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Cairney 2020 - Understanding Public Policy - 2 Edition - Front Matter
Cairney 2020 - Understanding Public Policy - 2 Edition - Front Matter
The public
policy landscape is always evolving and this second edition captures the new features, colours and dynam-
ics in rich and vivid detail. It should be the go-to work for experienced scholars and students alike.'
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Allan McConnell, University of Sydney, Australia
'This volume stands as the essential guide for students who seek to understand the forces that shape
political decisions and the policy process. Clearly written and full of theoretical and empirical insights from
contemporary issues, I have no doubt this book will have a prominent place in policy scholars' reading lists.'
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'Rarely does a policy textbook title match its content better. Understanding Public Policy provides an
efficient introduction to complex policy theory that is accessible to new learners by demystifying (neces-
sary) policy jargon through plain language and current examples. Cairney's work incorporates the views
of top scholars across the policy process literature and around the world. New learners and experienced
readers will find the book a useful reference for understanding and researching public policy.'
'Paul Cairney's book is the essential work for any public policy course. It clearly maps out all the key
theories, and is packed with definitions and examples based on the latest research. It also offers a crucial
insight into how policy works, and what happens when theory meets reality. It is usable, lucid and very
well written.'
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Ben Worthy, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
'Understanding Public Policy does what is says on the tin. It allows students, social scientists and those
involved in public policy to access, understand and apply the most important findings of contemporary
theories and empirical studies of the policy process. Cairney's volume delivers with crystal clear language,
powerful narratives, and a rich repertoire of examples.'
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'In the first edition of this text Paul Cairney showed us that the untamed study of public policy could be
conveyed in a way that is both accessible and useful, and yet also comprehensive and sophisticated. In this
second edition he extends these qualities. At this point it is safe to say that Cairney's aerial view of the
study of public policy is itself becoming a standard in the field.'
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Michael D. Jones, Editor-in-Chief, Policy Studies Journal
'Cairney's second edition synthesizes the rich body of scholarship on public policy and policymaking to dis-
til lessons on the multifaceted factors that structure, influence and produce public policy. This book serves
as an essential resource for diagnosing the nature of policymaking while honouring its complexity and the
diversity of lenses through which we can explore it.'
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Tanya Heiklála, University of Colorado Denver, USA
'Paul Cairney's book is exceptional in capturing the theoretical and conceptual complexity of the
approaches to understanding the policy process. Caimey's approach is unique in laying the foundation for
understanding these approaches. The book will be useful to both students of the policy process as well as
practitioners hoping to gain a lay of the land in policy studies.'
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Editorial Advisory Group: Jennifer Curtin, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Jordi Diez, University
of Guelph, Canada; Claire Dunlop, University of Exeter, UK; Tanya Heikkila, University of Colorado
Denver, USA; Karin Ingold, University of Bern, Switzerland; Allan McConnell, University of Sydney,
Australia; Daniel Nahrstedt, Uppsala University, Sweden; Jale Tosun, Heidelberg University, Germany;
Chris Weible, University of Colorado Denver, USA.
There has never been a more important time in which to understand the dynamics of public policy. Key events
across the globe have prompted debate about political crisis, from 'post truth' and emotionally-driven politics
to the sense that international institutions or agreements are not well-equipped to solve pressing global crises
such as public health epidemics, poverty and climate change. Yet, a key feature of policy studies is the identi-
fication and explanation of policymaking stability and policy continuity, with salient issues gathering most of
our attention while most issues are processed out of the public spotlight. A major problem for democracy is
that few people know about the choices governments make in their name.
We need as many perspectives as possible on how such policy dynamics operate, and what effect they have
on developments in different regions and policy areas. Such developments will not be covered fully by
research monographs, with a limited focus and audience. We also need textbooks which combine academic
rigour with a broad analytical focus and an appeal to a wide audience. This series helps develop this focus
on research and learning, serving the global market of undergraduate, postgraduate and professional edu-
cation in public policy and related disciplines such as political science and social policy.
PUBLISHED
Anneliese Dodds
Comparative Public Policy (second edition)
Paul Cairney
UnderstandingPublic Policy (second edition)
FORTHCOMING
Madeleine Pill
Urban Policy and Politics
Alison Ritter
Drug Policy
PLANNED
UDERSTADIG
PUBLIC POLICY
2nd edition
Paul Cairney
To be honest, when I wrote the dedication for the ß.rst edition, I did not antidpate so many
path dependent issues with the second edition. Still, here goes. For my still-lovely
partner Linda, our still-beautiful-but-not-really-children-anymore children,
Evie, Alß.e and Frankie, their partners (if applicable), our grandchildren
Charlie and Teddy, and our still-smelly-but-handsome dogs Coco and Mabel.
Contents
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xii
List of Boxes xiii
List of Abbreviations xv
Preface xvi
vii
viii Contents
Bibliography 248
Index 289
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List of Figures
xi
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List of Tables
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List of Boxes
xiii
xiv List of Boxes
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List of Abbreviations
xv
Preface
In the first edition of this book, I started by moaning that most of my colleagues do not
really appreciate the study of public policy. Well, things have changed since then. I have
noticed a major increase in attention to policy studies from scholars in many disciplines
and practitioners in many organizations. For me, this interest has come from countries
like the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, as well as several EU mem-
ber states and organizations like the European Commission, in which academics and
practitioners are interested in the 'impact' of research on policy. When they want to take
some insights from policy theories, where do they look? The field of policy studies, as a
whole, is huge and unwieldy. However,if we can synthesizeand explain their insights con-
cisely, they offer profoundly important ways to understand the dynamics and effects of
policymaking.
I've tried to help out by writing about policy theories in a collection of complementary
ways, such as by combining this book with a series of blog posts (and podcasts) which
explain key concepts in the original 1000 words series (https://paulcairney.wordpress.
com/1000-words/) and the newer 500 words series (https://paulcairney.wordpress.
com/SOO-words/). Each post gives you the basics and helps you navigatea chapter or sec-
tion in this book, and then the book introduces you to a much larger literature. You can
then choose how far to go to find and use insights from policy theories (although I recom-
mend strongly that you read the source material to gain a full understanding).
I have also tried to help by generatingan overall sense of what the literature adds up
to, and how it might inform people who do not have the time to study it all the time. For
example, the second edition now has a greater focus on the highly popular but problem-
atic idea of 'evidence-based policymaking' (EBPM). I use policy theory to show why 'the
evidence' will always be one of many influences on policy. So, if you do not want to jump
into the study of many theories, you can begin with the study of an overarchingtopic like
EBPM and learn how policy theory fits in (there is also a blog page devoted to this subject
https:/ /paulcairney.wordpress.com/ebpm/).
However, there is still a long way to go before I'm fully satisfied with Understanding
Public Policy. In particular, the first edition relied too much on white male (usually US and
UK) authors, reinforcing a general tendency of political science scholars to undervalue
women and send 'a very clear message to students about who (white male elites) and what
(institutions) are important in political science' (Amy Atchison, 2017). There are useful
discussions taking place about how to modify the ways in which we redesign scholarship
for teaching and learning. Some focus on syllabus/module design: Raul Pacheco-Vega
(2015) on including 'under-representedscholars', Manjeet Ramgotra (2015) on how to
include women and non-white men in curricula, Shannon Morreira and Kathy Luckett
(2018) on 'Questions academics can ask to decolonise their classrooms', and Alice Evans
(2018) on a tendency to 'venerate men as knowledgeableauthorities'. A special issue of
Political Studies Review also includes reflections on 'decolonisingthe curriculum' by Neema
Begum and Rima Saini (2019) and AkwugoEmejulu (2019).
xvi
Preface xvii
I think it will take many editions, over my entire career, before I address these issues
really well, and in this opening discussion I am making a commitment to do so. In the
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meantime, I have addressed them quite well in the second edition, by:
•
Giving more respect to key literatures that should have appeared more in the first
edition, including Social Construction and Policy Design, led by Anne Schneider and
Helen Ingram, and the Institutional Analysis and Development framework, led by Elinor
Ostrom.
•
Giving more respect to individual pieces of work with high impact in the field, such as
by Carol Bacchi and, now that I focus more on the use of evidence and evaluation, Carol
Weiss.
•
Expandingon key approaches that only got a little nod in the first edition, including
feminist institutionalism, to which my introduction was via Fiona Mackay and Meryl
Kenny, and policy learning which has been taken forward in important ways by Claire
Dunlop, usually as part of a dream team -
with Claudio Radaelli that has done a
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Overall, here are the changes from the first edition: more on policy formulation and tools
(Chapter 2), power, knowledge, and inequality (Chapter 3), the psychology of policymak-
ing, and the NPF and SCPD (Chapter 4), feminist institutionalism (Chapter 5), complexity
theory (Chapter 6), the IAD, polycentric governance, and ecology of games (Chapter 7), the
links between MLG and polycentric governance (Chapter8), new developmentsin PET, the
ACF, and MSA (Chapters 9-11), and policy learning and 'evidence-based' policy transfer
(Chapter 12). You will need to read the book to understand the abbreviations! I also spend
xviii Preface
this book tends to equate 'institution' with organization rather than the rules of organiza-
-
tions; see Chapter 5). Chris did the same for the ACF, allowing me to avoid repeatingan
embarrassing mistake in the way that I described internal/external 'shocks'. My co-author
and office-buddy Emily St Denny kept me right on new institutionalism, and hers is the
only PhD thesis that I have read solely out of interest (and to inform Box 5.2).
There is a lot of discussion of evidence and policy in the second edition, based heavily
on co-authored work with Kathryn Oliver and Adam Wellstead. I first heard Woodward's
phrase 'velvet triangle' from my co-author Kirstein Rummery.I included a quotation from
Keynes after hearing it in David Mair's presentations, and I have learned more generally
from David, Lene Topp, and Laura Smillie (at the European Commission Joint Research
Centre) during our collaboration on 'knowledge management for policy' (Topp et al.,
2018). Working with Ruth Mayne and her colleagues at Oxfam helped me think in dif-
ferent ways about policy studies (Mayne et al., 2018). I have drawn in Chapter 10 on
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Preface xix
my contribution to an ECPR paper the ACF that I co-authored with Hannes Stephan
on
and Irina Timonina, and from the work I did with my main ACF co-author buddies Karin
Ingold and Manuel Fischer. I have also drawn in Chapter 12 on European Research
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Council Horizon 2020 funded work (as part of the IMAJINE project) on policy learn-
ing (with Michael Keating and Emily St Denny). My update to the EU section in chapter
8 is informed heavily by a paper co-authored with Andrew Glencross. In energy policy, I
learned (again) that people use the term 'system'very loosely (with Fiona Munro) and that
it is very difficult in practice to separate formal power and informal influence (with Nicola
McEwen, Aileen McHargh, and Karen Turner). Bethany McKechnie helped me produce
a very decent bibliography (while completing her MPP studies), and my hope is that she
thrives in the academy. The same goes for many of my former MPP students, but I don't
want to jinx their chances. Harriet Simons made sure that the index was a proper index.
I paid Bethany and Harriet £10 per hour, which is OK money if you don't try to spend it
outside the UK.
Of course, the danger with a long list is that I've likely not described someone really
important (and I was tempted to just list the name of every co-author ever), but it's tradi-
tional to remember one or two peoplejust as the book goes past the point of no return.
Iä like to dedicate the book to my friend and mentor, Grant Jordan, who died in 2017. He
wouldn't have read this book, but it would have been nice to keep up a tradition: he would
keep my signed books for a while before handing them back to me during a clear-out! More
importantly, his ideas generally as part of a dream team with Jeremy Richardson have
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been central to the way in which I understand the policy process. You can find a longer
tribute to Grant (by many people cited in this book) on my blog. Grant once told me a
story of trying to buy a parcel of land from his neighbour. The price? Whatever it would
cost his neighbour to fix his roof! He was focusing on what he needed from the process,
not what the process could reasonablyprovide. People often do the same thing with poli-
tics: they focus on what they want from a policymaking system (or express a 'functionalist'
imperative)rather than how it works. In contrast, this book focuses on how it works, and
invites you to wonder what to do with that knowledge.
I would also like to note the passing of Barry Hindess. I did not know him personally,
but, if you have read his work, you will see that some of his insights underpin a lot of my
discussion. Philosophy and Methodologyin the Social Sciences is a classic, and I read it (and
many more of his books) after browsing the library shelves (please contact me if you would
like more tales of the pre-Internet age). In Chapter 3, I also rely on his work to describe the
work of Jürgen Habermas.
Finally, I would like to thank Lloyd Langman at Red Globe Press for encouraging me
to write the second edition and not complaining too much when it was (*coughs*) a few
years behind schedule. However, Lloyd did not have to convince me of the value of these
kinds of textbooks. I know I'm biased (as a contributor to, and editor of, Red Globe Press's
Textbooks in Policy Studies series), but I hope you will still indulge my plea to praise the text-
book. Many colleagues describe their reluctance to write a textbook because it allegedly
takes too much effort for too little reward; our status depends too highly on the journal
article and monograph. I challengethis conclusion for four reasons. First, if you do it right,
you can write as a package: the immense reading for the textbook informs the literature
review that underpins any good piece of original research (and good textbooks incorpo-
rate new material). Second, almost all of my most-cited publications have been reviews of
the literature (including 'Standing on the shoulders of giants', based on the first edition's
xx Preface
conclusion). Third, while a very small number of people (think they) know their entire
field, most people benefit from these attempts at theoretical synthesis. This benefit is par-
ticularly high when you are trying to relay key insights to people in other disciplines, and
practitioners, who do not have the time to read the same material. We rely on each other
to make this stuff widely accessible, or accept that we are speaking to a very small group
of people. Fourth, people actually read textbooks. Many students and practitioners get in
touch with me to describe the usefulness of the first edition (and blog), and each moment
of feedback makes the writing worthwhile. I'd have to rack my brain to remember anything
as remotelypositive in relation to any article or grant application I've sent for peer review.
Of course, my story of public policy is potentially one of many. White male professors
in the Global North -
like me
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seem the most likely to tell these stories of policymaking.
Therefore,my second commitment is to find ways to encourage and enable more voices in
this Textbooks in Policy Studies series.
Paul Cairney