400021 SE An introduction to critical policy sociology (2025S)

All aspects of social life can be impacted by public policy, and therefore every social scientist, whatever the field, may at some point encounter policy-related issues in his or her research. This course is therefore aimed not only at complementing the knowledge of those who directly study public policy, but, more generally, at providing those working on other subjects with analytical tools helping them to grasp policy aspects of their objects of study.

This approach is in line with my cross-disciplinary profile, as a sociologist and political scientist with a strong interest in disciplines such as anthropology and history. It is also in line with my unified notion of social sciences. Trained in the French tradition initiated by Pierre Bourdieu I propose a (I think quite rare) dialogue between this tradition and contemporary international literature, which may open new perspectives for the students.

In these series of classes, I will introduce the students to the methods of a critical sociology approach to public policy. The main methodological objective of this course is to drive them to consider public policy neither as a topic reserved to practice-driven research, nor as a specific academic domain outside from other sub-disciplines and socio-political questions, but as a topic located at the core of a series of issues addressed by social science research, such as inequalities, modes of domination, social and symbolic hierarchies, regulation of conflicts, institutions, citizenship, etc. To do so I will alternate between present methodological proposals and case studies at various policy levels and chosen in various contexts. Previous knowledge of sociology and political science methods would help the students follow this course, but I will adjust to their level. The course will commence with locating critical policy sociology methods in regards to other approaches, and proposing a sociological redefinition of public policy as a way to construct it as a research object for general sociology. The following sessions will present a series of methodological proposals in order to give the students a concrete notion on how to conduct critical policy sociology research.

Provisional program:

Introductory remarks: What is being ‘critical’ from a sociological point of view?
Theme 1 Constructing public policy as an object of research
Theme 2 The social structures of policy-making: the contribution of Bourdieu’s field methodology
Theme 3 Deconstructing policy categories to construct analytic categories
Theme 4 International circulation of policy models: a new method to reconsider policy transfers
Theme 5 Street-level bureaucracy and the ‘implementation trick’: critical methods for implementation studies
Theme 6 Critical policy ethnography as a method
Theme 7 Changing perspective as a new method: a view from below of policy programs
Concluding remarks: On the the usefulness of a critical approach and its limits