From Critical Perspectives to Policy Approach of Critiques

If the concept of “critical” is central in the different interpretive approaches to public policy, such as is the case with the name of the main journal of the community devoted to this approach, namely “Critical Policy Studies”, the question of defining, interrogating, discussing and renewing this concept of “critical” is important. Historically, the term "critical " refers to the Frankfurt School and its reflections to develop a "critical" theory. From Horkheimer to Habermas, critical theory has challenged the existence of a value-neutral and positivist knowledge on society. Habermas, for example, highlights that technocratic knowledge is nothing else than an "ideology" among of others. In the 1970’s, a new critical perspective emerged in French Sociology developed by Bourdieu with the main idea to unveil the invisible social structures of constraints. However, in recent years, the success of "critical" has led to a proliferation of uses and a diversification of meanings that now should be sorted out. Imported firstly into the policy analysis field to challenge rational choice theories, these critical perspectives were developed also to study policy processes differently than positivist approaches. Unfortunately, in recent years, the success of "critical" has led to a proliferation of uses and a diversification of meanings that now should be sorted out, including the role of critical theory. This paper proposes to come back to these multiples meaning, to underline the limit of critical perspectives to grasp policy processes and to propose a new pragmatic constructivist perspective. Inspired by the critiques of Boltanski against the critical perspectives and his project to shift from critical sociology to sociology of critiques, the paper suggests to focus on the role of critiques during the policy process.