2023 Policy & Politics Reading List

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Elizabeth Koebele with Sarah Brown

Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations on evidence-based policymaking, policy learning in multi-level and crisis contexts and the representation of diverse identities in public policy

It’s that time of year again to update your course syllabi with the latest research. Here at Policy & Politics, we hope to make that job easier for you by providing suggestions for teaching three important and timely themes in your policy courses.

Our first theme, showcasing three articles, is evidence-based policymaking (EBP). Of interest to students and scholars alike, our articles on EBP span a variety of perspectives that challenge mainstream views and showcase new angles on how EBP affects policy process dynamics. They should all lead to interesting classroom discussions and assignments about the meaning and validity of EBP.

The next three articles in our collection tackle different aspects of policy learning – an ever-popular topic with students and scholars alike, according to our readership data! These selected articles advance the dialogue on this important topic by exploring how learning may be fostered or constrained by multi-level governance structures and in crisis contexts.

Continue reading →

Policy & Politics Quarterly Highlights Collection – free to access from 1 August – 31st October 2023

policypressblogLeave a comment

Enhancing Democracy throughout the Policy Process

by Sarah Brown and Elizabeth Koebele

This quarter’s highlights collection features four articles that examine the use of democratic principles and processes in contexts that are not traditionally democratic, which we hope will resonate with some of the topical debates that are currently playing out on the global stage.

In our first article, author Karin Fossheim asks how non-elected representatives can secure democratic representation. In this important contribution to the literature on representative democracy, Fossheim analyses representation in governance networks. She does this by comparing how non-elected representatives, their constituents and the decision-making audience understand the outcome of representation to benefit constituency, authorisation and accountability. Her research findings conclude that all three groups mostly share an understanding of democratic non-electoral representation, understood as ongoing interactions between representatives and constituents, multiple (if any) organisational and discursive sources of authorisation and deliberative aspects of accountability. All these elements are shown to support democratic representation despite the absence of elections.

Continue reading →

The opportunities and challenges of politically designed co-creation platforms

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Sam van Elk & Britt Regal

This situation has sparked thinking about how to foster co-creation on a larger scale. One key idea involves co-creation ‘platforms’. These platforms are adaptable structures that can be applied to diverse contexts, similar to a computer operating system that can run various programs. The UK’s Local Enterprise Zones are good examples of such ‘platforms’ –  each ‘Zone’ is tailored to local needs but operates within a common framework. Academics have suggested that governments use platforms to encourage their citizens, businesses, and communities to co-create. But to date, there has been limited research into what happens when a government follows this advice.

Our study, ‘The opportunities and challenges of politically designed co-creation platforms’, recently published in Policy and Politics addresses this limitation. We studied the London Borough of Culture programme, a platform that aims to foster collaboratively created cultural events. The program offers annual awards to a winning ‘London Borough of Culture’ to run a year of cultural events, alongside several runner-up prizes. Boroughs are encouraged to work collaboratively and treat residents as ‘co-creators’. Our work centred on the Greater London Authority, which administers the scheme, and the London Borough of Waltham Forest, the inaugural winning borough.

Continue reading →

Annual call for special issue proposals for Policy & Politics

policypressblogLeave a comment

by the Policy & Politics Team

Policy & Politics has been publishing innovative works at the intersection of public policy and politics for over 50 years. It is a world-leading, top quartile journal that is committed to advancing scholarly understanding of the dynamics of policy-making and implementation.  By exploring the interplay between political actors, governing institutions and policy issues, the journal contributes to building policy process theory; and by reflecting on the evolving context in which these interactions occur, it provides timely and fresh insights into the influence of politics on policy and vice versa. 

The journal’s co-editors invite proposals for a special issue that will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the nexus of public policy and politics.  The journal only has space to publish one special issue each year, so this is a competitive process.

Continue reading →

How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Lars Dorren and Eva E.A Wolf

Although one would expect evidence based policy making (known as ‘EBPM’: meaning the introduction of facts and figures in policy processes) to help bring clarity to policy conflicts, this is not always the case. In fact, it can have the very opposite effect, as our recently published research article argues: “How evidence-based policy making helps and hinders policy conflict”.

Previous research has shown that evidence can help conflicting parties move past their differences by temporarily offering them a set of principles to which they all can ascribe. EBPM also gives people the tools to scrutinise decisions, and comes with transparent procedures. However, our study shows that working based on EBPM principles does not always help policy conflict. We looked at the way in which a piece of evidence called the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) impacted existing conflicts in three large infrastructure projects in Flanders. The observed processes revolved around determining the preferred option among multiple proposed solutions for an infrastructural issue that needed to be addressed. We found that, in these processes, the introduction of an EBPM-type instrument such as the EIA also created confusion.

Continue reading →

What types of health evidence persuade actors in a complex policy system?

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Geoff Bates, Sarah Ayres, Andrew Barnfield, and Charles Larkin

Good quality urban environments can help to prevent non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, mental health conditions and diabetes that account for three quarters of deaths globally (World Health Organisation, 2022). More commonly however, poor quality living conditions contribute to poor health and widening inequalities (Adlakha & John, 2022). Consequently, many public health advocates hope to convince and bring together the stakeholders who shape urban development to help create healthier places.

Evidence is one tool that can be used to convince these stakeholders from outside the health sector to think more about health outcomes. Most of the literature on the use of evidence in policy environments has focused on the public sector, such as politicians and civil servants (e.g., Crow & Jones, 2018). However, urban development decision-making processes involve many stakeholders across sectors with different needs and agendas (Black et al., 2021). While government sets policy and regulatory frameworks, private sector organisations such as property developers and investors drive urban development and strongly influence policy agendas.

Continue reading →

The many meanings of policy instruments: exploring individual and structural determinants in obesity policy

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Robert Ralston, Charlotte Godziewski and Lauren Carters-White

How can obesity policy move away from individual-centred blaming or nudging and meaningfully address the political-economic root causes of poor diets? For many health inequalities researchers, policy instruments that regulate industry are seen as a promising way to target those root causes. More than a simple tweak, such policy instruments are implicitly expected to finally move public health policy away from a focus on individual responsibility characteristic of neoliberal governance. But is a change in policy instrument – even a substantive one – capable of sparking change in the underlying policy paradigm? Does proposing structure-targeting instruments (eg. industry regulation) necessarily mean that policymakers now think differently about the policy issue? This is the puzzle we explore in our article recently published in Policy & Politics entitled The many meanings of policy instruments: exploring individual and structural determinants in obesity policy. Our research focuses on the case of the UK’s 2020 Tackling Obesity Strategy. This strategy has been welcomed precisely because it proposes ‘harder’ regulation of commercial actors. While this may sound promising to many, we argue that the Tackling Obesity Strategy unfortunately lacks the radical change of past strategies.

Continue reading →

New citation metrics for Policy & Politics

policypressblogLeave a comment

To all our authors, reviewers, readers, friends and supporters,

We’re delighted to announce that Policy & Politics has achieved a 2-year impact factor of 4.7, further improving its position in the top quartile of Political Science journals (16th out of 187 journals) and Public Administration journals (7th out of 49 journals).

In other citation metrics announced in 2023, Scopus’ CiteScore has ranked Policy & Politics in the 94th percentile (76 out of 1,415) of Public Administration journals and the Scimago Journal and country Rank (SJR) rankings place Policy & Politics in the top quartile (20 out of 199 journals) in Public Administration.

We are so grateful to all of you in our scholarly community for helping us achieve these excellent results. Thank you!

To celebrate the achievements of our authors, we have created a free collection of highly cited articles. All of the articles below are free to access until 31 July 2023. Read the Highly Cited Collection here.

With best wishes,

Oscar, Claire, Elizabeth and Chris

Policy & Politics Co-Editors

Policy & Politics at the International Conference on Public Policy #ICPP6, Toronto

policypressblogLeave a comment

By Sarah Brown

Representatives from the Policy & Politics journal team are delighted to be attending the 6th International Conference on Public Policy #ICPP6 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada. We are looking forward to meeting up with many members of our community who are attending, as well as reaching out to scholars who don’t yet know the journal.

So, if you are attending #ICPP6 in person, please stop by the Bristol University Press stand in the exhibition area just in front of room KHE127 in Kerr Hall to say hello. Alternatively, track down one of our editors attending:

Continue reading →

Environmental governance: Staying the same but in different ways?

policypressblogLeave a comment

by Christopher Galik

Times are changing. Rapidly. New, increasingly complex environmental problems continue to emerge. Yet, it would seem that the tools we have to manage that environment often lag behind the need.

In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, Institutional stability and change in environmental governance, we set out to better understand if, how, and why existing governing frameworks—or, as we call them, institutions—seem to persist.

Institutions can be defined as ‘integrated systems of rules that structure social interactions‘. We can think of these institutions as both the formal laws that govern management of a particular environmental problem or resource, but also the informal norms and understandings that influence the ways we interpret and implement those laws. There is a rich body of research that can help us how to understand how and why these institutions might change. On the flip side, much less attention has been paid to why these institutions might stay the same.

Continue reading →