Commissioning editor for Oxford University Press: Dominic Byatt (see Proposal Form)
Series Editors: Paul Cairney, Tanya Heikkila, Evangelia Petridou, and Christopher M. Weible
This Series seeks innovative scholarship, that offers novel theoretical and/or methodological insights, particularly to understand and inform policymaker responses to global challenges. We seek a groundbreaking series of books that use policy process theories to help understand and address the world’s grand challenges, such as global public health, climate change, social and economic inequities, struggling democracies, and food, water, and energy security. We welcome scholarship that:
- Produces theoretical excellence, by extending theoretical frontiers to new contexts, testing theory with new methods or empirical approaches, or consolidating existing insights to advance knowledge about the world’s grand challenges.
- Bridges research and practice, by focusing on how to understand real world problems or how to improve the capacity of policy processes to responsibly address them.
- Meets our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (see below).
We welcome standard authored or co-authored research monographs (up to 100,000 words) aimed at specialists or a wider audience, seeking books that balance an immediate impact – on research or practice – with intellectual longevity.
Editors and Advisory Board
Series Co-Editors
Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling, UK. He specializes in the study of comparative public policy, including comparisons of policy theories, processes in different political systems, and comparisons of policy sectors (including health and education). He has written 14 books (including two monographs for Oxford University Press), 95 articles in international peer reviewed journals, and 31 chapters in edited books. The full list is available at https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/cv/ and Google Scholar.
Tanya Heikkila is a Professor the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs, where she also co-directs the Center for Policy and Democracy. Heikkila’s research and teaching focuses on policy processes and environmental governance. She is particularly interested in how governance processes can be designed to facilitate collaboration, foster learning, and resolve conflicts. Some of Heikkila’s recent research has explored these issues in the context of interstate watersheds, large-scale ecosystem restoration, and unconventional oil and gas development. She has over 100 publications, including six books, which can be found on Google Scholar. Heikkila has also served in various advisory capacities on policy issues, including her current appointment to California’s Independent Science Board for the Delta Stewardship Council.
Evangelia Petridou is associate professor at Mid Sweden University, Sweden, and senior researcher at NTNU Social Research in Norway. She is co-editor of the International Review of Public Policy (IRPP). Her research interests center on policy process theories and specifically policy entrepreneurship, collaboration mechanisms in bureaucracies, and crisis management as a policy sector. She has a robust publication list in terms of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and has co-edited two volumes and two journal special issues thus far. For a full publication list please see Mid Sweden University and Google Scholar. She is the lead, co-lead, and is involved in, research projects funded by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development, the European Union, and the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency.
Christopher M. Weible is a professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. His research and teaching center on policy process theories and methods, democracy, and environmental policy. He serves as the Co-Founder and Co-Director for the Center for Policy and Democracy and Co-Editor for Policy & Politics. His publications exceed over 100 journal articles and book chapters. His volumes include “Theories of the Policy Process,” “Methods of the Policy Process,” and “Policy Debates in Hydraulic Fracturing.” The full list of publications is available on Google Scholar.
Advisory Board
A group of public policy experts at different career stages and with diverse theoretical and substantive policy sector expertise will comprise our advisory board. Scholars with extensive networks will be included, to ensure that we reach as many innovative scholars as possible. Below is a brief description of this group, in which we list their country of employment while noting that each author is also selected to reflect their wider networks (e.g. Osei-Kojo is central to a nascent network of scholars applying policy theories to African states): Claire Dunlop (UK), Johanna Hornung (Germany and Switzerland), Carolina Milhorance (France), Michael Mintrom (Australia), Annemieke Van der Dool (China), Alex Osei-Kojo (US), Raul Pacheco-Vega (Mexico), Sam Workman (US), Hongtao Yi (US/China). Our aim is to draw meaningfully on the board – which has a broad international range – to provide direction and support to individual authorship teams.
The Editorial team is gender balanced. The Series Team offers representation of the diversity of policy process scholarship worldwide, not only in relation to geography, but also early career and experienced scholars, and theoretical lenses. We also outline a ‘Commitment of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ below.
Commitment of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The Series Editors and Advisory Board acknowledge that under-represented and minority communities (women, ethnic or racial minorities, people who identify as LGBTQ+, Indigenous peoples, first-generation university students, early career scholars, persons with disabilities, international students, English-as-subsequent-language learners, people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and scholars in the Global South) encounter harmful biases in academia. Accordingly, the Series Editors and Advisory Board aim to address these inequities through the following actions:
- Recruiting a diverse and inclusive team of Series Editors and Advisory Board
- Committing to representing diverse authors and voices in this Series
- Humbly listen to critiques of our practices from under-represented and minority communities to make the processes and outcomes as equitable as possible.
- Structuring the submission and evaluation process to support the voices and perspectives of under-represented and minority communities
The proposal process
A completed version of this form should be submitted to the series editors and OUP editor (details below). Please note that to send the proposal to review we may also need chapters – the exact requirements will be communicated by the editors – but as the proposal is the first thing reviewers will look at it is important that it is thorough, clear, and explicitly sets out your main contributions. The suggested section lengths provided are guides – it is fine to be over or slightly under.
Title of the book
Plus name of the author and affiliation
Publication details
Please state the length of the proposed volume in number of words (including notes and references), number of currently drafted chapters, and planned delivery date of the full manuscript.
Introduction (2-3 pages)
This section should explain the motivation of the project, the empirical data that it covers, the methods used, and the core argument that it makes.
Why is this book needed? (1-2 pages)
This section should set out the main contribution of the book, reflecting on why it is needed in three senses. First, what is the main contribution of the book to the current academic debate? How does it move that debate forwards? Second, how does the book help us to understand public policy more broadly? Third, how does it fit into this book series?
The competition (2-3 paragraphs)
This section should set out the most similar/relevant books published on this topic in recent years, and explain how the proposed book is different. Authors may wish to bullet point 5 or 6 publications and then write a couple of focussed paragraphs that discuss them.
The contents (typically 3-4 pages)
This section should provide an annotated contents page, with the full set of chapter headings and one or two paragraphs under each heading to explain its contents. The focus here should be less on listing the empirical material covered and more explaining the argument, how it is defended, and how this contributed to the central narrative of the book.
The author (1-2 pages)
This section should tell the editors who you are and why you are qualified to write the book – focusing on your skills and experience rather than your job title.
Please return this form and a full CV including your contact details, to the series editors:
Paul Cairney p.a.cairney at stir.ac.uk
Tanya Heikkila TANYA.HEIKKILA at UCDENVER.EDU
Evangelia Petridou evangelia.petridou at miun.se
Christopher Weible Chris.Weible at UCDENVER.edu
and
Dominic Byatt of OUP dominic.byatt at oup.com.
It can be also helpful for the editors if you include chapters from the manuscript, ideally a mixture of theoretical and empirical material. If the editors decide to proceed with the proposal, exactly which chapters should be sent for review will be decided in conversation with the author.
Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy 