Policy and power: A conceptual framework between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ policy idioms

During the last few decades, both policy practices and policy idioms have drastically changed. Concepts such as interactive planning, network management, stakeholder dialogue, deliberative democracy, policy discourses, governance, etc. have replaced older ones such as public administration, policy programmes, interest groups, institutions, power, and the like. Although we recognise the relevance and importance of this shift in vocabulary, we also regret related ‘losses’. We particularly regret that the concept of power has – in our view – become an ‘endangered species’ in the field of public policy analysis. We therefore will develop a framework to analyse power – being a multi-layered concept – in policy practices in this article. We will do so on the basis of the so-called policy arrangement approach, which combines elements of the old and new policy vocabularies. In addition, we draw upon different power theories in developing our argument and model. As a result, we hope to combine the best of two worlds, of the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ idioms in policy studies, and to achieve our two aims: to bring back in the concept of power in current policy analysis and to expand the policy arrangement approach from a power perspective.     

女性文学批评本土化过程中的语境差异

西方女性主义文学批评进入中国后遇到了完全不同于其理论源头的接受环境。这些接受环境差异包括:一、历史背景的差异,其主要表现为西方女性主义文学批评是先“破”后“立”,而中国本土则是先“立”后“破”;二、意识形态差异,主要表现为西方文化中的民主传统与中国传统文化中的集权思想形成的对照;三、学术背景差异,西方女性主义文学批评是以反拨“新批评”的学术革命开始的,而中国本土则得益于马克思主义的社会历史批评的滋养。这些差异既决定了中国女性主义文学批评的独特面貌,同时又呼唤西方理论本土化研究的新思路。     

The importance of policy design fit for effectiveness: a qualitative comparative analysis of policy integration in regional transport planning

Policy Sciences - Policy design has returned as a central topic in public policy research. An important area of policy design study deals with effectively attaining desired policy outcomes by...     

The Iron Ring in Dutch Politics Revisited

Representatives of Dutch organizations were traditionally given a chance to defend the interests of their members in the many boards, councils and commissions that together form the corporatist channel in The Netherlands. The harmony and welfare the Dutch population has enjoyed since the Second World War are ascribed in part to the work of these institutions. They helped to bridge political gaps of class and religion by building compromise and consensus. But advisory committees and councils have also been described as somewhat shady and essentially closed institutions, forming an iron ring around the departments that hampered necessary policy changes. In this article, based on case studies on the selection of members of committees and a survey of all members of committees advising the central government, we will explore to what extent committees can still be described as bastions of conservatism. We will briefly describe selection processes, sketch a portrait of committee members and compare some characteristics of committee members and civil servants of individual ministries.     

Truth and Justice, Inquiry and Advocacy, Science and Law

Abstract. There is tension between the adversarialism of the U.S. legal culture and the investigative procedures of the sciences, and between the law's concern for finality and the open‐ended fallibilism of science. A long history of attempts to domesticate scientific testimony by legal rules of admissibility has left federal judges with broad screening responsibilities; recent adaptations of adversarialism in the form of court‐appointed experts have been criticized as “inquisitorial,” even “undemocratic.” In exploring their benefits and disadvantages, it would make sense to look to the experience of other legal systems.     

Twenty-Five Years of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Achievements and Challenges

Netherlands International Law Review - The 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 2014 is an appropriate occasion for reviewing its record of achievements and...     

Security sector reform,gender and local narratives in Burundi

This paper maps the difficulties with operationalising the gender discourse described in the peace accord and post-conflict documents, which guide Burundi's peace-building process, through local women's narratives from the security forces. The author claims that due to limited international and local investment, the local women involved in the security forces initiate small practical changes by referring to their vision of femininity, while theoretically legitimising these demands by linking them to the international human rights discourse in order to survive in an overwhelmingly masculine arena. International organisations and donors’ focus on traditionally feminine and softer areas, such as reconciliation and reintegration programmes, together with local elites’ tendency to view gender as an ‘add-on’ contribute to this development.