News

Policy & Politics announces the 2018 winners of the Best Paper prize and best Early Career paper prize published in 2017

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Sarah Ayres, Steve Martin and Felicity Matthews, co-editors of Policy & Politics

We are delighted to announce that the winners of our Ken Young prize for the best paper published in 2017 are Selen Ercan, Carolyn Hendriks and John Boswell for their article on Studying public deliberation after the systemic turn: the crucial role for interpretive research (free to access until 24 May 2018).

In this excellent article, the authors seek to make sense of the complex nature of deliberation and the complexity of deliberative democratic systems.  In doing so, they bring together two hitherto separate strands of literature – the empirical turn and the systemtic turn – which have previously ‘pulled in different directions.’  In seeking to bring the two turns together, the authors highlight a number of important methodological questions.  They ask: ‘how can we identify and portray the sites, agents and discursive elements that comprise a deliberative system, how can we study connections and transmissions across different sites of a deliberative system, and how can we understand the impact of the broader socio- political context on both specific deliberative sites and the entire deliberative system?’ Continue reading →

Data Matters…Sometimes: Revisiting the Connection between Problem Indicators and Policy Maker Attention

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DeLeoRob De Leo

An extended version of this blog post was originally published on Discover Society.

From the number of drug overdoses to annual average temperatures, public transportation ridership rates to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), government is inundated with data documenting social problems. In theory, these statistics should lead to more informed decision making. In practice, they are heavily politicized. Organized interests compete to ensure that their preferred statistic is adopted as the preferred measure of a given policy problem, a testament to these so-called “problem indicators” are important determinants of policy maker attention.  

Virtually every major theory of policy making suggests indicators and other forms of information play an important role in stimulating issue attention and provoking policy maker action. My recent paper, “Indicators, agendas, and stream: Analysing the Politics of Preparedness,” applies the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), which argues policy change is facilitated by the coupling of three distinct streams: (1) the problem stream, which consists of the various social issues competing for policy maker attention; (2) the policy stream, which encompasses the various policies and programs designed to address items in the problem stream; and (3) the politics stream, which broadly describes the current political environment, including trends in public opinion as well as the composition of government. Coupling is aided by a policy entrepreneur or an individual or organization willing to invest considerable amounts of time and energy to secure policy change. Once the three streams are coupled, a policy window is opened providing organized interests with an opportunity to push their pet issues onto the policy agenda and, ideally, secure policy change.  Continue reading →

Same-same but different: what can superdiversity offer that multiculturalism cannot? 

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MagazziniTina Magazzini

Studies in psychology often refer to their samples as being WEIRD –Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. It should come as no surprise that most social psychology results rely on research that is tested on a narrow and in many ways privileged sample of society, given that most participants in behavioral studies are undergraduates at Western universities. What is more intriguing, and less obvious, is the fact that there seems to be an opposite, specular trend in the field of public and social policy. We—political scientists, sociologists, anthropologist, legal scholars—tend, by and large, to focus on subjects only insofar as they appear to be marginalized, racialized, or vulnerable: in short, only when they are seen as a ‘problem’.

The burgeoning, rich scholarship on migration and integration that has developed over the last years is no exception. The surge in research on (and research funding available for) minority integration, social cohesion and European identity is highly dependent upon migration being understood as a ‘problem’ to be managed, on ‘identity’ being seen as under threat, and on there being a clear-cut distinction between who belongs to a minority and who doesn’t, who migrants are and who they are not.

In my recent Policy & Politics article on the multilevel governance of superdiversity in Europe, as part of the journal’s superdiversity Special Issue, my aim is to problematize the relationship between identity and difference, and to suggest ways in which superdiversity can be employed as a useful tool to deconstruct what is usually left unstudied (because it is perceived as unproblematic): the so-called ‘mainstream’ or ‘majority’. Continue reading →

One week until the 8th December deadline for new special issue proposals for Policy & Politics

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Policy and Politics coverWe are hoping to consider a range of varied special issue proposals in response to our annual call this year. We are looking for proposals that can demonstrate how they will make a significant and lasting contribution to their field, be it through new theoretical, conceptual or empirical developments. In particular, we are seeking proposals that challenge dominant assumptions and set the agenda for future debates.

To be successful, it’s important that each individual article within the special issue is able to evidence a clear contribution to the field, as well as ensuring that the issue as a whole coheres to advance our understanding of its topic. In addition, proposals that articulate how to maximise their impact will be viewed favourably.

Over ¾ of our readers are from outside the UK, so it’s important that proposals feature – and speak to – a global audience. The journal is supportive of scholars from diverse backgrounds so we look for such diversity in proposals, such as a mixture of established scholars and mid and early career researchers, as well as other diversities such as gender and ethnicity.

If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please read our guidance document on what information we will need to evaluate it. If you would like to talk through any aspect of your proposal, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The timetable for evaluating proposals is set out below: Continue reading →

New Policy & Politics Virtual Issue on the Welfare State: free to download until the end of November

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Sarah Brown2By Sarah Brown, Journal Manager

From a prevailing, long-standing debate in the journal on the welfare state, we bring you a collection of our best and most recent articles. To highlight just a couple: Anthony McCashin’s How much change? Pierson and the welfare state revisited provides a structural overview of the impact of globalisation on analyses of the welfare state.

Meanwhile Sharon Wright, through forensic scrutiny, exposes the gulf between the discursive constitution of the welfare subject by policy makers, and the lived experiences of those subjects in her article Conceptualising the active welfare subject: welfare reform in discourse, policy and lived experience.
All of these articles seek to critically evaluate this contentious area of policy and point towards purposeful research agendas for the future. Download them now before 30 November while they’re free to access! Continue reading →

New Policy & Politics Virtual Issue on Public Services and Reform: free to download until the end of November

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By Sarah Brown, Journal ManagerSarah Brown2

Try our new themed virtual issues which are free to download from 1-30 November:

Public Services and Reform
In this new virtual issue, we bring you our most impactful and recent research from diverse perspectives with a coherence of focus on increasing our understanding of public services and reform.

To introduce two highlights from the issue, opening the collection is one of our most innovative articles on how health discourses are linked to population health outcomes, hence the title: Working-class discourses of politics, policy and health: ‘I don’t smoke; I don’t drink. The only thing wrong with me is my health’. Moving from health to employment, Rebecca Taylor analyses the changing dynamics that come into play as the provision of employment services increasingly moves to public, private and third-sector organisations in her article entitled UK employment services: understanding provider strategies in a dynamic strategic action field. Covering a diverse range of public industries, other articles in the collection offer insightful studies across education, social care, disability, counter-terrorism, local government and state regulation.

Download them now before 30 November while they’re free to access! Continue reading →

The importance of evidence-based policy making, why measurement matters, and Claire Dunlop on learning from failure.

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Sarah Brown2

by Sarah Brown, Journal Manager

Free research articles for APPAM 2017 from Policy & Politics on the importance of evidence-based policy making, why measurement matters and, Claire Dunlop on learning from failure.

In celebration of APPAM’s Fall Research Conference theme this year which looks at the importance of measurement in evaluating policy and performance, we have developed a virtual issue of recent research articles based on the conference theme which are free to access from 1-30 November. Just click on the hyperlinks below to go straight to the download page for each article.

Download the articles before 30 November while they’re free to access! Continue reading →

The challenge of superdiversity for urban planning

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Simon Pemberton

by Simon Pemberton

In our recent Policy & Politics article published as part of a special issue on superdiversity we reflect on the increasing importance of the implications of superdiversity for urban planning, as well as the equality of outcomes of planning practices. We highlight a number of points for consideration.

First, relatively little work has been done on the role of urban planning in responding to migration-related superdiversity. Continue reading →

Outsourcing in UK Universities

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Wendy Phillips
Elizabeth Alexander
Dharm Kapletia

By Wendy Phillips, Elizabeth Alexander and Dharm Kapletia

As tuition fees and university funding remain the subject of hot-debate and the delivery of value for money for students rises up the political agenda, HEIs must appeal to a more discerning student ‘market’ whilst demonstrating the efficient and effective use of resources.  Successive UK governments have been driven by a market ideology to deliver policy changes with recent government initiatives calling for the use of commercial practices (e.g. outsourcing) by HEIs to deliver efficiencies, improve quality and support core strategies. The adoption of market-based mechanisms by HEIs contrasts with the state logic inherent to many HEIs, such as a collegiality, communities of practice, public goods and organisational autonomy that favours internal service provision.

In our Policy & Politics paper, we employ institutional logics to understand how HEIs have adopted organisational practices, specifically outsourcing, in response to recent policy changes. Continue reading →

Towards a multi-scalar understanding of superdiversity

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Ole Jensen

By Ole Jensen

The geography of much superdiversity research reflects what can be described as a new way of mapping familiar spaces. Why new? Why familiar?  Many analyses of diversity often restrict their analytical focus to gritty and inner-city areas already recognised as diverse according to established categories based on race and ethnicity. Using data from the EU-funded Concordia Discors project, my recent Policy & Politics article argues that an understanding of superdiversity, which is informed by attention to the broader context of unequal power relations and resource allocations in the post-industrial city (Soja 2010), can lead to a more nuanced understanding of socio-cultural dynamics at neighbourhood level.    Continue reading →