Public policy in the Australian Journal of Political Science: A review

Abstract

This paper surveys the contribution that articles on public policy have made to this journal in its first half-century. To help organise those contributions, the paper makes a rough distinction between works of a primarily explanatory nature and those that can be thought of as having a substantive focus on analysing particular policy areas or issues. It observes the paucity of policy studies in the 1960s and 1970; the rapid rise in the 1980s; and a plateauing and even perhaps decline after that. It notes the desultory interest in theoretical questions and welcome attempts to employ the comparative method.

本文梳理了20世纪上半叶本刊有关公共政策的文章。作者将这些文章分为两类。一类是探索性的，一类是就特定政策领域的话题进行分析。政策研究在上世纪1960和1970年代较为缺少，到1980年代迅速增加并形成平台，随后衰减。作者指出这些文章对理论问题的兴趣失之散乱，乐见有识之士能做比较研究。

Keywords:

• comparative method
• policy studies
• political science
• public policy

Notes

1 Particularly since there has not been an Australian Journal of Public Policy or equivalent successfully established as an alternative forum. Public policy scholarship has, however, regularly found its way into the Australian Journal of Public Administration.

2 As exemplified, for instance, in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

3 About half of which are explicitly mentioned in this review.

4 Which had been published in Historical Studies, before a politics journal had been launched.