Research Handbook of Policy Design: (Handbooks of Research on Public Policy series)

This visionary Research Handbook presents the state of the art in research on policy design. By conceiving policy design both as a theoretical and a methodological framework, it provides scholars and practitioners with guidance on understanding policy problems and devising accurate solutions. Chapters discuss the major approaches to policy design as well as the challenges that confront policy designers and academics interested in improving this framework. More than 40 expert contributors operationalise the policy design framework around different models of causation, evaluation, instrumentation and intervention to explain and improve policy outcomes. This framework sheds new light on the nature of policy problems and the means to address these problems, while also explaining if and how a policy fits into the broader social and political environment. The Research Handbook considers not only the process of designing, and the roles that individuals and institutions play in the political process of revising and creating new policies, but also the outcome of the designing process: policy design as a plan for action. Providing a practical alternative to the conventional theories of the policy process like the policy cycle, this Research Handbook will be critical reading for scholars and students of public policy, political theory and public administration and management. It will also be beneficial for policy makers interested in improving the ways in which they formulate public policies.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Foreword: policy design as aspiration and frustration xiii Davis B. Bobrow Preface xvi 1 Introduction to the Research Handbook of Policy Design: operationalizing the policy design framework 1 B. Guy Peters and Guillaume Fontaine PART I THEORIES OF THE POLICY DESIGN FRAMEWORK 2 The politics of policy design 40 Nick Turnbull 3 Institutions, institutional theory, and policy design 54 B. Guy Peters 4 Instrumentation in policy design: policy tools – from devices to activators 72 Giliberto Capano and Michael Howlett 5 Policy instrumentation with or without policy design 88 Patrick Le Galès 6 Policy design and constructivism 104 Marlon Barbehön 7 Making sense of (and with) policy design 120 Hal K. Colebatch PART II CAUSATION AND PROBLEM DEFINITION 8 Four models of causation in the design of anti-corruption policies 136 Guillaume Fontaine, Taymi Milán and Alejandro Hernández-Luis 9 Coping with wicked problems in policy design 155 Brian W. Head 10 Listening to science in policy design: the contrasting cases of Quebec and Sweden during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic 176 Antoine Lemor, Louis-Robert Beaulieu-Guay, PerOla Öberg and Éric Montpetit 11 Fourth industrial revolution and algorithms: new challenges for policy design 194 Adam Wellstead, Tanya Heikkila and Matthew Wood 12 Good trouble in the academy: inventing design-focused case studies about public management as an archetype of policy design research 212 Michael Barzelay, Luciano Andrenacci, Sérgio N. Seabra and Yifei Yan PART III EVALUATION, FRAMING AND VALUES 13 A political theory of policy formulation practice, and stakeholder engagement 234 Robert Hoppe 14 Bridging ideas and policy design 256 Daniel Béland and Ishani Mukherjee 15 Anti-poverty program design under the human capital and human rights perspectives: overall features and Mexican cases 270 José Luis Méndez and Dafne Villagrán 16 Social policies for older adults in industrialized countries 285 Patrik Marier, Margaux Reiss and Isabelle Van Pevenage PART IV INSTRUMENTATION AND COORDINATION 17 Governance models and policy design 299 Jon Pierre 18 Adaptive governance through policy design 313 Saba Siddiki 19 Designing social policies: design spaces and capacity challenges 326 Namrata Chindarkar, M. Ramesh and Michael Howlett 20 Designing for coordination: the case of regulatory management policy 341 Fabrizio De Francesco and Valérie Pattyn 21 Policy design for policy coordination 355 Geert Bouckaert, B. Guy Peters and Koen Verhoest PART V INTERVENTION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT 22 Policy design labs and innovation 376 Jenny M. Lewis 23 Complexity, innovation and policy design 392 Steven Ney 24 Enhancing policy design and sustainable community outcomes through collaborative platforms based on a dynamic performance management and governance approach 411 Carmine Bianchi 25 Co-designing urban policies 434 Catherine Durose and Liz Richardson 26 Policy design as deliberative practice: learning from Khon Kaen (Thailand) 447 Piyapong Boossabong and Frank Fischer 27 Conclusion to the Research Handbook of Policy Design: A research agenda 465 B. Guy Peters and Guillaume Fontaine Index

About the Author :
Edited by B. Guy Peters, Maurice Falk Professor of Government, Department of Political Science, University of Pittsburgh, US and Guillaume Fontaine, Senior Researcher, Head of the Comparative Policy Lab, FLACSO, Ecuador

Review :
‘Arguably no more important question, in the global era, faces students of public policy than to understand the processes and approach for developing, and implementing, policy design. Understanding the conditions through which policy design emerges, shapes policy tools’ considerations and, ultimately – as Peters and Fontaine’s impressive collection of essays make clear – is not just about achieving goal attainment but also about understanding how competing and complementary approaches for doing so end up influencing how we view problems and consideration of their solutions. It is for these reasons that it is hard to overstate the importance of this book for students and practitioners of public policy. Not only does this book make contributions to those seeking to explain, and prescribe, public policy, but it also makes it clear that the turn toward “decision science” and universalist answers, and its corresponding reliance on “big data” and sophisticated algorithms, as illustrated in the Heikkilä, Wellstead and Wood chapter, provides an incomplete knowledge base required for a comprehensive interrogation of policy design. For these reasons the book’s embracing of the contribution of different knowledge communities is not only refreshing, it is required for those who seek to advance societal deliberations over what it means to engage in “good policy”, rather than advancing approaches that narrow these conversations. Required reading for students of public policy and practitioners who seek to improve an understanding of, and ameliorate, the myriad of vexing policy challenges facing governments, and civil society.’ ‘Originally a method for explaining the much more specific realm of product innovation, design thinking provides policy analysts with a strong focus on the user experience, instrument selection and on rapid prototyping of possible solutions. In this new Research Handbook we see an impressive range of new work on the diverse ways in which policy design can be conceptualised and applied. It makes clear that the overlap between deliberate or conscious design processes and an analytic lens using a design perspective, is far from complete. Practices can reflect design approaches without fully realising it. And design processes are themselves quite diverse. The editors favour viewing design as “a framework” and define this as a “non-formal model rather than an explanatory theory”. But it is also true that some contributions to the volume offer stronger explanatory accounts of such things as policy instruments in order to suggest causal effects and co-related processes of getting things done. The Handbook allows many flowers to bloom, and like design itself, it will employ users to make better decisions.’ ‘The world has always needed effective policy design, though perhaps we need it now more than ever before. This impressive Handbook encompasses the state of the art showing where policy scholars and practitioners can draw inspiration and the blind spots we must aspire to do better. International in scope, it deserves to be widely read and cited.’