| | This Thematic Special Issue on Policy Change and Policy Dynamics has as its main objective to present and discuss agenda setting, one of the most important issues for the study of public policies and the policy process. The agenda setting approach proposes an analytical approach on pre-decision processes to understand broader developments in public policy (Zahariadis, 2016). To achieve that, it places the attention at the center of political action and relies on the fact that it is the change in attention that would cause, consequently, change in public policy.
Inserted in this debate on the role of attention in pre-decision processes, the questions that these studies ask include: Why do policies change? And if they really change, in what ways do they change? How can we analyze and explain this process? Who are the actors, the institutions and the information we should look at? What are the theoretical and methodological tools and theories to understand policy change and policy dynamics? How the policy change process occurs and how to explain it?
The international literature on policy agenda setting has rapidly advanced since the first theoretical models emerged in the mid-1980s and 1990s in the United States (Kingdon, 1984; Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Over the last thirty years, the Multiple Streams Model, the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and the Advocacy Coalition Framework have been reviewed and updated. The most recent studies have generated new concepts, new methods of data collection, and forms of analysis about policy agenda and policy change processes.
One of the most relevant aspects on the studies of policy agendas and policy change considers the diffusion occurred in the years 2000 with the application of its theoretical and methodological approaches to different societies and political systems beyond the United States (John, 2006). Consequently, another important achievement in the studies of agenda setting and policy change must be highlighted: studies of public policies in comparative perspective. The methodological transformations involving the mapping and analysis of governmental attention allowed not only the application of models and theories to explain processes in different countries, but also has forwarded the conduct of comparative studies across political systems.
Although agenda-setting studies have grown significantly in the international academic community, there are still some important points to be better explored. The intent of this Themed Special Issue of RAP is to contribute with the growing agenda-setting studies by highlighting the processes of policy changes and policy dynamics. This call for papers invites Brazilian and international scholars to contribute with innovative research papers related to agenda setting and policy change process. We particularly encourage researches that considers the four themes described below, which we understand as the most relevant to the present days:
- Critical reviews and advances on theories and methods in the study of policy agendas and policy change.
Critical reviews over Policy agendas theories and methods used to explain policy change. Use of different and alternative methodologies, development of new perspectives, variables in agenda setting to analyze policy change. Agenda setting and its theoretical and methodological adaptations to explain changes in adverse contexts.
- Beyond geographical boundaries on policy analysis
Theoretical studies, methodological and applied case studies that go beyond geographical boundaries to explain the policy agenda and its changes. We highly recommend policy agenda studies that include the Latin America context, particularly agenda setting and policy dynamics in the Brazilian context. Application of theories and methods present in policy analysis on the southern axis. Comparative policy studies over South - South perspective.
- Case studies that apply models of policy analysis in longitudinal or comparative perspectives.
Study cases on agenda setting. Comparative studies focusing on policy agendas. National, sub-national and supranational studies. Longitudinal analyses. Cross-sectional analyses. Studies that use complex variables such as ideology, political party to explain agenda setting and policy change.
- State of the art on the study of policy agendas
Studies that aim to systematize knowledge about policy agenda produced in several areas of knowledge; analysis of the previous knowledge produced around the world; Bibliometric studies; analyses on model applications; types of studies produced mapping of methodological uses; systematization of results found in the literature. Development of the field of knowledge - State of the art.
REFERENCES
Baumgartner, F. R, & Jones, B. D. (1993). Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.
Capella, A. C. N. (2007). Perspectivas teóricas sobre o processo de formulação de políticas públicas. In G. Hochman, M. Arretche, & E. Marques (Orgs.), Políticas Públicas no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro, RJ: Fiocruz.
John, P. (2006). The Policy Agendas Project: a review. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(7), 975-986.
Kingdon, J. ([1984] 2003). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. (3a ed.). New York, NY: Harper Collins.
Sabatier, P. A., & Jenkins-Smith, H. C. (1993). Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Weible, C. M. (2014). Theories of the Policy Process. (3rd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Zahariadis, N. (2016). Handbook of public policy agenda setting. Cheltenham, Northampton: Edward Elgar.
Revista de Administração Pública (RAP) is a journal on Public Administration published in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by FGV EBAPE (Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration of Getulio Vargas Foundation), being an open access journal http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/rap.
Will be accepted submissions only in English. Approved papers will be published in English and Portuguese (or Spanish). Author(s) who may have their papers approved for publication, please, we count on your collaboration concerning the bilingual production of the final version of your papers. We expect that the accepted papers (after blind review and analysis by the organizers) will be published in 6 to 8 months from the result of the desk review. RAP is classified by the CAPES Qualis system as A2. Thus, we trust that we will receive high-level papers in those languages.
GUIDELINES
Author(s) should follow the guidelines for submitting papers to RAP in:
http://bibliotecadigital.fgv.br/ojs/index.php/rap/pages/view/envio_artigos
Papers should be submitted through the link:
https://mc04.manuscriptcentral.com/rap-scielo
You must register as an author, unless you have done it previously.
Note: please indicate in the field “AUTHOR'S COMMENTS” that your paper is for the special issue: “Agenda setting: policy change and policy dynamics”.
Specific questions about the special issue should be directly addressed to the Guest Editor: Felipe Brasil (fbrasil.pp@gmail.com).
CALENDAR
01 July 2019 − Call for Papers − Public and general audience.
01 November 2019 - Deadline to send papers proposals to Special Issue Editors.
01 December 2019 - Desk review analysis - All the articles submitted are initially read by the Special Issue Editors, who will consider their relevance to the interest and scope of the Themed Special Issue. Some papers may be rejected at this stage. Otherwise, they will be sent to reviewers.
January 2020 up to June 2020* - Deadline to reviewer analysis.
01 July 2019* - Deadline to Editors send selected papers to RAP editor.
September up to December 2020* - RAP Calendar - Publication of Themed Special Issue.
*Please note that these dates may be subject to change. |
|
