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Andrea Campbell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, acampbel@mit.edu

“Representation and Renewal” are central issues in the study of public policy.  Social policy, economic policy, environmental policy, science and technology policy, foreign policy, defense policy and homeland security all raise questions about who gets their preferences realized, and why.  A preeminent goal of policymaking is renewal – recalibrating approaches to societal problems, addressing new needs.  The Public Policy section invites proposals that examine the multiple dimensions of representation and renewal.

As Harold Lasswell so famously put it, politics is about “who gets what, when, how?”  No question is more central to our enterprise than representation, whether and how the preferences of political actors are translated into policy outcomes.  Are some groups more likely than others to see their preferences realized?  How do the institutions of government channel preferences, and do they serve to mitigate or reinforce pre-existing inequalities?  How do modes and level of representation vary across the legislative, executive, and judicial arenas, across local, state, and federal government levels, and across nations?   How do political parties, interest groups and the media aid or hinder representation?  Proposals that assess policy processes and their implications for representation are welcome here.

Public policy is a constant process of renewal, from policymaking to implementation to policy change.  What problems come to be recognized as public problems, and why?  Why do certain solutions rise to the fore?  How effective are existing policies, and by what criteria should they be evaluated?  What barriers hinder policy change, and how can they be overcome?  When policy change is achieved, what are the political implications for client populations, for public opinion, for the interest group landscape, for the bureaucracy and the state, for budgetary commitments, for policy learning? 

Proposals are welcome from across the methodological and theoretical spectrum and from the broad range of policy areas.  I encourage papers that use multiple- and innovative methods and that leverage comparisons across time, policy issues, institutional venues, or national contexts. I also encourage both senior and junior colleagues to consider volunteering for chair and/or discussant roles.