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 

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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How do populist discourses influence policy termination?

by Vandna Bhatia

Photograph of female academic Vandna Bhatia

In her recent article, How do populist discourses influence policy termination?, author Vandna Bhatia explores the relationship between populist political discourse and policy termination. Through a lens of ideational politics, the article offers a rare and timely contribution to the underdeveloped field of policy termination. Drawing on two high-profile cases from Ontario, Canada—the termination of the province’s carbon cap-and-trade programme and the repeal of its sexual health education curriculum—Bhatia shows how populist leaders use discourse to construct compelling narratives, mobilise coalitions, and legitimise disruptive strategies for dismantling existing policies.

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