Public Policy for Democracy: A Review of Policy Design and Social Construction Theory

Policy design theory focus on the substantive content of public policy,seeking to improve the quality of policies.Two American scholars,Schneider and Ingram,introduce the idea of social construction into the study of policy design.By analyzing the positive or negative impacts of different types of policy design,emerging from different policy-making contexts based on the social construction of target populations or knowledge,upon democracy,they advocate a kind of policy design which can integrates multi-dimensional values including problem-resolving,democracy,citizenship and justice,and advance the development of democracy governance.