Paradigms in Public Policy

Policy action is driven, shaped and regulated by the ways in which cognitive frames and interests shape and define issues and analyses and the involvement of particular authorities, experts, problem-definitions and solutions. To understand these processes is particularly important in the realm of democratic policymaking, where agents driven by divergent interests and alternative principles struggle to preserve or reform policy, law, and institutions. This book analyzes continuity and change in EU policy and provides a systematic understanding of the interactions between ideas, organized actors, and institutions in political, administrative and related social processes. The EU policy studies make up a rich empirical territory, ranging from food security and chemicals to energy, climate change, and gender.

Autorentext

The Editors: Marcus Carson is Associate Professor of Sociology at Stockholm University, exploring the role of conceptual models, institutions, and organized actors in public policy processes. Tom R. Burns, Professor Emeritus at Uppsala University, Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, and Professor at ISCTE, Lisbon, is a widely recognized social theorist and researcher. Dolores Calvo, a doctoral student in Sociology at the University of Gothenberg, Sweden, conducts research on gender policymaking in the EU.

Zusammenfassung
«This is a highly innovative book that offers a thorough appraisal of key EU public policy paradigms in a truly interdisciplinary way, combining theoretical analyses and empirical case studies.» (Alberto Martinelli, University of Milan)
«This book breaks new theoretical ground in elaborating a dynamic cultural/institutionalist framework, improving our understanding of how cognitive and normative models interact with social institutions, actor configurations and contested ideas and policymaking frames.» (Barbara Hobson, Stockholm University)
«This collection of essays is the most important expression to date of how ideas, cognitive frameworks, actors, and institutions interact to shape policy.» (Rogers Hollingsworth, Jr., University of Wisconsin)

Inhalt

Contents: Yves Surel: The Role of Cognitive and Normative Frames in Policymaking - Jane Jenson: Paradigms and Political Discourse: Protective Legislation in France and the United States before 1914 - Peter A. Hall: Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State. The Case of Economic Policymaking in Britain - William D. Coleman/Grace D. Skogstad, and Michael M. Atkinson: Paradigm Shifts and Policy Networks: Cumulative Change in Agriculture - Marcus Carson: Mad Cows, Pollutted Poultry, and the Transformation of EU Food Policy - Marcus Carson: From Freely Traded to Product-non-grata: Banning Asbestos in the European Union - Tom R. Burns/Dolores Calvo/Marcus Carson: The «REACH» Saga: A Revolution in Regulating Chemicals - Svein S. Andersen: The Emergence of an EU Energy Policy Paradigm -Tom R. Burns: The Irony of the EU Climate Policy: A Crooked Path to a Paradigm Shift - Dolores Calvo/Tom R. Burns/Marcus Carson: Toward a New Social Order? Mainstreaming Gender Equality in EU Policymaking.