Policy Studies of Policy Conflicts: a Deliberative Approach for Knowledge Integration

In policy studies, the study of policy controversies is an emerging field. For example, Weible and Heikkila (2017) observe that policy scholars often treat conflict as a “background concept” and study conflict indirectly as protest mobilization, competing values, or other political activities. However, recently, researchers have taken up policy controversies and policy conflict as a phenomenon in itself. Weible and Heikkila (2017) propose a comprehensive ‘Policy Conflict Framework’ (PCF) and for example Wolf and Van Dooren published a series of articles on policy conflict escalation (see for instance Wolf and Van Dooren 2017). These two research efforts have a different approach to policy conflict, which reflects the bigger debate in policy studies between structural approaches such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Weible and Sabatier 2007) and interpretive approaches that are rooted in the analysis of interaction, arguments, and meaning (Rein & Schön 1996, Hajer 1995; Fischer 2003). In this paper(-writing-process), we aim for bridging gaps and appreciating differences between these approaches and the communities that work within them. Perhaps we can even identify knowledge gaps related to understanding policy conflicts that we may want to address to build knowledge in the field. We will begin by sharing an initial, short paper with participants that proposes 1) a process by which we can apply principles of deliberation, learning and reflexivity during two meetings in our joint sessions in order to better understand differences, similarities, and complementarities of the approaches within policy studies, and 2) an initial set of topics for possible discussion related to these differences, similarities and complementarities.