Doing Policy analysis with SKAD

Chaired by Anna-Katharina Hornidge and Wolf J. Schünemann Discussant: Reiner Keller

Given the broad deployment of the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD) in the social sciences, in this panel we seek to gather a number of papers which examine power/knowledge relations in political conflict and policy-making either with SKAD or with related approaches of Discourse Analysis. The papers in this panel can be comparative studies of cases in different countries or different policy fields. They can also be single case studies which analyze policy development (as well as the formalization of informal institutions in shaping reality) over time. The papers should of course refer to empirical cases. Nevertheless, it is explicitly asked to put emphasis on theoretical and methodological aspects. The following questions should be covered at least partly by each of the papers:

- How does the empirical work benefit from the theoretical combination of sociology of Knowledge and Discourse Analysis? Which conceptions of agency and power have been applied? How has the research program of SKAD been modified? Which additions have been made in order to analyze the empirical object at hand? How have data corpuses been built? Which typesof data have been collected for assessing the studied discourses? Which methods of data collection and analysis were used? Which way of interpretive analysis/systematic coding has been chosen? How are results integrated and presented? How does the study contribute to and engage with the discussion of a particular research area? Finally, paper-givers are encouraged to develop innovative ways to illustrate the findings of their research. Every paper presentationshould contain at least four common elements: a short description of the empirical case, an explanation of SKAD application/modification, an exemplification of interpretive inquiry, and finally a synoptic illustration of (preliminary) findings.

Dr. habil. Anna-Katharina Hornidge Center for Development Research Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung (ZEF) email: hornidge@uni-bonn.de

Dr. Wolf J. Schünemann Institute for Political Science Heidelberg University email: wolf.schuenemann@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de