Abstract
Contemporary societies and their governments face serious policy conflicts in issues such as immigration, health care, and particularly climate change. Governments need to understand complex policy conflicts to steer sound policy responses and avoid serious stalemates. However, most contemporary social sciences' theories indirectly address policy conflict (e.g., Forester 2009; Iyengar et al. 2012; Schattschneider, 1960; Tilly & Tarow 2007) and conceptualize them without explanation of their sources and effects (Weible & Heikkila 2017). Addressing this gap, the Policy Conflict Framework (PCF) is an emerging original policy process theory which offers a direct theoretical conceptualization of policy conflicts. This framework allows us to understand better the complexity and dynamics of these policy conflicts in the policy process.
The workshop is dedicated to presentation of findings from case studies prepared within the joint research effort of the Department of Public and Social Policy ISS UK FSV and SPA CU Denver on policy conflicts in areas such as education, health care, environment, large infrastructure projects, and comparative use of the Policy Process Framework. Academicians and PhD students from both institutions will presents their first results and discuss further progress and cooperation. The workshop is open the FSV academic community.