Interpretive Approaches to Policy Analysis

Dr. Raul P. Lejano teaches public policy at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology and is also professor emeritus at New York University. He has published extensively on policy analysis. In his first book, Frameworks for Policy Analysis: Merging Text and Context (Routledge), he describes both positivist and non-positivist modes of analysis. Most recently, he has employed particular interpretive methods (i.e., narrative and discourse analysis) to study environmental dilemmas, as in his co-authored book, The Power of Narrative: Climate Skepticism and the Deconstruction of Science (Oxford University Press), co-authored article, "A hermeneutic approach to explaining and understanding public controversies," in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and book chapter, "Postpositivism in the Policy Process" in the Routledge Handbook of Public Policy, among others.Dr. Wing Shan Kan is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her foremost areas of research lie in social work theory and practice, social policy analysis, and social service delivery. She has published in the British Journal of Social Work, Ageing and Society, Journal of Planning Education & Research, and other highly ranked journals. She is also co-author (with Raul Lejano) of a book entitled Relationality: The Inner Life of Public Policy (Cambridge University Press), which highlights qualitative analysis. Her research on the use of vouchers for social service delivery is featured in the book as an extended example of interpretive analysis.

• .- Why Interpret?..- What Does It Mean to Interpret?..- How and What to Interpret?..- Example: Relational Analysis of Vouchers for Social Service Delivery..- Where Do We Go from Here?.