comparative analysis

Updating your student reading lists? Read our essential reading recommendations for public policy and politics courses on expertise and evidence in policymaking, policy process theories, and interpretive approaches to policy research 

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By Allegra Fullerton & Sarah Brown 

As you update reading lists for the coming academic year, we present a curated collection of policy and politics scholarship that will engage students in fresh arguments and support robust classroom discussion. This collection of recent articles offers fresh material for teaching on expertise and evidence in policymaking & politics, policy process theories, and interpretive approaches to policy research. Together, these articles showcase some of the latest developments in public policy and political scholarship, combining conceptual innovation, empirical analysis, and methodological reflection. They provide useful additions to undergraduate and postgraduate modules across public policy, politics, governance, and research methods. 

We hope these suggestions save you time in identifying recent scholarship while ensuring your course materials reflect current debates at the forefront of the discipline – and they are all free to access from July to September, so you can get reading straight away.  

Read the full Student Reading List collection here.

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Experts in governance: a comparative analysis of the Nordic countries

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by Johan Christensen, Stine Hesstvedt, Kira Pronin, Cathrine Holst, Peter Munk Christiansen and Anne Maria Holli

Photographs of four women and two men. From left to right: Johan Christensen, Stine Hesstvet, Kira Pronin, Catherine Holst, Peter Munk Christiansen and Anne Maria Holli

In a recent article published in Policy & Politics, Experts in governance: a comparative analysis of the Nordic countries, Johan Christensen, Stine Hesstvedt, Kira Pronin, Cathrine Holst, Peter Munk Christiansen and Anne Maria Holli examine how expert knowledge is channelled into policy making in the Nordic region. They focus on government-appointed advisory commissions as a key institutional pathway for incorporating expertise and explore how the role of academic experts on these commissions has changed over time.

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Involving citizens in policy-making – does it vary across countries and why?

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Katy Huxley, Rhys Andrews, James Downe, and Valeria Guarneros-Meza
Katy Huxley, Rhys Andrews, James Downe, and Valeria Guarneros-Meza

Katy Huxley, Rhys Andrews, James Downe and Valeria Guarneros-Meza discuss their latest P&P article, Administrative traditions and citizen participation in public policy: a comparative study of France, Germany, the UK and Norway which is free to download throughout September.

Existing research suggests that administrative traditions reflect state-society relations, democratic style and level of centralisation. Four key traditions are reflected within the countries studied, which include the:

  • Napoleonic tradition – characterised by a strong centralised state and antagonism between the state and society (e.g. France)
  • organicist tradition – characterised by a federated state and co-operative state–society relations (e.g. Germany)
  • Anglo-Saxon tradition – characterised by a mixed form of state and pluralist state–society relations (e.g. the UK) and,
  • Scandinavian tradition, which combines the organicist and Anglo-Saxon traditions (e.g. Norway).

In addition, we thought it was important to consider developments in public sector management and reform in different countries and the potential for EU influence in developing citizen participation.

Our results suggest that citizen participation is accorded the least Continue reading →