e-Summer Schools

This e-atelier focuses on how to study Policy Processes by mobilising different qualitative perspectives, from Constructivist to Pragmatic Approaches. Its main objective is to identify and discuss how we can empirically and methodologically grasp the policy process by observing and defining the struggles around the problem but also around the meaning of proposed solutions. Special attention will be paid to the building of coalitions, existing powerful dimensions, and the solutions to the different challenges encountered along their path. During the E-Atelier, each participant will present his/her research project focusing on policy process and will be discussed by the group.

The focus of this e-Atelier is on the way through which policies change with a specific analytical emphasis on whether and how different theoretical frameworks (theories of institutional change, advocacy coalitions, punctuated equilibrium framework, multiple stream approach, etc.) set together actors, causal drivers and eventually mechanisms.

This e-atelier is dedicated to doctoral students and post-docs. We will discuss the concept of policy learning, how we identify learning empirically, and the different modes in which political actors, bureaucracies, and societies learn. We will then examine how policy learning is possible under situations dominated by wicked problems and crisis, that is, learning within a crisis (when decisions have to be taken in a short time) and between a crisis and the next. Empirically, we will examine the crisis of the Eurozone, the COVID-19 crisis and the Brexit process.

This e-atelier will focus on the circulation of policy models through transfer or diffusion which has been of rapidly growing interest in the field, at least since Richard Rose’s Lesson Drawing in Public Policy (1993), and accelerating as the pace of globalization and global public policy quickened (see Hadjiisky, M., Pal, L. A., & Walker, C. (eds.). Public Policy Transfer: Micro-Dynamics and Macro-Effects (2017). What actually circulates, why, how, by whom, and to what effect are some of the key questions we will be addressing, along with newer themes that push the research agenda into fresh spaces (see “Novas fronteiras e direções na pesquisa sobre transferência, difusão e circulação de políticas públicas: agentes, espaços, resistência e traduções – “New frontiers and directions in policy transfer, diffusion and circulation research: agents, spaces, resistance, and translations)”, (with O. Porto de Oliveira) Revista de Administração Pública, 52(2), (2018) 199-220. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/0034- 761220180078). Students completing Ph.D. research on a theme related to policy transfer are invited to participate. The atelier will briefly review the literature and recent themes (including the impact of the pandemic), but engage mostly with student presentations and commentary to support their research agenda.

This Atelier will cover the basic issues of design, such as the analysis of policy problems, the selection of instruments, the evaluation of outcomes, and the selection of intervention strategies. The discussion will also focus to some extent on "new" collaborative forms of designing.

Living in a world of rules is a conversation with the IPPA audience on why we study regulatory policy and why it matters. Regulations save lives, help communities to manage crises, and protect the environment but bad rules can also stymie growth and trigger corruption. And yet, what is a good rule, and good for whom? In this e-talk Professor Radaelli explains the motivation for our social scientific interest in regulatory reform. Then this scientific interest should lead us to regulatory encounters with the real world of regulatory guillotines, regulatory czars, regulatory management and international organizations that promote reform and management of public rules. This lecture is also an opportunity to share with you some thoughts on how, project after project, Professor Radaelli came to reflect on his own perspective and engagement with regulatory reform. "I live in a world of rules as a citizen, as policy analyst who leads on research programmes, but also as a researcher whose knowledge, findings and narratives contribute to the debate on what regulatory reform is, should be and who should benefit from it."

This e-Talk will discuss why governments continue to use policy ideas to guide their decisions, even when those ideas have been demonstrated to have little validity. We will examine the persistence of failed ideas and the lack of success of more promising ideas in a number of settings. These sessions will be co-hosted with Max Nagel from Zeppelin University in Germany.

This e-Talk will discuss why access to affordable and clean water has remained a challenge globally. Most states in Africa states have championed the provision of water to its citizens through state-driven approaches. Despite the evidence that community water supply has contributed positively more than any other single approach to the provision of water supply in Africa, it is still regarded as an informal approach. Most states in Africa still prefer other conventional approaches like Concession and Affermage in Francophone Africa and Commercialization through Management contracts in Anglophone Africa at the expense of the community water management. Either the state has not used the right approach or has neglected the community. Using evidence from Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Ghana and Nigeria, the paper has argued that the failure by the governments to acknowledge the disconnect between the community needs and state priorities has been responsible for the poor state of water provision in Africa.

The idea of this e-talk is to present and have discussion around the book "The political Process of PolicyMaking" published in 2014. The book analyses the public policymaking process focusing on how governments relentlessly develop proposals to change public policy to address insoluble problems. Rather than considering this surprising Sisyphean effort as a lack of rationality, the author examines it as a political activity that produces order and stability.

In this e-Workshop Professor Radaelli will share his experience as an author in the field of research design and researcher leading on several empirical research projects. How do we choose a topic? What is the difference between a claim and an argument? What is the role of theory in a project? How do I know if I am leaving something out? How can we address the questions of ‘so what’ an ‘who cares about this project’? I will not talk about methods but rather about the construction of a research project.

The aim of this e-Workshop is to provide first-year Ph.D. students with an overview of how to conduct and analyse qualitative research (such as interviews, comparative work, ethnography, document analysis) and apply it to their research.

This e-Workshop will be an overview of how to identify appropriate topics; linking the topic with research objectives and research questions; concept formations, typologies, and causal mechanisms; methods and techniques; literature review and designing research.