59 FOUR Thinking ourselves happy: on the policy relevance of both subjectivity and objectivity Happiness depends upon ourselves. (Aristotle) Objectivity requires taking subjectivity into account. (Lorraine Code, 1991, p 31) It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it. (Dale Carnegie) What is inside is also outside. (Goethe) Traditionally, public policies tended to focus on changing people’s ‘objective’ (external) life conditions, whereas the effort to transform
This book presents an academically rigorous yet practical guide to efforts to understand how knowledge, policy and power interact to promote or prevent change.It offers a power analysis perspective on the knowledge-policy process, illustrated with rich empirical examples from the field of international development, combined with practical guidance on the implications of such an approach. It provides ways to identify and address problems that have hampered previous attempts to improve the space between knowledge and policy; such as difficulties in analysing political context, persistent asymmetric relationships between actors, ignorance of the contributions of different types of knowledge, and misconceptions of the roles played by intermediary organisations. Most importantly, the book gives readers the ability to develop strategies for negotiating the complexity of the knowledge-policy interface more effectively, so as to contribute to policy dialogues, influence policy change, and implement policies and programmes more effectively.The authors focus on the dynamics of the knowledge-policy interface in international development; offering novel theoretical insights and methodological approaches that are applicable to a broader array of policy arenas and their audiences, including academics, practitioners and students.
First published as a special issue of Policy & Politics, this updated volume explores policy failures and the valuable opportunities for learning that they offer.
Policy successes and failures offer important lessons for public officials, but often they do not learn from these experiences. The studies in this volume investigate this broken link. The book defines policy learning and failure and organises the main studies in these fields along the key dimensions of processes, products and analytical levels. Drawing together a range of experts in the field, the volume sketches a research agenda linking policy scholars with policy practice.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Engagement with non-academic groups and actors – such as policy-makers, industry, charities and activist groups, communities, and the public – in the co-production of knowledge and real-world impact is increasingly important in academic research. Drawing on empirical research, interdisciplinary methodologies, and broad international perspectives, this collection offers a critical examination of the liminal space of interactions between policy and research as spaces of difference and engagement, showing them to be far from apolitical.
The authors consider what, and who, are present in these encounter spaces and examine how pre-existing perceptions about differences in social identity, positionality and knowledge can affect engagement, equity and research outcomes.
This comprehensive study, part of the International Library of Policy Analysis, brings together for the first time a systemic overview of policy analysis activities in Germany. Written by leading experts in the field – including informed practitioners – it outlines the development of the discipline, identifies its role in academic education and research, and examines its styles and methods. The book also focuses on the role of policy analysis for governments and parliaments, for parties, social partners, and interest groups. By offering a rich and timely analysis of policy analysis in Germany, this book is a valuable resource for academic exchange and for teaching, particularly in the fields of political science, social sciences, economics and geography. Moreover, by its broad, comprehensive understanding of ‘policy analysis’, the book will be of practical relevance and shape the debate for the future development of policy analysis in Germany and the different spheres where it is practised.
Indigenous Criminology is the first book to comprehensively explore Indigenous people’s contact with criminal justice systems in a contemporary and historical context. Drawing on comparative Indigenous material from North America, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, it addresses both the theoretical underpinnings to the development of a specific Indigenous criminology, and canvasses the broader policy and practice implications for criminal justice.
Written by leading criminologists specialising in Indigenous justice issues, the book argues for the importance of Indigenous knowledges and methodologies to criminology, and suggests that colonialism needs to be a fundamental concept to criminology in order to understand contemporary problems such as deaths in custody, high imprisonment rates, police brutality and the high levels of violence in some Indigenous communities.
Prioritising the voices of Indigenous peoples, the work will make a significant contribution to the development of a decolonising criminology and will be of wide interest.
In the field of ethnic relations the complex, often tortuous, interactions among academic researchers, research funders and those who use the research often result in social policy interventions that are poorly conceived and flawed in their implementation.
In this unique book, the contributors seek to develop a dialogue about the multiple constraints that skew research and its findings, and to kick-start a wider debate about the political context of current research and policy. In doing so, they aim to produce a renewed awareness of the current links between research and social policy in ethnic relations and to provide a critically reflexive basis for shaping interventions.
It will be of interest to academics working in higher and further education as well as to students at higher undergraduate and postgraduate level, and to a wide range of people working in ethnic relations policy fora.
This unique book combines both academic and practitioner perspectives to provide critical consideration of contemporary policy-making and highlight examples of good practice at all levels of government.
In Professional Policy Making for the Twenty-First Century the Cabinet Office’s Strategic Policy Making Team identified nine ‘competencies’ as the key features of ‘modern policy making’: forward-looking; outward-looking; innovative, flexible and creative; evidence-based; inclusive; joined-up; open to review; open to evaluation; and capable of learning lessons.
Using these to structure the book, nine central chapters - each written by a pair of co-authors, one primarily an academic, and the other primarily a policy maker or practitioner - examine the competencies in turn. Accompanying case studies provide lessons or pointers to good practice, together with guidance on how to access further information.
Set in the context of New Labour’s emphasis on ‘modernisation’, and reflecting the growing emphasis on policy making as a skill, the book will appeal to a range of audiences, including undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses that draw upon approaches to public administration and public policy, and social researchers, policy officers and others involved in the development and analysis of policy making at all tiers of government.
This comprehensive study, part of the International Library of Policy Analysis, edited by Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett, brings together for the first time a systemic overview of policy analysis activities in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is internationally regarded as one of the front-runners of policy analysis and evaluation in Europe. This book provides a much-needed overview of developments in policy analysis in both academia and practice at various levels of governance. It brings together contributions from key scholars as well as from professionals in the field. The book captures the diversity of modes of policy analysis which have evolved since the 1970s. Above all, it provides an overview of the current state of affairs and is, as such, suitable for anyone who is interested in governance and performance.
Features of the ILPA series include:
a systematic study of policy analysis systems by government and non-governmental actors
a history of the country’s policy analysis, empirical case studies and a comparative overview
a key reference collection for research and teaching in comparative policy analysis and policy studies
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. The number of people experiencing homelessness is rising in the majority of advanced western economies. Responses to these rising numbers are variable but broadly include elements of congregate emergency accommodation, long-term supported accommodation, survivalist services and degrees of coercion. It is evident that these policies are failing.
Using contemporary research, policy and practice examples, this book uses the Irish experience to argue that we need to urgently reimagine homelessness as a pattern of residential instability and economic precariousness regularly experienced by marginal households. Bringing to light stark evidence, it proves that current responses to homelessness only maintain or exacerbate this instability rather than arrest it and provides a robust evidence base to reimagine how we respond to homelessness.
