LIST OF PANELS

Africa is experiencing growth in critical policy scholars through publications and networks, but the rate is very low. The continent is dominated by technocratic rationalistic policy outlook of neoliberal governance and its associated policy implementation challenges (Boossabong, 2024). Departing from a rationalistic and technocratic orientation is to embrace critical epistemologies grounded in deliberative, argumentative, and discursive (policy framing). Promoting networks of scholars provide resources and interconnections for core critical policy studies in Africa who are interdisciplinary, problem oriented across specific sectors and countries. Moreover, there are few contributions on critical policy studies coming from Africa. Funke et al (2023) study environmental policy in South Africa. Cramer et al. (2024) study climate change in the pastoral systems in East Africa in the context of science-policy interface. Peters (2019) empirically conducted study in Angola on workforce in community development sector presenting implementation challenges arising from inadequate support and resources. Manga Edimo (2022) reviewed critical theory of ‘connectivity’ to explain the success and failure of liberal democratic repairs in the global south in which democracy was portrayed as a social struggle. Ayana, Vandenabeele, and Arts (2015) study forest governance in Ethiopia. Wood (2019) study was conducted on the regulatory policy of birth registration as a basic human right in the field of international development and global health. Others have contributed to the participatory turn inspired by evolutionary governance theory using evolving rural governance of the Ethiopian Agricultural extension systems observing dependencies and interdependencies (Leta, Kelboro, Van Assche, Stellmacher and Hornidge, 2019). Olanya, Pedersen, and Lassen (2021) study nature policy in Uganda. These contributions are skewed to Eastern and Southern Africa leaving out the rest of the continent. This panel contributes to the development of critical policy scholars in Africa by exploring platforms for emerging and young scholars who are interested in critical epistemologies in Africa.

References

Ayana, A. N., Vandenabeele, N., & Arts, B. (2015). Performance of participatory forest management in Ethiopia: institutional arrangement versus local practices. Critical Policy Studies, 11(1), 19–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2015.1024703

Boossabong, P. (2024). Mapping networks of critical policy studies. Critical Policy Studies, 18(2), 343–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2024.2345893.

Cramer, L., Dewulf, A., & Crane, T. (2024). Livestock and climate change frames and interaction strategies in East Africa: exploring tensions between adaptation and mitigation options. Critical Policy Studies, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2024.2331706

Funke, N., Huitema, D., & Petersen, A. (2022). Impending doom or unnecessary panic? The struggle for discursive hegemony in South Africa’s acid mine drainage policy problem. Critical Policy Studies, 17(2), 276–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2022.2092523

Lawrence, M., Homer-Dixon, T., Janzwood, S., Rockstöm, J., Renn, O., & Donges, J. F. (2024). Global polycrisis: the causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement. Global Sustainability, 7, e6.  https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2024.1

Leta, G., Kelboro, G., Van Assche, K., Stellmacher, T., & Hornidge, A. K. (2019). Rhetorics and realities of participation: the Ethiopian agricultural extension system and its participatory turns. Critical Policy Studies, 14(4), 388–407. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2019.1616212

Manga Edimo, R. M. (2022). Mending Democracy: Lessons from the Global South democracies? Critical Policy Studies, 16(2), 233–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2022.2032233

Olanya, D. R., Pedersen, A. G. J., & Lassen, I. (2021). Capitalizing on nature: a critical discourse study of nature policy concerning the Murchison Falls Conservation Area of Uganda. Critical Policy Studies, 16(4), 405–423. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2021.1999838

Peters, R. W. (2019). Front-line work and interpretive labor in an Angolan development program. Critical Policy Studies, 13(4), 414–431. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2019.1630658

Wood, S. (2019). The bureaucracy of birth registration in Tanzania. Critical Policy Studies, 13(4), 379–395. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2019.1672573

This panel encourages submission from deliberative, narrative, collaborative governance and local knowledge from situations in Africa in order to promote, develop and sustain collaborative networks in the different context and their discourses across the continent. It aims to link discussion on what is critical to the emerging issue of polycrises: pandemic and health, energy, social order and governance, security, food, migration, climate change, environment, and the emerging geopolitics in Africa (Lawrence et al. 2024). All these affect African economies directly or indirectly. The panel aims to create this space in order to understand the linkages between these polycrises by drawing lessons from the intersections between different trajectories across sectors and countries. Emerging critical policy research in Africa should connect polycrises in the various policy areas, or policy fields both at theoretical, methodological and empirical contexts. Here, the critical context relates to inter-disciplinary, problem-oriented and opening up complexity and suggesting alternatives during this age of polycrises in order to promote change using the following research questions: What are the different mechanisms underlying these polycrises and how can they be explored using critical policy approaches? How do polycrises help in understanding discourses for interdisciplinary, problem oriented and actionable based and ongoing venues for further research? The aim of this panel is to extend contributions of critical policy studies to the different sectors and scholars interested in critical epistemologies from the multiple polycrises.