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This chapter provides a general overview of the study and practice of policy analysis in France. Drawing on the book’s content, it explains why and how the fundamental distinction between knowledge for and of policy process still holds in the French context, even though it was regularly challenged by successive generations of scholars and practitioners. The chapter begins with a brief overview of what policy studies means and how it is studied in the French context. Then the bulk of the introduction highlights and provides some explanation for the enduring gap between academic knowledge and policy practices, which characterizes policy analysis in the French context. Last but not least, it discusses the added value of policy studies for understanding State restructuring and policy developments in France. In the remaining and fourth section, it introduces the book outline into more details.

The chapter addressed the question to what extent, in which ways and why policy analysis has become part of programs teaching political science at universities in Germany. The finding is that two thirds of the BA-programs in political science do contain modules on policy analysis, roughly a quarter of all programs have some focus on policy analysis and almost 9 per cent have a strong focus on policy analysis. 18 per cent of all MA-programs in political science are specialized in policy analysis/public policy. In terms of resources there are 21 chairs that are specialized in policy analysis while there are many more individuals with a particular expertise in public policy working on a chair with no such denomination. Little surprisingly there is a statistically significant correlation between specialized chairs and specialized programs. As to the question of how, when and why policy analysis became a relevant part of teaching political science at some but not at other universities we found that in most cases paths were (or were not) taken already between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s while the Bologna-reforms may have helped to stabilize, standardize and possibly strengthen such paths but – with few exceptions – did not allow for dramatic path-changes.

The CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) prepares the official macroeconomic forecast underlying the annual budget, a midterm review of public finance at the start of each election cycle, and cost-benefit analyses of policy proposals. As a unique feature, it provides an assessment of the economic platforms of political parties before the elections. The authors derive four lessons from the Dutch experience. First, a reputation of quality and independence is crucial for the success of a watchdog. Second, the scope and depth of its analysis, that extends beyond fiscal policy, has contributed to shared public understanding of relevant trade-offs and policy options. Third, the effectiveness of CPB depends crucially on a clear demarcation of the distinctive roles of CPB and political parties. And fourth, being part of the government secures access to inside information and influence in the policymaking process, but with risks to maintaining independence.

Today, policy analysis is not only one of the most important sub-disciplines of political science in Germany, but also an integral part of the international discipline and has contributed significantly to scientific debates, theory and methods developments. This introductory chapter develops the argument and the structure of the book, basic concepts and a common terminology. It also gives a short introduction to policy analysis in Germany, its developments and main characteristics. In so doing, it develops an argument running like a common thread through this book, namely that there is a typically German dualism between academic and applied policy analysis. Also focusing on this aspect, the introductory chapter discusses some of the main findings and arguments from the contributions to this book. At the end of the chapter, future prospects are discussed, not least with the aim to identify possible ways to extenuate the divide between academic and applied policy analysis.

This chapter asks whether there has been a professionalisation of policy analysis in Germany or not. While we have basic knowledge of policy analysis in academia, less is known about its development and characteristics in practice. Especially the occupational areas for applied policy analysts have not been clearly identified yet. Therefore, it is asked what the status quo of policy analysis – in terms of its professionalisation – is and whether the assumption of dualism between academic and applied policy analysis can be confirmed in this respect. Therefore the chapter analyses two different aspects of ‘professionalisation’: After examining how universities prepare future policy analysts, occupational areas and working modes of academic and applied policy analysts will be analysed. The explorative results support the assumption of a German dualism between academic and applied policy analysis also in terms of professionalisation: while it is on the way in academia, it is (yet) faraway in practice.

This chapter focuses on policy process studies as they emerged and developed in France from the 1950s to the early 1980s. To better understand how the establishment of policy process studies within academic research has taken shape, it seems necessary to trace the institutionalization trajectory. This trajectory developed within the academic world but also largely outside it, alongside it and in interaction with it. The influence acquired by the executive and its technocracy since the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958 provide also essential data for an understanding of how knowledge and the methods that focus on understanding and controlling public policy in France have developed. The first phase arose from planning and national accountability as vectors of the rationalization of public policy. It was further developed in the 1960s thanks to the transfer of debates and tools developed overseas. The second phase was characterized by the crisis of the Welfare State and the transfer of policy studies knowledge obtained by North American universities. During this second phase, the development and institutionalization of public policy analysis in academic research began to establish policy studies as an autonomous “branch” of French political sciences.

The introductory chapter presents the Brazilian case in the series as a first attempt to understand how the activity of policy analysis has developed in Brazil and how it stands at present. Policy analysis in Brazil can be differentiated from its counterparts in the countries where it originated by its lack of a clearly defined professional activity, specific training or distinctive methods and techniques; however, this has not stopped it developing. With its unique make up, Brazil's vast tradition in the social and human sciences stands as a foundation for the production of analysis oriented towards increasingly multidisciplinary government decision-making. This volume and the studies it presents are a sample of the types of policy analysis being produced in Brazil by different actors and organisations in the various arenas of the policy process.

The chapter discusses the various analytical methods used in French policy studies. It begins by mapping out the range of methods used in French academic policy studies. Such work mainly deals with policy-making process and their analysis, with an emphasis on the role of elite, expert, and institutional constraints. Issues and concepts from (political) sociology mainly frame these works. Policy analysis borrowed its methods from (political) sociology rather than developed a specific set of methodological approaches. Drawing on sociological approaches, policy analysis in France features a preference for qualitative over quantitative methods. Also, empirical studies prevail, and over time, small-n comparative research frameworks were introduced on a more systematic basis. The chapter also develops an analysis of the most popular methods used in the past years among practitionners, such as socio-economic appraisal in transport or housing sectors, indicators in environmental and economic sectors, and argumentative methods in public institutional debates.

This chapter elaborates on the argument that prediction markets can help aggregate information, noting that at times, what prediction markets aggregate might more accurately be understood as individual assessments of information. The prediction markets' aggregative powers will be greater if markets are subsidized, and this chapter explains how the market mechanisms described might be subsidized. It provides a partial description of the Policy Analysis Market, which was to have been a governmentally subsidized set of prediction markets. The collapse of that program should warn those who are optimistic about the short-term possibilities of prediction markets. The chapter also describes current regulatory obstacles and ways they might be avoided. It discusses an existing application of prediction markets, the Foresight Exchange, which avoids those obstacles by using play money and then imagines two potential government applications of prediction markets.

As no specific training in policy analysis has developed in Brazil, the chapter discusses instruction in the public policy field and the contribution of postgraduate education to preparing policy analysts. Political and policy analyses first related to subjects dear to Brazil's intelligentsia in the 20th century, when intellectuals and academics from various fields applied themselves basically to studying the State and the patterns of its development. Drawing a distinction between ‘instruction’ and ‘training’, the authors show that instruction forms part of the policy analyst's training, although that training is not restricted to academic instruction, but also incorporates professional practice.

The styles and methods employed by the new actors incorporated by the participatory design of policymaking after 1988 in Brazil express the political, social and academic trajectory traced by policy analysis in the country. The chapter analyses the methodological diversity of the analyses that predominate in Brazil. The author constructs a typology by style (economic and socio-political) and scope (macro or micro-analytical) and shows that the economic dimension was prioritised by the state and peopled by economists and developed more in the rational style and devoted itself to forming and developing its technical elite. Social concerns, meanwhile, have come to policy analysis more recently in a process directed more from society to the state. The more participatory and deliberative policymaking of the post-1988 period includes styles suited to contemporary forms of governance in democratic states.

The research on policy analysis undertaken by French economic interest groups is only marginally addressed in the existing literature. This chapter takes a closer look at this subject and propose a broader analytical framework based on three pillars: the study of selected main sectorial and inter sectorial representative organizations, the monitoring of policy analysis in the development of several significant pieces of legislation, and an exhaustive list of documents issued by these organizations in the electoral context (the 2012 French presidential election). First, the terms of policy analysis are introduced, including actors, their shapes and their objects. Second, it questions the main approach that consists of analyzing policy by checking main economic indicators and reacting to public decisions. Finally, economic actors are identified as agents of public action when they participate in the distribution of public data to their members and their industry.

This chapter examines the role played by NGOs and civil society organizations in the development of policy analysis in France. Little attention has been devoted in the literature to systematically analyzing the evolving relationships between NGOs and state organizations across time and policy sectors. Drawing on examples from different policy domains, this chapter explores the role played by NGOs and civil society organizations in the development of policy analysis in three different ways. First, the chapter maps out who these groups are, in which policy field they operate, and how they evolved over time. Second, it examines the extent to which such organizations recently engaged in the development of policy analysis within the French context according to a classic distinction between policy insiders and policy outsiders, meaning those groups that (un)willingly oppose state organizations within policy-making. Finally, it considers the extent to which policy tools and instruments have shaped this recent turn through the opening of policy-making processes to both organized civil society organizations and a larger variety of less-structured groups. This is done across a large number of policy issues (e.g., culture, environment, women’s rights, anti-poverty, health, etc.)

This chapter analyzes the difficult challenges that arise when considering the environmental justice effects of federal rules and regulations. It complements the discussion in Chapter 4 by examining a different part of the rulemaking process. Specifically, the authors identify five issues as being important in any analysis of distributional implications of a new environmental standard: the geographic scope of the analysis, the identification of potentially affected populations, the selection of a comparison group, how to spatially identify effects on population groups, and how exposure or risk is measured in an analysis. For each issue, the authors consider how it has been addressed in the academic literature, as well as in practice by the EPA as part of five recent proposed or final rulemakings completed under various pollution control statutes. The chapter concludes that, even though there has been a substantial uptick in the number of rules that consider environmental justice issues in their accompanying economic analysis, there remain significant analytical issues to resolve before this becomes a routinized practice.

Increased food imports to the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) have been stimulated by population growth and changing consumption patterns. International organisations involved in MENA have advocated a food security strategy that relies upon diversification away from agriculture towards manufacturing exports, with the resulting foreign exchange used to import food. This research assesses the economic implications of increasing domestic food production in Lebanon and Jordan. It examines the debate between advocates of greater reliance on domestic food production and those who advocate a predominately trade-based food security strategy heavily dependent on food imports. This chapter assesses the food security status of Lebanon and Jordan using different indicators, including Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) and Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM). It analyses both countries’ patterns of international trade in agricultural commodities to assess the extent to which international trade, as opposed to domestic food production, is used to achieve food security at the national aggregate level.

The chapter examines the state government agencies tasked with producing analysis, planning and providing data and economic indicators. These agencies’ development is examined in historical perspective and associated with political and economic cycles, as a response to federal government inducement, as an endogenous strategy by state governments to strengthen local development or as a result of support from international institutions leveraged especially by public universities in Brazil. With re-democratisation, these agencies’ expectations of power gains were frustrated by the leading role that experts came to play in policymaking and also by state governments’ federative conflicts with the federal government, formerly the base from which these agencies drew local legitimacy.