LIST OF PANELS

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.

The panel aims at exploring the potential of using causal mechanisms in the policy sciences. This is a vastly diffused concept, which received some attention across several disciplines, but which have not entered the toolkit of policy analysis yet. The goal of the panel is to start a debate on the prospects for application and the possible advantages of mechanisms in the policy sciences. It aims at gathering scholars from different subfields granting the widest possible perspective, in so exploring the use of the concept into design, implementation and evaluation. Notwithstanding such general focus, the panel starts with the hypothesis that the concept can be of specific value for producing policy knowledge directly relevant to practitioners. In this respect, the theory-practice link is an underlying topic of the focus on causal mechanisms.   There is a vast literature on mechanisms, encompassing several disciplines. The concept has diffused from natural sciences to sociology (Elster 1983), behavioral economy (Bowles and Gintis 2011), political science (Tilly 2001; Falleti and Lynch, 2009), the organizational and managerial sciences (Bardach 2004; Barzelay 2007) and policy evaluation (Pawson and Tilley, 1997). To the detriment of clarity, such diffusion has produced many contrasting meanings and some ‘old wine in new bottles’ (Mayntz 2004, Gerring 2010). Almost all proponents in sociology and political science agree with a basic definition, according to which a mechanism is a mid-range theory explaining how inputs are related to outcomes (Hedstrom and Swedberg 1998). Unfortunately, agreements stop here and such definition produces rather stretched and ambiguous uses. In this respect, the first question to be explored in the panel regards whether mechanisms are only a useful metaphor for going beyond co-variations or they have a more specific operational meaning. Attention here is devoted to theoretical elaborations addressing applicability and the production of usable knowledge. The second issue regards the scope of possible applications. Are there specific topics in the policy sciences – e.g. policy design, decision, implementation and evaluation – where the concept is more apt to be useful? Policy evaluation is one subfield where realistic approaches are making a profitable use of the concept and where applications are more developed (Pawson and Tilley 1997). Policy implementation has been proposed as one further way to be explored (Busetti, Dente, Melloni 2013). Going deeper into such investigation is the second major topic of the panel. Finally, as a concept addressing causation, we expect mechanisms to have relevance in cross-sectoral applications and to several kinds of policies. As a general reference, mechanisms in policy analysis will have to do with causal properties of actors, institutions and designed features of policy programmes. This grants a level of abstraction possibly able to find the same mechanism (e.g. naming and shaming) across different policies (e.g. education, health, etc.). This suggests the hypothesis of a manageable number of mechanisms to work as a guide for policy analysts across different sectors. By inviting applications to any kind of policy, the collective result of the panel will be a first exploration of this third issue.