School for Policy Studies

Policy & Politics is a world-leading journal that provides the primary outlet for scholars and reflexive practitioners to engage with the most pressing governance challenges inhibiting the continued advancement in the study of public policy and its practice. These challenges span the globe and link communities in a common struggle to realise and sustain human dignity and quality of life for all. Moreover, they entail questions about: the impact on governance of political inequality and economic inequality; the implications of such inequalities on political voice and who receives help and who faces barriers from our public policies; how we advance knowledge about public policies comparatively as global phenomena; how we link across macro and micro scales within and between countries in understanding public policy and politics; advancing our theories and methodologies to address these challenges as a policy community; and bringing together a public policy research community that is interconnected globally but also sometimes siloed in distinct approaches and assumptions.

Policy & Politics serves scholars seeking an outlet that accepts these challenges and strives to overcome them. The journal is guided by three principles: (1) comprehensive coverage of public policy, politics and social issues; (2) inclusivity in research approaches, and (3) relevance for science and practice. We elaborate on these three guiding principles.

 

• Comprehensive Coverage of Public Policy, Politics and Social Issues. Policy & Politics encompasses scholarship that focuses on any aspect of the policy process; examines public policy issues comparatively; seeks to advance established policy theories and to promote new theories; spans the micro and the macro in the study of policy and politics; deals with all substantive subfields in the study of public policy; and welcomes studies of public policy that span the world, including the global south and global north. As part of this effort, we welcome scholarship that builds on and contributes to existing foundations of knowledge about public policy as well as innovates and takes risks in breaking into new frontiers of what we know about public policy.
  
  
• Inclusivity in Research Approaches. Policy & Politics welcomes scholarship from different epistemological and ontological orientations and from different methodological perspectives, including quantitative and qualitative approaches and interpretive methods. The journal is also interested in scholarship that makes methodological advancements in the study of public policy. Policy & Politics does not align itself to any disciplinary perspective and welcomes scholarship from political science, public policy, public administration and management, nonprofit studies, social policy, and others as well as the multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary efforts that integrate these perspectives. Rather, we welcome scholarship that challenges any dominant disciplinary assumptions in the study of public policy and that offers better alternatives.
  
  
• Relevance for Science and Practice. Policy & Politics welcomes scholarship that addresses contemporary and timely issues that have relevance in current debates about public policy and politics. While some of these messages come through in the articles themselves, we work with authors in translating their scholarship through blogs and videos to non-academic audiences.

The Policy & Politics team is committed to an editorial process that is as quick as possible, fair and thoughtful, constructive, and tailored to the betterment of the scholarship under review.  Given our embrace of the comprehensive coverage of public policy and diversity in research approaches, we recognise and accept diverse criteria in gauging and improving scholarship. We also adhere to some simple criteria expected of all published work including: (i) publicness and transparency in all aspects of its scholarship and (ii) substantial contributions to our understanding of public policy and/or its research approaches.

Co-Editors
Oscar Berglund

University of Bristol, UK

Claire A. Dunlop

University of Exeter, UK

 

Elizabeth Koebele

University of Reno, US

Chris Weible

University of Colorado, USA