Search citation statements
Paper Sections
Citation Types
Year Published
Publication Types
Relationship
Authors
Journals
Thirty years ago, I wrote the customary editorial expected of the new editor-in-chief of policy sciences. Looking back at the assumptions, projections, and hopes is useful for accomplishments and disappointments. I begin with two excerpts concerning the public policy field in general:…the battle to reassert the importance of contextual, interdisciplinary, problemoriented inquiry has been quite successful. (Ascher 1987, 3) We…need no further exercises in naming the various facets of the policy process, if that new nomenclature is simply an equivalent language map of existing vocabularies. This does not reflect any slavish adherence to the Lasswellian vocabulary, but rather a belief that various sound vocabularies exist, and can be improved upon only by introducing new concepts rather than by relabeling the old ones. (Ascher 1987, 4) So how did these expectations/aspirations fare? Not very well, in terms of the overall public policy field, but the journal has held fast to its principles in the face of the continued expansion of non-contextual, narrow analyses that are not terribly useful for developing sound policy. Our commitmentUnlike the exciting ferment and intellectual challenges of the early development of the policy sciences as outlined in Garry Brewer's recent article in this journal (Brewer 2017(Brewer ), in the 1987(Brewer -1990 period the challenge we (Associate Editors Daniel Durning and Joseph Lipscomb, and I) faced was to keep the elephants away, in a context of too few submissions, too many of which were not problem-oriented, contextual, process-sensitive, or
Thirty years ago, I wrote the customary editorial expected of the new editor-in-chief of policy sciences. Looking back at the assumptions, projections, and hopes is useful for accomplishments and disappointments. I begin with two excerpts concerning the public policy field in general:…the battle to reassert the importance of contextual, interdisciplinary, problemoriented inquiry has been quite successful. (Ascher 1987, 3) We…need no further exercises in naming the various facets of the policy process, if that new nomenclature is simply an equivalent language map of existing vocabularies. This does not reflect any slavish adherence to the Lasswellian vocabulary, but rather a belief that various sound vocabularies exist, and can be improved upon only by introducing new concepts rather than by relabeling the old ones. (Ascher 1987, 4) So how did these expectations/aspirations fare? Not very well, in terms of the overall public policy field, but the journal has held fast to its principles in the face of the continued expansion of non-contextual, narrow analyses that are not terribly useful for developing sound policy. Our commitmentUnlike the exciting ferment and intellectual challenges of the early development of the policy sciences as outlined in Garry Brewer's recent article in this journal (Brewer 2017(Brewer ), in the 1987(Brewer -1990 period the challenge we (Associate Editors Daniel Durning and Joseph Lipscomb, and I) faced was to keep the elephants away, in a context of too few submissions, too many of which were not problem-oriented, contextual, process-sensitive, or
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.