Applying theory to policy and practice: Issues for Critical Reflection

This collection is unusual in that it is borne both from the rigours of theoretical and philosophical reflections and from addressing the many difficulties of applying these reflections to the detail of policy and practice. The shared premise of all the contributors is that too often the business of theoretical and philosophical rigour and issues of detailed application are kept apart to the profound detriment of both pursuits. Particular attention is paid to the methodological problems of moving from theoretical generalization (including normative and ethical arguments) to specific policy and practice based issues.
We anticipate that interested readers will comprise a number of audiences including, practitioners in the legal profession, probation, counselling, social work, and social and public policy analysts and political campaigners, as well as political and ethical philosophers and theorists concerned with policy and practice-based issues. Although the collection is clearly not targeted to one audience we believe that specific audiences will nevertheless be interested in the whole of the collection for two main reasons. First, we have deliberately focused on issues that overlap between different disciplines and practices in order to draw out general lessons regarding the application of theory to policy and practice. Second, we expect that the collection will provide various interesting case-studies concerning the difficulties of moving from theoretical generality to specific policy and practice based concerns.
Given the above, the contributors have been chosen to reflect a wide range of academic backgrounds including from social policy, political philosophy, political theory, legal theory, social philosophy, and applied ethics, as well as reflecting a diverse range of practice-based backgrounds, in legal practice, probation, counselling, social work, and political campaigning most notably relating to ‘race’ and disability issues. This combination we believe provides especially fertile ground for exploring the above methodological problems.