Integrating Ideas into Policy-Making Analysis

Abstract

This article argues that systematically integrating ideas into policy-making analysis greatly enhances our understanding of policy outcomes. Variables emphasized by other schools of thought—such as power, interests, institutions, and problems—often provide an inadequate explanation of policy choices. To demonstrate the contribution of ideas to policy-making analysis, this article examines the impact of policy frames, showing how they help actors define their interests, generate interpretations of pressing problems, and constrain actions. Retracing the history of race policy development in Britain and France reveals that each country's frames influenced domestic policy outcomes and thus played a vital role in explaining cross-national race policy differences.