I’ve written and delivered a two-hour session on Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) to both undergrad and postgrad students at University of Nottingham this semester. The first hour introduces the topic, looking at three aspects:
- What difference does IPA make?
- Why do we do IPA?
- What are the problems of using IPA?
The lecture is based around the work of Yanow (1996; 2000) and Bevir and Rhodes (2006). The synopsis should be treated as lecture notes; they are not suitable for citation in essays.
While being highly recommended, if the books by Yanow and Bevir and Rhodes prove difficult to obtain, there are plenty of other excellent journal articles and conference papers, available online, in the bibliography below. Yanow (1992) is particularly good on the importance of metaphors in policy analysis.
Below the fold you can find the lecture synopsis, workshop materials and the bibliography.
