The policy Analyst as a Facilitator

Panel Chairs:

Sophie Allain, INRA (French National Institute for Agricultural Research), allain.sophie@gmail.com

Abstract:

Several scholars have argued that Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) has important implications for the conduct of policy analysis. Rather than provide technical answers to a policymaking elite or scientific knowledge loosely connected to policy problems, the policy analyst has to be seen as a "facilitator" of policymaking. For some scholars such as Frank Fischer, his or her role is to assist citizens and clients in their efforts to examine their own interests and to plan appropriate courses of action. While such a view suggests a role of stakeholder- or coalition-building for the policy analyst, several theorists in planning assume that the primary activity of the planner, including the planner as policy analyst, is to improve the communication among the experts, the decision-makers and the citizens.

 The role of the policy analyst is therefore closer to that of a mediator. While the former insists on citizen learning and empowerment, the theorists in planning then rather focus on collaboration and the progress of a collective action. This short discussion shows that the perspective of viewing the policy analyst as a facilitator is, indeed, a challenging one. The aim of the panel is then to clarify and discuss the methodological and epistemological accounts that such a view on policy analysis implies. What does it mean for the practice of policy analysis to take this position? What are the disadvantages of this position, its risks?

 How do we consider the tiny difference that may exist between policy analyst as a facilitator and the political actor? Do the notions of dialogue and deliberative practices have the same meanings in both situations previously described? Does the policy analyst conduct his or her analysis in the same way? Along the postempiricist view, the policy analyst as a facilitator has also to play an activist role, far from the idea of neutrality, but which yet recovers different meanings, going from developing appropriated arenas and forums in which arguments can be debated to equalizing communicative forces of power. What does exactly mean playing an activist role for a policy analyst considered as a facilitator? Can such an activist role be assumed by academic policy analysts, in which conditions? What does it imply in terms of methodology? What can participatory research offer to such a purpose?