LIST OF WORKSHOPS

1.  Rationale

The conceptual foundations of public policy owe an enormous debt to Michael Howlett’s scholarship. Over the course of four decades, his work has bridged theoretical traditions, integrating comparative public policy research with Canadian public administration and political economy. He has consistently insisted that concepts in policy analysis and public administration theory must be defined not only clearly but causally—that they should describe mechanisms and relationships, not merely categories. This emphasis on conceptual discipline enabled the conduct of systematic analyses of policy instruments, policy and administrative capacity, advisory systems, and design, while also positioning policy studies within broader debates about causation, explanation, and policy change.

Howlett’s research has been characterized by two interrelated projects. The first is a conceptual project, focused on building coherent typologies and taxonomies of institutions and policy phenomena. The second is a causal project, concerned with how those typologies relate to processes of policy formulation, implementation, and change. Together, these projects have strengthened the analytical foundations of public policy research by linking conceptual precision to causal explanation.

2.  Intellectual Trajectory

Early in his career, Howlett examined the political economy of staples, province-building, paradigms, and policy styles in Canada, showing how nested multi-level institutions shaped development and resource governance. This work linked structural factors to policy outcomes, laying a foundation for his later theorization of policy capacity and design.

His subsequent research developed a set of analytical building blocks—policy instruments, mixes, and designs—that allow scholars to identify the causal architecture of policy systems. Through the comparative study of instrument choice, he demonstrated how governments use specific tools to translate abstract goals into action and how the internal logic of those tools constrains future policy options. These insights underpin today’s literature on policy design and policy feedback.

Equally influential is his work on policy paradigms, subsystems, networks, and advisory systems, which sheds light on how ideas, institutions, and actors interact across levels of governance and in multi-actor settings. Each framework reveals a different dimension of causation—from micro-level decision processes to macro-level learning and change—while maintaining analytical coherence through typological reasoning.

3.  Relevance to Current Debates

In recent years, there has been a renewed focus on causal mechanisms in public policy research. Scholars are increasingly seeking to identify the pathways that link policy design to policy output and outcomes, but this effort relies on clear conceptual definitions. The development of the policy capacity framework, for instance, has provided theoretical insights across various institutional contexts, helping to understand whether the different actors involved—both individually and collectively—possess the necessary competencies and skills to meet these challenges and produce effective policies. In this context, Howlett emphasizes that concepts must accurately reflect causal processes, which anticipated this methodological shift. His approach to typology, which is based on logical differentiation and functional reasoning, remains crucial for specifying mechanisms and relationships within complex policy systems.

Howlett's comparative approach made it clear how mid-range concepts—such as instruments, mixes, and capacity—connect to larger theories of policy design and change. By drawing on insights from Canadian political economy and expanding them through cross-national analysis, he demonstrated how conceptual frameworks can link empirical insights to broader explanations. The workshop will examine how this methodology continues to influence research on policy instruments, design, and capacity in the face of uncertainty and transformation.

4.  Workshop Objectives and Questions

The workshop seeks to synthesize and extend Howlett’s contributions by addressing questions such as:

(1)  How have Howlett’s conceptual frameworks clarified causal relationships within the policy process?

(2)  What lessons does his typological approach offer for current mechanism-based research?

(3)  How do his theories of instruments, capacity, and design connect to broader patterns of policy stability and change?

(4)  How might his conceptual vocabulary guide new generations of policy scholars working on design, policy feedbacks, and learning?

The workshop will combine conceptual reflection with empirically grounded inquiry, featuring papers that apply and extend Howlett’s frameworks across areas including climate and energy policy, crisis management, science and innovation systems, collaborative governance and intergovernmental coordination, among others.

5.  Structure and Expected Outcomes

The workshop will consist of five thematic sessions:

(1)  Paradigms, Policy Change and Policy Capacity: Ideas, learning, institutional evolution and policy capacity in action.

(2)  Subsystems and Networks: Causal architectures of multi-level and collaborative governance.

(3)  Policy Instruments, Policy Design and Causation: Linking design choices to behavioral and collaborative mechanisms.

(4)  Advisory Systems and Executive Styles: How governments decide.

(5)  Conceptual Futures: From typologies to causal theories in policy research.

Anticipated participants include leading and emerging scholars from Canada, Europe, and Asia who have built upon or engaged with Howlett’s frameworks.

The workshop’s outcomes will include a special issue or edited volume on “The Conceptual Foundations of Public Policy,” providing a cohesive reflection on Howlett’s intellectual legacy and its relevance to contemporary theory. By foregrounding his enduring contribution to conceptual rigour, the workshop will also contribute to IPPA’s broader aim of strengthening the methodological foundations of policy studies.

We invite paper proposals for a workshop honoring the scholarship and legacy of Michael Howlett, whose conceptual and comparative work has shaped how policy scholars think about causation. The workshop, to be held at IWPP5 (Carleton University, July 2026), will explore how conceptual clarity underpins causal explanation in public policy and how Howlett’s approach and frameworks continue to guide policy research.

The workshop will be held in a hybrid format both online and onsite contributions are welcome. 

Submissions are welcome from scholars examining conceptual, theoretical, or empirical questions related to:

-Policy instruments, capacity, and design

-Policy paradigms, policy styles, subsystems, networks, and collaborative governance

-Causal mechanisms and typological reasoning

-Advisory systems and executive governance

We particularly encourage contributions that link conceptual development with causal explanation—for instance, analyses that use Howlett’s frameworks to identify mechanisms of policy learning, feedback, capacity or adaptation in specific sectors or jurisdictions. Comparative and interdisciplinary approaches are strongly encouraged.

Key questions include:

-How can typologies serve as tools for identifying causal mechanisms?

-How are Howlett’s conceptual innovations connected to current debates about design and feedback?

-How do his Canadian political-economy insights illuminate broader patterns of policy evolution?

The workshop aims to foster dialogue between established and emerging scholars and to develop a shared research agenda on conceptualization and causation in public policy and administration. Selected papers will form the basis of a proposed special issue or edited volume devoted to Howlett’s intellectual legacy and its implications for the next generation of policy analysis.

Please submit abstracts (?500 words) outlining theoretical focus, methods, and contribution to the workshop themes.

tThis workshop reflects on the scholarship of Michael Howlett, whose conceptual and analytical innovations have defined the contemporary study of public policy. Few scholars have contributed more to clarifying how the field thinks about causation—how concepts represent variables and how those variables relate to processes of policy change. From his early analyses of Canadian political economy to his internationally influential work on policy instruments, capacity, and design, Howlett has consistently sought to bring conceptual precision and causal coherence to the study of public policy.

The workshop will explore three broad themes: (1) Howlett’s role in shaping the conceptual foundations of public policy; (2) the continuing relevance of his typological reasoning for causal mechanism research; and (3) the interconnections among his work on Canadian political economy, his comparative analyses of policy design and capacity, and his theoretical contributions on paradigms and policy styles.

Bringing together scholars from comparative, Canadian, and theoretical traditions, the workshop examines how conceptual clarity enables stronger causal explanation in public policy. It will assess how Howlett’s frameworks—spanning policy instruments, design, capacity, paradigms, and policy styles—continue to shape contemporary research agendas and provide tools for analyzing policy development, change, and stability in diverse institutional settings. The discussions are expected to inform a collaborative publication that synthesizes these insights and outlines new directions for conceptual and causal inquiry in public policy.

Mattia Casula is currently an Associate Professor in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Bologna. His research interests and publications focus on trends in public administration reforms, the management of public services, and the implementation dynamics in various multi-level and multi-actor organizational settings. Former member of the Executive Committees of the Regional Studies Association and the Italian Political Science Association, he is currently an Associate Editor for "Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research", the "Journal of Public Affairs", the "Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice", "Policy Design and Practice"; and, a member of the Editorial Board of "Local Government Studies". He is the recipient of the 2025 Early Career Research Award of the International Public Policy Association.

Grace Skogstad is Professor Emerita of Political Science at the University of Toronto. A past President of the International Public Policy Association (2019–22) and current member of its Executive Committee, she has long been a leading figure in Canadian and comparative public-policy scholarship. Her research examines policy paradigms, federalism, agriculture, and governance, with a focus on how ideas and institutions interact in shaping policy outcomes. Her books include Policy Paradigms, Transnationalism and Domestic Politics (University of Toronto Press), Internationalization and Canadian Agriculture: Policy and Governing Paradigms (UTP), Policy Success in Canada (Oxford University Press, co-edited), and Canadian Federalism: Performance, Effectiveness and Legitimacy (UTP, four editions). Her recent work focuses on how policy design, multidimensional ideas, and feedback mechanisms interact across levels of government.

Matt Wilder is a political-economy and public-policy specialist whose research deals with governance surrounding innovation, productivity, distribution, and trade. He obtained his PhD (2019) from the University of Toronto, where he examined Canadian industrial policy through a comparative lens. From 2020–2021, he was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Government at Harvard University, where he analyzed international knowledge flows using natural-language processing of patent data. Matt is currently a Research Advisor at Employment and Social Development Canada, Assistant Professor (Status Only) at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and Lecturer at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He also serves as Principal Investigator of the Canadian Agendas Project, part of the international Comparative Agendas Project network. His research and teaching connect comparative political economy with policy analysis, focusing on how ideas, institutions, and technological change interact in processes of innovation and adaptation.