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The state‐level COVID‐19 response in the United States necessitated collaboration between governor' offices, health departments and numerous other departments and outside experts. To gain insight into how health officials and experts contributed to advising on COVID‐19 policies, we conducted semi‐structured interviews with 25 individuals with a health specialisation who were involved in COVID‐19 policymaking, taking place between February and December 2022. We found two diverging understandings of the role of health officials and experts in COVID‐19 policymaking: the role of ‘staying in the lane’ of public health in terms of the information that they collected, their advocacy for policies and their area of expertise and the role of engaging in the balancing of multiple considerations, such as public health, feasibility and competing objectives (such as the economy) in the crafting of pandemic policy. We draw on the concept of boundary‐work to examine how these roles were constructed. We conclude by considering the appropriateness as well as the ethical implications of these two approaches to public health policymaking.
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Experience, expertise, and the rational ideal: Funds of knowledge and influence in Oregon’s decision-making bodies
Building on longstanding debates about communicative rationality in policymaking, this article introduces the “funds of knowledge” approach to identifying how individuals access and utilize information in public discourse. Drawing on 46 interviews with first- and second-generation immigrants serving on public decision-making bodies in Oregon, the authors analyzed a subset of individuals who used their lived experience, rational expertise, or both while engaging in their respective bodies. Based on interviewees’ perceived level of influence over policymaking, the authors present new insights on the importance of knowledge expression in designing participatory spaces that aim to be inclusive in increasingly diverse communities
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- Award ID(s):
- 2103713
- PAR ID:
- 10579325
- Publisher / Repository:
- Routledge
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Administrative Theory & Praxis
- Volume:
- 45
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1084-1806
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 266 to 287
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10841806.2022.2138212
