Critical Policy Inquiry

Interpreting Knowledge and Arguments

By: Frank Fischer

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Hardcover | 29 October 2024

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Hardcover
264 Pages

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23.4 x 15.6

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$279.75

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Presenting a critical approach to the study of public policy and policy analysis, this book offers a postpositivist foundation that challenges empiricist and technocratic approaches to policy studies. Critical Policy Inquiry draws on Juergen Habermas's work on communicative action and deliberation, Michel Foucault's writings on discourse, and the epistemics of social constructivism.

Frank Fischer advances deliberative policy argumentation and the logic of practical reason, exploring how this can be used as a framework for interpreting the interaction of normative and empirical arguments in policy politics. He applies this approach to a diverse range of topics, including technocracy, policy expertise, deliberative democratic politics, interpretive policy analysis, post-truth, climate and Covid denialism, participatory governance, local and tacit knowledge, and the role of emotion in policy controversies. The book concludes with a look to transformative policy learning and the future of the field.

Connecting social and political theory with empirical research, this book is essential for students and scholars of public policy, politics, governance, public administration, and regulatory policy. Its practical, real-world applications will also be of value to policymakers worldwide.

Industry Reviews

'This book synthesizes and expands Frank Fischer's foundational approaches to critical argumentative and deliberative policy analyses, with an impressive integration of related works. Importantly, these approaches locate policy evidence in a normative framework that foregrounds political context and competing meanings, values, interests, emotions, and ideologies at the heart of contemporary policy disputes, but that are largely ignored by "value-neutral" policy analysis. It thus not only provides a guide for doing critical policy analysis but also demonstrates, with many examples, its power for addressing contemporary policy problems in deeply democratic ways. The climate change chapter is especially illuminating, demonstrating the deep, sometimes surprising and profoundly practical but underappreciated insights critical argumentative analysis can produce.' -- Jennifer Dodge, University at Albany, US
'In this wide-ranging volume, Frank Fischer updates his argumentative turn by combining Habermas's communicative turn, Foucault's discourse analysis and other resources to explore the social construction of policy problems and reveal the biases involved in policy debates. He advances a transformative approach committed to expanding participatory democracy in policy planning.' -- Bob Jessop, Lancaster University, UK
'In this book, Frank Fischer offers a brilliant tour d'horizon of his ground-breaking work on critical policy inquiry, with its roots in Habermas' critical theory and Foucault's discourse theory, its focus on argumentative practices, its empirical applications to post-truth politics, pandemic policies, and participatory governance, and its devastating critique of conventional positivist approaches to public policy. Clearly written and comprehensive, Critical Policy Inquiry is an indispensable guide to both public policy analysis and action.' -- Vivien A. Schmidt, Boston University, US and European University Institute, Italy
'In this luminous book, leading critical policy scholar Frank Fischer decisively shows how trouble with rational technocratic policy analysis has been brewing for decades. By contrast, his defense of the argumentative turn of public policy, and his focus on discourses, arguments, interpretation, learning, and epistemics are firmly rooted in the view that policy analysis is shaped and made fruitful by power struggles, citizen participation, different knowledge and non-linear understandings of political processes. The COVID and climate crises provide brilliant illustrations. An essential public policy book for the years to come.' -- Patrick Le Gales, CNRS, Sciences Po, France
'There is no better guide to critical policy studies than Frank Fischer, the field's founder and most important exponent. Drawing on his landmark contributions and developing new insights, this book is essential reading for anyone interested in where the field has been, and where it is heading.' -- John Dryzek, University of Canberra, Australia

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