Mr Francisco Palma Carvajal

My research focuses on the politics of policymaking, citizen participation in policy processes, and changes to policymaking under neoliberal governance. My specific interests lie in education policy, socio-environmental protection and civil society participation in policymaking processes.  As a critical policy scholar, my research pays special attention to issues of power, the role of contexts and the local knowledges held by people in their interaction with policies.

I have recently been awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Chilean Research Council. In this research, I explore how public policy, as an interdisciplinary field, is understood by leading intellectuals and practitioners in Chile. To study this, I am using an interpretive policy analysis approach, combining it with Pierre Bourdieu's notion of 'field' to understand how dominant ideas create and recreate the boundaries of the field.