13th ICPA-Forum and JCPA Workshop

“Comparative Theory Testing and Theory Building: The Case of Policy change in Latin America”

Quito (Ecuador), August 24-25th, 2015





Department of Public Affairs at FLACSO




(Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales)




www.flacso.edu.ec








CALL FOR PAPERS








Abstract deadline: January 15th, 2015 (300 words)




Acceptance answers:  January 30th, 2015




Draft paper deadline: July 15th, 2015 (8000 words)








For the past two decades, Latin America and the Caribbean have experienced dramatic political changes. After the so-called “lost decade” from mid-1980s to mid-1990s several of the region´s countries have turned back to nationalist State-oriented policies. This region is also one of high contrasts between big countries (as Brazil or Mexico), middle-range emerging nations (such as Colombia and Chile) and a myriad of smaller ones (such as Ecuador and Central American countries). These contrasts make this area particularly suitable for comparative policy analysis, both for theory-building and theory-testing -- policy change being one of the more prominent public policy domains of investigation.








Policy-change studies, which are of focal importance of this issue for policy analysis and policy design, offer a diversity of frameworks —behaviorist, cognitivist and neo-institutional, as well as explanations of policy change. The latter are mainly derived from incrementalism, which has been challenged by punctuated equilibrium theory, the advocacy coalition framework, etc.








The 13th ICPA-Forum and JCPA Workshop seeks to address and confront these theoretical frameworks through a number of empirical comparative studies between most similar or most different cases in Latin America. We welcome contributions addressing the workshop’s focus.








Questions to be addressed by the participants should deal comparatively with, at least, one of the follow-ing research questions and test the theories behind the empirical cases presented:








1.            What is policy change and how can we measure it?




2.            How can we differentiate among the various types of policy change? (incremental, paradigmatic, etc.)?




3.            How can we explain policy change (or stability)?




4.            Why is policy change long lasting or reversible?




5.            At what stage of the policy process (formulation or implementation or others) does policy change more often?








Abstracts should be submitted by email to:








Guillaume Fontaine (FLACSO): gfontaine@flacso.edu.ec




José Luis Méndez (El Colegio de México): jlmendez@colmex.mx








Papers accepted are eligible for publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis following the JCPA standard a double-blind peer-review process. The papers must adhere to at least one of the six comparative criteria advanced by the JCPA in analyzing the applicable theories and empirical evidence they present.  For more details, see www.jcpa.ca.