Anatomy of a Policy Area: The Case of Shipping

Daniel Hosseus and Leslie A. Pal

Canadian Public Policy, 1997, vol. 23, issue 4, 399-415

Abstract: Policy fields are usually defined by conventional usage rather than by systematic analysis. This paper experiments with a methodology of boundary analysis that builds inductively through the aggregation of "topics" and policy instruments. Using the case of shipping policy, we develop a list of 473 topics drawn from several bibliographical and policy sources. These are then aggregated into 135 categories with accompanying policy instruments. While the methodology has obvious limitations, the experiment and case study demonstrate that it is possible to systematically estimate the complete possible contents of a policy field. The approach shows sufficient promise to warrant refinements and broader applications to a wide variety of estimation problems. It also makes a modest contribution to the study of policy instruments, which has tended to get stuck at the "classification" stage without much detailed empirical analysis of how and when instrument categories actually apply.

Date: 1997
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0317-0861%2819971 ... OAPAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y (text/html)
only available to JSTOR subscribers

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpp:issued:v:23:y:1997:i:4:p:399-415

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.utpjournals.com/loi/cpp/

Access Statistics for this article

Canadian Public Policy is currently edited by Prof. Mike Veall

More articles in Canadian Public Policy from University of Toronto Press University of Toronto Press Journals Division 5201 Dufferin Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada M3H 5T8.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Iver Chong ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).