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Sheldon Kamieniecki, University of California, Santa Cruz, sk1@ucsc.edu

The 2009 meeting's general theme of change and complexity in the contemporary era is directly in line with the current study of public policy. The recent literature indicates how political scientists and policy analysts are evaluating different ways to research public policy as well as looking for new and innovative approaches to the formulation and implementation of public policy. Such efforts incorporate a wide variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives and approaches and seek to add to the existing knowledge base in public policy. The increased recognition of the true complexity of policymaking is persuading researchers to collaborate with scholars outside their fields of inquiry and become involved in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies of policy problems and their possible solutions. Proposals that take this approach are particularly encouraged, including those that cover several policy areas, that deal with public policy in more than one political system, or which have explicit methodological or broadly theoretical perspectives. Papers reflecting these types of research efforts and that address change and complexity in public policy are particularly welcome. Proposals for papers, panels, and posters are welcome from all theoretical and methodological orientations and from all segments of the field. Those with broader theoretical and practical applications or lessons are especially encouraged, as are those which bring together different perspectives for a single panel. Proposals explicitly tackling crucial methodological and research issues are invited. Proposals for innovative panel formats, beyond the traditional four-papers-and-a-discussant, are also desired.

As in previous years, proposals across a wide variety of interests and concerns within the study of public policy, but are particularly interested in how political science and other disciplines link empirical, theoretical, and normative aspects of policy are welcome. Those who submit proposals are urged to incorporate empirical, theoretical, and normative concerns in their papers and to involve scholars from a variety of fields of inquiry in their panels. Papers that incorporate approaches ranging from discourse analysis to complex quantitative modeling are invited. In particular, comparative work across disciplinary boundaries, historical periods, and with reference to several nations or political systems are appreciated. Proposals may also focus on international organizations, the international system, or politics within developing countries in addition to addressing the United States and developed nations. Changes in class, gender, race, ethnicity, and other forms of human identity related to public policy are particularly relevant, and papers analyzing these aspects are therefore strongly encouraged.

The overall emphasis on change and complexity in the contemporary era raises questions about how students of public policy are paying attention to these concepts, and how they might in the future. To what extent are public policies the reflection of social inequalities and rapidly changing demographics, and to what extent are they the cause? In sum, a wide range of proposals of all types reflecting the healthy diversity of approaches to the study of public policy are welcome.