For all nation-states, the context in which public policies must be developed and applied continues to become more complex and demanding. Yet policy studies has not fully responded to the challenges and opportunities represented by these developments. While governance has drawn attention to a globalising and network-based policy world, politics and the role of the state have been de-emphasised. The book addresses this imbalance through a process of reconsideration – re-visiting traditional policy-analytic concepts and re-developing and extending new ones. The objects of reconsideration are of ... More

For all nation-states, the context in which public policies must be developed and applied continues to become more complex and demanding. Yet policy studies has not fully responded to the challenges and opportunities represented by these developments. While governance has drawn attention to a globalising and network-based policy world, politics and the role of the state have been de-emphasised. The book addresses this imbalance through a process of reconsideration – re-visiting traditional policy-analytic concepts and re-developing and extending new ones. The objects of reconsideration are of two types: firstly, themes relating to ‘deep’ policy: policy systems; institutions, the state and borders; and secondly, policy-in-action: information, advice, implementation and policy change. Through these eight perspectives, each developed as a chapter of this book, the authors have produced a melded approach to policy, which they call systemic institutionalism. They define this approach as one that provides a broad analytic perspective that links policy with governance (implemented action) on the one hand, and the state (structured authority) on the other. By identifying research agendas based on these insights, the book suggests how real world issues might be substantively addressed, in particular more complex and challenging issues, through examples that bring out the ‘policy’ (the history and potential for collective public action) in the system.