2014 Public Policy Yearbook: Recent Developments in Public Policy Research

Abstract

We are pleased to present the sixth edition of the Public Policy Yearbook. Each year, dating back to its launch in 2009, we have used the content of the Yearbook to develop indicators for tracking developments in public policy scholarship. While we recognize that trends we can identify are only representative of the sample of Yearbook scholars, the patterns of scholarly focus have remained quite stable despite a more than doubling of our membership over the 2009-2014 period. In this introductory article, following a brief description of the Yearbook, we take a comparative look at how research trends in the Yearbook have evolved over the last six years. What Is the Yearbook?The Yearbook was initiated as a hard-copy special edition of the Policy Studies Journal in 2009, and then migrated to an open-access, web-based format (www.psjyearbook.com) in 2011. Each year, through our fall campaign we contact scholars and ask them to provide us with their most recent contact information, fields of specialization, research publications, and a brief summary stating their research interests. This information is verified and presented in a format that provides users with easy access to the Yearbook's content via the Internet.The mission of the Yearbook falls primarily into two categories. We designed the Yearbook to allow users to have a systematic way to identify the broader public policy research community. The multidisciplinary nature of public policy research can make it challenging to identify the experts studying various policy problems, and the Yearbook provides a convenient and helpful instrument to do so. The Yearbook is a broadly inclusive international listing of experts in various public policy domains, identifying individuals working on public policy problems in over 47 countries. By assembling this content, the Yearbook also provides an excellent tool for public policy scholars to increase and broaden the visibility of their work, and to provide the means to network with other researchers, scholars, and graduate students. In addibs_bs_banner The Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 42, No. S1, 2014 S1 0190-292X

The 2018 Public Policy Yearbook: Recent Trends in Public Policy Research

“…In 2018, the prominent research interests, characterized by the 10 most frequently appearing terms, include the following: political; environmental; social; governance; management; science; health; analysis; policies; and development. When comparing this word cloud with those from recent years (Jenkins‐Smith, Krutz, Carlson, & Weible, ; Jenkins‐Smith & Trousset, ; Jenkins‐Smith, Trousset, & Weible, ; Trousset, Jenkins‐Smith, & Weible, ; Trousset, Jenkins‐Smith, Carlson, & Weible, ), it appears that the proportion of research trends among Yearbook members has remained stable over time.…”

The 2016 Public Policy Yearbook: Recent Trends in Public Policy Research

“…In 2016, the prominent research interests, characterized by the 11 most frequently appearing terms, include the following: political, environmental, social, governance, management, education, university, development, science, analysis, and health. When comparing this word cloud with those from the past 6 years (Jenkins‐Smith & Trousset ; Jenkins‐Smith, Trousset, & Weible, , 2013; Trousset et al, ), it appears that the proportion of research trends among Yearbook members has remained stable over time.…”

“…For more detailed information on the Yearbook website and 23 previously published retrospective review articles, we welcome readers to look at previously published editorial articles. In the 2013 and 2014 introductory articles (Jenkins‐Smith, Trousset, & Weible, ; Trousset, Jenkins‐Smith, & Weible, ), we presented a detailed description of the functionality of the Yearbook website, as well as a comparative look at developments in public policy research between 2009 and 2014. Last year, in the 2015 introductory article (Trousset, Jenkins‐Smith, Carlson, & Weible, ), we presented a discussion on the progress of the Yearbook 's published, peer‐reviewed retrospective review articles dating back to the launch of the series in 2011.…”

Cloud Incident Data Analytics: Change-Point Analysis and Text Visualization

“…As a research tool for qualitative data, word clouds have been used for analyzing key terms in policy research [28], evaluating students' experiences in management education [32] and summarizing information and learning [21]. For each of the five incident types, a word cloud was generated to compare the corpus of summarized descriptions of the cloud incidents.…”