Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance Access published online on December 21, 2007
Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, doi:10.1093/jopart/mum040
Making Implementation More Democratic through Action Implementation Research
Binghamton University
Address correspondence to the author at pmischen{at}binghamton.edu.
Public administration scholars often associate increased public participation in policy implementation with the advancement of democratic values. Likewise, scholars engaged in the various forms of action research (AR) promote their efforts as a means to democratizing the research process or contributing to improved social outcomes. Despite these common interests in participation and democracy, there have been few attempts to apply AR methods to policy implementation problems. Drawing on Matland's conflict-ambiguity matrix, we develop a framework for matching particular AR methods to specific policy implementation contexts.