How diverse and inclusive are policy process theories?

Numerous published efforts have compared and contrasted policy process theories. Few assessments, however, have examined the extent to which they are inclusive or diverse. Here we summarise lessons from previous assessments, paying attention to how Paul Sabatier’s science-based criteria have shaped the contours of the field. In looking at these contours, we explore evidence of diversity and inclusivity of policy process approaches in terms of methods, concepts, topics, geography and authors. We conclude with strategies to address challenges revealed by our examination: creating space for conversations among scholars of differing perspectives and approaches; building sustained and meaningful efforts to recruit and train researchers with diverse backgrounds; establishing research coordination networks that focus on policy problems; and creating better metrics to assess our diversity and inclusivity.

The implications of COVID-19 for concepts and practices of citizenship

Based on a review of citizenship and citizen participation in politics and policy studies, this article reveals diverse concepts of citizens and citizenship and their changing roles within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It argues that the pandemic will result in bringing citizens back into the policy process, given that active participation of citizens in solving wicked social problems has been emphasised. Our results suggest that the pandemic will result in a return of public citizens as their voluntary, active participation and coproduction practices are expected to increase.

Conceptualising policy design in the policy process

The study of policy design has been of long-standing interest to policy scholars. Recent surveys of policy design scholarship acknowledge two main pathways along which it has developed; one in which the process of policy designing is emphasised and one in which the output of this policy designing process – for example, policy content – is emphasised. As part of a survey of extant research, this article discusses how scholars guided by different orientations to studying policy design are addressing and measuring common policy design concepts and themes, and offers future research opportunities. The article also provides a platform for considering how insights stemming from different orientations of policy design research can be integrated and mapped within the broader public policy process. Finally, the article raises the question of whether a framework that links different conceptualisations of policy design within the policy process might help to advance the field.

Robust, resilient, agile and improvisatory styles in policymaking: the social organisation of anomaly, risk and policy decay

This theory development article employs neo-Durkheimian institutional theory to present a fresh understanding of policy styles in the policy process. Calls for resilient, robust, agile and improvisatory policymaking are not readily compatible with each other. Each of these styles carries risks and each generates anomalies. Each tends to decay over time. Governments should therefore expect risks of inconsistency and decay in policymaking shaped by these styles. The article argues that these styles, and their risks and tensions, and the trajectories of their decay all arise from the contrasting forms of informal social organisation among policymakers in which they are cultivated. These forms of social organisation give rise to distinct types of bounded rationality, which shape decision-making differently in each ordering.

Orphan Implementations of Public Policy for Conflict-Oriented Issues

This paper aims to broaden our understanding of public policy characterized by issues of non-consensus. The idea of flexible, independent administrative decision-making for a conflict-oriented policy-type is addressed in terms of chronological constructions of policy process. Distributions of limited resources are a source of public contention likely to draw ambiguous high-level policy decisions that lack practical administrative directives. Conflicting institutional, professional and stakeholder influences, at various levels of policy processes, illuminate circumstances fostering implementations incongruent with politically motivated macro-declarations. Yet, this does not necessarily represent failed policy. A reevaluation of administrative systems, by critical deconstruction of the dominant top-down discourse, provides a frame of reference for valid divergent implementations. A conceptual progression from field-level interpretation and adaptation of macro policy, initiatory orphan implementations emerge as policy itself. This revised bottom-up modality of the policy process implies a working balance of combined outputs, providing equitable outcome to serve largescale public interest.

The administrative state in food policymaking: a fait accompli

PurposeThis paper analyzes scholarly literature and the development of a nonstate food strategy in Canada, the Conference Board of Canada's Canadian Food Strategy, to explore the role of the administrative state in food policymaking.Design/methodology/approachThis research is based on an exploratory case study drawing data from 38 semistructured interviews, including elite interviews. It also draws on policy documents from the nonstate food strategy.FindingsThis paper shows that various nonstate actors, including large food industry players, identify a role for the state in food policy in two ways: as a “conductor,” playing a managing role in the food policy process, and as a “commander,” taking control of policy development and involving nonstate actors when necessary. The complex and wicked aspects of food policy require the administrative state's involvement in food policymaking, while tamer aspects of food policy may be less state-centric.Originality/valueThis paper fills gaps in studies exploring food policymaking processes as well as the administrative state's role in food policymaking in a governance era. It contributes to a better understanding of the state's role in complex and wicked policy domains.

Health Policy/Systems: Overview and History

This article describes the complex healthcare policy and financing systems in the US within a historic and political context for how the US arrived at these systems. It also provides an overview of frameworks useful for articulating how social work may have an increased influence on policies impacting the healthcare system along with specific arenas ripe for social work interventions towards healthcare system improvements. Social workers have the obligation, through the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, and the requisite skills, to participate in the healthcare policy process ensuring that they not only have a place at policy making tables, but that members of communities impacted by these policies have an opportunity to assist in setting the healthcare policy agenda and programs to best serve them.

Public Policy Failure: A Study of Home Industry Food Production Certification Policy

There is an increasing concentration of Public Administration scientists on measuring whether policy succeeds or fails. It is no longer clear how best to ensure that the policy process from formulation to policy implementation is the best and more effective way. Including in the Home Industry Food, Production Certificate Policy (SPP-IRT) is taken as a locus. Study of the Home Industry of Ground Coffee in Nagari Koto Tuo, Tanah Datar Regency. The policy on offering SPP-IRT has undergone several changes, but it will not be effective. It will fail to provide quality assurance and food safety. the increase in IRTPs who have certificates does not increase. The research method used in this study uses a qualitative approach with a case study research design. The results showed that providing Food Home Industry Certification (IRTP) with the case in the provision of IRTP Coffee Powder certificates in Nagari Koto Tuo showed that the policy failures included tolerable policy criteria. Modest loss when it happens does not fundamentally hold back the goals the proponents want to achieve, and the minor opposition and criticism that occurs is almost non-existent in this SPP-IRT-related policy.