Institutional and Ideational Approaches to Post-Exceptionalist Policy Making

Abstract

Post-exceptionalism is a concept introduced to describe a “partial transformation in which an exceptionalist policy sector has not been completely ‘normalized’ and in which old and new ideas, institutions, interests and policy instruments coexist” (Daugbjerg & Feindt 2017). The concept of post-exceptionalism is a diagnostic tool rather than a theory. It says very little about the processes of transformation, what drives them and which factors facilitate and constrain transformation processes. The theoretical challenge of explaining post-exceptionalism is to develop theoretical approaches which, at the same time, can explain policy change and stability. Institutional theory has proven capable of explaining stability and limited gradual changes in the existing order, while ideational/paradigm theory has gained traction as an approach to explain radical change. This panel includes papers that seek to develop ideational and institutional perspectives on transformation processes challenging exceptionalism in the agri-food policy domain.