Twenty Years of Comparative Policy Analysis: A Survey of the Field and a Discussion of Topics and Methods

Comparative policy analysis has emerged as a distinct field of study in the past two decades, however only one journal is explicitly devoted to its study: the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice (JCPA). This article performs a content analysis of abstracts in the field of comparative policy analysis to determine the contours of the field. First, the paper charts the development of comparative policy analysis and compares the trajectories of comparative politics, comparative public administration and comparative policy analysis. Second, the paper analyzes the results of the abstract coding to reveal the methods employed, countries studied, the number of countries studied and the countries of the authors’ institutions. The results from JCPA and other journals in the Elton B. Stephens Co. (EBSCO) Academic Complete database are compared to distinguish the dominant role that JCPA plays in the field. Finally, it discusses the major trends in the work published in comparative policy analysis, the limitations of the current publications and further areas for development. A clear finding is that the field of comparative policy analysis is on a sharp upward trajectory.