Title:	Comparative Policy Studies
Authors:	Isabelle Engeli Christine Rothmayr Allison
Keywords:	Conceptual
Issue Date:	2014
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Description:	Handbooks and manuals on public policy regularly open with a discussion on whether there is such a thing as a field of policy studies. Some point to the fact that the diversity of methodological and theoretical approaches, and the more ‘craft-oriented’ than purely science-oriented character of policy studies, make the building of grand theory a vain endeavour. Others, in order to affirm that we can meaningfully speak of a field of policy studies, have assembled and sometimes integrated concepts and theoretical frameworks in order to distinguish policy studies from other research programmes in the social sciences as a subdiscipline in its own right. This volume does not engage in this type of discussion, but takes for granted that there is a research tradition going back to the work of Lasswell (1951, 1970) that we can call policy studies. Lasswell conceived of the policy sciences as being problem focused, that is, interested in the substantive societal issues and problems facing governments which they need to address through analyzing the processes of policy formulation and choices, and by evaluating implementation and policy outcomes. He advocated a multidisciplinary, multimethod and theorydriven approach. In this approach, in order to contribute to problem solving, we need theories of the policy process in order to understand the mechanisms and factors that shape policy choices and policy outcomes. The ultimate goal of policy science for Lasswell was to contribute to the democratization of society. This volume incorporates a specific interpretation of the Lasswellian approach to the policy sciences, and proposes a more precise focus on the central issue of methodological challenges in comparative policy studies. The field of public policy analysis comprises broadly two different, related and equally valuable scholarly enterprises: to provide knowledge and policy expertise in and for policy making ( policy sciences, policy analysis), and to develop general theories and frameworks of the policy process explaining and predicting policy-making processes ( policy studies). The latter focuses on how problems are defined, agendas set, policies formulated, decided, implemented and evaluated (Parsons, 1995: p. XVI). Both research traditions embrace comparative research in order to ensure their findings contribute to better theories on policy making. This book is part of the second scholarly endeavour, that of policy studies. Comparative policy studies address processes of policy making, of problem emergence and definition, of policy formulation, of policy implementation and also evaluation. Why governments choose different courses of action – or decide not to act at all – is the classical question of comparative policy studies, and constitutes a central aspect of the discussions in this volume (Heidenheimer et al., 1990: p. 3). Drawing on the seminal work of Heidenheimer et al. (1990), this volume places comparison at the heart of public policy research. Comparative analysis encourages moving beyond the particularities of each case and identifying patterns and regularity across cases, settings and time periods. Comparative designs force the researcher not to stop the analysis at particularistic explanations drawn from a single context, but to test whether the answers to research questions hold true for a larger number of cases and contexts.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/52643
ISBN:	978-1-137-31415-4
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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