Public Inquiries and Policy Design

This Element shows the relevance of the public inquiry to policy design via conceptual discussion and international examples.

Alastair Stark (Author), Sophie Yates (Author)

9781009494489, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 May 2024

70 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1 cm, 0.25 kg

Public inquiries regularly produce outcomes of importance to policy design. However, the policy design literature has largely ignored the many important ways that public inquiries can act as policy design tools, meaning the functions that inquiries can offer the policy designer are not properly understood. This Element addresses this gap in two ways. First, it presents a theoretical discussion, underpinned by international empirical illustrations, to explain how inquiries perform policy design roles and can be classified as procedural policy tools. It focuses on four inquiry functions – catalytic, learning, processual, and legitimation. Second, it addresses the challenge of designing inquiries that have the policy-facing capacities required to make them effective. It introduces plurality as a key variable influencing effectiveness, demonstrating its relevance to internal inquiry operations, the external inquiry environment, and policy tool selection. Thus, it combines conceptual and practical insights to speak to academic and practice orientated audiences.

1. The public inquiry: an idiosyncratic institution
2. Theorizing inquiries as policy tools
3. What can inquiries offer the policy designer?
4. Designing effective inquiries
5. Conclusion
References.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP]