Policy design as craft: teasing out policy design expertise using a semi-experimental approach

Mark Considine (), Damon Alexander () and Jenny Lewis ()

Policy Sciences, 2014, vol. 47, issue 3, 209-225

Abstract: Public policy research typically neglects the role of the individual policy actor with most accounts of the policy process instead privileging the role of governmental systems, institutions, processes, organizations; organised interests or networks of multiple actors. The policy design literature suffers from similar limitations, with very few authors paying attention to the crucial work of the individual policy designer or considering how the latter’s skills, expertise and creativity are employed in the design task. This represents a significant weakness in our understanding of how policy is formulated. This paper outlines and previews what we believe is a potentially fruitful semi-experimental methodological tool for exploring how individual policy actors draw on knowledge, expertise, intuition and creativity in framing and responding to complex policy issues. Real-time scenario-based problem-solving exercises are used to explore how policy problems and solutions are framed and articulated by novice (first-term politicians and early career bureaucrats) and experienced (former cabinet ministers and senior civil servants) policy actors and to examine the strategies and approaches they employ in response to specific problem cues. Initial findings are discussed, and we conclude by advancing potential refinements of the instrument and directions for future research. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Keywords: Policy design; Expertise; Decision-making; Scenario-based exercises (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11077-013-9191-0 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to 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:kap:policy:v:47:y:2014:i:3:p:209-225

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11077/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11077-013-9191-0

Access Statistics for this article

Policy Sciences is currently edited by Michael Howlett

More articles in Policy Sciences from Springer, Society of Policy Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().