Policy scholarship continues to evolve in response to increasingly complex public challenges. As policy researchers seek to better understand how governments collaborate, use expertise and navigate contested policy processes, they are also refining the theories, concepts and methods that underpin the field itself. This quarterly collection brings together five recent articles from Policy & Politics that each advance policy scholarship in different ways. Together, they demonstrate how theoretical development, methodological innovation and empirical research can deepen our understanding of policy making.
Our first featured article, A new framework for collaborative climate governance: linking consensus building and collective action, by Cheng Zhou and Clare Richardson-Barlow, addresses one of the central questions in collaborative governance: how does collaboration move from dialogue to meaningful collective action? Drawing on extensive fieldwork and evolutionary game modelling, the authors develop a new framework that conceptualises collaboration as a dynamic process in which consensus building lays the foundations for joint action. By focusing on the behavioural dynamics that shape collaboration, the article offers a more process-oriented understanding of how governance arrangements develop and why collaborative efforts can produce very different outcomes across policy contexts.
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.
The editors of Policy & Politics invite proposals for a special issue that will make a significant contribution to our understanding of the nexus of public policy and politics.
Proposals submission deadline: 30 April 2026
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 to be published online and in print 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.
This quarter’s highlights collection brings together three of Policy & Politics’ most read open access articles of 2025. Taken together, they speak to a shared concern at the heart of contemporary policy scholarship: how governments define, authorise and act on evidence under conditions of institutional constraint, political short-termism and contested authority. Each article examines a different moment in the policy process — from the mobilisation of lived experience, to the organisation of state capacity, to the formal enactment (and non-enactment) of law — offering complementary insights into why policy ambition so often falters in practice.
by Johan Christensen, Stine Hesstvedt, Kira Pronin, Cathrine 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.
In a recent article published in Policy & Politics, Clementine Hill O’Connor and Hayley Bennett examine how “lived experience” has become increasingly important in anti-poverty policy making, and ask what it means to treat such experiences as a form of evidence. They argue that, while lived experience is often presented as a movement-led, democratic challenge to established forms of expertise, it is also shaped by governance-led processes that channel participation into institutional priorities.
This quarter’s Policy & Politics highlights collection brings together three of our most popular articles recently published, that extend and deepen our theoretical and empirical understanding of collaborative governance. Each article advances our knowledge by engaging critically with key debates in the field, whether through conceptual synthesis, empirical exploration, or theoretical refinement. Together, they contribute to our understanding of the complexities and contingencies of collaboration in contemporary governance settings.
In a recent article published in Policy & Politics, entitled A systematic review of conflict within collaborative governance, authors Jacob Torfing, Reza Payandeh, Seyed Mostafa Jalili and Masoud Banafi provide a comprehensive overview of how conflict emerges and is managed within collaborative governance processes. Their systematic review draws on 62 peer-reviewed studies with the aim of identifying where, when, and how disagreements surface in collaborative governance initiatives—and what strategies are employed to deal with them.
In a recent article published in Policy & Politics, Martin B. Carstensen and Eva Sørensen explore how collaborative governance can be understood as a series of fluid, adaptive interactions—rather than as a stable, coherent and linear process. Drawing on bricolage theory and theories of robust governance, they propose a new way of thinking about how partnerships form, evolve, and sustain themselves in dynamic, unpredictable settings.
by Sam Warner, David Richards, Diane Coyle and Martin J. Smith
In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, we examine how centralised financial control and short-term political pressures have undermined the performance of the Prison Service in England and Wales. As successive governments grapple with the problem of overcrowded, poorly performing prisons, the effectiveness of prison governance and resource management is a live issue with significant political and policy implications. Drawing on extensive interviews and documentary analysis, our article highlights how governance structures intended to deliver efficiency have instead constrained local autonomy and eroded service outcomes.
A paradox of New Public Management
Despite New Public Management’s (NPM) long made promises of greater efficiency through devolved managerial discretion, we argue that, in practice, the UK’s central government frequently reasserts input controls—particularly through the Treasury’s dominance of budgeting frameworks. Existing literature explores this paradox through elite incentives structures, but we focus on the implications for public financial management beyond the centre. We argue that this paradox creates tensions for public managers who are held accountable for delivering outputs and outcomes but lack the financial flexibility to do so effectively.
Case study evidence from the Prison Service
Using the Prison Service as a detailed case study, the article shows how governance arrangements evolved from the 1990s onward. While initial reforms introduced managerial autonomy, a shift toward hyper-centralised control—especially post-2010—saw the Treasury and the Ministry of Justice exert increasing influence over financial management and other operational and commercial practices. As a result, prison governors are left with reduced authority in key areas of decision-making. Their job is made harder, and resource allocation is less efficient, as a result.
Short-termism and degraded outcomes
Our article illustrates how a focus on short-term fiscal targets led to cost-cutting measures that undermined service quality. This included staffing reductions, deteriorating prison conditions, and rising incidents of violence and self-harm. Interviewees repeatedly emphasised that innovation and local responsiveness were being crowded out by rigid, top-down control. We argue that these dynamics not only degrade service performance but also represent a long-term false economy.
A call for more strategic governance
Our article points to the importance of rebalancing the system—restoring autonomy at agency and local levels and embedding longer-term thinking into resource allocation and financial management. The UK’s current approach to performance budgeting continues to prioritise centralised control over outcomes. Addressing this imbalance is vital if public services are to meet complex, long-term challenges effectively.
The authors would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation for funding this research.
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You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Warner, S., Richards, D., Coyle, D., and Smith, M. J. (2024). The inefficiency of centralised control and political short-termism: the case of the Prison Service in England and Wales. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024), available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000053>
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also be interested in reading
Wenzelburger, G. (2025). Policy windows and criminal justice reforms: a Multiple Streams Framework analysis. Policy & Politics 53, 2, 296-314, available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000060>
Sloam, J., and Henn, M. (2025). How young people can shape environmental policy in urban spaces. Policy & Politics 53, 1, 65-86, available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000039>
Bianchi, I. (2025). The democratising capacity of new municipalism: beyond direct democracy in public–common partnerships. Policy & Politics 53, 2, 403-422, available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000033>
Asticher, L. (2025). How institutional legacies constrain reform during a favourable policy window: COVID-19 and the healthcare workforce shortage. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2025), available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2025D000000067>
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