6th International Conference in Interpretive Policy Analysis – IPA (Cardiff, 23-25 June 2011)
Panel 34: The appropriations of public policies by citizens
Beyond the common dichotomy between «top down» and «bottom up» approaches of public action (Sabatier, 1986), investigations questioning the appropriations of policies by their publics, that is to say the « nationals » (Warin, 1999), « constituents » or « ordinary citizens » (Rose, 1989), have been scarce. The publics of institutions do not constitute a homogeneous group and we can differentiate the attitudes of social actors faced with the implementation of policies in a wide range of social spheres (police, social, schooling, health, environment, justice, taxation, immigration, etc). We can make hypothesize that trajectories, resources and social characteristics of the constituents have an influence on the appropriation of public action. What produces a public policy at its publics? Can we observe recurrent individual and/or collective behaviors in the « usual » appropriations of public policies? To what extend do the differentiated relations to politics (Gaxie, 1978) have an influence on the reception (Le Grignou, 2003) of public programs? May the reactions of these publics (support/indifference/resistance, etc.) redirect the policies? Do they strengthen the possibilities of the ordinary citizens’ participation in the democratic debate (Verhoeven, 2009)? While collective mobilizations have been widely studied (Mayntz, 1993; Giugni, 2002), individual practices have largely been unexplored. To what extent do ordinary people adapt to, or divert from, public policies, in their interactions with the institutional protagonists (Lipsky, 1980; Dubois, 1999) or through strategies of avoidance and resistance (Scott, 1990)? This frame of analysis leads to explore the meanings people attribute to policies and to their (no) resort to institutions. This panel will privilege papers inquiring about various social spheres across national contexts using preferably a comparative framework. We encourage researchers to mobilize a wide range of theoretical perspectives. Proposals will have to expose hypotheses and the empirical data used in the research.
