A Reassessment of Conflict in the Policy Process

Abstract Conflict is constitutive of politics and, according to established knowledge, mostly negative. While recent scholarship also acknowledges the productive potential of conflict, there is no theoretically sound explanation on why conflict sometimes strengthens policy processes and at other times destabilizes them. This paper argues that one reason for this gap is that existing frameworks treat conflict too statically, rather than as a dynamic phenomenon playing out differently throughout the policy process. Addressing this gap, this paper theorizes dynamic policy conflict along the policy cycle heuristic. First, the paper revisits existing conceptualizations to distinguish productive from unproductive policy conflict. Then, drawing on the policy cycle heuristic, it operationalizes how conflict can play out productively across stages of the policy process and using empirical vignettes for illustration. Lastly, this is brought together in a research agenda which proposes ways forward to theoretically and practically leverage the potential of conflicts in the policy process. In doing so, our paper challenges established approaches that undermine the importance of conflict in policy processes and provides implications for appropriate conflict management in the policy process.