Policy conflict as default?

The research gap Conflict is a growth business in policymaking. Whether concerning the siting of wind turbine parks, solar panel estates, and shelters for refugees, or governmental strategies to deal with the covid-19 pandemic, public policies increasingly generate contentious responses from the wider public. From climate to covid, conflict is paramount in making and implementing policy. Policy scholars and political scientists have conventionally treated conflict as a background concept. Recently, several scholars have begun to theorize policy conflicts (Weible and Heikkila, 2017), the mechanisms through which policy conflicts escalate (Wolf & Van Dooren, 2018), and the dimensions that make conflicts productive or unproductive (Verloo, 2018; Laws & Forester, 2015). Still, even the studies that foreground conflict often cast them as incidental phenomena that disrupt the normal situation of stability and harmony. This section explores whether conflict is the default in policy and planning processes, and consensus is the exception (Laws & Forester 2021). Treating conflict as the default presses us to analyze conflict as part and parcel of the ‘business’ of policymaking. It pushes us to recognize the dynamics through which conflict can deepen antagonisms and exacerbate polarization (Deutsch, 1973), but also to recognize how conflicts can foster learning, rebuild relationships, and renew a working consensus without enforcing orthodoxy. In this manner, conflict becomes neither something to be suppressed, rejected or instrumentally fabricated but a feature of policy processes that can be engaged or ignored but not avoided. By approaching conflict as the default in policy and planning processes we hope to bridge gaps between policy science and political science. This orientation suggests “a way to ‘normalize’ conflicts so that the publics that are called forth can confront and engage the differences and questions that are raised and seek ways to move forward together” (Laws & Forester, 2021). We build on established insights about the constructive and destructive potential of conflict (Deutsch, 1973; Glasl, 1982) and classical distinctions such as that between policy disagreements and policy controversies (Schön & Rein, 1994). A conflict-centric perspective pushes us to reconsider the working assumptions of policy analysis and policymaking, such as the meaning of consensus; the (changing) roles of experts, citizens, private stakeholders, and public officials in governance processes; and the relationship between the concrete local settings in which policy conflicts often develop and the broad, increasingly transnational, goals and commitments that drive policy programs. Aims and main questions In this section, we aim to: • develop theoretical, empirical, and methodological perspectives on policy conflicts as the default mode of policy processes; • provide an opportunity for scholars from different generations and backgrounds to discuss their shared interest in the study of policy conflicts; • work with participants toward furthering the debate by bringing different perspectives on policy conflict into the conversation in the form of a special issue or an edited volume. Guided by these aims, we want to address two overarching questions: (1) What are the implications of accepting conflict as the default for how we conceive of policy processes and how we study them? (2) What does this framing imply for how we understand the relationship between conflict and consensus in policymaking and democratic politics? Potential topics for panels We, Eva Wolf (Tilburg University), David Laws (University of Amsterdam), Tamara Metze (Wageningen University), Wouter Van Dooren (University of Antwerp), Imrat Verhoeven (University of Amsterdam), and Nanke Verloo (University of Amsterdam), envisage eight panels to explore a broad range of topics and questions to find answers to our overarching questions: 1) How should we make sense of the absence of conflict, or what can also be called ‘policy silence’? Focusing on conflict as the default may shed light on how fear of conflict can escalate commitments to secure and sustain consensus by limiting contestation and excluding or marginalizing groups, as well as by de-politicizing issues. It may also shed new light on the meaning of collaborative policymaking. 2) Policy processes continue to draw on different sources of knowledge. How does a conflict orientation change our understanding of how policy knowledge is developed and used and its role in (producing) (dis)agreement? What does this mean for our work as policy analysts and scholars? 3) What does a conflict-centric perspective imply for how institutional settings play a role in policy processes? How do actors engage with institutions during conflict, and what are the consequences for policy design and implementation? To what extent does the interdependence that conflicts highlight push us to rework concepts such as trust, legitimacy, and justice as qualities of relationships rather than of persons, organizations, or institutions? 4) Policy conflicts bring strong emotions into play. How do emotions contribute to resistance to change on the part of public officials as well as citizens who feel the impact of policy proposals or implementation? How does a focus on conflict challenge conventions that privilege cold reason and treat emotion as a distraction? 5) How have the roles of public officials, citizens, advocates, and entrepreneurs changed through the experience of policy conflict? How does this get expressed in efforts to negotiate working agreements triggered by contestation? How does the meaning of policy and consensus change in this dynamic environment? 6) What does a focus on conflict imply for comparisons between policy processes in Western democracies and in the Global South, where conflict has long been the default situation. What implications does this have for the vocabulary in which we discuss and debate policymaking? 7) What do the issues highlighted above imply for the (re)design of institutional practices for developing and implementing policy on the local and the national level but also - and increasingly- the transnational level (e.g., the "energy transition"). How may such conflict-centered (re)design contribute to cultivating democratic futures? This list is an indicative list of the kinds of submissions that might contribute to conversations about policy conflict as default in policymaking. Panel proposals on other topics in line with our call are very much welcomed.