LIST OF PANELS

Since the publication of Wu, Ramesh and Howlett’s (2015; 2018) seminal paper and the edited volume, the multi-dimensional and multi-level framework of policy capacity has proved to be a useful lens through which to understand the effectiveness of policy design and delivery (Mukherjee et al. 2021). The usefulness of this framework has been demonstrated in three distinct ways: diagnostic (in the sense of examining capacity deficits), prescriptive (suggesting a normative, functional-institutional outlook of policy systems), and/or modelistic (testing and revising the individual capacity elements) (Yan et al. forthcoming). Despite its widespread use, a theoretical challenge faced by the literature of policy capacity is yet to be aptly tackled. That is, it remains an unfinished project to identify and delimit “the proper place of policy capacity among alternative theories of policy outcomes” (Brenton et al. 2023, 308). Put differently, policy capacity framework should be employed beyond its diagnostic, prescriptive, and/or modelistic use to also scrutinise the role and impact of policy capacity at various levels in understanding policy process outcomes and policy change/statis.

Such understanding has long been accumulated through the developments in the theories of policy process. Early theories such as IAD, MSF, PET, ACF, Policy Transfer and Diffusion, Policy Feedback, Policy Regimes, NPF are traditionally concerned with understanding “which governmental policies get formulated and implemented, as well as the effects of those actions on the world” (Sabatier 1991, 148). Developed, refined and applied to numerous areas and policy sectors over the years (e.g., social identity, policy conflict, institutional grammar), these frameworks have significantly expanded our theoretical and empirical horizons regarding the “complex interactions involving people and organizations, events, contexts, and outcomes over time” (Weible 2023: 1). However, the heterogeneity of the frameworks, theories and concepts indicate the field’s “infancy” in its theoretical consolidation “and may yet be subject to tantrums and teething troubles” (Heikkila and Cairney 2018, 383).

Linking policy process theories with emerging concepts like policy capacity has the potential to both extend the utilisation of the policy capacity framework and help overcome the pitfall of the policy process theories. Despite that, little efforts have been made for these concepts to speak to each other. To illustrate, we tend to treat policy entrepreneurship without much emphasis on the policy entrepreneurs’ individual capacity resources, along with organisational and/or systemic resources from which they might be benefitting to materialise policy changes. Likewise, sense-making of why and how programmatic action or collective institutional action could (not) be successful or effective can be limited when the mediating role of policy capacity is insufficiently appreciated and elucidated. The lack of such a dialogue is in contrast to the recent linkages of policy transfer and policy capacity (Porto de Oliveria and Koga 2023), policy entrepreneurship and policy process theories (Petridou and Mintrom 2020) and political economy and policy process theories (John 2018).

In this regard, this panel proposes to address this missing link and the theoretical challenge by facilitating a much-needed dialogue between the policy capacity literature and the established theories of the policy process and their recent refinements and encouraging the exploration of such connections. With this, we seek to address the theoretical challenge the policy capacity framework faces and incorporate policy capacity within the theories of policy process to better understand the capacity requisites of policy change/stasis. The more complete and holistic understanding thus generated will be of great value in both improving the relevant theories and informing policy practices.

The aim of this panel is to encourage, facilitate, and provide a platform to explore the much-needed dialogue between the policy capacity and policy process research, so that the respective gaps within each can be filled by drawing on and incorporating the novel insights from one another. This, in turn, can engender a more complete and holistic understanding of the policy process, outputs, and outcomes, and can address the theoretical challenge the policy capacity framework faces and incorporate policy capacity within the theories of policy process to better understand the capacity requisites of policy change/stasis.

To this aim, we invite scholars from diverse geographical backgrounds and methodological orientations to problematise and scrutinise how the following non-exhaustive list of questions can be addressed in a way that advances our understanding of the linkages between the policy capacity framework and the theories of policy process:

-        How can bridging process theories and policy capacity framework help us better understand capacity deficits or requisites that might be causing long-term policy stability, which may require capacity-building efforts over time to address the stalemate?

-        Considering the heuristic value of policy stages, Mukherjee et al. (2021) noted the possibility of an ‘order’ of capacities. How could this be linked to the stages? How may policy capacity requisities vary, or are there different sets of capacities necessary for different stages in the policy cycle?

-        How can mainstream or more recent actor- institution-, ideas-oriented theorisations of policy change shed light on the drivers and mechanisms of the formation, consolidation or mutation of policy capacity?

-        How can we employ, mobilise theories of policy process to make sense of policy capacity as a dependent or an independent variable to expand our understanding of the role of policy capacity in outcomes or outputs of the policy process?

References

Brenton, S., Baekkeskov, E. and Hannah, A., 2023. Policy capacity: Evolving theory and missing links. Policy Studies, 44(3), pp.297-315.

Heikkila, T. and Cairney, P., 2018. Comparison of theories of the policy process. In Theories of the policy process (pp. 301-327). Routledge.

John, Peter. John. 2018. Theories of policy change and variation reconsidered: A prospectus for the political economy of public policy. Policy Sciences 51:1, pages 1-16.

Mukherjee, Ishani, M. Kerem Coban, Azad S. Bali. 2021. Policy capacities and effective policy design: A review. Policy Sciences 54:2, pages 243-268.

Petridou, Evangelia, and Michael Mintrom. 2020. A research agenda for the study of policy entrepreneurs. Policy Studies Journal 49:4, pages 943-967.

Petridou, E., 2014. Theories of the policy process: contemporary scholarship and future directions. Policy Studies Journal, 42, pp. S12-S32.

Porto de Oliveira, O. and Massaco Koga, N., 2023. Policy transfer capacity: The role of individuals, organizations and systems on the adoption and internationalization of policy instruments. Administrative Theory & Praxis, 45(2), pp.81-99.

Sabatier, P.A., 1991. Toward better theories of the policy process. PS: Political Science & Politics, 24(2), pp.147-156.

Weible, Chris. 2023. Introduction: The scope and focus of policy process research and theories. In C. Weible (ed.), Theories of the policy Process, 5th. ed. Pages, 1-25. Routledge.

Wu, Xun, M. Ramesh, and Michael Howlett. 2015. Policy capacity: A conceptual framework for understanding policy competences and capabilities. Policy and Society 34:3-4, pages 165-171.

Wu, Xun, M. Ramesh, and Michael Howlett. (eds). 2018. Policy capacity: Conceptual framework and essential components. Springer.

Yan, Yifei, Kidjie I. Saguin, and M. Kerem Coban. forthcoming. Policy capacity in the Global South: Linking theory and empirics. Public Administration and Development.