How can policy theory have an impact on policymaking? The role of theory-led academic–practitioner discussions

Abstract

Policymakers and academics often hold different assumptions about the policymaking world based on their different experiences. Academics may enjoy enough distance from the policy process to develop a breadth of knowledge and produce generalisable conclusions across governments, while policymakers/ practitioners such as civil servants may develop in-depth expertise when developing policy for a number of years. In turn, both may learn from each other about how to understand the policymaking world. Academic-practitioner seminars and short training courses can help further that aim. Yet, there is a major barrier to such conversations: academics and practitioners may have their own language to understand policymaking, and a meaningful conversation may require considerable translation. The article explores this topic in four main ways. First, it considers the extent to which academic-practitioner discussions still use simple concepts, such as the policy cycle, rejected by policy scholars in favour of concepts explaining policymaking complexity. Second, it identifies a series of relatively simple key tenets, from policy theories designed to explain complexity, to explore the extent to which modern theories can provide straightforward insights to policy practitioners. Third, it considers how those insights, based largely on what governments do, can be used to recommend what they should do. Fourth, it considers how to engage directly with policymakers to encourage intelligent and reflexive policymaking.

Responsible Agricultural Mechanization Innovation for the Sustainable Development of Nepal’s Hillside Farming System

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Juggling Multiple Networks in Multiple Streams

“…Juggling is decidedly not the same as the idea of policy making as a garbage–can process (most profoundly professed by March and Olsen 1984)—the application of theories highlighted above would aim at structuring and making sense of the logic, diligence and structure of managing a chaotic process. Theory‐led discussions between academics and practitioners have been suggested to work towards this end (Cairney 2014).…”

Beyond the usual suspects: using political science to enhance public health policy making

“…However, this work is hard to do insofar as political scientists and public health scholars and professionals, while they may share an interest in public health policies as they are related to say, tobacco control or the regulation of dietary sodium, approach these issues in sometimes very different ways. Managing this creative tension requires imagination and flexibility on the part of research funders and public health managers 48. In effect, it requires public health to expand its reach beyond the cast of usual suspects.…”