LIST OF PANELS

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.

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 aim of the panel is to bring scholars together who - based on strong contributions reflecting the state of the art - discuss potential further developments of theories of the policy process that can help to overcome weaknesses in the existing literature.