Policy sciences: Reflections on its analytical diversity

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to present a review of the main analytical approaches that have characterized Policy Sciences, as well as to present a critical reflection on the analytical diversity of this discipline regarding theoretical, epistemological, methodological, and even disciplinary influences. Likewise, one aims to present a reflection on the main present and future debates of the discipline. This analysis highlights the enormous diversity that characterizes this discipline, which has even given rise to different communities of analysts, with very different disciplinary backgrounds and goals of analysis. Likewise, it becomes evident that the different approaches of this discipline follow the general tendencies of Social Sciences with debates between positivists and post-positiv-ists, as well as among theoreticians who advocate the primacy of agency or structure in explaining the change and continuity of public policies.