in policy implementation, also referred to as “government by proxy” (Kettl) or more recently “the submerged state” (Mettler). Papers that explore agency capture (Carpentar and Moss) or regulatory breakdown (Coglianese) are also of interest, as are those that study the origins and effects of change in a particular industry, as well as those detailing system-wide change.

We invite paper proposals for the Prostitution Policy and Sex Work Governance – Design, Implementation, and Evaluation Panel to be held at the Second International Conference on Public Policy in Milan, Italy, 1-3 July 2015. Researchers in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere are increasingly turning their attention to analyzing the design, implementation, and evaluation of prostitution policy in terms of discourse, discursive coalitions, governance, governmentality, unintended consequences, and spill-over effects. This panel is an opportunity to exchange knowledge among members of this growing international community of experts. Proposals should relate to one of the following areas of study: I) Design: This session focuses on the conflicts and collaborations underlying prostitution policy design and instrument choice. Typically, prostitution has been conceptualized as a public nuisance, as immoral, or as inherently exploitative, resulting in criminalization. However, there are examples of innovative and collaborative approaches in which sex worker organizations play pivotal roles. II) Implementation: This session examines the implementation of prostitution laws by municipal governments, regional health authorities, and police departments. It also analyses the role of sex worker organizations, advocacy groups, and other civil society actors. It aims to clarify their roles and to explore the relational dynamics, which may be collaborative, agonistic, or authoritarian. III) Evaluation: This session provides an opportunity for researchers to present and discuss current evidence concerning the impacts of prostitution laws and the tools best suited for assessment. Participants will address methodological and ethical challenges such as accessing hidden, marginalized, and/or criminalized populations, collecting reliable data, and conducting comparative research. The Panel is co-chaired by: Hendrik Wagenaar, Professor, Town and Regional Planning, University of Sheffield; Leslie Jeffrey, Professor, Department of Politics, University of New Brunswick (Saint John); and Genevieve Fuji Johnson, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University.

Policy processes for the building of railway stations, airports, power plants, railway routes and other large projects often run into violent struggles. Some projects with similar conflict constellations have been decided on a low level of conflict, though. The respective level of escalation of policy processes for large infrastructure and building projects can be related to manifold explanations. Comparative politics stresses the patterns of the political systems (Lijphart 2012) and differences of policies and arenas (Lowi 1972, 2009). Case studies of policy processes and differences of policies and arenas (Lowi 1972, 2009). Case studies of policy processes may shed light on constellations of advocacy coalitions, devil shift of conflicting parties, the role of policy brokers, and policy-oriented learning (Sabatier/Jenkins-Smith 1993; Sabatier/Weible 2007; Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014, Biegelbauer 2013). Political psychology is interested in the role of individual actors by applying the “big five” personality dimensions or similar lenses (Bandelow/Thies 2014). Papers should address at least one of the following questions: 1. How can the concept of “escalation“ be defined theoretically and translated into empirical research? Which factors cause escalation (and/or de-escalation) theoretically? 2. How do institutional settings of political systems influence the likelihood of escalation and de-escalation? 3. How do policies, especially different types of large projects, different levels of scientific and political consensus about costs and benefits and different distributions of costs and benefits influence the process of escalation and de-escalation? Which conditions enable de-escalation by elements of direct democracy and public participation within the decision-making process?

This panel examines delegated agencies, and more specifically, their governance style, engagement and coordination with, and of, broader publics. Recent literature in (multi-level) governance has recognized that delegated agencies perform important roles in actively facilitating the construction of policy fields, their (meta) regulation, learning across jurisdictions, and sometimes their democratisation. These are generally expert organizations with specialist knowledge of policy fields. By delegated agencies we mean semi-autonomous agencies at arms-length from the core of government by virtue of legislation or executive arrangement. Located at the intermediary between central government and broader publics (including professionals, industry, NGOs, service users, citizens and other agencies), delegated agencies are strategically placed to engage policy communities, also across jurisdictional boundaries. Such engagement may include public consultations with stakeholders in the process of policy making, the explanation and justification of policies in the media, and facilitating exchanges about ‘best practices’ across differently placed policy actors and policy communities. It is an activity that comes, however, with perils particularly for delegated agencies themselves, as it challenges representative democracy and traditional notions of accountability. Delegated agencies engaging the public creates new political spaces for mobilising the commitment of publics to government initiatives, for policy learning, for contesting and reforming initiatives, and for, better or worse, informing the credibility and legitimacy of delegated agencies themselves. The panel seeks papers that both theoretically and empirically examine, compare, and critically interrogate delegated agencies engagement of publics. It is interested in papers that adopt broadly political, sociological, pragmatic learning or rhetorical perspectives to analyse the way in which delegated agencies actively present themselves, and their functions or government policies, to broader publics, whether to facilitate learning or policy commitment. Beyond the nature of agencies’ engagement with publics, there is also an interest in conceptualizing and examining the conditions for maintaining agency credibility and legitimacy among the public, and their function in facilitating democratic deliberation.

Social movements, NGOs and civil society organizations are strongly affected by public policies and, at the same time, they can contribute to change them. For many decades, social movements have been studied primarily from an organizational and communication perspective, whereas public policy analysts have rarely considered the relevance of social movement actions and strategies in terms of policy change. Recently, though, some bridges between two growing strands of the political science literature have been built and the policy outcomes of social movements activities are increasingly investigated. The panel is aimed at further exploring and consolidating such fertile contamination by bringing together scholars which are interested in focusing on the policy impact of social movements, with particular reference to the policy agenda and formulation phases. We welcome both theoretical and empirical (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods) contributions on environmental, urban and social policies. We are interested both in substantive impact (e.g. when objectives, principles, etc. of social movements are incorporated into the content of the policy) and on procedural impact (e.g. when specific procedures change by virtue of social movements’ influence, such as in the case of participatory decision-making modes.

The study of narratives has a long and rich history in the field of public policy. This body of work engenders a range of epistemological approaches, from interpretive and contextually based (e.g., discursive politics) to the more quantitatively oriented (e.g., Narrative Policy Framework). In turn, the accompanying assortment of narrative methodologies has been used in the analysis of a broad array of substantive public policies at multiple scales and in a variety of contexts. This diversity of approach and policy substance has produced conceptions of policy narratives that invoke diverse theoretical and philosophical traditions and varied operational protocols. While many of these approaches to the study of policy narratives converge, there are also critically important areas of divergence. In the interest of illuminating these points of convergence and divergence, the Policy Narratives and Public Policy panel invites interested scholars to submit papers that take seriously the role of policy narratives in shaping public policy design, processes, and outputs. All methodologies and approaches are welcome as well as are all substantive policy foci.

The call encourages theoretical and empirical papers that contribute to the debate about actual and prospective linkages and conflicts between climate change and associated policy responses (mitigation or adaptation) on the one hand and the welfare state on the other. The main motivation for examining in tandem the two policy fields is that “[i]ssues are becoming increasingly ‘cross-cutting’, and do not fit the ministerial boxes into which governments, and policy analysts, tend to place policies” (Peters, 1998: 296). Climate change is a prominent example of a modern policy dilemma that should not be dealt with as part of environmental policy only. The IPCC’s messages have become increasingly alarming and unequivocal about the effects climate change will have not only for the natural environment but also on society (www.ipcc.ch). By contrast to the impacts of globalisation and population ageing, the implications of climate change have been largely ignored by scholarship on the welfare state. Though there is much evidence that climate change will qualitatively alter the social policy agenda (Gough et al, 2008), more research is needed on the climate-social policy nexus in the context of different economic growth models. We invite papers going in several directions including: Conceptual/theoretical discussions of the linkages between climate change and associated policies on the one hand and the welfare state and social policies on the other. We particularly welcome papers that deal with these linkages in the context of different economic growth models and notions of justice (social, environmental, intergenerational). Comparative assessments of policy output and outcomes relating to the two policy fields. Papers that seek to identify the determinants of environmental and social policies as substitutes (trade-off hypothesis) or complements (synergy hypothesis) Papers addressing the likely public acceptability and political implications of different policy solutions (based on e.g. social survey data).

To explore the political nature of public policy is to diverge from the approaches that have been predominant. However, in the context of globalisation and growing complexity within societies, it has become increasingly apparent that the challenges facing public policy are international and intractable. It is no longer enough for public policy to seek to reduce the constraints on government; rather it faces a society that is more complex, social problems that are increasingly unsolvable, and stakeholder networks that recast governments as guides. These realisations highlight the inadequacy of incremental policy processes, as well as the unlikelihood that traditional approaches can reach their lofty aims. The recent work of Philippe Zittoun (2014) directly challenges these traditionally predominant views. By reasserting the political character of public policy, he explores the dynamics that shape the struggle over contemporary policymaking, as actors seek to create, define, propagate and legitimise their power through competing policy actions. In recognition of Zittoun’s contribution, this panel invites applications inspired by his theses in the form of international case studies. This panel is open to all research that takes policymaking to be as much a succession of political actions to contribute to legitimacy, as it is any success in solving policy problems. Case studies that rely on discursive struggles and those that draw on critical materialist traditions are both encouraged. These cases may be examples from within majoritarian systems, where political ‘logrolling’ is a conventional practice used within policymaking. They may include examples from systems where the increased prevalence of coalitions or minority government is challenging assumptions about legitimacy. Alternatively, they may include international examples in policy areas that are particularly susceptible to influence by symbolic politics. What this panel aims to provide is empirical evidence for a growing area of study within contemporary public policy. Zittoun, P, 2014, The Political Process of Policymaking: a pragmatic approach to public policy, Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan.

The panel, which will necessarily adopt a comparative approach, welcomes papers (both quantitative and qualitative) focusing on processes of formulation and implementation of changes in the ‘rules of the political game’. The papers may concern different levels of governance (from the local to the national and supra-national) and touch upon the institutional and decision-making settings of specific policy sectors, as well as center on the usefulness of mechanisms commonly used in the literature to describe and theorize constituent policies. Possible topics, hence, may be the following: Public participation in reforming institutions and public administration Institutional reform and policy change: which relationships? Institutional performance and institutional reform Public administration performance and structural change Administrative traditions and reforms: practices and challenges The challenges in comparing administrative and institutional change The role of policy innovators and entrepreneurs in processes of institutional change

Universal Health Coverage has witnessed growing salience in the global health policy agenda, and is zealously promoted by global health agencies as hallmark to governments’ commitment to sustainable development and poverty reduction. However, there is confusion on scope and mandate of the private for-profit sector, and UHC is often criticised for serving as a vehicle for expanding privatisation through private health financing, management and service delivery. Yet, the evidence substantiating this claim remains poorly synthesized and/or substantiated. This session seeks evidence on the scope and effectiveness of the commercial sector (and the paradigm of public private partnerships) in achieving UHC in LMICs. We invite abstracts for papers reporting findings of empirical research to critically examine role of private sector, scope of public-private interactions, and their implications for the agenda of UHC. Submissions should examine evidence to address one or more of the following questions. 1. What is evidence on the roles and effectiveness of the formal and informal for-profit sectors in achieving UHC? What functions can they best serve? 2. What is the evidence of private financing and/ or service provision in the achievement of UHC and addressing health equity? 3. What is the significance of health markets and commercialization on health systems, in the context of UHC? 4. How effective is public sector stewardship for the regulation of private for profit sector?

Active Labour Market Policies and the Governance of Social Investment Welfare State: the Youth Guarantee programs in Europe (Patrik Vesan & Paolo Graziano) Since 2013, the EU has promoted a new active social policy strategy, inspired by the experiences of some Nordic countries: the Youth Guarantee (YG). The YG aims to combat the phenomenon of young NEETS, providing to all people under 25 years old an educational, training or job offer within 4 months after finishing their studies or becoming unemployed. Given the specific target population of the YG and its focus on prevention or at least early intervention, the YG appears an interesting field of research for the analysis of social investment policies "at work". This panel focuses on the implementation of national YG programs with the aim to bridge the literature on social welfare theory, social policy administration and intergovernmental relations. In particular, we encourage contributions addressed to: a. the analysis of governance structures and implementation arrangements of the YG, ranging from the models of interagency cooperation and service provision to street-level implementation practices; b. the analysis of the first achievements or shortcomings of the YG programs, questioning their capacity to provide adequate responses to new challenges facing the new generations. Contributions should add new insights into the tensions and problems of the "real world of the SI welfare state", looking at the specific configuration of power which are at stake in the implementation of the YG and at the operational conditions affecting social investment policies, beyond the simple rechanneling of spending priorities.

The lack of combination of policy and politics analysis may threaten to weaken an holistic comprehension of public policy processes, particularly if one considers that this may be an heuristic entry point to study the state and its action in the Global South. Furthermore, employing research methods and tools produced in and for Northen countries raises the question of their adaptability to global South’s historical and political contexts. In the light of our concern for theoretical and methodological challenges that scholars who work on policy making processes in the global South may encounter, we call for papers focusing, on one hand, on empirical findings, and the other, on methodological insights. The first type of papers ideally wish to analyze the combination of policy analysis and political analysis at each stage of the policy process, from agenda setting, to the identification of alternatives, weighing up the options, choosing the favorable solutions and implementing it. As a premise, it is worth noting that we sollicit actor-centred analysis in order to emphasise the politics surrounding public policy. Therefore, we encourage case studies on countries fron the global South that analyze : the formulation process of public policy, and more particularly the confrontational dialogue of ideas, societal projects and interests built around the debated problems, putting in perspective the national with the international political contexts; the power relations among state and non-state actors involved in the policy making process. What are the underlying power dynamics and how are they built? the methods, instruments and strategies used by state and non state actors to politicized the policy at national and local level; the relationship between the nature of the political regime and the policy process; the influence of international paradigms, expertise, and aid actors regarding the debated problem, the policy making process, as well as the networks, alliances and coalitions constructed ad hoc. Second of all, we call for papers questioning the adaptability of tools conventionally employed for public policies analysis, conceptualized by and for Northern countries’ case studies but used in the global South. Therefore, we encourage papers that, on one hand, discuss the challenges scholars face when using those Northern conceptual tools and methodologies for global South’s case studies, and on the other hand, that propose the use of new theoretical framework and methodological tools to better apprehend public action in the global South.

The place of knowledge in the policymaking process has been extensively studied by the social sciences. The objective of the panel is to consider, conversely, the place of ignorance in policymaking, i.e. the fact that certain kinds of issues are systematically left out of consideration by policymakers, while other actors consider they should deserve attention. This question is not entirely new in political science: several authors, from different research traditions, have addressed “agenda denial” as a counter-process to agenda-setting or the processes of invisibilisation of social problems. However, there has recently been a growing amount of literature on the question of the social production of ignorance within the framework of Science & Technology Studies. Several authors have insisted on its political nature by integrating it into the “new political sociology of science” (Frickel & Moore, 2006). This literature has described the social mechanisms which make it possible to understand why certain types of knowledge are not produced or not considered worthy: logics proper to academic circles, rules in force in institutional arenas of expertise and the uneven social and spatial distribution of certain nuisances which more strongly affect populations who are very unlikely to complain. Taking into account this literature, this panel aims at providing an opportunity to discuss the role of ignorance in the policymaking process from a methodological and case study standpoint. In order to do so, empirical papers employing qualitative or quantitative methods are welcome. Ideally, the panel will be divided into three sections. First, we expect papers which focus on the structural, technical and institutional mechanisms which produce ignorance. For example, some papers could revisit in this perspective some subjects such as the manufacturing of official statistics and public indicators, or the problem-definition processes in the public sphere. A second set of papers would deal with the strategic uses of ignorance by the policymakers and all the actors who try to influence the policymaking process. These strategies may consist in efforts to deny, or at least play down, certain bodies of knowledge and standpoints, or, on the contrary, in ignorance claims. For instance, some papers could study the way ignorance – e.g. the uneven circulation of information – is deliberately organised in some public institutions. Third, papers addressing specific methodological questions on assessing the role of ignorance are very welcome. What materials and types of surveys are used to demonstrate the production of ignorance or its strategic use? How can we assign intentionality to actors or organisations, or, conversely, determine that some actions or consequences were unintentional? From what evidence can we determine that an issue was rejected, ignored or undervalued? Though these papers could discuss extensively methodological issues, all the papers presented in the panel are expected to address them.

For this panel we expect papers of three different aspects: focused on concept theory, focused on last decade mass protests and focused on different publics as new social actor. In first type of papers we will strongly encourage those authors who are interested to elaborate on the problem of “the life of the concept” : emerging of the new concept, is full development, its further maturity, its gradual getting out of date and inability to explain social events at list it does not cover all cases across the globe). The examples here might be – Geo-centric system of universe, “ Marxist concept of “economic basis of political life “, Fukuyama’s concept of “end of history” and among recent ones, though may still having its followers –“ transition theory”. In theoretical papers it would be very important to follow the changing scope of views of the theory proved by examples in academic literature and equally important – in policy papers. Second type of the papers we welcome to this panel are the ones focused on latest nation-wide protests in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria. But with the specific focus: in which cases those protests did resemble “traditional social movements - with all features described by Tilly and Tarrow, particularly with the all the stages of the movement development from the active nucleus to spreading , dissemination and mass consolidation, and in which cases those protests do not have features of social movement, but resemble other types of social organizations: network of local communities, interest groups, spontaneous publics, support groups of certain political actors. Third type of papers we welcome - should be on phenomena of public as a social actor –despite of its often spontaneous nature, been its able to consolidate and express common social needs, and to formulate alternative policy agendas. The combination of three types of contributions will help us to see if - and to which extent – latest mass social and political protests are allowing us to formulate different concept – the one of “protesting public”.

This panel seeks to engage exchanges and discussions surrounding four core issues related to POLICY PROBLEMS. First, this panel welcomes contributions focusing on the conceptualisation and the measurement of policy problems. Different definitions of what constitutes a policy problem create inevitable theoretical, methodological and epistemological tensions for the analysis of policy problems. Do these different definitions and interpretations complement each other? Can these tensions be reconciled, or they do act as barriers in the development of the policy problem literature? Second, this panel will consider the influence of existing of policy problems classifications on current research and their heuristic potential. Few contributions have developed elaborate tables isolating specific characteristics of policy problems. How do these inform current understanding of policy problems and do they facilitate research? Should existing classifications be modified? Papers could also examine the influence of existing classifications on policy work and activism in different contexts. Third, we encourage contributions on policy actors involved in the identification of policy problem that analyze their subsequent impact for the policy-making process. Potential correlations between actors involved in policy learning, and those that play a key role in identifying and constructing policy problems could be considered. In addition, the inclusion of non-traditional actors in subsystems or specific coalitions, following their role in problem definition should be addressed. Fourth, the panel focuses on the connection between policy problems and policy instruments. Can specific instances of problem definition break away from instrument-legacy in some policy sectors and, if so, under what conditions? How does problem definition centered on a particular instrument and its implementation impact subsequent instrument selection? Other types of contributions centered on policy problems will also be considered. Please note that although the organizers prefer comparative contributions, we welcome all kinds of empirical studies (case studies, qualitative/quantitative studies, textual analysis, etc…).

Very few studies have focused on party-electorate policy representation and research has only sporadically focused on analysing the relationship between the political preferences of voters and, e.g., party manifestoes or governments’ public policies. However, the analysis of the policy agenda-setting and agenda-making channels, specifically party manifestoes and the legislation produced by governments, but also other less direct channels of policy commitment such as prime-minister speeches, party leader speeches, oral questions in plenary meetings, etc., are also means of addressing this methodological requirement. As this methodological option involves the analysis of governments’ proposed or adopted policies, it offers a way of validating the findings of other studies using different (more conventional) methodologies. In this context, we also intend to include a seldom used factor in this kind of studies: the economic crisis. Especially among Southern European countries, the recent intervention programmes pushed governments to implement a series of severe austerity measures. The overall outcome has been a sharp drop in the standards of living. To what extent have the economic crisis and the subsequent austerity measures forced upon several European countries affected the way governments built their policy agenda? And regarding the changes in governments’ policy decisions? And to what extent has the crisis affected the correspondence between the positions of citizens and representatives? Is the responsiveness of governments to public preferences unmediated or is it filtered through media agenda-setting processes? In general, are governments more responsive to public preferences or is the linkage between policy makers and the media more important? Having in mind the likely relationship between economic conditions and democratic performance and taking advantage of the emergence of the crisis, we would like to explore the general relationship between governments policy agenda (as well as other policy agenda-setting and agenda-making channels) and the public in matters of substantive policy issues and decisions.

This Panel is concerned with conceptualisations of wicked problems and the range of policy responses to wicked problems. Some types of policy problems have been described as messy, complex, intractable, open-ended and ‘wicked’. The policy literature since the 1970s (starting with Rittel & Webber, 1973) has increasingly recognised that many issues are inherently difficult to manage or resolve, owing to increasing complexity in areas of social policy, significant differences in values, interests and perceptions, and uncertainty of outcomes and consequences that had previously gone unrecognised. What are the key features of such problems? And are they really very different in nature from more routine problems? Are we developing better ways to address these wicked problems? How do approaches vary across different policy issues? How do different political-administrative cultures respond to complex challenges? Are some issues more ‘manageable’ in some institutional settings and political contexts than in other settings? Papers are encouraged on any themes and issues related to these important matters.

Parliaments and the ministerial bureaucracy are key institutions for policy making in modern democracies. Yet research on public policy and administration has long tended to sideline the important role of parliaments. At the same time, parliamentary research often neglects the policy perspective and merely focuses on events inside the chambers. This panel aims to bring together scholars from the respective disciplines to encourage a dialogue between them and inspire the development of common models and approaches. We invite papers that focus on the relationship between parliaments and the executive. The policy cycle provides a basic heuristic to structure the panel contributions: From an institutional point of view, papers may deal with the mechanisms of delegation and accountability, in the process perspective they may study the role of parliaments in problem definition and agenda setting, for policy formulation they may investigate the different actors in policy making and their interactions, for implementation they may look at the mechanisms of parliamentary control and for evaluation at parliamentary scrutiny. Apart from the stages approach to policy making, papers using alternative heuristics or models such as the Multiple Streams Approach or the Advocacy Coalition Framework are also very welcome as long as they deal with parliaments and the executive. Methodologically, we invite papers with both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Member-state implementation is the subject of modern implementation research ever since Pressman and Wildavsky (1974) studied “[h]ow Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland.” Multi-level implementation research retains a strong top-down focus on member state compliance with central state decisions. However, particularly in EU implementation research it is argued that we should move beyond: First, “beyond compliance” (Schmidt 2008; Töller 2010); second, beyond the prevailing top-down perspectives that view the implementation of superordinate law as hierarchical guidance from above, and third, beyond the separation of research on national and international multi-level implementation (Pülzl and Treib 2007). This panel invites contributions of both established and young scholars that “move beyond” and take an innovative and systematic comparative approach to multi-level implementation. First, contributions may address other implementation outcomes than compliance; for example, the substantial similarity of domestic policies (Sager et al. 2014), situations when fully compliant member states go beyond the minimum requirements of superordinate law (Jans et al. 2009), or how and why EU policies are adopted by differentially integrated or non-integrated non-member states (Sager et al. 2014). Second, the panel particularly welcomes studies that deal with the processes, causes and outcomes of the member-state application and the domestic enforcement of central state policies after transposition. Third, the panel also invites studies that move multi-level implementation design forward (Exadaktylos and Radelli 2012); for example by analyzing under-researched policy fields, e.g., agriculture and food safety; testing complex explanations for implementation, in terms of interactions of variables and context-dependent patterns (Steunenberg 2007; Toshkov 2010); and/or addressing the issue of the relevant unit of analysis (Töller 2010; Toshkov 2010). Fourth, implementation studies analyzing all kinds of multi-level systems (federal, supranational) are welcome, especially when providing insights on how these perspectives can inform each other (Treib 2014).

This panel aims to debate papers about the State Capacity and Public Policy in Latin America through the "three i" approach. The idea is to contrast the institutional and behavior criteria related to the State Capacity, with the elements that emerged from society, in order to understand the influence of actors more and more demanding and committed, whose social demands are directly addressed to the States. The assumption is that, in order to respond these demands, the State Capacity is determined not only by its institutional structure and political interests but also by the structure and nature of the demands of the actors and coalitions that are addressed to the State. Thus, in order to debate this relationship between State and society through the concept of state capacity we propose an analysis by the "three i” approach. This theoretical framework ("three i”) is based on three criteria of public policy analysis: ideas, interests and institutions (Palier, Surel, 2005). The first criteria - ideas - relies on a cognitive and normative perspective, especially through the concepts of paradigm, frame of reference and advocacy coalition. The state capacity can be analyzed by this element through the definition of the cognitive and normative role of the State in the public field and the definition of the elements that build relations between the actors and the State in a particular public policy. The objective here is to understand how the State legitimates his action through a cognitive perspective in this context. The second criteria of the "three i" approach identifies not only the interests of the actors (motivations, preferences, capacity for mobilization and strategies), but also the issues related to the collective action and the process of decision making. Through these criteria, state capacity allows to address an analysis about mechanisms of decision making and the particularities presented by the interests of the actors in Latin America. Finally, the "three i" approach also considers the institutional dynamics through the relations between institutions and behavior of the actors and at the same time try to understand how institutions evolve. The institutional criteria is linked with state capacity, since it allows to analyze “the quality and coherence of political institutions” (Cardenas, 2010, p.3) and also issues of professionalization and state administrative capacity. This panel proposes to observe the configuration of actors present not only in the formulation and in the decision making of public policy but also in its implementation. It aims to analyze how the distribution of the power in the time of the decision will also define the policy implementation. The definition of the implementation influenced by the actors regards both the control of these spaces and the organizational issues arising from the professionalization of the state. If the State Capacity seems to be a relevant conceptual tool for the analysis of the current role of the State in Latin America, the contribution of the three dimensional approach is important, since it makes possible to understand, recognize and contrast all these dynamics. We encourage proposals that combine conceptual discussion and empirical analysis. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: social policy (social security, health care, social care, child protection, education policy), fiscal policy, cultural policy, development policy and environmental policy.

Why do people obey the law? Why are they willing to accept policy changes? How can public institutions get them to cooperate to ensure smooth policy implementation? These questions are of paramount importance if we want to increase policy effectiveness. Higher trust may contribute to more effective institutional performance and easier policy implementation. If people believe that laws serve the common good, and that the judicial system is both fair and effective, then they are more willing to cooperate with policy implementing institutions. As trust in public institutions depends on their perceived legitimacy, a crucial issue is whether citizens consider that these institutions rightly have authority over them. A number of studies about the willingness to cooperate with the police and tax authorities, compliance with health regulations during an epidemic, or the support of welfare reforms have demonstrated that a strong correlate of normative legitimacy of a public institution is procedural fairness understood as a signal of commitment to respect public interest by officials and decision-makers. The panel is inviting papers that address trust, legitimacy and policy effectiveness. What are the roots of trust and legitimacy in a cross-cultural comparative perspective? How are the decisions of political elites and legitimacy of institutions shaping policy effectiveness and conversely, what is the impact of policy outcomes on legitimacy? What kind of proxies can be used to measure the cultivation of legitimacy, i.e. policy efforts to sustain the legitimacy of policies and institutions in the long run? As available studies concentrate on some policy fields (compliance with the law or cooperation with the police), some geographical areas (Western Europe and the US), and some methodological approaches (attitudinal surveys), papers investigating other policy areas, covering different regions and applying other, innovative research methods are especially welcome.

Policy implementation has become a theme of increasing theoretical attention. Analysis of implementation has concentrated on classical top-down, bottom-up and integrated approaches. During the last decades alternative perspectives have emerged to analyze implementation through the network approach and the principal-agent framework. Although these classical perspectives have contributed to expand our understanding of putting in practice public policies, contribution from recent years are indicating the need to expand the study of policy implementation beyond these classical perspectives. On the other hand, most of the approaches used to analyze implementation have been originated in studies from the United States and Europe. Hence, an interesting question is whether case studies from other realities may confirm the validity of classical approaches, identify the same problems that recent literature from the US and Europe are envisioning or may suggest new perspectives in the analysis of policy implementation. Thus, the panel is aimed to discuss empirical evidence provided by case studies on policy implementation in different contexts. Although the panel is open to any cases, the presentation of case studies from Latin America, East Europe, Africa, Asia and Oceania is highly encouraged.

For this panel, we invite papers that focus on the process and context of policy implementation in front-line public services. We are specifically interested in papers that analyse how laws are interpreted and communicated among officials, and how this affects the original outcomes of policies. While the existence of an “implementation gap” is widely known, in-depth analyses of the black box of public administration are few and far between. We thus invite contributions from various policy fields in order to facilitate a wide discussion on practices at the “street-level” of bureaucracy. Through this, we seek to critically evaluate the relevance of frameworks like the one provided by Michael Lipsky 35 years ago. How does “law-in-action” deviate from the original text, and why? How are the objectives of law reconstituted in local settings? Do street-level bureaucrats achieve objectives that are tacit or unspecified? How is the application of discretion influenced by political conflicts and internal disputes about the meaning of law? How have the advent of new public management and recent austerity measures affected the autonomy of public servants? Is management or law the foundation of administrative action? Are the objectives of street-level bureaucrats law-driven or management-driven? In the panel, we seek to discuss these and related questions.

First, we welcome papers which address these issues on an empirical basis and focus on the implementation process at the regional level. Different types of actors can be investigated: public or private, experts or policy managers, any public policy field (social, employment, environmental...). As a part of an ongoing collective research project, the main aim of the panel is to gather various empirical field investigations highlighting different findings. Second, as we focus on the relationship between experts and regional policy making, we welcome researchers but also experts and policy managers as paper givers. A large variety of questions stemming from this reflexion can be addressed into two main sessions: Session 1 – Do infra-national actors behave differently in EU policy implementation? Is there a specificity of the regional level in the way of public policy implementation? Do all actors investigated agree on the definition of what is local or regional? Exploring the infra national: do the balances between regional and local actors only depend on institutional and administrative actors? How can social sciences address the analytical challenge of identifying the specific weight of EU, national and regional path dependencies? Is it easier to identify “civil society” and “socio economic” actors at the regional level? Under which conditions do regional actors seek to obtain EU funds and programs? To what extent are regional policy-makers aware of EU implicit public policy objectives? Session 2 – The growth of expertise policy implementation: an EU- or region-driven strategy? How do the national and regional context shape the relations between expertise and scientific research? For instance, how do the different epistemological trends influence the way research enters in dialogue with expertise and consultancy? Are some disciplines better appreciated in the policy advice and why? Conversely, under which conditions are policy advice and expertise experiences positively valued in the academia? To what extent do experts and their solutions really circulate across regions and across countries? To what extent are professional experiences with EU programs valuable in other fields? Under which conditions can the EU programs expertise be used for political purposes, be it in the political or administrative arenas?

Co-production is a policy tool involving the enhanced engagement of citizens and their associations in goods and service delivery, offsetting the use of other instruments such as public organizations or private contracts (Hood, 1984). This particular aspect of co-production has intrigued scholars of instrument choice for several decades (see Salamon 1981 and 2001). Since there are costs to the use of citizen’s time and limits to the extent to which a largely untrained, often voluntary group of actors can replace professional experts and administrators (Pestoff, Brandsen and Verschuere 2012), the circumstances surrounding its use and management are of great interest to students of policy tools. Various management challenges exist in co-production design and use, however. At the system level, co-production implies managerial activities through which government creates space for discretion of other actors while evoking joint responsibility (Hill and Hupe, 2014). These activities include invitation and selection of participants, creation and maintenance of network of organisations that will act as service providers and development of ways to manage strategic and operational complexity that comes with collaborative arrangements (Agranoff and McGuirre, 2003). While at the level of organization co-production management is focused nurturing partnership, at the individual level emphasis is placed upon ensuring professionalization in management of internal contacts and adoption of user-centred approach in managing external contacts (Hill and Hupe, 2014). This includes engagement of citizens in production of their own services in full or in part with public service professionals (Pestoff, Osborne and Brandsen, 2006). Papers addressing these and other similar issues in co-production design are encouraged.

We are happy to invite academic colleagues and fellow practitioners to join our efforts and contribute to our research interest in the growing role of think tanks as meaningful actors in the policy making processes at local, national and global levels. For different reasons - in different political regimes – think tanks are playing increasingly a more visible role, affecting policy agendas and processes, in conjunction with traditional and social mass media. For example, international organizations are being increasingly served by a growing plurality of think tanks, several of whom are becoming important actors themselves. At the same time, in BRIC countries, where growing authoritarian tendencies deny or even ban traditional political actors, some think tanks have become platforms for alternative views on the policy-making process. In different cases, some are ready to demonstrate full loyalty to official policies and decisions while others become direct and outspoken critics and opponents, producing alternative solutions to public policy agendas. We consider that think tanks are discrete actors in different policy environments of different nations - working in conjunction or in competition with Universities, Academies of Sciences, research teams in corporate Business and research-focused NGOs - striving to produce policy alternatives vis-à-vis central, regional and local authorities. At the same time, think tanks behave very differently, depending on both “external” and “internal” factors: where “external” refers to political, economic and regulatory “environments”; while “internal” points to their own "organizational” and "academic" traditions (Think Tank Traditions: Policy Research and the Politics of Ideas by Diane Stone and Andrew Denham. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2004). For this panel, we are intending to bring together a group of international scholars interested in presenting their case studies and/or general studies, which will shed some light on the role and functions of think tanks in the policy process of specific countries or on the theoretical level of their “policy environment”. For the sake of wider comparison, we welcome participants from the European Union, United States, the Middle East, Latin America and South-east Asia including China, India and Japan. Therefore, as a result of this panel, we hope to learn more about think tanks as actors in their own right in the policy process and to advance the understanding of what is their role in "policy advisory systems" - in different countries and at different levels- and how it helps or prevents them to become effective policy advisors who can contribute their knowledge and expertise. We believe that this panel will enable us to compare the experiences of think tanks in Europe and elsewhere as advocates and analysts in the local, national and global policy making process. In this way we can learn from experencies in different political contexts, as well as develop some theoretical conclusions on when, why and how the voice of think tanks is heard in the policy process, as well as how to keep their contribution independent, professional and serving public and general interest. Understanding that the issue of think tanks as advisers to policy makers as well as the framework of policy advisory systems is an inter-disciplinary and complex enterprise, so we are expecting three types of contributions: academic papers, practitioners’ case studies and contributions for discussion.

Despite long-standing scholarly interest in the characteristics and work of “policy analysts”, actual empirical evidence was, until recently, very rare. This changed during the mid-2000s with qualitative case studies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands (Page & Jenkins, 2005; Colebatch, 2006; Hoppe & Jeliazkova, 2006). Almost a decade later, series of large-scale quantitative studies of Canadian federal and provincial policy analysts were undertaken (Wellstead, Stedman & Lindquist, 2009; Wellstead & Stedman, 2010; Howlett & Newman, 2010; Howlett & Wellstead, 2011). It has been followed by surveys in other countries including Australia, the Czech Republic and Belgium. This research produced a lot of data and new information. However, it has been also criticized for being largely atheoretical and for adding little to what had been already known from qualitative surveys or practice. The aim of the panel is to review the state of the art of the policy work research (both quantitative and qualitative) with special focus upon theoretical and methodological implications. We intend to bring together scholars from different countries and professional backgrounds, as well as using different methodologies to discuss together what we know about the world of policy analysts / workers. Questions asked in the panel include: What have we learnt from the data in terms of theory building? How the empirical findings correspond with theoretical work on the topic (Colebatch, Hoppe, Mayer et al. and others)? What are the most significant research questions for future research on policy work? What are the implications for the refinements in methodology? Is mixed-method methodology a solution? Is there any generally applicable knowledge on the nature of current policy work across policy domains, countries, governance levels etc.? And last but not least, what are the implications for actual policy work practice?

Does evidence-based policy making lead to purely technocratic, undemocratic decision-making or do evaluation results enrich the discourse in democratic processes? The panel “How do democracy and policy evaluation speak to each other?” aims at shedding light on the question of the interrelation between democracy and policy evaluation by discussing research on the use of evaluations in democratic processes as well as on the democratisation of the evaluation processes. Papers should address one of the following topics: (1) transfer of evaluation results into democratic decision making processes, (2) the use of evaluation results in argumentation and deliberative processes, (3) theory and practice of deliberative, democratic or participative evaluation, (4) expertise and opinion formation, (5) concepts and practice of evaluation culture in democracies. Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome to the workshop. The workshop is open to all researchers from all over the world, irrespective of whether they are formally affiliated with the study of political science, public administration or with other adjacent fields (such as history, political philosophy, political theory, law, and others). Academic quality and a substantive interest in the research theme are the prime requirements for participation.

The literature in the policy sciences on policy tools or instruments historically has focused almost exclusively on implementation tools (Hood 1986; Salamon 2002; Hood and Margetts 2007; Howlett 2011). However each of the stages of the policy process is also subject to government action (Wu et al 2010) and distinct sets of policy tools can be identified in each of the non-implementation stages of policy-making. This panel addresses the situation with respect to agenda-setting or the stage in which policy issues and problems are first brought to the attention of policy-makers and included as subjects of possibly government policy-making activities; policy formulation or the process of developing alternative options for government action; decision-making or the process of selecting a specific alternative; and policy evaluation or the process of monitoring and reporting on the results of policy outputs and outcomes. This papers on the panel will examine the literature on these subjects and focus attention on the tools commonly employed in these activities.

The panel aims at furthering the debate on the use of causal mechanisms in the policy sciences. The concept is used across many disciplines, meaning why and how initial conditions produce outcomes. Even if there has been no general claim for a ‘mechanismic turn’ in the policy sciences, some applications are germane to policy analysis. Political scientists are increasingly using the concept in qualitative studies, revealing paths and tracing the unfolding of phenomena (Bennett 2013, Falleti 2010). Similarly, organisational scientists have used the concept for explaining organizational change (Kelman 2005) and investigating methods for extrapolating successful managerial practices (Barzelay 2007). Scholars and practitioners working with evidence-based policy are exploring realistic approaches, with a specific focus on mechanisms (Pawson and Tilley 1997, Pawson 2006). Finally, cognitive psychologists have put to the fore the importance of psychological mechanisms for improving policy design (Thaler and Sunstein 2009). This is by no means a homogeneous piece of literature, but some of these contributions are inspiring and suggest there could be room for a profitable use of the concept in the policy sciences. However, ambiguities exist on the meaning, potential, and proper space for mechanisms. The panel aims at exploring the issue. We invite both theoretical and empirical contributions having a focus on causal mechanisms. Both academics and practitioners are invited to contribute to the panel. Theoretical papers addressing the following topics are particularly welcome: - conceptualization of causal mechanisms, - utility to policy analysis as an applied social science, - methodologies for uncovering, testing and reproducing mechanisms, - Investigations of specific types mechanisms typically found into policy. For empirical papers, the aim is to explore applications across the widest range of sectors. Empirical papers may use both quantitative and qualitative methods and equally focus on the design, implementation and evaluation of public policy.

Notoriously studying "public policy" has meant both: a) the study of how things have been done or should have been done; b) the study for supporting policymakers. Some argues that the latter meaning is less "scientific research" than the former. Is that the case? Papers are invited to tackel the following questions by means of theoretical and empirical approches. Different profiles and aspects can be chosen out of the following questions (some of the many that can be raised on the issue): - How the difference between research "of" and research "for" policy might determine methodology approach to the research project? - Under what conditions can policy research be autonomus? - How and by who can/should this kind of research be financed? - What differences are there between a policy researcher and a practicioner, if any? - How can policy research be not only useful, but also usable? - What is "evidence" in policy advise? And how can it be realised? - How this preliminary decision, between research for or of policy, determine the methodolgy and the approach of research? - At what conditions will policy research be autonous, maintening its empirical and scientific nature? - How and by who should this kind of reserch be financed? - What differences are there between a policy resercher and a practicioner, if any?

Contemporary policy-making relies considerably on policy advice, contributed by a variety of actors and sources that compose the policy advisory system in a political system. Empirically, the configurations of policy advisory systems vary across political systems. As shown by earlier research, the configuration of the advisory system, i.e. its structure and design, affects and pre-structures both the type of advice provided and the content of the advice. Hence, if transferred to policy-making the configuration of a given advisory system also affects policy-making and ultimately policy output. Research on policy advice however typically focuses on how advice or knowledge is transferred to policy-making by analyzing single advisory actors, e.g. councils or advisory commission, and not by analyzing the whole advisory system. Hence, little is known so far on the causes and consequences of the configuration of policy advisory systems, their implications for policy-making, and – as Craft (2014) has pointed out – even less is known on the complex interdependencies of advisory systems and policy (sub)systems. The panel addresses these research gaps. The panel invites both theoretical and empirical papers on the configuration of policy advisory systems in different political systems (both comparative papers as well as in-depth studies of specific national or regional systems) as well as papers that address the interdependencies of policy advisory systems and policy (sub)systems by e.g. studying particular advisory processes. The panel is open for a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives and particularly welcomes papers with original empirical data. We encourage cross-country and within-country comparisons across policy fields.

We welcome papers that engage with the interaction of research, evidence, and policy from a critical perspective, with a particular focus on national and international bodies tasked with evidence use. In spite of the increasing push for evidence to inform policy and the proliferation of formal bodies tasked with evidence synthesis in many countries, there has been a dearth of theoretically and methodologically rigorous studies of the political factors influential in shaping the uptake and use of evidence for policy making. These can include institutional analyses of the structures, rules, or broader norms shaping evidence use for given public policy decisions, as well as other political elements including ideas, interests, and networks. This panel will include empirical analyses within or across countries to help fill this gap. We particularly encourage papers that utilise well established analytical lenses to study how different political systems influence the use of research and evidence for policy making – for example how federalism/decentralisation, or the structure of the bureaucracy may shape the structures, rules, and norms of evidence advisory systems. Similarly we welcome papers that utilise established methods of political analysis (e.g. discourse analysis, network analysis, political economy analysis, ethnography, comparative political analysis) to study the utilisation of evidence within formal government advisory systems. We welcome papers focussing on low, middle, and high income countries to provide comparative insights into state structures, local politics, and evidence use.

According to Thomas R. Dye, policy analysis seeks to understand what governments do, why they do it, and what difference it makes. Yet much scholarship in the area of public policy puts its analytical focus on the first two goals at the expense of the third. In the past years and decades, many studies have contributed to a better understanding of the factors that explain cross-national variance in policy outputs, but the thorough comparative evaluation of their effects in the real world has often been neglected. This is unfortunate, because this third function of policy analysis arguably bears substantial societal relevance. This panel invites studies that try to assess the effectiveness of regulatory policies in solving societal problems. Do regulatory policies have any effect on the problems they are supposed to solve? Which regulatory arrangements are associated with the best (and the worst) policy outcomes? How can research pragmatic problems associated with an evaluation of regulatory policies be overcome? By addressing questions like these, the contributors of this panel advance our understanding of the real world impacts of different regulatory frameworks in a multitude of different policy areas. These areas include, but are not limited to, environmental policy, consumer protection policy, health policy and morality policy. We would like to point out that we invite all sorts of theoretical and methodological approaches in order to stimulate fruitful discussions.

The dynamics and patterns of social-policy pathways through the fiscal and economic crises since 2008 have been everything but straightforward and differ decisively between countries. While welfare states set their course into the 21st century, the current conditions of – in many places yet-reinforced – “permanent austerity” trigger speculations on the future role of the state, its resilience under post-national constellations and the possibilities of governing reforms. Simultaneously, we observe an increasing relevance of epistemic authority: transnational expert networks, think tanks, and public research agencies engage in a “framing contest” on which social policies have proved effective for tackling problems in times of crisis. This “rise of the unelected” (Vibert 2007) is accompanied by a renewed interest in evidence-based policy. Furthermore, with behavioural economics gaining in popularity, the understanding of regulation seems to change, as e.g. modes of behavioural regulation (“nudging”) are developed in fields such as pensions or consumer protection. Overall, this reconfiguration of political and epistemic authority in times of crisis offers us the opportunity to study how expertise and politics interact (and compete for influence) in the transformation of welfare states. Aspects that shall be dealt with include: concepts/theories of political and epistemic authority in the post-crisis constellation, the role of policy knowledge in recent welfare state reforms, policy advisory systems and expert cultures in social policies, new practices of social-policy knowledge (e.g. evaluation modes, experimental practices), changing welfare state discourses/narratives (e.g. libertarian paternalism, social investment, big society), changing instruments and understandings of social policy regulation. We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers from different social science disciplines including sociology, political science, public administration, and science, technology & society studies. Papers addressing varying levels or units of analysis, such as the international, national and subnational level, or addressing different spheres (e.g. health, employment, family policy) are particularly invited. References: Vilbert, F. (2007): The Rise of the Unelected: Democracy and the New Separation of Powers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Global environmental assessments (GEAs) are large-scale social processes where multiple experts and stakeholders assemble, discuss, and synthesize existing scientific knowledge on complex environmental policy issues with a view towards informing public policy discourses and decision makers. Prominent examples include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) processes. There is mounting empirical evidence showing that a shift from problem-focused GEAs drawn predominantly from natural science expertise, towards solution-oriented policy assessments that require more inclusive knowledge-domains, is currently underway. There also appears to be an increasing demand for comprehensive ex post and ex ante assessments of environment-related policy options operating at multiple levels of governance, involving multiple governments, and taking into account multiple policy objectives. This panel aims to discuss and inform future research on the challenges, opportunities and options for public policy assessment in contemporary GEAs from theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives. It also invites contributions that are not directly related to GEAs, but other large-scale public policy assessments (where scale may refer to thematic scope, number of participants, or regional coverage), either in the environmental or other policy domains (e.g. public health) so as to enable mutual learning across domains. Potential topics that could be addressed include: The historic co-evolution of GEAs (or similar processes) and their policy contexts; conceptual frameworks for the appreciation of the potential influence of GEAs or similar processes on policy processes and discourses; methodological and research organization challenges concerning the assessment of public policy options in GEAs, including how these exercises can deal with complexity and pervasive uncertainties in knowledge; options for the treatment of ethical issues and disputed divergent viewpoints in policy assessments in GEAs or similar processes; and stakeholder engagement and related considerations about representation, legitimacy, and participatory deliberation in GEAs or similar large-scale public policy assessments.

This panel aims to go beyond the traditional micro and macro approaches to policy analysis and evaluation to understand how to assess overarching policies geared toward development, growth, and structural change in socioeconomic systems. Drawing upon complexity paradigm, this panels intends to explore new theoretical and methodological approaches and present concrete examples of complex program evaluations addressing such complex issues as structural change, adaptation, and innovation, and multi-level coordination among different jurisdictional levels. Panelists are asked to present specific cases of real-world evaluations conducted within Structural Fund Programs, by highlighting the innovativeness of their approach and/or conduct, or develop the theoretical and methodological premises underlying their approach.

What kind of methods is relevant to study policy process ? If the studies on policy process use generally the traditional method of social sciences to grasp policy process, this studies develop rarely their own and original reflexion. Considering that policy process is not a classical social phenomena, we are interested to receive papers proposals which develop a specific purpose on methodology in polic process. What method for what kind of data collection and what kind of biaises ? The paper proposals can discuss one method in particular like interview, observation, survey or one specific process.

In the past two decades, there has been an explosion in interest in political/policy entrepreneurship (PE) which has resulted in substantial advances in literature. Originally a structural component of Kingdon’s (1984) Multiple Streams, the entrepreneurial actor is now considered an element in all policy process theories (Mintrom and Norman, 2009). Political/policy entrepreneurs are special actors, embedded in the socio-political fabric, who are alert to the emergence of entrepreneurial opportunities and act upon them; they seek to affect change and they are team players (Mintrom, 2015; Petridou, Narboutaité-Aflaki and Miles, 2015). At the same time, policy entrepreneurship has been evolving as an actor-based perspective in its own right, aimed at examining the agency of individuals at the micro level with a view to understanding dynamics of policy change at the meso and macro levels. For the PE perspective to further evolve, contextual components that foster or hinder entrepreneurship in the polis have to be examined closer. What is more, if PE is a team sport (Mintrom, 2014), how do policy entrepreneurs interact with their teams and what strategies do they employ in order to affect change? We seek papers that develop contextual factors influencing the emergence of PE as well as papers that open interdisciplinary dialogues with, for example, foreign policy, resilience, crisis management and international relations. We welcome examining PE from a critical perspective, addressing issues of democracy and accountability and the cui bono question as well as comparative studies. Kingdon, John W. 1984/2003. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little and Brown. Mintrom, Michael, 2000. Policy Entrepreneurs and School Choice. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Mintrom, Michael and Philippa Norman 2009. “Policy entrepreneurship and policy change.” Policy Studies Journal, 37: 649–67. Mintrom, Michael, Chris Salisbury, and Joannah Luetjens. 2014. "Policy Entrepreneurs and Promotion of Australian State Knowledge Economies." Australian Journal of Political Science 49: 423-38. Mintrom, Michael. In press, January 2015. “Policy Entrepreneurs and Morality Politics: Learning from Failure and Success” In Entrepreneurship in the Polis: Understanding Political Entrepreneurship, eds. Inga Narbutaité-Aflaki, Evangelia Petridou, and Lee Miles. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Petridou, Evangelia. 2014. “Theories of the Policy Process: Contemporary Scholarship and Future Directions.” Policy Studies Journal 41 (S1): 12-32 Petridou, Evangelia, Inga Narbutaité-Aflaki, and Lee Miles. In press, January, 2015. “Unpacking the Theoretical Boxes of Political Entrepreneurship.” In Entrepreneurship in the Polis: Understanding Political Entrepreneurship, eds. Inga Narbutaité-Aflaki, Evangelia Petridou, and Lee Miles. Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

The policy capacity of a government is a key indicator and requisite of governance success. The term describes the preconditions a government requires in order to make sound policy choices and implement them effectively in achieving its potential to steer a governance mode. Policy capacity is at heart a function of three competences or skills which affect the ability of governments in their relationships with other governance actors: analytical ones which allow policy alternatives to be effectively generated and investigated; managerial ones which allow state resources to be effectively brought to bear on policy issues; and political ones which allow policy-makers and managers the room to manouevre and support required to develop and implement their ideas, programs and plans (Wu et al 2010; Tiernan and Wanna 2006; Gleeson et al 2009; Gleeson et al 2011; Fukuyama 2013; Rotberg 2014). These skills or competences are crucial to policy and governance success. However they also rely on their availability and the availability of adequate resources to allow them to be mobilized. These resources or capabilities must exist at the individual level which allow individual policy workers (Colebatch 2006; Colebatch et al 2011) and managers (Howlett and Walker 2012) to participate in and contribute to designing, deploying, and evaluating policies. It includes not only their ability to analyse but also to learn and adapt to changes as necessary. Defining and operationalizing policy capacity is a very important, but only the first, step in applying the concept to the better understanding of policy-making and especially issues about the quality of policy-making and governance issues. The general idea, of course, is that higher levels of capacity are linked to superior policy outputs and outcomes while capacity deficits may be a major cause of policy failure and sub-optimal outcomes (Bullock 2001; Canadian Government 1996). The papers in this workshop are intended to address these issues and test this hypothesis. Some specific questions which individual papers may address include: · Are some components of capacity more important than others? For what? How do we know? · While we know the components of policy capacity vary by “level” (ie system, agency, individual), do they also vary by policy sector (Eg. Water, telecommunications)? And if so, in what way(s) and why? · Related to these, how can policy capacity and its components be measured? How problematic is this? · What are the implications of governments’ different policy capacities for policy success and failure? For policy change? · And how can the policy capacity of governments be enhanced? These are all important questions which need clarification and understanding in order for policy research in this important area of policy studies to move forward. This panel will outline several conceptions of policy capacity and explore their empirical manifestations

National and subnational governments have been dealing with the challenges emerging from implementation of performance management requirements including the relevance of the measures, data quality, cultural change, fiscal risk and federal scrutiny of state responsibilities. These experiences are providing considerable challenges for practitioners working across levels of government and sectors. International experience in federal systems confirms that government wide policies need to be flexible and recognise these differences within intergovernmental dimensions. The aim of this Panel is to analyse the application of performance management systems when governments collaborate for service delivery. Papers will extend current analysis and debate and incorporate various federal contexts.

Once upon a time they may have lived in the dark, but in recent years political advisers – variously described as special advisers, ministerial advisers or exempt staff – have attracted a good deal of academic attention. However, the connections between the work being done on political advisers and proximate policy theories remain substantially under-articulated. In this panel we wish to make those linkages explicit by firmly locating the empirical and theoretical study of political advisers in a context set by extant literatures concerning policy work and theory. These include but are not limited to policy advisory activity, the construction and management of policy agendas, formulation, and decision-making and implementation studies. In that context, this panel calls for papers that explicitly connect an empirical, methodological and/or theoretical focus on political advisers with theories of the wider policy process. Papers are also welcome that seek to reappraise and refine existing policy process theory through the lens of political advisers, or examine related policy dynamics including policy learning and change, policy failure, and the interplay between different kinds of policy actors – administrative, political, and non-governmental – in the context of the policy process. In the interests of deepening and broadening the foundations of our field, we also welcome new empirical contributions, and papers elaborating methodological or theoretical means of understanding the immediacy of life on the ground for political advisers.

Public policy is becoming increasingly confounded by transnational policy challenges. The proliferation of global policy dilemmas - climate change, migration, terrorism and economic instability, and so on - diminishes domestic officials’ capacity to deliver local policy outcomes without some form of international collaboration. This ‘global-local dilemma’ provokes substantial concerns of how policy officials reconcile international and domestic imperatives in managing modern transnational policy challenges, and whether they are adequately equipped to do so. Public policy scholars predominantly conceptualise international influences on domestic policy via the policy transfer framework, which stresses policy officials’ agency and, especially, ideational propinquity with states with similar cultural, political or legal frameworks. Meanwhile, International Relations scholars tend to favour a ‘global governance’ approach to considering transnational challenges, relinquishing agency in favour of structural imperatives. Although, separately, these two scholarly cohorts offer considerable insights to the domestic and international implications of global policy issues, the overlap and interplay of these perspectives remains relatively unexplored. There are promising avenues of research; for example, in recent years a nascent literature on transgovernmentalism has identified discrete network arrangements between state officials that operate informally to share ideas, policies and expertise on shared policy dilemmas. However, significant questions remain: How do domestic officials understand transnational policy problems? What strategies do they pursue to overcome transnational policy problems? Does international collaboration produce policies without a domestic democratic mandate? This panel welcome papers that address transnational policy dilemmas and/or endeavour to reconcile domestic/international conceptual perspectives on public policy from the fields of public policy, public administration, organization theory, international relations and political science, or any other related field.

This panel asks the following questions: What are the connections between policy learning and policy change? What institutional, social and individual factors do stimulate policy learning? Which learning outcomes do they elicit? Does learning cause policy change? Does policy change induce policy learning? What are the cognitive and social processes between the factors of policy learning and policy change? How can effective policy learning be promoted in policy processes? This panel is organized in the context of an international special issue project to be submitted to the Policy & Society Journal. The panel proposal is submitted under the subject category “Public policy, administration and policymakers”, sponsored by this Journal. The panel includes an introductory paper and a number of individual papers that bring original empirical case studies on the role of policy learning in policy dynamics as well as theorize the relation between policy learning and change from different policy science perspectives. The following perspectives are already represented in our project: network theory, advocacy coalition framework, frame analysis, co-creation processes, evidence-based policymaking and epistemic communities. Even if we do not exclude to host other paper/s that are anchored in one of those perspectives, we mostly welcome papers that represent other policy perspectives considering the role that learning do or do not play in policy change (e.g., socio-cognitive institutionalism, cultural theory, policy learning and transfer or diffusion, etc.)

Street-level organizations (SLOs) are central to the work of the state. In recent decades, street-level theory has generated new and varied research agendas and approaches to the study of public policy and politics. Following up on a successful panel at the first ICCP conference, we propose three sessions on street-level research and theory that will offer policy studies adopting diverse research approaches and contribute to identifying promising directions for the field. We particularly invite papers that present original policy research, offer new ways of conceptualizing and theorizing research, and/or address new research problems. The sessions focus on three, broad topics. Policy politics in practice (Brodkin 1987). We propose to raise questions about the role of street-level organizations in welfare state politics. What does the study of street-level organizations bring to the study of power and politics? How do SLOs mediate policy possibilities and political voice and how are they affected by governance and management reforms? The digital street level. This session examines the use of technologies and new media in fulfilling public tasks (cf. Buffat 2013). Empirically, little is known yet about the various ways through which new technologies are experienced in street-level organizations and how are they are transforming street-level work. Street-level work in context. This session approaches street-level work in and across institutional contexts. In the relationships between factors enabling and constraining public task fulfilment public service gaps may be observed (cf. Hupe and Buffat 2014). Documenting and exploring these factors in varying contexts is the topic here. These topics, while distinct, also overlap and inform one another, with the panels designed to promote conversation across themes. We welcome contributions from both junior and senior scholars reflecting diverse national political-administrative contexts, policy sectors, types of organizations, and international or comparative perspectives. Papers may be theoretically or empirically focused.

Public policy researchers traditionally analyze policy dynamics using several theoretical models and approaches to explain why and how change - and no change - occurs, and to analyze its resulting pattern (incremental, termination, succession, policy shifts, and/or perpetuation/stasis). In order to do so, researchers mainly focus on ideational dimensions, institutional determinants, social constructions, and political and power-related processes as key explanatory variables. But mainly - and no matter the lenses used - researchers have analyzed and explained policy changes centered on the way policy instrument’s (and policy mixes) change, considering policy change and the changes in policy instruments as equivalent. In most cases, change in policy instruments is both considered the materialization of policy change (that is, the unquestionable evidence that a change effectively occurs) and related, as the main source of evidence that make it possible to test and make improvements for theory development). Public policy is both means and ends. As Howlett reminds us, policy designs are both the processes as well outcomes (2011). Taking into account outcomes, we may analyze both independent variables (policy change and policy instrument's change) and say that it is also possible that a policy change effectively occurs when the strategies or processes are oriented to reactivate a existing - but out of use - policy designs, that is to say, a policy change without policy instruments change. Conversely, a policy mix change do not necessarily means that a policy change effectively occurs, when change is mainly oriented - or has as main objective and a desirable trajectory- to develop outcomes based on stasis and/or perpetuation. Given these challenges, we believe it is necessary to deepen our understanding on the existing relation (and the necessary differentiation) between policy change (ends and outcomes) and policy instrument's change (means and processes), assuming both as analytically separable phenomena. Our goal is to explore policy change analysis taking into account this differentiation. This panel will welcome case studies and/or theoretical contributions, to understand the role may play the use of actor’s deliberate strategies for policy change. For example, changing the use of existing instruments (policy mixes) as a strategy for policy change (which might be called as “instrumental reviving” strategies) or for example, promoting (major) policy instruments change, who instead what is sought is to favor legitimation processes, and promotes stasis and/or perpetuation, a strategy that might be called “simulation” or “leopard strategy” in order “to change to obtain no change”, and finally, policy failure (that is, when change or no-change occurs as an unintended outcome by policy makers or the responsible political leaders).

Political agency in the policy process is a highly relevant but a somewhat neglected theme today. Political agency can be defined as actors that can create and change procedural and substantial rules and norms of the policy process as well as directly influence value allocations between policy areas and groups of citizens. The aim of the panel Political Agency in the Policy Process is to increase our knowledge on the meaning and character of political agency in the policy process; the importance of contextual factors that tend to open up for different forms of political agency; and consequences and effects of political agency in terms of policy influence, power, and democratic legitimacy. The panel invites empirical, theoretical, as well as normative contributions on political agency in the policy process from different scholarly fields (policy analysis, institutional theory, public administration research, and planning studies) as well as from different research areas in order to jointly accomplish comparative overview that can help us synthesize and theorise. In particular, we are interested in papers that address issues within these three themes: What type of policy actors operate as political agents and how can those be theoretically conceptualised (policy entrepreneurs, street-level actors, inside activists etc.)? What type of contexts – such as institutional rules and norms, administrative organisations and professional networks – tend to give rise to political agency? What are the likely consequences and effects of different types of political agency when it comes to policy influence, power and democratic legitimacy?

This panel welcomes papers concerned with widening understandings of policy integration theoretically and empirically. From the need to coordinate fiscal policy across Europe, concerns about security and terrorism alongside more longstanding problems such as social exclusion, biodiversity loss and climate change, policy integration is back in vogue. Such problems are often called ‘wicked’ as they are characterized by, among other things, issue and knowledge complexity and the need to deal with responses from multiple sectors, actors and governance levels. Often policy integration is conceptualised as either a process of governing, as policy outputs and/or policy outcomes (Jordan and Lenschow 2010; Adelle and Russel 2013, Howlett and Rayner 2007). As a process of governing, policy integration is closely linked to policy coordination. We do know that coordination is challenged due to conflicting interests within and across sectors (Scharpf 1994) and the difficulty organisations have handling complex issues (Simon, 1947, 1997). However, there is a dearth of detailed theoretical and empirical accounts examining different forms of coordination in practice as well as the effectiveness of different forms. As for policy outputs and outcomes the literature is short on precise measures and applicability across policy contexts - in other words, how do we assess whether policy integration has been achieved? This panel welcomes papers that seek to advance understandings of policy integration as a process, output or outcome from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Papers can be wholly theoretical or a combination of empirical findings and theory. Empirically-oriented papers may focus on one or more policy domains and/or political systems.

“Evidence based policies” are now identified objects in the field of policy analysis (Boaz and al. 2008). Beyond the production and use of scientific evidence, and the involvement of experts, the panel will focus on the organizations dedicated to the making of evidence for public policies. Far from being restricted to academic actors, the making of evidence rests on dedicated administrative organizations paying attention to their credibility (Carpenter, 2010; Jennings, Hall, 2012). Often located at a distance from political decision, they are able to gather, structure and publicize evidence in their field. This evolution concerns several policy domains, like health (with the use of evidence-based medicine), education, social care, security (with the use of evidence-based criminology), transport or development (with the role of J-PAL) for example. These new administrative organizations, often labeled “agencies”, are herein characterized as “evidence based bureaucracies” in order to insist on two main analytical traits: (1) the use of evidence is highly structured by standards and protocols, which gives them a bureaucratic flavor (Yesilkagit, 2004 ; Benamouzig, Besançon, 2005); (2) a high level of openness to non-state actors, like experts, citizens or interest groups, gives them meanwhile an inclusive and deliberative aspect (Moffit, 2010). We are interested in papers tackling the following issues and questions: -Actors dimension. Who are the actors involved in these evidence based bureaucracies? How far are they “new” policy actors? What roles do they play in these organizations? How far are their representations of the public policies concerned transformed by their involvement in evidence based bureaucracies? -The dimension of the autonomy (Carpenter, 2001) of evidence based bureaucracies, in their relationship to other public administrations and to dominant policy actors in the policy domain concerned (for instance the pharmaceutical industry in the health policy field). How far are they steering at a distance (Kickert, 1995) a policy domain for the State? -The dimension of the impact of these evidence based bureaucracies on public policies. Are these agencies involved in policy decision processes? How far are evidence based knowledge and methods used by other actors in the concerned policy domains? What policy change related to these new administrative organizations can be observed? -The comparative dimension. Haw far is it possible to observe a transnational convergence process? What is the role of policy transfers and transnational actors in this process? Despite transnational policy transfers and diffusion what are the different national translations (Campbell 2004, Thatcher 2007) of evidence based bureaucracies in specific policy domains and how can they be explained?

This panel seeks papers, both qualitative and quantitative, which explore how state elites (deputy ministers, permanent secretaries, Chief executives of state corporations etc., and senior policy staff) understand and respond to the changing political and economic context in which they function. Specific issues could include state elite perceptions and framing of challenges such as public service renewal, fiscal constraints, policy capacity, labour relations, managing the public service-political relationship, role in constructing and managing new governance relationships with non-state actors, and policy priority determination.

New governance theory contends the policy process has become more accessible to civil society policy actors. Non- state actors includes non-profit organizations, trade unions, think tanks, foundations, and industry associations. While there is a robust literature examining policy capacity and processes within the state, our knowledge of the role, capacity, best practices of civil society organizations is comparatively impoverished. Papers presented in this panel will address the policy capacity of civil society organizations, the degree to which societal power relationships are replicated in cases of policy co-production, best practices in policy co-production and engagement, and the effect of institutional, political and historical factors influence and shape policy styles of civil society organizations.

Co-production is of interest to both research and practice but despite the fact that it has been the focus of many scholars in diverse fields, there have been too few opportunities for exchange across disciplines and approaches. We propose a panel that sheds light on the following topics, among others: Co-production and policy change: conceptual tools Administrative traditions and co-production practices: do institutions matter? Co-production and co-design: similarities and differences Managerial challenges of co-production Performance evaluation of co-production Conceptualizing the revolutionary or evolutionary nature of policy change related to co-production Comparing co-production in different national and policy contexts Co-production in health care services: patient engagement and unwilling clients Co-production and local public utilities Technologies supporting co-production policies Papers may be either theoretically or empirically focused. The panel encourages submissions that reflect diverse political-administrative contexts and is open to contributions from any perspective useful to providing concrete ideas and lines of action. The panel has a strong international and inter-disciplinary orientation, and both junior and senior researchers are invited to participate.

Street-level organizations (SLOs) are central to the work of the state. In recent decades, street-level theory has generated new and varied research agendas and approaches to the study of public policy and politics. Following up on a successful panel at the first ICCP conference, we propose three sessions on street-level research and theory that will offer policy studies adopting diverse research approaches and contribute to identifying promising directions for the field. We particularly invite papers that present original policy research, offer new ways of conceptualizing and theorizing research, and/or address new research problems. The sessions focus on three, broad topics. Policy politics in practice (Brodkin 1987). We propose to raise questions about the role of street-level organizations in welfare state politics. What does the study of street-level organizations bring to the study of power and politics? How do SLOs mediate policy possibilities and political voice and how are they affected by governance and management reforms? The digital street level. This session examines the use of technologies and new media in fulfilling public tasks (cf. Buffat 2013). Empirically, little is known yet about the various ways through which new technologies are experienced in street-level organizations and how are they are transforming street-level work. Street-level work in context. This session approaches street-level work in and across institutional contexts. In the relationships between factors enabling and constraining public task fulfilment public service gaps may be observed (cf. Hupe and Buffat 2014). Documenting and exploring these factors in varying contexts is the topic here. These topics, while distinct, also overlap and inform one another, with the panels designed to promote conversation across themes. We welcome contributions from both junior and senior scholars reflecting diverse national political-administrative contexts, policy sectors, types of organizations, and international or comparative perspectives. Papers may be theoretically or empirically focused.

Focusing on political actors, contemporary political research develops various strategies of assessment of power, influence and policy impact, but the most of commonly recognized approaches do not consider discursive aspect of power and influence. The concept of “soft power” relevant for neoteric social practices emphasizes the role of language mechanisms and discursive practices in policy making process. This panel aims to explore both empirical and theoretical dimensions of public policy analysis through language and discourse. We invite the paper presenters, who answer the following questions: What discursive practices related to public policy issues can be figured out and described? What are the discursive foundations for political actorness? How to evaluate the political influence and policy impact of political actors through discourse? How to specify discursive practices which establish the discursive power? What is the link between the concept of discursive power and related concepts of soft power, policy impact, political changes, and policy changes; how the analysis of discursive practices helps investigate the public policy? We welcome papers giving theoretical insights into the above-listed issues, or empirical evidence of the discursive activity of political actors, or both.

Discourses in environmental policy – lessons learnt and new perspectives Since its inception around 1970, environmental policies have challenged incumbent policies, interests and ideas. Hence the role of ideas has always played an important part in environmental policy analysis, and many key concepts about the role of ideas in public policy – and in particular in policy change – have been developed with a view to environmental policy. Since the early 1990s, various approaches to discourse analysis have made important contributions to the understanding of environmental policy while the analysis of policy discourse more generally has often been stimulated by environmental policy problems. Accelerating over the last few years, the analysis of environmental policy discourse has developed in three directions: refinement of methodologies, differentiation of concepts, and analysis of novel and emerging environmental discourses such as the Bio-Economy or the “Amazonian Soil”. Against this background, the aim of the panel is to reflect on the state of the art in the discursive analysis of environmental policy in terms of concepts, methods and content. We invite papers that (1) provide critical assessments of current attempts to advance our understanding of the role of discursive processes in environmental policy, and (2) contribute to a deeper understanding of developments in environmental policy through novel empirical insights into a broad range of old and new environmental discourses. We welcome empirically and theoretically focussed papers from different conceptual traditions, including critical discourse analysis, narrative policy analysis, post-structuralist discourse research, SKAD, argumentative discourse analysis, performativity and practice studies. We particularly welcome papers that review conceptual developments, assess or compare the contribution of single or different discursive approaches to the understanding of environmental policy, or apply discursive approaches to empirical environmental policy analysis. Finally we look for papers discussing the contribution of discursive approaches to critical environmental policy analysis and to better and more inclusive policy.

While hydraulic fracking for shale gas caused an 'energy revolution' in the United States that moved to Europe and other place, “fracking” has also caused societal contestations. As more incidents of water contamination and earthquakes occur – and as academic research demonstrates negative environmental impacts – citizens, academics, governmental agencies, and environmental organizations engage in heated policy debates over the desirability of fracking, alternately framing it as an energy game changer, a highly risky technology, a geopolitical force, or a “bridge fuel. ”What is puzzling is that while these frames seem consistent across contexts, the response to fracking varies considerably. For example, many citizens in Poland welcome it, but France has banned it outright. When examining more closely how actors frame fracking in differing contexts, however, one quickly learns that meanings behind words like “energy independence” also vary: for example, it is associated with a post-colonial struggle in Poland but an anti-terrorist sentiment in the US. These meanings can have quite different influences on the way policy actors interpret and present scientific evidence and uncertainties, and make prescriptions for policy and governance. These characteristics suggest that fracking is not merely a technological problem to be resolved with more scientific analysis. Rather, it is an interpretive problem that requires understanding the meaning societal and governmental groups attribute to it, knowledge about it, and its impacts on the environment and energy supplies. This panel welcomes papers adopting an interpretive perspective to analyzing this controversy. Topics may include: boundary work, framing, discourse, the role of experts, and/or the role of scientific and other forms of knowledge. By focusing on interpretation, we aim to surpass basic understandings of seemingly consistent debates across contexts to examine fundamental societal, scientific and political conflicts that enliven controversy in particular contexts. We especially welcome papers investigating cases from non-Western countries.

We know that events related to politics are widely covered by media. But what about policy? To what extent citizens wishing to be informed about the measures that are under discussion, adopted or implemented, or about their outcomes have the possibility to learn about the issues at stake, the solutions under scrutiny and the controversial matters around them? Which policies are likely to be covered by the media or to be neglected? How are they framed? Do media help public deliberation on public policy? Does media logic tend to hinder public understanding of problems and solutions? We are then interested on the way policies are presented by the traditional media (newspapers and tv) and by the new ones through the Internet (where citizens can assume a more active role). The information provided to (and by) the citizens about problem definition, solutions formulation, implementation and evaluation is a key issue as it affects the quality of the “deliberative system” (according to Jane Mansbridge’s definition) and hence the quality of democracy. Papers should roughly try to answer to one of the following questions: i) how much room is devoted to public policy in the media, particularly compared to the room devoted to politics? ii) how media logic impacts on the communication of public policies: which policies are funnelled by the media (and which ones are not), through which frames? does the traditional media logic tend to be altered when public policies are dealt with through the Internet? iii) to what extent media contribute to public deliberation by presenting arguments and counterarguments? As the topic “media and policy” has been weakly investigated up to now, we would like to gather, in this panel, exploratory papers that begin to tackle this topic with different theoretical perspectives and different methodological approaches. They may present a policy case study and analyse its media coverage. Or they may consider the content of one or more medium (newspapers, tv programs, e-news, blogs and other Internet spaces etc.) and analyse how they deal with public policies. Comparative studies concerning more than one case, more the one medium or more than one country are obviously welcome.

Even though intersectionality is now recognized as an important research and policy paradigm for interrogating power and working towards social justice, more attention is required to understand its transformative potential in the context of public policy and specifically policy making processes. The purpose of this panel is to explore the relationship between intersectionality and public policy, discuss the methodological challenges associated with intersectionality in public policy applications, and to highlight important developments within intersectionality-type policy analysis. For this panel, we invite proposals that explore innovative ways and means in which intersectionality is being deployed and interrogated across a variety of social, economic, health, and political issues at national and international levels. Proposals should address the following: the central research question, the approach to the study, and how the study contributes to existing literatures. Papers employing diverse methods and methodologies, such as interpretive and qualitative methodologies, that analyze the challenges and potentialities of using intersectionaity as a means of policy analysis are strongly encouraged. We also seek papers that integrate theory, policy and practice. Potential topics include but are not limited to: Education Policy Employment and labor/labour policies Environmental policy Globalization/Globalisation Health Policy? Land policy Military, strategic and security policy Policy across the lifecourse (child and youth development, elder care and support)? Poverty and poverty-reduction policies/strategies? Religion and social policy Sexuality and social policy Social safety net programs/programmes Social welfare and social justice The panel is intended to facilitate ongoing dialogue for those seeking to bring an effective interpretive framework of intersectionality to policy analysis across a variety of sectors. Selected papers may be included in a special issue or edited volume. Please submit proposals to co-chairs: Olena Hankivsky (oah@sfu.ca) and Julia Jordan-Zachery (jjordanz@providence.edu).

Routinization and reflexivity are essential ingredients in societal change. Change requires a disruption of the mode of routine, in which action is geared at successively proceeding through a sequence of actions ‘without further thought.’ Reflexivity implies a “dissociative dynamic” (Knorr Cetina, 2001), which renders hitherto unchallenged routines an object of inquiry and possibly critique. Once reflexivity translates into new habits and practices, through processes of normalization, the new situation may become routine. This panel will examine the relation between normalization, routine, dissociation, reflexivity and change, focusing on the continuum between routinization and reflection (Wilk, 2009). It will particularly explore three types of questions involved: By which mechanisms does change play out in the relation between individual and community? Any seemingly individual action is not as individual as it might seem. Being a member of a community, an individual will chose his actions in view of tacit rules of appropriate conduct – either in line with these or deviating from them. In the case of dissociation and reflexivity, controversy is pending as deviant behavior is bound to unsettle existing rules and conventions. Will the community ‘create’ the individual as a defiant case or will an account be developed that brings coherence and legitimacy to the case and allow it to change the identity of the community? How are processes of routinization and dissociation influenced or sparked by policies and technologies of governance? Routines, Boltanski (2011) argues, serve to maintain coordination without risking dispute or demanding authoritarian intervention and hence form the counterpart to (public) reflexivity and deviance. Of interest then are questions about the use of procedures such as participatory (technology) assessment and public debate – do state-led arrangements for public participation impede the emergence of dissociation and deviance, or do they rather spark reflexivity and possibly the formation of new, critical publics? If so, which power dynamics are at play? Methodology: how to observe that which goes without saying – the normalcy rather than the deviant – when studying processes of routinization and reflexivity? How to observe processes of normalization and control that prevent dissociation and reflexivity? How to map routine if not in contrast to reflexivity? How to make ‘the fish talk about the water?’ (Rubin and Rubin, 1995). In this panel, we will examine the relations between normalization and deviance, routine and reflexivity, and the processes of routinization and dissociation involved, including those sparked by policies and publics, the governance of technologies and technologies of governance. We invite contributions that address either three issues of routinization and reflexivity and / or discuss these in relation to one another from an empirical and / or a conceptual perspective.

Although constructivism has found its echo in the studies of international relations, critical approaches to policies have remained rather untouched by this kind of literature. Both approaches tend to use similar analytical schemes, ask similar question but have kept their research agenda rather separate so far. This panel offers therefore a forum to discuss both the way International Relation might profit from the perspective of critical policy studies and the tentative of some critical policy studies to enter in a dialogue with the domain of peacebuilding processes, development aid and the like. What is more, this sort of a methodological dialogue has been already partly started in the analyses of EU policies. In particular, recent works in international relations have shown to what extent politics has to be thought of within novel power boundaries. Scholarly analyses of conflicts or of development aids agendas invite us to rethink the common notion of borders and state hierarchies. Critical approaches to policies have launched approaches to study these boundaries more carefully. For that reason we are interested in a more systematic dialogue between international relations and critical approaches. In this panel we want to see how combining both approaches or reflecting their respective views could provide an epistemological link that would open analyses toward novel areas of interest as well as it could refine the analysis of power dynamics. We invite scholars from both fields to submit their papers. We welcome theoretical investigations of reciprocal influences of both areas as well as we encourage researcher working on diverse case studies from international relation and development aid to submit their papers.

Panel Title: The AIM of Governance in the 21st Century: Actors Instrumentation and Modes of Governance Co-chairs: Prof Helen Sullivan, Melbourne School of Government (helen.sullivan@unimelb.edu.au) Prof Jenny M. Lewis, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne (jmlewis@unimelb.edu.au) Dr Damon Alexander, Melbourne School of Government (dta@unimelb.edu.au) Overview Governance is the act of governing. It is what a governing body does and how rules are decided upon and implemented. Its purpose is to make policy and deliver services but also to steer society more generally, which signals that it is a more dynamic concept than ‘government’. In a social, economic and political environment marked by increasing complexity, meeting these governance challenges relies upon three interrelated factors: Actors: The skills, creativity and expertise of actors involved in governance and policy processes and their capacity to work together in designing, co-producing, implementing and coordinating well targeted policy responses and service delivery programs; Instruments: The [re]design and application of new, innovative and well-targeted governance tools, mechanisms and instruments; Modes of governance: The [re]conceptualization, [re]configuration, and [re]generation of formal and informal institutions, relationships and processes. Understanding the prerequisites for effective governance in the 21st century and designing and building the necessary capacities, institutions and processes to meet contemporary challenges requires us to work across these three broad levels: the micro level where our focus is primarily on the capacity of individual actors and/or teams; the meso level where our focus is primarily upon governance instrumentation; and the macro level where our focus is primarily upon architecture or modes of governance. This panel will bring together leading scholars working across each of these fields and will explore the contribution that actors, instrumentation and new modes of governance can make to better understanding and meeting the challenges of effective governance in the 21st century. Key areas for panel participants will include: Exploring how individual actors (politicians, political staff, public servants, citizens) understand and make sense of their roles; how they develop the skills and expertise necessary to perform them effectively; and how they interact with broader institutional and organisational contexts to shape the development of governance systems, public policy and the delivery of public services; Developing a more detailed and nuanced picture of the policy design process and the crafting of responses to complex policy problems; examining new and emerging developments in policy and governance instrumentation and testing their application; Examining the evolution, design, application and effectiveness of hierarchical, market-based, network-based and hybrid modes of governance; We invite papers that examine either one or several of these three aspects at the local, national or international level. We are particularly interested in receiving comparative papers that examine multiple policy sectors in a single jurisdiction, or single policy sectors, such as health, education, environmental or urban policy, across multiple jurisdictions.

We welcome papers examining theoretical or methodological developments of, or empirical applications of the 'policy network' concept. Policy networks are an important concept which can be used to understand the processes of decision-making and influence amongst public and private bodies. The term “policy networks” is widely used, but interpreted and applied in a range of theoretical, metaphorical and descriptive ways (Dowding 1995, Marsh and Rhodes 1992). Much of the discussion is rooted in theoretical descriptions of the policy process, and largely untested on empirical data. This has led some to doubt the potential usefulness of the “policy network” concept; i.e. its ability to develop casual arguments linking network characteristics (structure and positional analyses) with policy outcomes or processes, which work across a range of domains and contexts. The empirical data which does exist is largely narrative and case-based, and therefore not easily compared due to the variety of theoretical interpretations, compounding this problem. However, a relational approach to understanding policy networks has huge potential. The analysis of policy networks can be used to describe the membership of the policy community, identify the most salient actors involved in decision-making, influencing or evidence-use, and identify the conditions under which evidence can inform policy (Ingold 2011, Christopolous 2010, Fischer 2011, Drew 2011); all of which can help inform us about policy processes. Network analysis is still relatively untested in public policy, but previous theoretical work has proposed methods of using reputational, decision-making and positional analyses to understand the role of networks and elites in policy (Knoke 1993). This panel will draw together theoretical and methodologically rigorous papers on policy networks. We aim to stimulate a discussion about the utility and role of the network concept in policy research, to showcase innovative applications of network methods, and to promote discussion on the development of the field.

xxxx

The birth of the EMU featured almost unprecedented transfer of sovereignty from the European member states to a newly created European institution. Ever since, monetary policy has been the sole responsibility of the ECB at least for the countries in the Eurozone. The budgetary policy though still belongs to the domain of the European member states. However, they are not completely free in this respect, as they are bound by the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact [SGP]. Sound public finances were considered to be a necessary corollary of monetary integration. The sovereign debt crisis, notably the situation in Greece, equipped the European Union with a number of new instruments under the umbrella of the so-called European semester. The introduction of the European semester that begins with the Annual Growth Survey [AGS] changed above all the timetable for submission of the convergence and stability reports. It enables, inter alia, the Commission to issue country-specific recommendations regarding next year’s budget of the member states. In addition, a procedure has been launched to reduce Macro-Economic Imbalances [MIP], very much alike the Excessive Deficit Procedure [EDP]. The aim of this panel is to assess the new European requirements and to identify ‘best practice’ concerning budget institutions and procedures in the European Commission in the context of the European semester. It takes the response of the European Union to the sovereign debt crisis as a point of departure. Typical questions include: What are the consequences of the new timetable for the submission of the convergence and stability reports? What is the impact of the country-specific recommendations of the Commission under the European semester? What is the effectiveness of the six-pack and two-pack? What the state of the transposition of the Council Directive on the requirements for Medium-Term Budgetary Frameworks [MTBF] of the European member states? What numerical rules are in place and how do they work? What is the role of independent fiscal institutions? Are the member states inside the Eurozone performing better than outsiders? The panel is geared to the publication of a special issue on European economic governance of one of the leading international journals on public policy or governance.

Presented as a promising way to reform public and administration processes , public participation practices remain relatively understudied in the public policy field.. Also, research in this field has only established a limited dialogue with other contributions coming from political theory, comparative politics, or political behaviour. One way of explaining the lack of public policy studies of public participation comes from the fact that a lot of participatory processes are typically one-off experiments that occur over a short time period. But after decades of public participation practices, there is more and more of them that last and repeat over time. The organizers of this panel would like to take this opportunity to better understand how public participation influences the ‘world’ of the public decision-making process. There is a lot of scepticism about the real effect of public participation, but in the meantime, there are a few studies that have tried to measure the influence. We are here interested in two questions. First, how do public authorities receive and manage citizen opinions? This question refers to the potential effects of participatory arrangements on the final public policies (or policy content). Second, how does public participation change the context of the public decision-making process? The issues of diffusion and learning are central in this question. Who are the actors responsible for the growing use of the participatory arrangements? What mechanisms do they use? This panel will also welcome papers with methodological issues regarding measurement and evaluation of the two topics (impact and diffusion).

We are inviting scholar to submit papers that outline new research pathways to study relational structures of climate change policy-making - e.g. papers that investigate the poly-centric nature of a specific policy subsystem, the patterns of particular discourse, and/or the structures of advocacy coalitions within such a policy network.

The problem of inequality in Latin America is closely linked to habitat and access to sustainable and livable urban spaces. Traditionally vulnerable communities are relocated by national and local authorities, within the Latin American capitals, or because refugees are migrants from rural areas in conflict. The Latin American urban habitat has gained interest and the growing process of urbanization in the region, which makes it subject to intervention by the national, regional and local governments and multilateral organizations that attempt to mitigate the complex social problems generated by the inequality and the concentration of land and wealth. The dwindling social housing policies related to welfare programs provide some minimum units of built housing, linked more to market interests than the needs, rights and interests of citizens who are living communities. The proposed panel invites to scholars interested in exploring and proposing local governance mechanisms that promote joint construction of habitat solutions between authorities and citizens, in which living spaces meet the imaginary of the communities involved, favor the basics local governance and lead to the implementation of effective, legitimate and equitable decisions on urban habitat. Paper proposals investigate the concepts of collaborative governance, policy networks, policy communities, urban environment, popular habitat and citizen self-management.

Many metropolises like New York City make use of multi-scalar institutional networks for regional policy planning and implementation governing 20 million inhabitants, 4 states, dozens of regional financial entities,, hundreds of counties, school districts, utility districts – all intersecting with the federal government, supranational and transnational policy constellations. These institutional policymaking ensembles accommodate multi-layered and multi-scalar coordinated reflexive network arrangements, and the accompanying transversal negotiations of co-regulation that makes for the interconnectedness sustaining global value chains, global supply chains, global distribution chains, and global ecology. Globalization results in more than global capitalism, it is the world-wide realization of the cognitive demands of functional differentiation. This panel studies the emerging generalized patterns of coordinating transnational policy regimes (TPRs). The panel explores whether such multi-layered and multi-scalared TPRs with more looped and iterative (less linear) path dependency establish a referent of network purpose, benchmarking and triggered threshold sanctions to help rein in the excesses of functional differentiation gone amok: e.g, in innovation policy, forest restoration, central bankers’ financial regulation, biofuels, disposal of contaminants, water governance, fisheries, emission trading schemes. These multi-layered and multi-scalar TPNs manifest an ontology based on needs, inter-connexions among them, and the webs that they form. A growing literature has tried to provide a theoretical underpinning of the interdependencies between the subnational, the national, the intergovernmental, the supranational and TPRs.beyond ad hoc exceptional practices. The panel’s focus is on the nodes and inter-connexions that transverse a rhizomic differentiation into nested and entangled scales. Specifically, our focus on multi-scalarity centers on the problematic of “getting the scale right.” In so doing, the panel is accented with the Territory, Place, Scale, Network (TPSN) Framework of Jessop, Brenner and Jones (2008) with its emphasis on space rather than place, as well as scale rather than level in studying networks of networks.

In the last three decades, the rise of regulation-oriented approaches to markets diverted the attention of most scholars from themes as State intervention in the economy and industrial policy. Nonetheless, even if not directly addressed, this area of investigation remains crucial in order to understand the political economies of complex policy sectors such as those regarding the network industries, utilities, automotive, aerospace, defence industry and so forth. Moreover, the combination of the financial crisis and the political and coalitional dynamics in the context of Multi Level Governance may have activated a variety of new actors and opportunities in these fields, thus reframing industrial policy itself in different ways. In order to define frames, ideas, actors and instruments of industrial policy, the potential contributors to the panel should address these questions: How have States reacted to institutional and environmental changes in order to keep national players competitive? What have been the most prominent sectors of State intervention and what justifications emerged for them? How have businesses coped with markets’ financialization and how this has altered the relations between corporate actors, stakeholders and regulators? How have business strategies influenced the choice and calibration of regulatory policy tools in specific sectors? Is there any role for Regional and Urban governments in industrial policy? The panel aims to collect papers from scholars with different social science backgrounds and methodological approaches. A particular attention will be given to papers explicitly addressing the impact of the recent financial crisis on industrial policy.

This panel is co-sponsored by IPSA RC 19 (Gender, Politics and Policy), in conjunction with FIIN (Feminism and Institutionalism International Network). Feminist scholars have long since given considerable attention to the gendered nature and interconnectedness of social and political institutions, and how such institutions induce gendered outcomes in public policy (Gatens and Mackinnon 1998; Lovenduski, 1998). Although there is no single variant or definition of feminist institutionalism this does not preclude feminist institutionalist analyses of policy change. Rather, a feminist institutionalist project is one that seeks to map the gendered dimensions of visible formal rules and the often hidden informal institutional practices (Mackay, 2011). To date, much of the new scholarship that has drawn on this conceptual framework has focused on political institutional change. However, increasingly variants of FI are being utilised to explain policy stasis and change (Beyeler and Annesley 2011; Grace, 2011; Hašková and Saxonberg, 2011). This panel calls for papers that offer new insights on the intersection of institutional design, the formal and informal rules associated with policy making, and feminist policy thought and practice. Papers for this panel should address how feminist engagement with institutionalism (and its varieties, including feminist institutionalism) have facilitated new theoretical and empirical understandings of policy processes and outcomes, and the extent to which these are gendered in their effects. Papers that offer theoretically-informed case studies from new and established democracies, canvassing the policy work of government, non-government agencies as well as feminist policy entrepreneurs, and employing methodologically eclectic approaches are welcomed.

The text of the call for papers concerned women's reproductive rights at national levels, in federal and unitary systems and in multi-level contexts (including the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights).

The study of international public policy interests through the lens of federalism theory requires cognizance of the “level of participation” question. When central governments pursue their extra-territorial interests, it is incumbent upon them to carefully consider whether constitutionally-assigned areas of jurisdiction between themselves and their constituent regional orders of government are implicated. In some cases, national constitutions assign concurrent jurisdiction over policy issues to the central and regional governments, or assign sole areas of jurisdiction, in a manner that engenders conflict between these orders of government when implementation is attempted. When regional governments attempt to pursue such interests on the international stage, the sub-discipline of “para-diplomacy” (see Michelmann and Soldatos, Federalism and International Relations: The Role of Subnational Units, 1991” is particularly relevant. The intra/ultra vires conundrum is exemplified by the Labour Conventions Case, 1937, in which the Government of Canada signed an international agreement in an area of provincial competence. After consideration by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Lord Atkin stated, “While the ship of state now sails on larger ventures and into foreign waters she still retains the watertight compartments which are an essential part of her original structure.” His message was simple- the days in which the federal government could obligate the provinces in areas of their own jurisdiction through the adoption of foreign treaties were over. Despite Lord Atkins’ ruling however, “jurisdiction creep” (i.e., Canada’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol despite constitutionally-established and concurrent provincial jurisdiction) and other agenda-setting disconnects continue to have fractious effects. While para-diplomacy has been examined from various conceptual and regional perspectives over the past 25 years or so, a unique area that requires deeper consideration relates to national and “subnational” orders of government having competing or concurrent jurisdictions. What happens when federal governments enter into international agreements impacting areas of provincial competence? What happens when federal government and regional governments are constitutionally-sanctioned to pursue interests in the same policy area? What happens if regional government pursuit of a particular policy interest on the international stage is limited or thwarted because it is a dependent on a policy variable under federal jurisdiction? For example, while Canadian provinces have concurrent jurisdiction over immigration policy with Ottawa, the federal government retains power over border security, ergo power of admittance of foreigners to Canada. By examining this important yet underexplored area of public policy, the goal of this panel is to understand how various federal jurisdictions around the world have dealt with such “who does what outside the country” questions. The proposed panel seeks high quality submissions examining such questions and issues from a conceptual (i.e. multi-level/polycentric governance model…) or regional case study perspective.

Multi-level governance has become a popular tool for making sense of a variety of political phenomena in the European Union (Hooghe and Marks 2001, Peters and Pierre 2004) and to a lesser extent, in North America (Stein and Turkewitsch 2010, Papillon 2012, Alcantara and Nelles 2014, Rodon 2014). Part of the reason for why this concept has become so popular is because it neatly captures a new range of developments involving a multitude of actors from different levels, interacting in new ways to produce political decisions and policy outcomes. Indeed, it is for these reasons that scholars have begun to turn to multi-level governance as a means of analyzing new developments in the Arctic region. This part of the world has become a hotbed of experiments in multi-level governance processes and institutions, ranging from the emergence of new international (e.g. Arctic Council) and regional institutions (e.g. Barents Euro Arctic Council in Northern Europe), and new actors rooted in national, subnational, Aboriginal (e.g. Nunavut, Nunatsiavut, North Slope Borough, Russian Okrugs), and civil society levels (e.g environmental and business groups). We are looking for papers focusing on the role of these new institutions, actors, and modes of governance in two increasingly important and relevant policy areas in the Arctic: security (encompassing a wide range of areas ranging from hard security to human security) and natural resource development. We will however consider other relevant policies areas More specifically we wish to address the following questions What is the descriptive and explanatory capacity of Multi-level governance analysis in the Arctic context? What is the involvement and interaction of different actors from the local to the regional level? Does this context of multi-level governance in the Arctic produce coherent and/or relevant policies?

Call for Papers We invite papers that address the extent, causes and consequences of policies aimed at changing business. These policies can be aimed at specific aspects of corporate behavior such as potential pollution or structural aspects of business with important policy consequences such as the pressures to give stockholders short-term rewards rather than incentivizing long-term investment. We particularly seek papers that explore the extent and efficacy of attempts by NGOs to change corporate behavior without seeking new laws or regulations but by acting directly on corporations utilizing publicity, social media activity and threats of boycotts. We invite papers using any methodology that address policy changes in a single country or comparatively so long as there are clear analytical conclusions.

We welcome paper proposals examining contemporary developments (theoretical or empirical) in international tax governance, voluntary corporate regulation and evolution and influence of public interest groups in the fields of tax and financial regulation. We envisage that two sessions associated with this panel will be devoted to the research project described above, but hope to host additional sessions exploring recent developments in private/voluntary regulation more generally.

The panel Climate Change Policy, Business and Development aims to address the development debate, the effects of climate change on the society, and the economy and environment interfaces. We welcome papers that reflect on the policy/business and policy/environmental dimensions of the topics related to climate change as well as on their societal and economic implications.

Call for papers The aim of the panel is to review the position and role of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in the current public policy practice. In our panel, we are looking for papers dealing with development of tensions and synergies between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ in the sphere of public policy making. We welcome comparative works analysing countries’ experience with finding a balance between the influence and interests of the main regulators and groups of actors. We are interested in examples of complex arrangements that have managed to satisfy interests of a broad array of actors including the members of civil society and thus having a transformative effect on society. These can include policy networks or cases of Public-Private-Citizen collaboration (Hui and Hayllar 2010) backed by innovative solutions including the use of modern technologies (Dunleavy 2005) or unique system architecture. Equally welcome are contributions analysing bad practice examples of unequal policy arrangements or unbalanced partnerships. Questions asked in the panel include: What is the future of ‘public’ and ‘private’ in public policy practice? Has the boundary between the ‘private’ and ‘public’ shifted over the years and, if so, in what directions? In what type of arrangements can the private and public sector work in synergy? Has the business sector indeed been in a privileged position and, if so, how has it manifested in practice? How far have countries gone in empowering their citizens to become equal partners to both government and the business sector? What are the strategies and methods used for securing public interest in situations of a priori unequal capabilities of private and public actors? Which outcomes have resulted from different types of public and private interaction? References Dunleavy, P. et al. (2005), “New Public Management is Dead – Long Live Digital-Era Governance”, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, September. 467-494. Hayllar, M. R. ‘PPPs in Hong Kong: Good Governance: The essential missing ingredient’ Australian Journal of Public Administration 69 (S1), 120-131. Hui, G., Hayllar, M. R. (2010) ‘Creating Public Value in E-Government: A Public-Private-Citizen Collaboration Framework in Web 2.0’, Australian Journal of Public Administration 69 (S1), 120-131. Lindblom, Ch. E. (1977): Politics and Markets. New York: Basic Books. Osborne, S P (ed.) 2010. The New Public Governance? Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance. London: Routledge. Pollitt, B and Bouckaert, G 2011. Public Management Reform. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rhodes, R.A.W. 1997. Understanding Governance: Policy Networks, Governance and Accountability. Buckingham: Open University Press.

In the world of policy today, the challenges are huge, complex and intertwined and they require insight gained through alliances of diverse expertise and know-how. It requires bringing together partners in industry, the community sector and the public service. Collaboration between partners – the people who make, implement and receive public policy – can help to better understand problems in their context and find workable sustainable solutions. Collaboration is here seen as condition for the way policy solutions are found in today’s world. Collaboration is “the new normal” (Sullivan 2014). Many pressing matters of public concern are no longer seen as amenable to being solved in terms of a traditional divide between public and private actor. Whether the focus is on environmental and financial crises, healthcare, educational modernization or the efficient, effective and equitable delivery of core public services, these issues are increasingly seen as simply too complex to be solved by single agencies. There is a need to find novel solutions to these problems that mobilize the capacities of all sectors and actors. Public policy making can be made more robust through enhancing discussion, debate and knowledge sharing. A core objective of the panel is to assist in this endeavor through interdisciplinary public policy research. This panel will invite papers that specifically address the relationship between politics, policy and business. The panel focuses on how novel partnership and collaboration modes of governance work out in theory and practice. The key issues that papers may address include the following: · Collaboration “as the new normal”/a state-of-play for public policy today · Public governance changes and the role of “the office” in today’s policy environment · Public-private partnerships for infrastructure and for addressing new policy challenges · Urban governance, the rise of the “smart cities” and the role of firms and NGOs · Policy, governance and performance issues that involve all three sectors · Policy on how and why to govern markets, and to focus on how corporations can be “good”. · Policy on “big data” and digital governance that involves government, businesses and NGOs

Computer-based modeling, simulation, scenarization and algorithms are fast entering the realm of public policy-making, as growing calculation power of computers and the availability of “big data” dramatically increase the capacity to model, and thus to simulate, visualize, anticipate, build scenarios or predict. Crime and social unrest, toxicity, energy production and consumption or climate change and sustainability questions are examples of domains in which models developed by scientists and administrations feed into global, national and regional policy-making. In this sense, modeling and simulations represent technical innovations in governance and public action. To analyze these developments, we propose to build on insights, methods and concepts from public policy analysis, science and technology studies (STS), and the (new) political sociology of science. The objective of the panel is to investigate, first, in which domains and to what extent public policy-making has become prone to computer-based modeling, scenarization and simulation. Second, we aim to assess the nature of the changes these new practices create in public policy-making. Third, we ask if and how these techniques are becoming the object of specific forms of public regulation (e.g. emergence of a “governance of public simulation"). We propose three axes of inquiry: - Production. How and where are policy-relevant models, scenarios and algorithms produced? Is there a "market" for models? Proposals in this axis will study scientists, experts, particular industries, administrations or companies, look into the competition between those actors and their relationships with public decision-making. - Public Policy. How are these tools used in public decision-making? What transformations do we see (or not) in decision-making? Proposals in this axis will study governmental bodies, agencies, international organizations, etc., to track evolutions in the types of knowledge used, changes in decision-making procedures, modes of organization, and outside communication. - Public Debate and Civil Society. How do models and simulations circulate in the public sphere, spur debates and provoke controversy? Proposals in this axis will focus on an analysis of the public space, mobilizations and controversies, to 1) track resistance to new forms of public policy-making based on modeling or simulation, and 2) see to what extend social movements or NGOs use models and simulations to back their claims.

In this panel, we aim to empirically explore the policies and processes by which governments at various levels aim to contribute to the energy transition and climate change mitigation. Three topics have our specific interest: the interplay between multiple levels of government, the mechanisms at work that enhance or hamper the formulation and implementation of policies and projects aiming to contribute to the energy transition, and the role of government(s) within these processes. We take a critical stance toward the ways governments design and implement policies to green energy systems. We focus at the institutional dimension and the use of power in decision-making (both in national policy making processes and local implementation projects). Both policies aimed at innovation and diffusion of alternative ‘green’ energy technologies are addressed as well as policies that lower harmful effects vis-à-vis energy production, use and emissions of greenhouse gases. Empirical papers on energy and climate change mitigation policies are welcomed. They can be either qualitative (case studies) or quantitative. We encourage use of policy theories, but also welcome papers using policy-oriented theoretical approaches from transition studies. Comparative papers, comparing policy experiences in different regions or countries and comparing policy experiences in different sectors, are also welcomed. With this panel we also aim to contribute to the further building of an international community studying issues of policy and governance in the field of energy transition and climate change mitigation, a field that is dominated by engineering sciences leaving the highly relevant governance issues understudied.

Whether and how policymakers should have a role in supporting collaborative innovation within technology clusters is still debated in literature: there is no consensus on (and no clear-cut empirical evidence of) the effect of public policy on the innovation performance and cooperation success. This panel wants to discuss this topic considering the demand side perspective, i.e. the perspective of companies that should benefit from public policies dedicated to Technology Clusters. To this aim, the panel invites companies, associations, universities and public institutions to debate and compare different ideas on how policymakers should act to improve collaboration, productivity and innovation of clusters. Should their action be focused on removing obstacles, simplifying rules and reducing inefficiencies or there are good reasons to give them the power to define targets, select technologies, identify champions and regions, foster relations and suggest networks? In this debate, several well known trade-offs need to be investigated: knowledge sharing versus protection, risk and cost sharing versus appropriability of returns, local investments versus global benefits, open versus closed communities, local versus global networks. On all these issues, the public perspective is usually completely different, if not absolutely opposite, to the companies' perspective. That makes it necessary to have demand-side and sullpy-side actors at the same table. Hopefully, this would foster significant steps both in scientific research and in the practice of companies and institutions.

This panel will discuss trends and developments in digital government and the implications for the policy-making process, public management reform, and the nature of the contemporary state. We call for papers dealing with some aspect of digital government and its relationship with public policy, involving the presentation of new data, methodological innovation, or theoretical development in how we understand digital government. Papers could cover (but are not restricted to) the following topics and questions: Examples of policy innovation, where digital technologies and widespread use of the internet have opened up new policy options ·New methods for studying and understanding digital government, such as webmetrics or the analysis of ‘big data’ on citizen-government interactions or governmental operations The use of experiments in digital government, making viable new forms of policies and services that ‘nudge’ citizens towards socially optimal behaviour that furthers public good provision. How do digital technologies and widespread use of the internet challenge conventional government approaches to policy formulation and implementation? What approaches are governments taking to use the social web to foster citizen engagement? Are open data intiatives making governments more transparent? How does digital government bring bring new players into the policy process and what is the impact for policy-making? To what extent are internet-based technologies making the policy process more democratic? To what extent can big data approaches be used in policy-making? This list of topics is not exhaustive, and other questions related to government, policy making and the Internet will be considered. All papers will be considered for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Policy and Internet, and offered a fast track evaluation process to account for the conference reviewing process.

The internet, social networks and new information and communication technologies have changed the relationship among individuals and between individuals and the state. The web opens new possibilities for collective enterprises to decrease citizens’ informational deficits about State actions, to expand political participation and deliberation, and to increase the accountability of elected representatives and state bureaucracy. Individuals through the internet can canvass different perspectives and knowledge to interpret and analyze information produced by the State. Additionally, these changes also decrease costs of collective action for social movements. In this sense, new technologies of information and communication have the potential to affect public policies at different moments and under different theoretical assumptions. The panel for Public Policy Management and New Technologies opens a call for papers for the Second International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP) in Milan, Italy. This Panel will focus on studies that engage in discussing the ways in which new information and communication technologies can be grasped by public policies either by theoretical approaches or by empirical studies. The main objective of the panel is to discuss ways that these new technologies can influence the formulation and evaluation of public policies.

The environment in which public policy is made has entered a period of dramatic change. Widespread use of digital technologies, the Internet and social media means both citizens and governments leave digital traces that can be harvested to generate big data. Policy-making therefore takes place in an increasingly rich data environment, which poses both promises and threats to policy-makers. Recent years have seen increasing attention on how big data approaches can uncover patterns of human behaviour and help predict social trends; the insights gained from transactional information can also be used to drive evidence-based policy making and ‘nudge’ political behaviour. But governments have lagged behind other sectors in exploiting the potential of big data to inform public policy, and face a number of ethical and logistical challenges in doing so. This panel calls for papers that explore the new research and public policy frontiers opened up by big data, aiming to serve as a forum to encourage discussion across disciplinary boundaries on how to exploit big data to inform policy debates. We welcome papers reporting on innovative research exploiting large datasets or applying novel methodological tools (from experiments, to crowd-sourcing, to online ethnography) aimed to overcome the limitations of big data; papers that report empirical results and employ policy analysis approaches that would not have been possible without access to digital data; papers that further methodological development in data science; case studies of data-driven policy initiatives such as open data or big data programmes, or crowdsourcing platforms; papers that investigate the ethical and moral dilemmas provoked by data science methods and big data approaches; papers that incorporate expertise from more than one academic discipline. Applicants will have the opportunity to co-submit their paper to the journal Policy and Internet, which will operate a fast-track review process for accepted papers.

The spreading of Internet practices worldwide is increasingly putting the debate and the negotiations concerning Internet Policy at the centre of international disputes. As result, we are witnessing to a growing scholarly oriented body of research addressing the fast developing debate concerning contentions clustered around internet policy challenges. Here, particular attention concerns how to enhance inclusiveness in Internet Governance decision making processes, in order to represent the multiple dimensions characterizing the Internet itself. Given its nature, multiple actors including Governments, representative of the private sectors, as well as civil society organizations are called to establish a so-defined multistakeholder policy making approach. With this, the governance of the internet is supposed to be run with the coordination of all parts involved to work for the good of the internet infrastructure. However, while a multistakeholder approach has been advocated for over 10 years, i.e. since the launch of the Internet Governance negotiations with the first United Nations World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) in 2003, we still lack evidence of the empirical outcomes of this approach. It is still unclear whether or not this policy making approach is successful in establishing an international and multidisciplinary policy capability and decision making processes able to react efficiently and as fast as the internet challenges develop. This panel calls for papers exploring the increasing centrality of Internet Governance negotiations in international disputes, with a particular focus on how internet policy making processes influence this discourse. Within this framework, this panel will include papers that address theoretical or empirically grounded research providing (1) evidence on successful and failing cases in the field of internet policy clustered around a multistakeholder approach; (2) methodological approaches able to frame novel policy network research strategy; and (3), research leading us to answer to the key question whether and how the multistakeholder decision making processes influence the capability of institutions to provide policy response in the fast developing Internet Governance debate. By addressing these questions, this panel aims to frame the policy challenges attached to the Internet Governance debate, and expand our understanding of the decision making process concerning internet policies. Finally, with the scope to establish clear lines of dialogues between scholarly relevant empirical research and innovative approach, this panel calls for papers combining novel research and empirical cases that capture the policy making challenges attached to the broader Internet Governance debate, as an emerging topic with long-term implications.

A sociology of Actors of Public Policy

No Text

Recent changes in food and agriculture policy in Western democracies call for a re-evaluation of established findings and the application of new concepts in policy analysis. Traditionally this policy field has been a prime example of compartmentalised policy-making: an institutionally insulated policy field with a closed policy community, stabilised by considerable benefits to the insiders, surrounded by high entry barriers in terms of arcane technical regulations and diffuse costs to taxpayers, consumers and the environment. Nevertheless, the policy agenda in the food and agricultural sector has been considerably broadened with agri-food policy issues now interlinking with other policy domains (food safety, food security, bio-technology and patents, energy supplies, environmental protection, development aid, trade, climate change etc.). New ideas and values which sometimes conflict, or which are not always easily reconcilable, with those previously guiding agricultural policy have entered the broader agricultural and food policy domain. In contrast to traditional farm income support, where policy-making was controlled by a single or a well-integrated set of domestic complementary institutions, the new policy issues are dealt with in a more fluid, emerging or ad hoc institutional context in which national, regional and global institutions interact. This development has led to a need for more coordination and has forced policy-makers to engage in inter-institutional policy making which refers to a process of coordinating policies hosted in different policy sectors. This type of policy process has ramifications for interest groups and government agencies in other policy arenas, and so they too become involved in the development of the new agri-food policies. The panel invites papers which explore the conceptual frameworks needed to analyse inter-institutional policy-making and governance in the agri-food sector or undertake empirical analysis to provide insights into the new policy situation, thereby contributing to broader discussions on food governance and wider debates on policy.

Until the 1970s the provision of public services (public utilities) was, in many countries, characterized by the predominance of the public (State or municipal) sector. This applies also to the provision of social services (with the exception of countries where under the „subsidiarity“ principle the non-for-profit sector was primarily engaged). This public sector centred organisational form of service provision held true for („Western“) advanced welfare state countries as well as for (East European) Communist/Socialist countries with a centralist State sector. Since the 1980s the public sector has gone through New Public Management-driven modernization which aimed at recasting the internal structures of the public sector (by replacing traditional „Max Weberian“ features with private sector-derived „managerialist“ principles) as well as at reorganizing its external operations, essentially including the provision of public and social services (especially through introducing private sector-typical competition and “privatization”). In EU member countries this modernization thrust has been further promoted by the EU’s market liberalization policy targeted at breaking up local („monopolistic“) service provision markets. In East European countries, following the collapse of the communist regimes, the institutional transformation of the “Socialist State” has also been significantly guided by NPM principles and, particularly in EU accession countries, by the EU’s liberalization drive. Notwithstanding country and sector-specific variance this period showed significant cross country convergence in terms of passing from „government“- centred organisational fabric to a pluralisation and “marketization” of public, semi-public (“mixed”), private for-profit as well as non-public not-for-profit (“NGO”) actors and providers and, in a largely convergent trend, to an institutional web of actor networks which, in a dominant conceptual debate, has been identified as “governance” structure. Since the late 1990s and early 2000s another thrust of organizational shifts have taken shape which points at different and divergent trajectories. For one, in some countries, in critically and negatively reappraising the effects of “market-liberalization” and “privatization” of service delivery and in „rediscovering“ the potential and assets of the public (municipal) sector service provision a “comeback” of the public/municipal sector and an ensuing „remunicipalization“ of service provision have gained momentum. By contrast, in other countries, under the impact of the „sovereign debt“ another wave of “outsourcing” and “privatizing” public and social services provision has been set off. Moreover, the austerity-inflicted cut-backs in service provision have “from below” called forth “civil society”-type initiatives, protest and self-help groups to take service provision in their own hands. In focusing on this most recent (some call it “post- NPM”) phase of (“external”) public sector modernization in public and social services delivery the proposed panel and the called for papers are expected to contribute to fill the noticeable gap in empirical research and conceptual debate in this matter. At the same time, the proposed panel is considered to link up with, and complement an ongoing thematically congruent working group that has been formed within the COST Action “Local Public Sector Reform: An International Comparison”.

This panel addresses the topic of cultural policy, which we define as "the range of activities that governments undertake – or do not undertake – in the arena of 'culture'" (Gray 2010, p. 222). This is a field that has several distinct and challenging peculiarities, such as the difficulty of defining its very object, but also shares many characteristics of other policy areas. With this panel we want to address both by incorporating mainstream public policy approaches into the study of an oft-neglected policy field. Papers are invited that address a range of theoretical and methodological approaches. We are also open to submissions on wide range of cultural policies, including, but not limited to, media policy, the politics of remembrance, the politics of cultural diversity, as well as cross-policy sector comparative papers. We invite submissions notably on the following topics: Institutions in cultural policy, Institutions are a vital aspect of policy-making. We define institutions widely as not only the physical spaces in which policy is made (such as a legislature), but the socio-cultural rules and behaviours that influence policy as well. Papers are welcomed on institutional formation and design, institutional change, structure and agency, and the impact of formal and informal institutions on policy and vice versa. Ideas in cultural policy, “Ideas” play an essential role in understanding public policy (Cairney 2012). Here we welcome papers on how political, economic, and social ideologies, norms, and values manifest themselves in policy; how ideas are treated by policy-makers; and how culture is defined and/or used in policy narratives. Networks in cultural policy, Contributions on networks are welcomed both on the "metaphorical" analysis of patterns of collaboration as well as on concrete social network analysis. We are interested in themes such as expertise, knowledge, coalition formation, the roles of specific collective or individual actors, and their resources and strategies in cultural policy-making processes.

Policy and Society, Special Issue Theoretical explanations and empirical research concerning the policy entrepreneurship in domestic policymaking have significantly enhanced our understanding of policy change. However, there are several weaknesses and understudied areas in regards to the role of agency in institutional change, institutional entrepreneurship. Specifically, when it comes to explaining institutional change, we have very limited knowledge on the agency of individual actors who initiate and implement institutional change in the various stages of domestic policymaking processes. This panel calls for a bridge building between state of the art in institutional theory and public policy theory with special reference to institutional entrepreneurship. It encourages conceptual and empirical contributions on (1) our conceptual understanding of institutional entrepreneurship and the various modes of institutional change; (2) similarities and differences in the concepts of policy entrepreneurs, ideational entrepreneurs, and institutional entrepreneurs; (3) structural, institutional and agency-level enabling conditions informing institutional entrepreneurship; and (4) a systematic approach that enhances qualitative rigor in inductive interpretive research on this topic (list is not exhaustive). Policy and Society, Special Issue Please indicate both in the email heading and on the full paper clearly that the submission is for “Special Issue/Policy and Society”. Authors will be emailed the notification of panel acceptance before 15th February, 2015 and full papers for special issue considiration are due 22 June 2015.

Accounting and performance measurement have often been heralded as neutral and objective tools, insulated from policy and politics. This perspective, however, has been challenged by an alternative view which highlights that accounting systems belong to the organizational and societal reality and, thus, can be used to sustain particular patterns of organizational visibility, to create specific structures of power within organizations and at their interfaces with other actors, to influence the economic and social context, to contribute to rationalization and legitimation processes. Moreover, accounting systems not only provide inputs for decision making and accountability processes, but can also be the result of political processes and decisions that take place both at the organizational and at a system-wide level. Naturally, this is particularly true for public-sector accounting, broadly defined to include both budgeting and financial reporting. The politics of accounting and the role of accounting in politics, in general and with specific respect to public-sector accounting, are a fascinating and complex topic that so far has been largely under-investigated. The current institutional context, the fiscal and economic crises, the diffusion of new technologies, and the reliance on collaborations and networks in the provision of public services, moreover, are opening this topic up to new challenges. This panel calls for contributions that present, analyze, and discuss, among others, the following topics: - The relationships between accounting, performance management and policy making in different contexts and decision situations; - The integration and links between financial and non-financial information; - The role of accounting and performance measurement in promoting particular interests and values; - The role of accounting and performance measurement in increasing or reducing transparency; - The role of accounting and performance measurement in promoting stakeholders participation; - The role of accounting and performance measurement in the implementation of economic policy; - The role of accounting and performance measurement in facilitating the dialogue within organizations and between organizations; - Accounting and performance measurement, new technologies and democracy; - The relationship among accounting and performance measurement, auditing and fraud; - Accounting and performance measurement for rationalization vs accounting and performance measurement for legitimacy-seeking purposes; - The roles and influence of accounting professional bodies on public policy on the development of public sector accounting. Any research strategy is welcome, as long as it effectively addresses the issues at hand and rigorously adheres to the methodology adopted, be it theoretical or empirical, quantitative or qualitative.

Many experiences like car sharing, car pooling or bicycle in free access show that mobility seems to be faced to fundamental changes. These changes benefit from technological innovations (like new phone services), the rise of environmental concerns, a new relationship with time and space which allow individuals to adapt their mobility behavior. These new possibilities induce huge modifications of how to travel that have a direct effect on public policies. They require new skills and approaches to design the transport system. Those changes point out the need to question public policies on the following topics: How does transport policy integrate dimensions like economics, politics, planning, energy, information? How can transport policy be in favor of mobility innovation? How can and does transport policy take into account the territorial as well as educational particularities of the populations concerned by those policies? What kind of tensions arises from the confrontation between new mobility behavior and traditional public policies? The subject of the present panel proposition is to find answers to these questions.

In Turkey, the state keeps its power to influence the economy by means of interactions that it builds with the business environment. It keeps its ruling capacity on the economy either by authoritarian means or relying on civil society. The state also uses its redistribution potential in order to influence the behavior of the lower classes for obtaining electoral support. This panel aims to analyze the multiple faces of neoliberal policies in Turkey from the post-military coup period to our days, under the AKP government. It will ask how different actors react in different sectors of society and take sides in the context of neoliberal and authoritarian policies. As to the methodology, it aims to understand different aspects of social, cultural and economic policies by specific field studies realized in different cities and policy areas in Turkey. The presenters are encouraged to analyze the impacts of neoliberal policies not only from the institutional and official macro-level but also from the individual and micro-level. By combining “top-down” and “bottom-up” approaches, the presenters are invited to provide empirical data that clarify how neoliberal and authoritarian policies in Turkey are experienced in different regions, fields and sectors. This panel focusing on the case of Turkey will thus question a number of central concepts in theoretical and methodological debates on precarity, vulnerability, state repression and social and spatial expression of economic inequality. the treatment of these issues could be divided into three main themes: - An axis focused on the institutional dimension of the neoliberal policies focusing on state and civil servants. - A second axis based on the economic dimension that offer the study of labour policies and the relation between capital, the businessmen and the state. - A third axis analyzing the cultural and social dimension of public policies in a neoliberal context.

We are inviting scholars who have employed contemporary theories of the policy process to guide their analysis of policies designed to enhance urban resilience - e.g. Institutional Development Analysis (IAD) framework, Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), Punctuated Equilibrium (PET), Multiple Streams, Policy Diffusion and Social Construction and Policy Design. Papers should clearly outline the research design, address its usefulness to reliably describe the observed resilience building process, and highlight research gaps in a comprehensive and easily accessible way.

This panel invites scholars to focus on different aspects of morality policy. Policies are commonly referred to as morality policies when conflict over basic beliefs and first principles dominate political disputes and discourses. Typically, policy areas like the regulation of euthanasia, prostitution, abortion, stem-cell research, or sexuality are considered to represent such morality policies. Instead of material concerns questions relating directly to core beliefs and values are at the heart of regulatory questions policy-makers are confronted with: Policy decisions in these areas are thus fundamentally concerned with decisions about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that directly touch upon people’s life and their identity. In most Western countries, morality issues have gained increasing importance in recent years. While abortion was the first morality issue to attract broad political attention back in the 1960s, a growing number of issues has since been politicized as morality conflicts. At the same time, this development implies that the regulation of morality issues has been subject to far-reaching changes in many countries. The most prominent examples include the introduction of same-sex union in many Western democracies and regulations defining the conditions for euthanasia, stem-cell research, and assisted reproductive technology (ART). At first glance, these developments suggest that there is a general trend towards more permissive approaches in moral regulation. However, closer examinations reveal that while many countries have addressed these morality issues in recent decades, the actual degree of permissiveness of regulation varies considerably. This panel addresses scholars interested in the sources of variation in the regulation of morality policy issues. How well are common theoretical approaches equipped to account for such variation? What is the role of political parties in this context? And which other political, or societal factors influence varying patterns of morality policy change? This panel welcomes all papers interested in questions of this kind.

The design, elaboration, implementation, and evaluation of public policies is a very complex process. However, all these steps become even more challenging when those policies are oriented towards rebuilding communities, societies, polities, and economies in conflict-affected countries. Armed conflicts aggravate existing public problems and generate new urgent and important matters that once the conflict ends, call for rapid and effective measures in order to promote peacebuilding and prevent the reappearance of violence. Furthermore, transitions from war to peace entail inherent challenges that need to be addressed on a transversal basis along the wide spectrum of public policies. In this sense, the panel invites junior and senior researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to present a critical reflection regarding questions such as the following: should public policies be distinctive amid post-conflict scenarios and how distinctive should they be?; what are the public policy needs (if any) that enable the formulation of successful post-conflict reconstruction initiatives?. The panel welcomes papers that present case-studies, best practices, and theory-driven propositions that include, but are not limited to, topics concerning security, coexistence, restoration of law and order, governance, employment, economic rehabilitation and development, justice, and reconciliation in post-conflict scenarios around the world.

Learning About Policy Pathways

For several years, local governments have been tackling new challenges related to the regeneration of their cities, within the physical sphere (in relation with the physical rehabilitation of their spaces), as well as in the economic and social spheres. This task is developed within the framework of these initiatives in accordance with what has been called the Integrated Urban Development Model, understanding the Integrated nature of this approach not only in terms of the spheres of public policy involved, but also in relation to their management. This panel aims the analysis of public policies devoted to the regeneration of urban areas in crisis. It proposes an analysis of practical experiences based on the Urban Development Model. Traditionally, the analysis of these policies has focused on the specific case study, focusing on specific areas or cities. The aim of this panel is analyze cases from the point of view of the European integrated urban development model. Practical and theoretical papers will be welcome, addressing the following issues: 1. Analysis of the proliferation of initiatives for sustainable integrated urban development since 2007 in Europe. As several publications report, since 2007, European countries have assumed the notion of integration at na­tional and local level, implementing integrated development strategies more frequently. This is partly due to the requirements imposed by the EU subvention policy (Berg, Braun y Meer, 2004; BMVNS, 2012; Marshall, 2004; Atkinson and Rossignolo, 2009). 2. In the framework of the European urban development model promoted from the EU, there are recommendations about policies content. In recent years, a large number of European cities have promoted public intervention programmes in areas of social, economic, and urban deterioration. These programmes, introduce scaled actions characterised by their response to different demands and various functions. Hence, the new way of tackling intervention in the urban space is not limited just to the transformation of their physical space, but also includes what could be termed a social, economic, and cultural dimension (Bianchini & Parkinson, 1993). 3. This urban development model also assumes that such an approach tries to respond to the problem of how to govern and manage the fragmentation in urban settings and how to promote development in inherently complex environments facilitating: a) inclusion (policy issues and actors); b) coordination (structures, processes and resources) and c) effectiveness / efficiency (outcomes) (Farinós, 2008; Zamora and Merinero, 2012; Aparicio and di Nanni, 2011, González (2011). These issues, would be oriented to respond the following questions: Question 1. Is there a European model of urban development? Can we find any similarities in the way European countries assume their role in urban development? Is possible to identify the way in which European recommendations about a model of urban development exist at the local level? Question 2. What exactly is this approach? Can we analyse this model in relation to the policy content? Is also possible to analyse the way cities are managed from the point of view of this model? Question 3. What is the connection between its elements and success? How to measure this issue? There is a special interest in cases allowing evidence that connect and identify the elements of the model that have led to success in different cases.

Worldwide there is a wide variety in the mix of public and private responsibilities for the funding, contracting and provision of health care services across countries and across continents. Variety exists despite similarities in basic policy goals (such as providing access to good quality health care to all residents at reasonable cost, improving the general health of populations, protecting incomes) as well as policy challenges and programmatic change. To complicate matters, borders are not clear between traditional and western medicine, or between formal and informal care. Papers are invited that engage in comparative analysis of selected health care systems (that is, more than one country or else multiple units within one country) and analyze common trends as well as varied strategies and policy outcomes. Special emphasis will be given to the issue of raising revenue through health insurance in comparative contexts – that is between classic OECD concerns versus Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.

Advances in technology, science and medicine provide significant opportunities and challenges for health policy makers and researchers. The anticipated outcomes of the Human Brain Project,[1] the 100,000 Genomes Project,[2] the Innovative Medicines Initiative[3] and human enhancement technologies[4] are just a few examples of scientific endeavour that health policy must consider. Technological and scientific innovation offers an opportunity to ease the burden of nations’ health care costs but paradoxically these same advances come at a significant price. In addition, the ethical, legal and social implications are potentially profound. What is the state’s role, if any, to consider and resolve these issues? To what extent are health policy makers engaged with scientific and technological advances in crafting health policy? How should the state consider and decide these significant questions – morally, empirically and politically? Effective exploration of these issues requires cross-disciplinary collaboration from the political sciences, science and technology studies, ethics, law, public health, sociology, public administration, economics, the complexity sciences and of course science, technology and medicine. Papers are invited from these and other relevant disciplines for the following three sessions of this Panel: The policy and politics of anticipating and responding to new technological, scientific and medical innovations for health policy. The ethical challenges of technological, scientific and medical innovations for health policy. Access by, and the role of, developing nations in technological, scientific and medical advances for health care. Each session will run for two hours. Four to five papers will be presented per session. [1] https://www.humanbrainproject.eu/. See also, ‘The Brain Initiative’: http://www.braininitiative.nih.gov/index.htm [2] http://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/ [3] http://www.imi.europa.eu/ [4] For example, anti-ageing: Jayne C Lucke, Phillppa C Diedrichs, Bradley Partridge and Wayne D Hall, ‘Anticipating the Anti-Ageing Pill: Lessons from the History of the Oral Contraceptive Pill and Hormone Replacement Therapy’ (2009) 10(2) EMBO Reports 108.

Health Technology Assessment (HTA) has become a central feature of policy-making in health systems across the globe over the past two decades. This multidisciplinary activity promises to reduce inefficiency and waste, and to facilitate more rational decision-making on health system coverage, thus enhancing sustainability. However, the nature of its intersection with the policy process remains problematic and relatively poorly understood. Moreover, since HTA impacts directly or indirectly on allocative decision-making in health systems, it frequently generates significant controversy, thus undermining attempts by policy-makers to utilise the activity as a means of depoliticising hard choices in healthcare. This panel seeks to provide a platform for the critical analysis of HTA’s relationship to policy-making and papers are invited on this theme. Consistent with the multidisciplinary nature of HTA as an activity, contributions may come from a broad range of perspectives, including (but not restricted to): economics, ethics, health policy, law, philosophy, political science/theory and sociology. The panel will explore both the theory and the practice of HTA and papers which consider the operation of HTA in low and middle-income countries and/or which take a comparative approach are especially welcome. Possible topics might include: • HTA and the courts • The democratic legitimacy of HTA decision-making • HTA at supranational level • Institutional and process design for HTA • Participation in HTA • Inclusion of ‘social values’ in HTA • HTA decisional criteria and the goals of health systems However, please note that this is not intended to be an exhaustive list, and papers on any topic at the intersection of HTA and public policy will be considered for inclusion in the panel.

We call for papers focusing on the policy agenda or policy innovations implemented to diminish health inequalities in the BRICS countries. The papers must address innovations in three areas: financing/ raising revenue, service provision by state and non- state providers; human resources.

The management of modern health policy is arguably paradigmatic of the “wicked problems” states increasing confront: uncertainty permeates the definition of the problem, identification of its causes, and strategies for its improvement. Jurisdictions are autonomous yet interdependent; the field is technologically complex yet essential to individuals at a most basic level; clinical knowledge and practices change extraordinarily rapidly, yet administrative structures must be stable, predictable, and reliable. The cost of health care continues to rise even as economies struggle with fiscal austerity. In response to the growing contradictions of public administration, theorists have turned to conceptions of governance that are based more broadly upon a lateral institutional structure focusing upon networks, partnerships, and the engagement of other social actors. They have also focused upon “softer” policy instruments that rely more upon discussion, negotiation, exhortation, and justification over harder, more punitive mechanisms. Yet the “governance turn” has itself led to claims that governments have become “hollowed out” by destroying the very instruments that are vital for steering complex policy fields. Others have argued that the proliferation of lateral governance has in fact led to a governance regime that is more, rather than less, hierarchical. This panel discusses these themes of contemporary governance through the analytical lens of health policy. What happens to health care at the granular level when the “governance turn” intersects with the politics of fiscal consolidation? What particular kinds of institutional structures and policy instruments have been utilized, with what kind of results? To what extent do we really have any ability actively to control or direct health policy at all? And how should we conceptualize democratic governance and public accountability within the increasingly complex and diffuse sphere of health policy?

“So long as researchers presume that research findings must be brought to bear upon a single event, a discrete act of decision making, they will be missing those circumstances and processes where, in fact, research can be useful.” (Rist 1994) Twenty years later in their 2014 systematic review of evidence-based policy Oliver, Lorenc & Innvær (2014) conclude that lack of significant advance in understanding whether evidence improves policy has occurred because the “agenda of ‘ getting evidence into policy’ has side-lined the empirical description and analysis of how research and policy actually interact in vivo”. This panel will address this gap by presenting empirical studies of the interactions between research, policy and practice in health and health equity. It will bring together researchers and policy-makers who work on diverse health problems, in various national and international contexts, and from different disciplinary perspectives. It highlight successful mechanisms to support these interactions and will contribute to the development of models of co-production that lead to better policy.

The outbreak of the Ebola virus in West Africa is a stark reminder of the critical importance of public health infrastructure and that providing this infrastructure is a major challenge of governance. Therefore, learning the lessons from the 2014 outbreak of the Ebola virus requires the insights not only of public health but also of political science. The premise of this panel is that the uncontrolled spread and impact of the Ebola virus is the result of a failure in local, regional, national and global governance (Fidler 2014). Therefore, we invite papers that analyse the Ebola outbreak using the theoretical insights of political science. Examples of how this might be done include: · Comparative and case study papers that draw on theories of development, failed states, and comparative politics more generally to try and explain the inability of countries to mount an effective response. · Papers that draw on theories of global governance and international organization to offer insight into the role of the World Health Organization and other international bodies that mobilized to respond to the crisis. · Papers that draw on social science research on the role of non-states actors in global governance to better understand the role of Médecins sans frontiers, the Gates Foundation, and many others in the management of the Ebola crisis. · Theoretically informed papers that analyze the politics within donor countries as actors within, non-governmental organizations, and others used a variety of strategies and tactics put the Ebola crisis on the agenda, mobilize action and push for an effective response. This is by no means an exhaustive list and we invite papers that apply other theoretical and conceptual tools from political science in order to better understand the 2014 Ebola outbreak and how we might prevent similar crises in the future.

The panel will welcome papers focusing on the following topics: 1. Assessment of the effectiveness of extant primary care models. Regional and international comparative analysis. 2. Value-based analysis of the shift in health and social care provision from secondary to primary care. 3. Assessment of different business models and business structures for the delivery of primary care. Best-practices and work in progress. 4. Leadership in local health agencies and local health providers. Challenges and opportunities. 5. Reimbursement and incentive models for primary and social health service. Comparison between volume and quality based models.

This panel will look at the private sector actors and their historical contribution to improving political and economic governance, as well as to capacity-building in natural resources management in comparative perspective. It will evaluate those areas where the private sector fails to bring about improvements in political and economic governance, and instead might hamper development. Various papers in the panel will contribute to the debate around private sector engagement in natural resources management in the past, present and future. It will look at, not only mining and mineral resources, but will also include land and water, which received minimal coverage in the preliminary literature review findings. Finally, the panel will contribute to the understanding of the role of the private sector in conflict and post-conflict settings, particularly in terms of its contribution to natural resources governance and CSR policies.[1] This remains an under-studied field of research, and much could be gained from comparing and evaluating the different roles that the private sector played in natural resources governance.

Water and sanitation services often fall under public scrutiny. Issues related to effectiveness, efficiency, fairness and affordability of water charges, environmental protection and preservation, quality of service delivery, and conflict over alternative uses of scarce water resources – especially in the context of rapid urbanization and increasing agricultural activity – call for a dedicated effort from the side of public policy-makers to devise and implement effective regulatory systems. Yet, while the need for regulation of the water sector is widely acknowledged, less consensus exists on how exactly water and sanitation services should be regulated. This panel builds on the belief that regulation of water and sanitation services could be improved if greater attention is placed to the relationships between designing water regulation, evaluating present regulatory systems, and drawing lessons from actual regulatory regimes and their performance under particular historical and institutional settings. Accordingly, contributions to this panel are expected to investigate: 1) what are the principles that inform a successful and effective design of water regulation, how we can identify the actors and stakeholders relevant to the design, evaluate their information endowment, their incentives and the relationships between them 2) how features of the regulatory design help overcoming such issues as information asymmetries, regulatory capture, and under- or over-investment; 3) how we can assess the performance of installed regulatory regimes and what accounts for differential performance between alternative regulatory regimes; and 4) how policy-makers can learn from regulatory experiences and adjust the installed regulatory systems accordingly. If successful, the panel can result in original contributions to establish linkages between related parts of the regulatory policy cycle that are often subjected to specialised analytical attention only.

The panel takes stock of the implementation issues of green fiscal reforms (GFR) as a public policy approach to reduce environmental externalities, increase employment, stimulate technological and social innovation, and help fiscal consolidation at the macro scale (countries, economic regions). A specific focus is the possible employment effects of GFR and their interactions with employment policies. The papers will address these issues at the national or supranational level, with a specific attention to the barriers and opportunities emerging in the policy-making process. Specific topics will be the following: Macro-economic and macro-social implications of GFR Fiscal consolidation and GFR Expected employment effects of GFR and employment policies Institutional and policy-making barriers to merging GFR and employment policies Equity and income-distribution issues of GFR, in particular for households Economic, environmental and employment benefits from GFR Industrial stakeholders, lobbying and the policy-making process of GFR GFR and technological, organisational, and social innovation Papers can encompass different disciplinary perspectives, from economics to political and social sciences, and can present results emerging from different knowledge experiences, from academic research to policy-making advisory at the international and national level. A desirable attribute of the papers is the combination of analytical rigour and easy communicability of results to decision makers.

The governance of knowledge – generation, organisation, or dissemination – has now permeated all policy levels, from the local, national, regional to the global. These processes, however, are studied across diverse disciplines – science and higher education (policy) studies, international relations, comparative politics, sociology and organisational studies – often disconnected from one another. This is surprising given that there are at least three clear research foci they have in common. At the level of (i) discourse and ideas, attention is paid to whether, how, and why concepts such as excellence, globalism and regionalism, innovation, to name but a few, percolate into daily practices and how they are then weaved into the fabric of policies, organisations or systems. Similarly, these disciplines have in common their interests in how the dynamics of higher education, research and science have impacted (ii) the central organisations, i.e. universities and non-university research institutes, as well as the funding and regulatory agencies. Finally, there is also clear shared research interest in how such dynamics have affected (iii) groups and individuals as members of these organisations, e.g. asking whether and how the normalisation of universities or their global differentiation/isomorphism clash with the normative foundations of science as a profession/vocation or, even earlier, with the hitherto humanistic ideals of ‘socialising’ students by education. This panel invites researchers from across diverse disciplines to examine the multi-level governance of knowledge policies and politics, focusing on any of the above-mentioned dynamics as well as the role of actors in influencing them. Submitted papers should be clearly linked to one of the three sections – each addressing one of the three research foci identified. All accepted papers must have a clear conceptual approach, preferably supported by empirical examples beyond a single case study.

Around Europe, higher education systems are currently subject to profound changes. Various socio-economic challenges, in particular the emergence of the knowledge society, demographic developments, sluggish economic growth, and increased competitive pressures, have stimulated an array of reforms to contemporary higher education systems. In view of convergence-promoting processes such as the Bologna Process and the spread of New Public Management, domestic HE institutions are increasingly subject to competing visions of how university systems and institutions of higher education should be governed. We call for papers which address the tensions between pressures for change and historical legacies in higher education. The panel aims to advance the state of research on higher education governance on three fronts. First, participants are encouraged to develop systematic indicators to measure the degree and direction of policy change, e.g. regarding the institutional balance of power, funding, and personnel matters. For example, to what extent have higher education institutions become “marketized” and in what areas? How does current policy output match up with the historical foundations of higher education systems? Second, the panel aims to isolate factors driving policy change. Moving beyond the conventional assumption that Europeanization is the main catalyst, participants are encouraged to shed light on new underresearched explanatory factors, e.g. the financial crisis, rankings and domestic/international policy borrowing, student activism, or isomorphic pressures from supranational policy agendas. Third, the panel gives participants the opportunity to empirically trace such developments in country comparisons or “crucial case studies”, while focusing on the transformed role of the state and new forms of governmental intervention. Papers shall provide an analytical contribution by developing indicators of policy change, potentially with reference to previous classifications.

In late 1980s the world started to witness a rapid growth of inequality in most countries, which has been greatly fueled by deepening globalization, widening liberalization and widespread transitions in former socialist countries. The rapid rising level of inequality has become a major concern of governments, as it has exerted adverse economic and social effects on societies and led to instability. Therefore, understanding inequality, its moving pattern, growing trajectory and functioning mechanism is essential not only for scholars, but also for policymakers. Due to the uneven consequences of the recent global financial crisis, inequality has once again aroused considerable interests in both intellectual circle and policymaking arena. The panel welcomes review and research articles to address theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues arising from inequality studies at global level, regional level and national level. In particular, we welcome papers with a special focus on analyzing the inequality pattern during the financial crisis. The need for a better understanding of relations between the policies implemented and changes in inequalities, together with tools allowing policy makers to see the impact of their decisions is urgent. By focusing on different aspects of relations between policies, inequality, financial instability, labor markets, this panel is complementary in providing resources for more adequate policy response to the changing pattern of inequality in different social and political contexts.

Organised crime groups infiltrate into legitimate businesses in different ways with the aim of fulfilling a number of objectives including laundering of illicit proceeds, controlling the territory and the political elite, increasing profits, dismantling competitors and increasing the social consensus. In terms of public policy, there is the need to design more efficient policy tools to prevent and control these criminal phenomena. These include, for example, more precise measures to assess the risk of infiltration, money laundering and corruption across areas and processes, more effective regulation to recover criminal assets and a range of tools to successfully reintroduce confiscated assets back in the legitimate economy. Submissions discussing these issues from different academic perspectives (criminology, sociology, political economy, law) are welcome.

The panel on policing and security explores new challenges for policy-making and accountability in the field of policing and internal security. Beyond the “classical” conflict between security and civil liberties, a number of new challenges have made policy-making in this field more complex in recent years: Firstly, new security threats, especially those perceived after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Secondly, fast technological developments have changed societies’ communication habits, the economy’s dependence upon communication channels, and consequently, also changed the operative fields and methods of police and other security agencies. In reaction to newly perceived threats, even democratic countries have established technical capacities for surveillance that conflict with the limited role that states have customarily played in rule of law systems. Established boundaries between policy fields and the related public actors have been questioned by this process. This is especially true between internal and external security (police and military) as well as between the functions of police agencies and secret services. In parallel, policing and security tasks are becoming more diverse. Private security companies have developed to important actors in many countries, contributing to a “pluralisation of policing”. Digitalisation and new methods of surveillance have witnessed a decisive move forward. Prevention has become a core task, complementing the classical repressive functions of police and other security agencies. The aim of the panel is to open a forum for the discussion and exchange of empirical findings, theoretical arguments and methodological tools for the analysis of policy-making and accountability in the field of policing and internal security policy. Trans-disciplinary approaches and contributions taking a trans-border comparative perspective are most welcome in order to develop new approaches to comparative research into policing and security.