25. Public Policy

Frank R. Baumgartner, The Pennsylvania State University, frankb@psu.edu

The 2008 meeting overall focus on global inequality is especially appropriate for the study of public policy. Research in our area has traditionally dealt prominently with issues of the distribution of resources through government action. Papers fitting within these themes are particularly welcome, including those that incorporate an international perspective and those that fit with themes of interest beyond the public policy section itself. Proposals for papers, panels, and posters are welcome from all methodological orientations and from all segments of the field. Of course, those with broader theoretical and practical applications or lessons are particularly welcome, as are those which bring together diverse perspectives for a single panel. Proposals explicitly addressing important methodological and research approach questions are strongly encouraged. Public policy research has often been subject to the silo-effect where scholars focused on a single policy question have worked in isolation from the work of their colleagues working in other policy areas. Proposals that bridge these divides are particularly welcome, including those that cover several policy areas, that discuss public policy in more than one political system, or which have explicit methodological or broadly theoretical orientations. Proposals for innovative panel formats, beyond the traditional four-papers-and-a-discussant are also welcome.

As in previous years, we welcome proposals across the full array of interests and concerns within the study of public policy, but are especially interested in how political science and other disciplines link empirical, theoretical and normative aspects of policy. We urge those who submit proposals to incorporate empirical, theoretical, and normative concerns in their paper and to involve scholars from different fields of inquiry in the panels. We welcome all methodologies and encourage papers on the value of different approaches ranging from discourse analysis to complex quantitative modeling. We are especially interested in explicit comparative work across disciplinary boundaries, historical periods, and with reference to several nations or political systems. Proposals may also focus on international organizations, the international system, or politics within developing countries in addition to the more common approach focusing on the US and developed countries. Gender and racial aspects of public policy are particularly relevant aspects of global inequality, and papers investigating these are therefore strongly encouraged.

The overall focus on global inequality naturally leads to an interest in how students in public policy have addressed these issues and how they might in the future. To what extent are public policies the reflection of social inequalities and to what extent are they the cause? In sum, we encourage a wide range of proposals of all types reflecting the healthy diversity of approaches in our field and beyond.