公共政策比较及其政治学学科意义

Comparative Public Policy and Its Implications for Political Science

公共政策是现代国家最为常见和有效的治理工具。作为政治过程的重要输出,公共政策因其功能等价物意义可为不同国家或地区间的比较提供可比性基础,比较研究也正成为公共政策研究的重要趋势,并显示出超越诸种流行范式而产生一般理论的潜力。公共政策比较研究聚合了政治学研究的广泛议题,对政策实践、政治学研究乃至政治学学科都具有诸多方面的启示意义。肯定性行动(政策)比较研究即展示了这种强大的辐合效应和辐散效应。公共政策(比较)研究对于中国政治学的积极意义在于,公共政策记录国家治理相关信息的档案功能有助于经验知识的积累,促进研究者与经验世界间广泛而有深度的接触,从而推动中国政治学发展为一门兼具价值亲和力与理论亲和力的学科。

Public policy is a prevailing and most effective governance tool in contemporary states. As a regular output of political process everywhere, public policy is a functional equivalent for comparison among political systems. In public policy studies, the comparative method is becoming a trend having theoretical generalization potentials superior to other popular research paradigms. The comparative study of public policy brings together a wide range of topics in political science research and has many implications for policy practice, political science research, and the discipline of political science. The comparison of affirmative action(policies) is quite revealing in this regard. The positive significance of public policy(comparative) research for Chinese political science is that the archival function of public policy as a record of information related to national governance contributes to the accumulation of empirical knowledge and facilitates a broad and deep contact between researchers and the empirical world, thus promoting the development of Chinese political science as a discipline with both value and theoretical affinities.