The argumentative turn in public policy revisited: twenty years later

This essay outlines and extends the discussion of the ‘argumentative turn’ in public policy as it has evolved since 1993 and points to possible future directions of argumentative policy analysis. First emerging in 1993, the contributions over these two decades include a focus on deliberation and deliberative democracy, discourse and discursive institutionalism, social constructivism and interpretation, rhetoric and semiotics, post-structural policy analysis, participatory and collaborative policy analysis, and more. In this contribution, the role of language and ideas in policy-making are underscored, the challenge posed to neopositivist policy analysis by the complexity of today’s ‘messy problems’ and the role that deliberative argumentation can play in dealing with such problems.