Still Walking on the Bright Side? Developments in the Scientific Study of Policy Success
Special Edition for Policy Design and Practice – Call for Papers
SI Editors Paul Cairney, Matthew Flinders, Janine O’Flynn, Tina Nabatchi
In 2021 a group of leading scholars of governance, public policy, and public administration published ‘an invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance’. At the core of this invitation was a belief that the existing research base had primarily focused on policy failures, crises, disasters, failings and blunders (i.e. the ‘dark side’ of public government) and that identifying and investigating examples of successful public policy (i.e. ‘the bright side’) held significant potential merit. The aim of such ‘bright side’ research is to develop a more ‘cumulative, coherent, publicly visible and practically impactful body of knowledge’ that identifies the conditions and structures through which policies could have and sustain a demonstrably positive impact on society. ‘Positive Public Administration’ (PPA) is therefore committed to exposing the existence of powerful negativity-biases in both society and scholarship and to promoting an evidence-based and more balanced account of both policy failure and policy success.
The aim of this special issue is to develop, refine, critique, and push forward the nascent sub-field of positive public administration.
Areas for exploration include:
- What has PPA added to the existing knowledge base, and where has it helped shape policy?
- What are the risks (scientific, professional, societal) of promoting the academic study of successful public policies?
- What new methods can capture non-linear, emergent, and delayed outcomes in policy processes?
- Who gets to define policy success in increasingly polarised and populist political environments?
- What would theoretical or methodological innovation look like in relation to the study of success?
- Is it possible to conceptualise ‘productive/positive failure’ as part of a broader success framework?
- How will AI-assisted policymaking change how success is defined, measured, and claimed?
- How can we incorporate intergenerational justice into assessments of success?
- What is the relationship between policy success and democratic legitimacy in the long term?
- How does policy memory and institutional learning affect future success?
- How might PPA learn from cognate areas of inquiry such as relational governance, design studies, or appreciative inquiry?
- How can future scholarship move beyond state-centric notions of success toward networked or societal success?
Please send abstracts, paper proposals, or questions to m.flinders@sheffield.ac.uk by 1 June 2026. Interdisciplinary analyses and perspectives are encouraged.
Accepted papers will be confirmed by the end of June. Full papers due by 31 October 2026. Refereeing, reviewing, and feedback will be completed by the end of February 2027. Final papers will be submitted by the end of April, with final publication in autumn 2027.
This is so refreshing and much needed in our policy space. I’ve recently retired but look forward to learning more about rebalancing policy discussions and advocacy toward positive policy administration.