The Role of Theories in Policy Studies and Policy Work
fuse in truthful and real narratives believed by the public , or become rejected by them as fake and contrived . Following Yanow ( 1996 ), in policymaking the vital question becomes : “ how do policies mean ?” Policymaking is a never-ending series of communications and strategic action moves by which various policy actors in all kinds of forums of public deliberation and coupled arenas of policy subsystems construct intersubjective meanings that inform collective action ; and the socially constructed outputs and outcomes of these collective actions feed back into policy speech and policy thought with a disciplining impact on the behavior of citizens . This social constructivism in policy process accounts gained particular popularity in policy design and agendasetting contexts , although it is also to be found in implementation settings .
Ingram and Schneider ’ s ( 1995 ) theory of policy design argues that “ target populations ” are sociopolitically constructed — for example , as contenders , as advantaged , as dependents , or as deviants — in and through policies . Policymakers ’ shifting perceptions and attitudes ( or stereotypes ) of target populations during policy design are the independent variable ; the authoritative policy texts and subsequent implementation practices are intermediary variables ; impacting on the quality of democracy as dependent variable — that is , citizen perceptions of the policy in question , the policy ’ s impact on their group identities , their orientations toward government , and their willingness and resources for political mobilization and participation . This state-ofdemocracy effect in turn becomes part of the subsequent political environment in which policymakers search for policies that reward their efforts ( e . g ., through re-election ) or ward off risks ( e . g ., by inadvertently strengthening contenders ). Although the role of policymaking in the social construction of groups is relative ( to advertisements , popular culture , and social discrimination ), it should be seen as an important political tool for social change in the distribution and redistribution of people ’ s life chances in society ( Schneider , Ingram , and deLeon 2014 ). Recently , the approach has been generalized from its focus on policymakers ’ stereotypes of target groups to a generic approach of “ policy feedback theory ” ( Mettler and SoRelle 2014 ; but also Hoppe 2010 ).
This concludes our overview of the major known and popular policy process frameworks , presented as three “ families of frameworks ”, each one with a clear root metaphor — authority , association , and problematization — but all sprouting from the same trunk : policy process . Policy scholars in academia will keep quarreling over the representational qualities or degrees of verisimilitude ( in Popper ’ s terminology ) of these accounts . Or they will create narratives of learning , wherein teleological and authoritative accounts of choice are being replaced by contingent and open-ended accounts of association and problematization — or combinations of both ( Schlager 1999 ; 2007 ). Or they may tell tales in which the complete set of accounts is viewed , eclectically and pragmatically , as a toolkit from which researchers choose and pick those concepts and frameworks , and multiple registers of temporality ( Sewell 2005 , 107 – 110 ) and research methodologies that make a case or multiple cases understandable and transparent , as the researchers sees fit ( in this direction , Cairney and Heikkila
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