LIST OF PANELS

The panel aims to bring authors and readers together in an open exploration of the way in which theory is used in the making and analysis of policy.  There are numerous books and journal special issues about policy and theory, but they do not always explain how they see the subject and why they address it in the way they do.  In this panel, the authors or editors of selected current texts will be invited to state how they see policy process theory, and how they chose to address it in their book, and a selection of readers, with varying relationships to the policy process and its analysis, will be invited to review these books the ways in which, and the extent to which, they found them useful in advancing their understanding of the policy process.

The panel is semi-structured, in that three current books on policy process theory have been identified and their authors/editors have agreed to participate. They are:

Paul Cairney (Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues – Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)

Chris Weible  (Theories of the Policy Process, Westview, 4th ed., with Paul Sabatier, 2017)

Hal K, Colebatch (Handbook on Policy, Process and Governing, Edward Elgar, with Rob Hoppe, 2018)

A diverse panel of readers is now being assembled.  The panel can be further diversified by the additional of additional texts on policy theory, or additional readers, or both.  The Call for Papers will be used to invite this additional participation.

There are now numerous books and special issues addressed to ‘policy theory,’ but they address the subject in different ways, and the authors/editors do not always see it as necessary to explain why they have chosen the approach that they have taken.  But there has emerged a ‘normal framework’ for the exposition of ‘policy (process) theory’, in which a number of discrete theories are identified from the academic literature, and their approach to policy, and the use made of them in analysis, is discussed in turn, often by different authors. 

This has been useful as a register of academic discourse, but there are many questions which may not get the attention that they deserve.  One is the basic question of what is meant by policy, and what makes policy activity a process.  Then there is the question which is raised by the coexistence of these discrete theories: how do they relate to one another ?  Do they offer alternative explanations of the same policy setting, or does the analysis of different policy situations call for different theories of the policy process ?  Or are the different theoretical approaches focusing on different aspects of the same practice ?    Should the focus of attention be on discrete ‘theories’, or on the activity which produces them (‘theorising’) ?  If the latter, is this simply an academic activity, or does the practice of policy itself  involve theorising ?

This panel is organised on the assumption that it would be useful – intellectually interesting and professionally constructive – for both writers and readers of the policy literature to address these questions.  The panel is semi-structured, in that three current books on policy process theory have been identified and their authors/editors have agreed to participate. They are:

Paul Cairney (Understanding Public Policy: Theories and Issues – Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)

Chris Weible  (Theories of the Policy Process, Westview, 4th ed., with Paul Sabatier, 2017)

Hal K, Colebatch (Handbook on Policy, Process and Governing, Edward Elgar, with Rob Hoppe, 2018)

A diverse panel of readers is now being assembled. Contributions are invited from conference participants who may wish to address these or related questions, or to proposed additional of additional texts on policy theory, or additional readers, or both.  Those wishing to contribute should respond to this call for papers with a brief statement (500 words) indicating what aspect of the topic you wish to address, and the perspective(s) (intellectual approach, academic situation, professional involvement, or personal experience) on which you will be drawing.  This will help to make this an appropriately-diverse and well-informed discussion.