ECPR General Conference 2018
This conference featured two panels that were run by members of the IPA community
When: 22-25 August 2018
Where: Hamburg (Germany)
Organization: ECPR
Section 19: Deliberative Policy Analysis: Looking Back and Looking Forward – Tamara Metze, Henk Wagenaar, Koen Bartels and Katharina Paul
In 2018 it was 15 years since Hajer and Wagenaar published Deliberative Policy Analysis: Understanding Governance in the Network Society (Cambridge University Press, 2003) (DPA). The book became one of the most cited books in interpretive policy analysis. The overall aim of this Section, which is co-organized by Koen Bartels and Katharina Paul, is to further articulate the broader, interventionist conception of DPA. With this Section, we seek to challenge DPA out of its narrow epistemological framework and to open it up for a range of creative possibilities where systematic inquiry goes hand in hand with social and political intervention. At the same time, we invite critical debate on how situations of co-creation of knowledge and of policies in participatory policy research, such as action research, citizen science, research by design, living labs, or communities of practice – affect the nature and quality of inquiry, how value-driven policy inquiry works out (or not) in practice, and reflections on the role and positionality of the analyst in such DPA-inspired modes of inquiry. Importantly, we seek to explore research that aims to integrate two or more of the three pillars of DPA in innovative ways, that analyzes the philosophical and conceptual foundations of DPA, that reviews DPA, including its challenges and critics, looks at the application of DPA in different substantive policy fields, and in comparative applications of DPA.
Section 77: Truth, Politics and Democracy: Understanding Post-Factual Times – Anna Durnova and Jana Vargovcikova
‘Truth’ has always had a particular relationship with politics. Not necessarily being seen as a political virtue, the concern for truth has advanced political analyses of social and historical contexts of truth-telling, studying also larger societal transformations along lying and fake identities. This scholarly work is aimed at advancing social and cultural explanations of the role of truth in politics. The political legacy of the Enlightenment, with its focus on civic authority and rationality, has together with the rise of Western industrial societies engendered the need for scientific expertise and can be seen as the source of the modern cultural ascendency of science that has brought a notion of truth as a ‘sound knowledge’.
Interpretive Policy Analysis Summer School 2018: Conflict and sustainable futures
When: 9-13 July 2018
Where: AMS, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Organization: WUR, with support of ECPR and AMS
This intensive PhD summer school (3 ects) provided PhD students with in-depth knowledge of interpretive methodologies and theories to understand and intervene in conflicts about sustainable futures. The summerschool focused on methodological innovations that take an integrated approach to the social, cultural, ethical and actionable dimensions of knowledge production, both by academics, as well as by practitioners from industry, government, and non-governmental organizations. An interpretive approach recognizes that knowledge, practices and policy process are “constituted and mediated through communicative practices” (Fischer and Gottweis, 2012:2), and seeks to develop new ways of useable and critical knowledge production such as co-production and deliberative policy analysis. Conflicts can be focal points for the problem defintions, understandings, ideologies, organizational routines and practices, identities and action preferences of a range of actors in a complex policy system. By making conflict productive, the creative potential in the system can be unleashed and harnessed towards epistemically and democratically inclusive solutions. The central theme of the summer school was conflicts and collaboration for sustainable futures. Students explored possible ways of understanding, analyzing, explaining and intervening in these complex transitions to more sustainable societies.
Lecturers: dr. Jennifer Dodge (University at Albany, NY), dr. Tamara Metze (WUR); Prof. Dr. Hendrik Wagenaar (Kings College London); Prof. dr. Navdeep Mathur (Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad); dr. Severine van Bommel (WUR); prof. dr. Esther Turnhout (WUR); dr. Merlijn van Hulst (TiU), dr. Katharina Paul (University of Vienna); dr. Marleen Buizer (WUR); dr. Iulian Barba-Lata (AMS); dr. Peter Matthews (University of Stirling); dr. Art Dewulf (WUR); dr. Jesse Hoffman (UU).
Key note: Prof.dr. Maarten Hajer (UU, Urbun Futures Studio): Research by Design