Policy Instrumentation: Theoretical Debates and Controversies

This timely book explores how instrumentation contributes to understanding forms of collective action, most importantly public policies, their political effects and their results. Scholars reflect upon the slow progress of mitigating long lasting issues and contemporary challenges in policy research, advancing conceptual, methodological and empirical debates.

Critically engaging with diverse intellectual traditions that have shaped the literature on policy instrumentation, this book goes beyond narrow policy analysis to rethink current paradigms and spark debate. It proposes an original political sociology conception of instrumentation that is used to discuss policy design and conflicts arising from the choice and implementation of the instruments. Expert contributors develop and enhance the current dominant strategies through engaging with research across sociology, science and technology, economics and politics. They address the main contentions between functionalist and critical approaches, providing insight into how best to conceptualise public policy instruments in the modern world.

This book is an essential resource for advanced scholars, early career researchers and students interested in policy studies, public administration and management and research methods in political science. Policymakers will also find this invaluable for better understanding the growing field of policy research.

Edited by Charlotte Halpern, Senior researcher (with tenure), Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE), CNRS, Pierre Lascoumes, Emeritus CNRS Research Professor, Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE) and Patrick Le Galès, FBA, MAE, CNRS Research Professor, Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE) and Sciences Po Urban School, Paris, France