LIST OF PANELS

Whether concerning the siting of wind turbine parks, solar panel estates, and shelters for refugees, or governmental strategies to deal with the covid-19 pandemic, public policies generate contentious responses from the wider public. While policy conflicts prevail, policy scholars and political scientists mostly treat policy conflict as a background concept (Weible and Heikkila 2017). However, there is a recent upsurge in scholarly work coming from different approaches (Weible and Heikkila 2017, Wolf and Van Dooren, 2018, Laws and Forester 2015, Verhoeven and Metze 2022). Various authors have started to theorize the dynamics at play in conflicts. For example, Weible and Heikkila (2017) theorize intensity of policy conflicts, Wolf (2021) and Wolf and van Dooren (2017, 2018) study how evidence, procedural choices and stereotyped labels feed into escalation processes, while Verhoeven and Metze (2022) look into how emotional storylines play a role in the escalation of policy conflicts. Even so, static approaches that for instance seek to explain conflict by looking into what frames, beliefs, or values collide, dominate. Therefore, our knowledge of how policy conflicts develop and what this means for working through conflict remains relatively scant.
 
We are interested, not so much in explaining conflict through collision, but in understanding how the collision develops and the ensuing conflict plays out. To develop dynamic explanations of conflict, we can build on recent work that looks at (strategic) interactions between actors involved in policy conflicts (Verhoeven et al. 2022, Verhoeven 2020, Wolf and van Dooren 2017, Metze and Dodge 2016, Dodge and Metze 2017, Laws and Forester 2015, Verloo 2015). These (strategic) interactions contain many elements that contribute to escalation, stalemate or de-escalation of policy conflicts.
 
To deepen knowledge of policy conflict dynamics, it seems productive to bring together scholars from mainstream public policy studies and interpretative policy studies to engage in a productive dialogue as called for by Durnova and Weible (2020). We believe that such a productive dialogue can contribute to the development of an analytic vocabulary that allows for a richer understanding of the dynamics of policy conflicts and the elements that influence these dynamics. Such a dialogue can also contribute to exchanges on research techniques and on integrative research.
 
To summarize, the aims of this panel are twofold:
1) Develop dynamic explanations to understand how policy conflicts evolve and which elements play a role in these processes
2) Bring together scholars from different approaches to create an analytic vocabulary that allows for a richer understanding of policy conflict dynamics

Guided by these aims, we want to address three overarching questions:
1) How can we understand the (strategic) interactions of actors involved in policy conflicts  

    over time?
2) Which elements influence these (strategic) interactions?
3) What kind of analytical vocabulary can we develop to capture such (strategic) interactions

    and the elements that influence them?

Literature
Dodge, J., and Metze, T. (2017). Hydraulic fracturing as an interpretive policy problem:

  Lessons on energy controversies in Europe and the U.S.A. Journal of Environmental Policy

  & Planning, 19(1), 1–13.
Durnova, A., and Weible, C. (2020). Tempest in a teapot? Towards new collaborations

  between mainstream policy process studies and interpretive policy studies. Policy Sciences,

  53(3), 571–588.
Laws, D. & J. Forester (2015). Conflict, improvisation, governance. Street level practices for

  urban democracy. New York: Routledge.
Metze, T., and Dodge, J. (2016). Dynamic discourse coalitions on hydro-fracking in Europe

  and the United States. Environmental Communication, 10(3), 1–15.
Verhoeven, I. (2020). Contentious governance around climate change measures in the

  Netherlands. Environmental Politics, 30(3), 376-398.
Verhoeven, I. and Metze, T., (2022). Heated policy: policy actors’ emotional storylines and

  conflict escalation, Policy Sciences, 55, 223-237.
Verhoeven, I., Spruit, S., Van de Grift, E., and Cuppen, E. (2022). Contentious governance  

  of wind energy planning: strategic dilemmas in collaborative resistance by local

  governments and citizen action groups, Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning,

  https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2021.2023354
Verloo, N. (2015). Negotiating urban conflict: conflicts as opportunity for urban democracy.

  Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.
Weible, C. M., and Heikkila, T. (2017). Policy conflict framework. Policy Sciences, 50(1), 23-

  40.
Wolf, E. E. A., and Van Dooren, W. (2017). How policies become contested: A spiral of

  imagination and evidence in a large infrastructure project. Policy Sciences, 50(3), 449-468.
Wolf, E. E., and Van Dooren, W. (2018). Conflict reconsidered: The boomerang effect of

  depoliticization in the policy process. Public Administration, 96(2), 286-301.
Wolf, Eva Elizabeth Anne (2021). Dismissing the “vocal minority”: How policy conflict

  escalates when policymakers label resisting citizens. Policy Studies Journal, 49(2), 640-

  663.

For this panel we invite scholars from mainstream and interpretive public policy studies to come together and inspire new avenues of research on the dynamics of policy conflicts. We warmly welcome papers by Ph.D. students but also by more experienced researchers.
 
We welcome theoretical and empirical papers that focus on 1) the (strategic) interactions between governmental organizations, citizens, NGOs, businesses, social movements and the media; 2) study elements that influence policy conflicts dynamics such as knowledge, emotions, strategic considerations, time, events, policy settings, and what else comes to mind; 3) seek to develop new concepts, theoretical notions and methodological approaches that help to build and further develop an analytical vocabulary to the study of policy conflict dynamics.
 
Papers can cover, but should not be limited to, substantive topics such as climate change, energy, migration, diversity and belonging, work and employment, welfare, or social inequality.
 
These are just indications of the kinds of submissions that might contribute to conversations about the dynamics of policy conflict. Paper proposals on other topics in line with our call are very much welcomed.