CALL FOR PAPERS
Research Workshop on
(Re) Imagining Policy Tools: New Directions in Theory and Practice
Yonsei University Seoul
March 15-16, 2019
Convenors:
M Ramesh and Araz Taeihagh, National University of Singapore,
Michael Howlett, Simon Fraser University, Canada,
M. Jae Moon, Yonsei University, Korea
The recent proliferation of interest in policy design years has reignited interest in the analysis of policy tools. Not only are new tools and new tool hybrids such as nudging and co-production being (re)discovered and new areas of application of old tools being found, such as crowd-sourcing and co-design, but older tools are also being used in new contexts, such as advisory commissions and information provision. It is time to survey and compare these developments and (re)contextualize them within the existing literature on substantive and procedural policy instruments and policy design.
The workshop will address and provide information on topics including:
1. The extent of “newness” of policy tools like nudges and crowd-sourcing vis a vismoretraditional tools like information provision and public participation;
2. The nature and uses of “procedural tools” in general and their role in contemporary policy designs;
3. Issues around “policy mixes”, including those related their nature as well as issues concerning their evolution and processes such as sequencing, layering, stretching and patching;
4. “Tool calibrations” in all their various dimensions, including their design implications and how they affect policy change;
5. The nature of the “mechanisms” that tools activate in order to affect target behaviour: that is, better understanding why tools actually 'work' and why they are complied with;
6. Empirical evidence on administrator, public and political behaviour around choices of policy tools;
7. The nature of tool’ “volatility” or the likelihood and ease with which a tool or mix can be gamed/violated by targets or implementors and its design implications;
8. The relationship between tools and “platforms”: that is, specific kinds of ‘meta-tools’which are open-ended and multi-functional and provide the foundation for the use of other more directed tools.
Proposals from all disciplines, approaches and perspectives are welcome, so long as they shed new light on critical aspects of policy tools. Novelty, creativity, and rigour will be the main criteria for selecting proposals.High quality papers will be selected for publication as a special issue in an international journal, to be identified after proposals have been reviewed.
A limited number of travel grants to cover the cost of economy-class travel and accommodation will be provided.
Please send proposals (500 words) along with authors’ names, institutional affiliations, Email, and list of relevant publications to IlJoo Park at policytool2019@gmail.com no later than November 30, 2018.
