Understanding continuity and change in policymaking: Applying practice-based methods in DPA to reorient a critical gaze on policy processes

In this paper, I suggest that identified shortcomings in Deliberative Policy Analysis (DPA) can be addressed through applying its practice-orientation to the study of hegemonic policy making institutions. This endeavour complements and addresses the insight that DPA requires a ‘dose of political realism’ whilst taking account of the increasingly blurred boundaries between policymakers, stakeholders and analysts. I argue that this can be achieved in pursuance of ‘DPA 2.0’ (Bartels et al., 2020), and explore how my own research offers a concrete example of how a practice-orientation to studying policy making may be implemented in an empirical setting, and facilitate an analysis which takes account of continuity and change. I set the scene by providing the context for the calls for DPA 2.0, highlighting the neglect of the practice pillar and the failure of DPA to fully escape the ‘hegemonic cage’, where interpretive scholars are trapped giving advice to policymakers whose ideological commitments clash with their own (Li & Wagenaar 2019). In suggesting a way forward, I adapt Ahmed’s (2007) suggestion that scholars critique whiteness before seeking to ‘undo’ it, arguing that DPA should sit with the discomfort of researching those institutions where we are limited in our power to influence change. In this pursuit, I propose a research agenda that (a) elevates the practice-orientation of DPA through (b) centring a critical gaze on hegemonic institutions. Such an agenda offers the capacity to address the issues highlighted above in three ways: (1) by exploiting the full potential of a practice-orientation in policy analysis; (2) by subverting the question of the hegemonic cage in those settings where it cannot be unseated and (3) by applying practice-based methods to take account of policy making processes in a context of ‘fundamental complexity’ (Li and Wagenaar 2019). To elucidate the argument I offer a case study of the landscape of interventions in the UK for people perceived to be at risk of sexually harming. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 30 individuals working or volunteering in services for this population, I demonstrate how a focus on practices can help make sense of continuity and change in this emerging policy landscape. I also highlight some key limitations of my study, which crucially did not focus on hegemonic policy making institutions, and suggest that these limitations offer a potential for a more ambitious research agenda which seeks to understand the policy making process ‘as an ongoing and unfinished history’ (Ahmed, 2007: 165).