The questioning theory of policy practice: outline of an integrated analytical framework

Puzzling about problems: the ambiguous search for an evidence-based strategy for handling influx of health technology

“…The sampling of the senior administrators was strategic (Patton 2002 Interviews were considered the most appropriate way to collect data for two reasons: First, face-to-face interviewing is preferable as the language used by participants is essential to gain insight into their perceptions and values (Gillman 2000;Ritchie and Lewis 2003). Second, although problem framing is a collective process over time, it emanates from policy work in many different spheres of practice (Turnbull 2013;Colebatch 2006). Documents (protocol, minutes, etc.…”

“…problem frames, of both problems and their potential solutions (Turnbull 2013). In practice, construction of problems ''is enacted through a highly complex and variable process involving many different lines of questioning by many different individual questioners in many different domains of practice.…”

“…Moreover, the construction of problems is an on-going process. One way is, as in Turnbull (2013), to understand it as a questioning process where a political phenomenon may on one occasion appear as non-problematic, when the questioning is forgotten as a result of strong forms of answering and solutions. On another occasion, it may appear as problematic, when there are weak forms of answering, which re-confirm the questioning and maintain the phenomenon as problematic.…”

Rules-of-thumb for problem-structuring policy design

“…A problem-structuring approach to policy design has a deep philosophical root, called the question-answer logic of policy practice (Turnbull 2013). At the heart of this approach is a novel, expanded understanding of the link between a question and an answer; hence, between a problem and a solution.…”

“…The most important feature of this link is its frequent de-coupling. Whether in informal probing of ordinary citizens, or in formal inquiry and research by experts in bureaucracy or academia, we tend to "autonomize" answers as "bodies of knowledge", and in the process forget about the questions which triggered them (Turnbull 2013).…”