Introduction to critical policy inquiry

This first chapter introduces critical policy inquiry, broadly defined to include both policy process research and policy analysis. It introduces the critical-theoretical orientation and its relationship to policy inquiry. Based on a perspective that emerged with the “argumentative turn,” it draws on Jürgen Habermas’s work on communicative action and deliberation, Michel Foucault’s writings on discourse, and the epistemics of social constructivism. The discussion then outlines the implications of these theoretical contributions for the theory and practice of critical policy inquiry, followed by a brief discussion of the method’s uses in helping to understand the uncertainties, risks, and complexities of contemporary social and political crises. The introduction sets, as such, the stage for the rest of the book. It concludes with a description of the chapters that follow.