Contributions to Public Policy Theories from Latin America

Convener: David Doyle

Speaker: Ricardo Velázquez Leyer, Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México

Public Policy studies have come to occupy a central space in contemporary Political Science. Advantages like the focus on the orientation of government action towards the solution of social problems, a process approach with discernible elements that can serve to analyse complex political phenomena, multidisciplinary and multimethodic perspectives that incorporate tools from different social sciences, and an emphasis the role of non-government actors in public debates and decision-making processes, are all factors that explain the growing popularity of Public Policy around the world. Yet, most theories, models and analytical tools that can be found in the academic literature and are applied in academic and non-academic spaces, have been formulated from research on North American and Northern European case studies, with virtually no contributions from other regions. This seminar will discuss the contributions to theories of Public Policy that can be drawn from research on Latin American contexts. The seminar will first summarise the state of the art of Public Policy theories found in the international the academic literature, to then focus on the issues and insights from Latin American cases. Such issues and insights reinforce the explanatory potential of some existing theoretical concepts; complement, correct and refine other concepts; and add new concepts currently ignored or dismissed, but that are necessary to account for policy development in a variety of contexts within and beyond the region. The arguments that will be presented at the seminar are illustrated with case studies of different policy fields like energy, economic, labour market and social policy, in several Latin American countries. Contributions include the need to conduct ideational analysis to account for the agency of political actors; the effects of the weaknesses and instability of political institutions on policy development; the impact that social mobilisation can have on public and political agenda-setting; the crucial role that street-level bureaucrats perform in policy implementation, especially in contexts of institutional fragility; and the way in which clientelistic practices can shape and to great extent determine policy outputs and outcomes. The research is part of a book that the author is preparing on Public Policy theories.