Whilst design politics is an increasingly topical focus in the design field, in practice, design for policy has been normatively presented as a people-centric approach to public policymaking devoid of political or ideological agendas. Up to now, design for policy has exclusively been conceived as embedded within governmental structures, thus adopting a technocratic, internal, and top-down approach to, and understanding of, public policymaking. We argue that most often, this understanding and practice of design for policy establishes and mediates public problems from the standpoint of the government body addressing those problems. In this paper, we take a new and distinct point of departure to design for policy in which design is implicated in the practice of policymaking from below through processes of collective action. Design for Policy from Below moves from an intra-governmental lens to a negotiated exchange between social actors and government. In turn, this informs strategic collective action required to gain political support and leverage efforts to pressure power structures to acknowledge and adopt policy frames and options. To this end, we examine the conflictual power dynamics and negotiation-based approaches to influencing government policymaking processes and model the messy interplay between government-led policymaking and the activities of social innovators aiming at changing policy outcomes. Finally, we synthesize these insights into a conceptual model offering a novel viewpoint on how we can more critically understand the politics at play in design theory and practice engaged with policymaking.
Governments across the globe are increasingly deploying design tools and methods to explore new ways of public policy-making and governance. Such design approaches are often portrayed as politically neutral. Building on contemporary research that argues the contrary, this paper proposes a framework for making their political dimension explicit by distinguishing between the artefacts, techniques, and discourses that compose them. This article is based on an interactive session held at DRS2018 titled 'Smuggling ideologies? Inquiring into the underlying ideas embedded in design for public governance and policymaking', where design practitioners and academics piloted the proposed framework, and follow-up interviews with some of the participants. An analysis of the discussions in the session and the interviews revealed the recurrence of certain themes, in particular the reinforcement of existing power relations and the encroachment of market logics into the public sector through the introduction of design approaches. The recurrence of these themes in the discussions, we argue, shows how the proposed framework makes visible the underlying political conceptions in the design approaches, and thus how it can contribute to the awareness and understanding of the political implications of (the otherwise proposed as neutral) design tools and methods utilised in the public sector.
No abstract
Governments worldwide are increasingly adopting design tools and methods to explore new ways of public policy-making and governance. Such design approaches are often portrayed as politically neutral. Building on contemporary research that argues the contrary, this paper proposes a framework for making their political dimension explicit by distinguishing between the artefacts, techniques, and discourses that compose them. This paper is based on an interactive session held at DRS2018 where design practitioners and academics piloted the proposed framework and follow-up interviews with some of the participants. The analysis revealed the recurrence of certain themes, in particular the reinforcement of existing power relations and the encroachment of market logics into the public sector through the introduction of design approaches. This, we argue, shows how the proposed framework contributes to the awareness of the political implications of design tools and methods utilised in the public sector by making their underlying political conceptions visible.
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