Policy analysis is the disciplined argument about the impact of proposed or existing government policy. Policy analysis can be aimed at providing advice to members of the community, groups, business etc about the effects of an existing or proposed policy. Policy advice, on the other hand, is the information and recommendations given to decision-makers in […]
When starting out with a research topic, policy researchers are often faced with the question of whether to test existing theories or use empirical data to generate new theories. The answer could be both! Layder (1998) outlines an approach linking theory and research, which he calls ‘adaptive theory’. Adaptive theory combines the use of existing […]
This year’s theme is the politics of natural resources. More information is available through the conference website: http://www.apsa2013.com/
“Policy dynamics” is the term public policy academics give the patterns of policy change on an issue. For example, the pattern could be incremental, that is little changes on a regular basis (see Lindblom, 1959). It could occur when politics, policy and problems align to create a policy window (Kingdon, 1984) and advocacy coalitions come […]
The Policy Space 