Critical policy studies, as this volume illustrates, challenges conventional approaches to public policy inquiry with its focus on discursive politics, policy argumentation and deliberation, and interpretive modes of analysis. Assembling the voices of established and emerging scholars, the Handbook of Critical Policy Studies fills a major gap in the policy literature. Moving beyond the false neutrality of empiricism and positivism, this Handbook highlights the responsibility of inquirers to take account of social and political context - including present conditions, past trends and prevailing...

Science and public policy go hand in hand, yet their relationship is fraught with tension. Society demands innovation through new research and technology, as well as ensuring that scientific progress is socially acceptable and sustainable. This Handbook examines the fluctuating relationship between public policy and science, and in particular the impact, both nationally and internationally of these changes on research. Examining the interlinked models of science and social policy, this Handbook addresses a number of overarching questions: what are the consequences of changing science...