Doing, Failing, and Realizing Policy Change: A research programme on drivers, barriers, and politics of change in a transforming society (Studien der NRW School of Governance)

By: Maximilian Schiffers

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Synopsis: Building on advancements in research on public policy, interest groups, and governance, this book addresses the translation of drivers and hurdles of change into concrete policy change and transformation. It follows the question how we can understand and explain the complex links between different explanatory factors – institutional, actor centred, and politics-of-change – that convey the possibilities for change into actual change. The results highlight that policy change is not an automatic process where the loudest voices prevail or where political attention forces change. Rather, the understanding of policy change requires a combination of emphasizing politics-of-change as a focus on the concrete political processes and agency, a multi-perspective analytical view on the mechanisms of change, and empirical in-depth analysis of the activities of policy actors across episodes of political stability. Acknowledging the practical relevance, it actively fosters the transfer of knowledge between academia and society on practical issues of doing, failing, and realizing policy change in a transforming society.