Comparative Public Policy Analysis: Shortcomings, Pitfalls, and Avenues for the Future

Abstract

Comparative public policy is a blooming research area. It also suffers from some curious blind spots. In this paper we discuss four of these: (1) the obsession with covariance, which means that important phenomena are ignored; (2) the lack of agency, which leads to underwhelming explanatory models; (3) the unclear universe of cases, which means the inferential value of theories and the empirical results are unclear; and (4) the focus on outputs, even though most theories contain strong assumptions about the political process leading to certain outputs. Following this discussion, we then outline how a closer integration of policy process theories may be fruitful for future research.