Policy & Politics

Policy & Politics announces the 2023 winners of the Early Career and Best Paper Prizes

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We are delighted to announce the 2023 prizes for award winning papers published in Policy & Politics in 2022.

The Bleddyn Davies Prize, which acknowledges scholarship of the very highest standard by an early career academic, is awarded to Dr Libby Maman from the  Institut Barcelona D’Estudis Internacional, Spain, for her article entitled The democratic qualities of regulatory agencies.

In her prize winning article, Maman analyses the democratic qualities of public organisations – transparency, accountability, participation, and representation. These are seen by many as positive and desirable attributes in the context of public organisations, since they reflect the basic democratic value of maintaining power within the public and having citizens take part in and oversee the decisions made by public organisations. However, despite their importance, it is still challenging to measure and compare the extent to which public organisations possess these democratic qualities because a comprehensive measurement tool has not yet been developed.

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Thank you to all our authors, reviewers, board members, readers and friends of Policy & Politics for another successful year in 2022

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Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop, Elizabeth Koebele, Chris Weible and Sarah Brown

Screenshot 2022-12-12 171359

Thank you to all our authors, reviewers, board members, readers and friends of Policy & Politics for another successful year in 2022.

We are delighted to be ending the year on the high note of maintaining our top quartile ranking in Political Science with an impact factor of 3.297, thanks to the huge support of our loyal community. Congratulations to you all!  

We are looking forward to seeing many of you face to face in 2023, particularly at the Conference on Policy Process Research in Denver in January, and at the International Conference on Public Policy in Toronto in June.

In the meantime, to celebrate all we have achieved together this year, we have made our top 10 most highly cited articles published in 2022 free to access until 31 January 2023, please see below for the full collection.

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Virtual issue on Asian scholarship published recently in Policy & Politics

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Sarah Brown & Elizabeth Koebele

Sarah and Elizabeth

Welcome to our virtual issue featuring scholarship on Asia published in Policy & Politics in the last two years. We have a strong body of work surfacing a range of policy issues in the region with wider relevance as well and look forward to receiving similar submissions in the future!

As part of our focus on Asia, Policy & Politics is proud to be an official partner of the Annual Conference of the Asian Association for Public Administration (APPA 2022) in Shanghai, China on 3-4 December 2022. If you are presenting your work there, please consider submitting your final paper to Policy & Politics.

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What informs policy? Sources of information bureaucrats use in policymaking

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Koga et alNatália Massaco Koga, Miguel Loureiro
Pedro Lucas de Moura Palotti, Rafael da Silva Lins
Bruno Gontyjo do Couto and Shanna Nogueira Lima.

The Evidence-based policy (EBP) movement argues for policy actors to use scientific evidence on ‘what works’ to improve public policies, highlighting the importance of science in policymaking. Empirical research shows that even bureaucrats in Anglo-Saxon countries, strongly influenced by this movement do not use academic sources widely, often preferring other sources of information, such as news media, public opinion and peers. But what informs policy in countries with low EBP influence?

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Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations for teaching Public Participation, Gender and the Policy Process, and Policy Innovation from Policy & Politics

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Elizabeth SarahElizabeth Koebele with Sarah Brown

Are you planning a new policy or politics-focused course? Or maybe you’re updating your existing syllabi with some of the newest research on policy and politics? We’re here to help! In this blog, we provide recommendations for new Policy & Politics articles (as well as a few older favorites) that make excellent contributions to syllabi for a diversity of courses. We hope this saves you time and effort in mining our recent articles while also ensuring your course materials reflect the latest research from the frontiers of the discipline. Continue reading →

Spotlighting interpretive approaches to public policy scholarship – Dr Tiffany Manuel on intersectionality

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New Policy & Politics blog feature by Dr Tiffany Manuel.

In this video, Dr Tiffany Manuel (or Dr T as she prefers to be called) provides an excellent challenge to public policy researchers to think about the ways in which intersectionality needs to be woven into their research, that is not just driven by members of minority groups. In her talk, Dr T refers to her paper: How Does One Live the Good Life?: Assessing the State of Intersectionality in Public Policy: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10….

This video is part of a new feature on the Policy and Politics blog which aims to spotlight interpretive approaches to the study of policy and politics. This spotlight series hopes to encourage a greater range of scholarship. Continue reading →

Policy & Politics Highlights collection on policy and regulation August 2022 – October 2022 –free to access

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Sarah_Brown_credit_Evelyn_Sturdy
Image credit: Evelyn Sturdy at Unsplash

Quarterly highlights collection 1 August – 31 October 2022

Welcome to this quarter’s highlights collection featuring three articles that provide a range of insights from different perspectives on policy and regulation. Continue reading →

PODCAST: Special issue blog series on Transformational Change through Public Policy.

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Special issue blog series on Transformational Change through Public Policy.

Oscar Berglund and Elizabeth A. Koebele

Listen to Co-Editors Oscar Berglund and Elizabeth A. Koebele talk with Jess Miles about the latest special issue – ‘Transformational change through public policy’.

In this episode of the Transforming Society Podcast, they discuss what transformational change is, how public policy academia needs to adapt to bring it about and their hope to inspire a new generation of scholars by setting out the structure for a research program.

Listen to the podcast here:


Table of contents for special issue on Transformational Change through Public Policy

Introduction to Transformational Change through Public Policy (Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop, Elizabeth Koebele and Chris Weible)

The impact of direct democracy on policy change: insights from European citizens’ initiatives (Jale Tosun, Daniel Béland & Yannis Papadopoulos)

The democratic transformation of Public Policy through community activism in Brazil (Rosana de Freitas Boullosa & Janaína Lopes Pereira Peres)

Lessons from policy theories for the pursuit of equity in health, education, and gender policy (Paul Cairney, Emily St Denny, Sean Kippin, Heather Mitchell)

A Future Research Agenda for Transformational Urban Policy Studies (Meghan Joy & Ronald K. Vogel)

Transforming Public Policy with Engaged Scholarship: Better Together (Leah Levac, Alana Cattapan, Tobin LeBlanc Haley, Laura Pin, Ethel Tungohan, & Sarah Marie Wiebe)

When do disasters spark transformative policy change and why? (Daniel Nohrstedt)

New pathways to paradigm change in Public Policy: Combining insights from policy design, mix and feedback (Sebastian Sewerin, Michael Howlett & Benjamin Cashore)

The views and opinions expressed on this blog site are solely those of the original blog post authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Policy & Politics, the Policy Press and/or any/all contributors to this site.

New blog series on Transformational Change through Public Policy – Introductory blog on our forthcoming special issue: Transformational Change through Public Policy.

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Special issue blog series on Transformational Change through Public Policy.

P&P EdsGuest edited by co-editors Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop, Elizabeth Koebele and Chris Weible

The 2020s are turbulent times, from COVID-19 to cost-of-living crises, violent and institutionalised racism, attacks on women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and beyond – all against the backdrop of rapid climate change. Meanwhile, symbolic action and agenda denial are widespread responses whilst polarisation and authoritarianism increase. The impetus for this Policy & Politics 2022 special issue on “Transformational Change through Public Policy” (see below for table of contents) comes from a sense of unease about the lack of action on these challenges and the role public policy studies may play in addressing them.

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES: Blog 8 – Transformative Urban Policy

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Special issue blog series on Transformational Change through Public Policy.

Joy VogelDr. Meghan Joy & Dr. Ronald K. Vogel

Cities today are facing multiple intersecting policy problems, constituting an urban crisis. These include, but are not limited to, growing poverty and inequality; social polarisation and violence; decaying infrastructure and public transit; climate change emergencies; unaffordable housing and homelessness; and the devastating impacts of COVID-19. In this context, the critical role of cities in solving pressing problems has garnered media attention, academic, and popular enthusiasm. This is the topic we explored in our article just published A future research agenda for transformational urban policy studies in the new Policy & Politics special issue on Transformational Change in Public Policy. Continue reading →