RC32 - Public Policy and Administration

Call for Papers: "Excursions, Encounters, Enactments: The role of sensory or first-hand experience in policy constructions" (Panel28)

This panel explores the role of policy-makers' sensory or first-hand experiences in the construction of policy `problems' and `solutions'. Such experiences can take the form of excursions to the site of a `policy problem' such as a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, a nature reserve that shows obvious signs of environmental degradation, or a city's `problem neighbourhood'. First-order experience also happens through encounters with affected persons or with experts on the policy problem at hand. Excursions, encounters and other forms of sensory experience can take place spontaneously; most often, however, they are meticulously planned and enacted by those participating, for different audiences and to different ends. Politicians may strive to create a positive public image among their constituency by showing `presence on the ground' or wishing to `see/assess with their very eyes' the nature and extent of the problem. Yet also those who plan excursions and encounters and those who the politicians meet have their agendas and enact specific interpretations of a problem. Interestingly, there are examples where such instances of policy-makers' first-hand experience, no matter how limited they were, seem to have shaped their perception in a sustained manner.