Agitated Polities, Changing Policies, and Policy Process Research

The attention paid by political scientists and policy scholars to the policy process has been demonstrated by the remarkable success of the 2016-2018 ECPR sections on this topic. Our polities (societies and states) have faced serious challenges (migration, security, climate change, etc.) causing policy changes. Policy process research is crucial to understand how policies change, what factors influence them, what decisions are made, who makes them, how policies are interpreted and what concrete effects they have. Different analytical frameworks contribute to this scientific quest. This section provides a forum for policy scholars to share their experience and develop policy process frameworks. The objectives of the section are: • To provide an opportunity for meeting scholars from different generations sharing common interests in the policy process; • To expand the theoretical, empirical, and methodological knowledge concerning policy change within prominent policy process frameworks; • To develop dialogue and networks around and across policy process frameworks, as well as research agendas. The section involves a healthy mix of established and junior scholars from Europe and other continents. We invite papers contributing to the development of policy process frameworks and/or addressing policy change. These proposals can rely on one framework or on a meaningful combination of them. We are interested in works that employ diverse methodological orientations, are pitched at sub-national, national, comparative or international settings, and address any policy domain.