Policy constellations: a new approach for understanding the roles of knowledge, morality and power in policy-making on drugs and crime

• In Event: Theoretical and Epistemological debates in Criminology II: Policy, Politics & Theory

Abstract

This is a presentation of a new conceptual framework for understanding the policy process, which is developed in Alex Stevens’ new book on Drug Policy Constellations (Policy Press, 2024). It starts by discussing the strengths and weaknesses of existing theories of the policy process in two schools of thought. The first is neo-pluralist (e.g. Kingdon’s ‘multiple streams’, Baumgartner and Jones’ ‘punctuated equilibrium’, and Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith’s ‘advocacy coalition framework’). The second is post-structuralist (e.g. Foucauldian discourse analysis, Bacchi’s ‘what’s the problem represented to be’, and ‘ontologically oriented’ policy analysis). The presentation then describes a new approach to the study of how various forms of power and morality flow through loosely connected constellations of policy actors and ideas. It exemplifies the use of this approach to identify five ethico-political bases of drug policy making in the UK (compassion, traditionalism, paternalism, progressive social justice, and liberty). It shows how normative policy preferences are made into policy by policy actors’ concerted use of both political/institutional power and social power (e.g. economic, media, epistemic, and affective power). The presentation finished by illustrating the use of the policy constellations approach and mixed methods (policy ethnography, elite interviews, critical realist discourse analysis, and social network analysis) to create a constellation map and an explanatory critique of the process of drug policy making in the UK.

Author

• Alex Stevens, University of Kent