Virtual issue on digitalisation, democracy and participation – free to access until 31 March 2021

March 4, 2021Newsballot votes, citizen participation, citizens, citizenship, decentralisation, deliberation, deliberative democracy, democracy, democratic innovation, design thinking, digital democracy, digital government, e-government, e-petitions, elections, House of Commons, initiative, input, internal political efficacy, local government, loyalty, mini-publics, online participation, open innovation, output, parliament, parliamentary petitions, participation, political judgement, political mobilization, political participation, political party, public engagement, Public participation, referendum, referendums, representative democracy, social cognitive theory, sortition, transparency, trust, virtual courts, visuality, voice, voters, voting behaviourpolicypressblog

Sarah_Brown_credit_Evelyn_Sturdy — Image credit: Evelyn Sturdy at Unsplash

Sarah Brown
Journal Manager, Policy & Politics

Welcome to our first virtual issue of 2021 and to a new year of reflecting on some of the latest thinking on the major policy questions of our time including the growing importance of digital democracy and on-line public service delivery, the decline of public trust in conventional politics, and the potential of citizen participation to reconnect electorates with political and policymaking processes.

Given that on-line working has become so pervasive and so important during the coronavirus pandemic, we start this virtual issue with a collection of papers that explores the role of digitalisation in promoting public participation and delivering public services. Read on as we journey from analyses of these innovative examples of digitalisation, stopping off at some familiar but important themes for regular readers of the journal including direct democracy, political leadership, and new insights into citizen participation. Continue reading Virtual issue on digitalisation, democracy and participation – free to access until 31 March 2021 →

Policy & Politics announces the 2021 winners of the Early Career and Best Paper Prizes

March 1, 2021News, Policy & Politicsdesign, design science, design thinking, literature review, P&P prizes, participatory policy, policy design, power, public administration, public sector innovationpolicypressblog

2020 P&P prize winners We are delighted to announce the 2021 prizes for award winning papers published in Policy & Politics in 2020.

The Bleddyn Davies Prize, which acknowledges scholarship of the very highest standard by an early career academic, is awarded to:

‘Applying design in public administration: a literature review to explore the state of the art‘ by Margot Hermus, Arwin van Buuren & Victor Bekkers from the special issue: ‘Improving public policy and administration: exploring the potential of design’.

The Ken Young Prize, which is awarded to the best article judged to represent excellence in the field published in Policy & Politics, is awarded to:

‘When design meets power: Design thinking, public sector innovation and the politics of policymaking’ by Jenny M Lewis, Michael McGann and Emma Blomkamp from the special issue: ‘Improving public policy and administration: exploring the potential of design’.

Brief critiques of the winning articles follow, in celebration of their contributions. Continue reading Policy & Politics announces the 2021 winners of the Early Career and Best Paper Prizes →

Why does the publishing process for journal articles end once they are available online?

February 25, 2021Newsarticle promotion, blogging, citations, downloads, impact factor, research journalspolicypressblog

P&P’s unique model of post-publication support to maximise the impact of your article

Sarah Brown, Elizabeth Koebele and Katie Lucas

As the author of a research article, you’ve poured blood, sweat, and tears into crafting and recrafting the text, often through painstaking coordination with multiple authors, in an effort to make your article the very best it can be. After navigating the peer review process and honing your arguments, you’re delighted to receive the final acceptance decision from your journal of choice. You’re excited about the potential for your research to have a positive impact on the world and, of course, to develop your reputation as a leading thinker in the field. Except that one week, one month or even one year later, your notice that your paper has only had 10 downloads since publication – and you know that two of those were your co-author and your mother. Continue reading Why does the publishing process for journal articles end once they are available online? →

Top five strategies for picking a journal

February 22, 2021Policy & Politicschoosing a journal, impact factor, ISI ranking, journal ranking, research article, scholarly publishingpolicypressblog

Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop and Chris Weible

Choosing the right journal for a manuscript might be one of the trickiest choices that all scholars make – particularly those early in their careers. We need publications to earn an invite for an interview or to receive a job offer. Once employed, progression and tenure as well as our professional reputations and fulfilment of our own intellectual missions depend, in part, on journals publishing our work. Continue reading Top five strategies for picking a journal →

Announcing our expanded and increasingly globally representative editorial board

February 15, 2021Newseditorial board, Policy & Politics, politics journalspolicypressblog

Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop and Chris Weible

A warm welcome to all our new members from across the world of policy scholarship. We’re delighted to have your input into this new chapter of Policy & Politics. Continue reading Announcing our expanded and increasingly globally representative editorial board →

Experts – how influential are they in policymaking?

February 3, 2021Policy & Politicsauthority, behavioural public policy, EBP, epistemic communities, evidence mobilisation, evidence-based policymaking, expert knowledge, expertise, Ideas, instrument constituencies, knowledge brokering, Norway, nudge, pension reforms, political epistemology, politicians, randomised controlled trials, research utilisationpolicypressblog

Johan Christensen with Sarah Brown

Highlights collection free to access from 1 February 2021 – 30 April 2021

Experts – how influential are they? By Johan Christensen based on his P&P article on Expert knowledge and policymaking: a multi-disciplinary research agenda

“We have to listen to the experts.” During the coronavirus pandemic, this phrase has been repeated by politicians across the world. Only a few years ago, we were told that “people have had enough of experts”. Now experts are back in demand. At press conferences, prime ministers are flanked by public health experts. And governments have set up a dizzying number of expert groups and task forces to examine policy measures to stop the spread of the virus, to formulate strategies to exit the crisis, and even to investigate the government response to the crisis. Continue reading Experts – how influential are they in policymaking? →

Why nudges fail and other puzzles: insights from research on commitment devices

January 27, 2021News, Public Policybehavioural public policy, new year resolutions, public healthpolicypressblog

Manu Savani

Having just read the new special issue and accompanying blog series published by Policy & Politics entitled Beyond nudge: advancing the state-of-the-art of behavioural public policy and administration, I was inspired to respond to some of the arguments mooted.

The question of why we find behaviour change resolutions difficult to stick to has long been the subject of debate and research. It is familiar territory at this time of year as we contemplate new year’s resolutions. Knotty inter-temporal choices can be affected by present bias, where we focus on short-term gains rather than the long-term payoffs. Commitment devices – any voluntary strategy we use to influence our future decisions and achieve our goals – have shown promise in addressing present bias. These strategies can rely on financial stakes, as shown by the stickK approach, which reports having $51 million on the line across 527,000 individual commitments. Continue reading Why nudges fail and other puzzles: insights from research on commitment devices →

New editorial statement for the Policy & Politics journal

January 13, 2021Newspolicypressblog

Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop and Chris Weible

Policy & Politics is a world-leading journal that provides the primary outlet for scholars and reflexive practitioners to engage with the most pressing governance challenges inhibiting the continued advancement in the study of public policy and its practice. These challenges span the globe and link communities in a common struggle to realise and sustain human dignity and quality of life for all. Moreover, they entail questions about: the impact on governance of political inequality and economic inequality; the implications of such inequalities on political voice and who receives help and who faces barriers from our public policies; how we advance knowledge about public policies comparatively as global phenomena; how we link across macro and micro scales within and between countries in understanding public policy and politics; advancing our theories and methodologies to address these challenges as a policy community; and bringing together a public policy research community that is interconnected globally but also sometimes siloed in distinct approaches and assumptions. Continue reading New editorial statement for the Policy & Politics journal →

Policy & Politics: Serving and Enhancing our Metacommunities

January 6, 2021News, Policy & Politicspolicy, policy theories, political science, politics, public administrationpolicypressblog

Oscar Berglund, Claire Dunlop and Christopher M. Weible

In the study of ecological systems, there is a concept called metacommunities. The idea is that a species might be dispersed in different yet interconnected communities. These metacommunities might emerge and grow for reasons of fit, space, survival, or chance. These metacommunities interconnect through some species traversing between them either rarely or habitually. Over time metacommunities might also evolve and adapt to their particular niches. For those who care about supporting ecological systems that might be dispersed in interconnected niches, metacommunities provide a broad language and perspective to help visualize, understand, and govern.

As editors for Policy & Politics, we view this metaphor of metacommunities apt for describing the broadly defined field of public policy, which is dispersed in many communities, each with their own research approaches, lexicons, and traditions. We also see that some scholars navigate between communities more than others. In describing academia, we often refer to these metacommunities as silos where some silos are more isolated or connected than others as well as some silos existing within other silos. Similar to metacommunities, silos might emerge and grow as scholars search for space to develop their ideas, self-sort with others of similar orientations, and more. Continue reading Policy & Politics: Serving and Enhancing our Metacommunities →

Merry Christmas from the Policy and Politics co-editors

December 16, 2020Newshighly citedpolicypressblog

Merry Christmas from the Policy & Politics team!

Thank you to all our authors, reviewers, board members and friends in the unprecedented year that was 2020 and goodbye from the outgoing editors Sarah Ayres, Steve Martin and Felicity Matthews.

As the outgoing co-editors of this thriving journal, we wanted to express our huge gratitude for the loyalty and commitment that we’ve been fortunate enough to witness from our diverse community of scholars. It has been such a pleasure to steward the journal through the last five years (and in Sarah’s case, eight years) with positive developments too numerous to list. We are most grateful for our meteoric rise to an impact factor of 3.069 and to a consequent rise in ranking from the 3^rd to the 1^st quartile, which of course is testament to the quality of work published, courtesy of our authors and reviewers. Congratulations to you all! To celebrate all we have achieved this year we have made our top 10 highly cited articles published in 2020 free to access until 31 January 2021, please see below for the full collection.

So from January 2021, we pass the baton to a new editorial team in whom we have enormous confidence and faith. We will watch with interest the excitement of a new chapter unfolding for the journal as it approaches its 50^th year and fully expect to see it go from strength to strength.

We look forward to reading of new exciting advances in the field and to P&P’s continued contribution in communicating those advances to our community and to the broader public.

Policy & Politics Co-Editors: Sarah Ayres, Steve Martin & Felicity Matthews

p&p editors