Jennifer Dodge
Biographic Data
| ID | 4002120 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Dodge |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Dodge |
| SIGNATURE | DODGE J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Albany, State University of New York |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9167-5112 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 246 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 30 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Political Interpretation of Evidence in Contested Agency Hearings
Public hearings enable agencies to inform impact analyses of proposed projects. Yet, how participants present evidence during hearings is underexplored. Our study builds knowledge through an argumentative analysis of a hearing about fracking in New York. Results show that participants used three mechanisms – boundary work, practical reasoning, and professional reasoning – to contest the environmental agency’s evidentiary and normative claims and …
Why are policy actors so distrustful of each other, and how? Cognitive, behavioral, and endogenous relational sources of perceived distrust in governance networks
In the age of collaboration and shared governance, paradoxically, distrust manifests frequently in government and political institutions and is seen as dysfunctional to democracy, making governing networks challenging. Yet, previous studies emphasize the significance of promoting trust more than addressing distrust in networks. Distrust differs from the absence of trust. It involves relationships characterized by doubt, suspicion, or opportunism.…
Enlivening a strategic focus for a stable democracy amidst authoritarian threats
Exploring counter hegemony and action research to address the climate crisis
This essay argues that climate change as a policy issue sits at the interface of several overlapping crises and must be understood within this broader context, which seems to parallel Gramsci's notion of the interregnum. In this context, competing coalitions not only contest the more visible policy problem (climate change) but also attempt to reshape governing institutions in alignment with their values. Rather than promote evidence-based policy …
Approaches to policy framing
Since Rein and Schön developed their approach to policy framing analysis in the1990s, a range of approaches to policy framing have emerged to inform our understanding of policy processes. Prior attempts to illuminate the diversity of approaches to framing in public policy have largely “stayed in their lane,” making distinctions in approaches within shared epistemic communities. The aim in this paper is to map different approaches to framing used …
Critical Scholarship on Global Civil Society
On the social relevance of Critical Policy Studies in times of turmoil
Interpretive Engagement and the Study of Civil Society Networks
This article explores the use of interpretive methodologies to study civil society networks within the field of third sector research. Interpretive methodologies situate reality as both socially constructed and negotiated and seek to understand meaning and meaning-making practices, which from a critical perspective act as forces of and derivatives of power relations. In particular, we develop the concept “interpretive engagement” to highlight a c…
What counts? Policy evidence in public hearing testimonies
Illustrating the Value of Critical Methodologies Through Third-sector Gender Studies
To encourage methodological pluralism in the field, this paper examines an illustrative sample of articles that apply critical approaches to third-sector studies focused on gender. Specifically, the paper analyzes three articles that were previously identified as among the most critical work on gender in the field between 1970 and 2009 to illustrate how critical research is produced and the value it brings to third-sector studies. We find this wo…
Social Equity in Public Administration
This article presents a “Call to Action” Social Equity Manifesto developed at the Minnowbrook at 50 conference. The Social Equity Manifesto identifies several critical areas of emphasis that can help move toward the achievement of social equity in the research, teaching, and practice of public administration. Regarding research, we discuss the presence of social equity manuscripts in PAR, JPART, and ATP. Interestingly, the coverage of class inequ…
Critical policy studies and the politics of authoritarian neoliberalism
Critical policy studies and the politics of authoritarian neoliberalism." Critical Policy Studies, 13(1), pp. 1–2
Anticipating the future in a violent field
How does Lasswell’s vision of the policy sciences apply in a violent policy field? How does it interface with the social movements emerging in civil society to demand redress, many of which have much deeper roots in historical forms of oppression, and whose proponents are skeptical, sometimes deeply so, of the university and of policymakers as change agents? This article draws on theories of anticipation to extend Lasswell’s ideas in two ways. Fi…
Keeping Your Enemies Close
Explaining the mechanisms that structure policy networks is an important subject of public management research as networks are key mechanisms of convening actors across public, private, and nonprofit sectors to design and implement public policies. Previous research focuses on the positive role of trust in building network structures in the context of social service delivery. But many policy networks can be adversarial, particularly those that op…
Critical policy studies and the politics of post-truth politics
The notion that we live in an age of ‘post-truth politics’ has acquired nearly the status of common sense by now. What does this mean for critical policy studies? Does the world finally admit that
The narrative properties of ideology
The Importance of Narrative for Public Administration
Dynamic Discourse Coalitions on hydro-fracking in Europe and the United States
Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is a controversial issue in most countries. In these controversies, actors use discursive boundary work to convince various audiences of their position. Discursive boundary work is a communicative strategy that involves the framing of facts in contrast to other kinds of arguments. In this article we develop the Dynamic Discourse Coalition (DDC) approach to study how discourse coalitions deploy discursive boundar…
What does it mean to teach ‘interpretively’
The ‘interpretive turn’ has gained traction as a research approach in recent decades in the empirical social sciences. While the contributions of interpretive research and interpretive research methods are clear, we wonder: Does an interpretive perspective lend itself to – or even demand – a particular style of teaching? This question was at the heart of a roundtable discussion we organised at the 2014 Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) Internati…
Crowded Advocacy
In the hydrofracturing controversy in New York advocates hotly contested notions of the problem, what should be done, by whom, and how. This controversy can be characterized as “crowded advocacy,” involving intense mobilization and counter-mobilization of advocates with competing perspectives. Extant theories about the expansion of advocacy organizations are unclear about how advocates’ interactions shape the policy arena, particularly when there…
Indication and inference
How does one draw inferences from a conceptual framework that mixes research paradigms? How does one go about convincing others that this is a worthy enterprise in narrative analysis? These are the
The deliberative potential of civil society organizations
Civil society organizations play myriad roles in democracies. Scholars are beginning to pay more attention to their deliberative potential, rethinking whether or not and how they may broaden and enrich public deliberation. Drawing on a discursive approach to deliberative democracy that focuses on interpretive practices, this article analyzes the deliberative potential of a range of civil society organizations in the controversy over hydraulic fra…
Civil society organizations and deliberative policy making
Addressing Democratic and Citizenship Deficits
Tensions in deliberative practice
Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a ‘view from civil society’. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its ‘dual strategy’ through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outs…
It's About Time
As a form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry contributes to the pursuit of high-quality public administration scholarship, along with other forms of explanatory research that have dominated the field. In this article we discuss the unique features of narrative inquiry, review how this research orientation has been used in public administration, and use our experience with a national, multimodal, multiyear research project on social-chang…
Narrative Inquiry and the Search for Connectedness
Maintaining a vibrant field of public administration requires ongoing efforts to link the worlds of academic researchers and practitioners. We suggest that research itself, traditionally pursued by academics, is a promising mechanism for making this connection. In particular, researchers and practitioners in public administration can do research together in a way that enhances mutual learning, draws on the strengths of each to create useful knowl…
From Consent to Mutual Inquiry
The Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program is a joint endeavor between the Ford Foundation, the Advocacy Institute, and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. This paper focuses on the experiences of the Research and Documentation component of LCW – lead by a research team from the Wagner School – during the initial implementation phases of the research. This component formed an inquiry group consisting of both academic re…
Keeping Your Enemies Close
Explaining the mechanisms that structure policy networks is an important subject of public management research as networks are key mechanisms of convening actors across public, private, and nonprofit sectors to design and implement public policies. Previous research focuses on the positive role of trust in building network structures in the context of social service delivery. But many policy networks can be adversarial, particularly those that op…
Crowded Advocacy
In the hydrofracturing controversy in New York advocates hotly contested notions of the problem, what should be done, by whom, and how. This controversy can be characterized as “crowded advocacy,” involving intense mobilization and counter-mobilization of advocates with competing perspectives. Extant theories about the expansion of advocacy organizations are unclear about how advocates’ interactions shape the policy arena, particularly when there…
Environmental justice and deliberative democracy
This article examines how civil society organizations transmit policy ideas to decision makers in deliberative politics. Drawing on a case of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, it focuses on how they respond to hegemonic power and considers action within “the deliberative system,” including deliberative forums and broader public discourse. I find that civil society actors use both discursive and coercive forms of power …
Indication and inference
How does one draw inferences from a conceptual framework that mixes research paradigms? How does one go about convincing others that this is a worthy enterprise in narrative analysis? These are the
Approaches to policy framing
Since Rein and Schön developed their approach to policy framing analysis in the1990s, a range of approaches to policy framing have emerged to inform our understanding of policy processes. Prior attempts to illuminate the diversity of approaches to framing in public policy have largely “stayed in their lane,” making distinctions in approaches within shared epistemic communities. The aim in this paper is to map different approaches to framing used …
The deliberative potential of civil society organizations
Civil society organizations play myriad roles in democracies. Scholars are beginning to pay more attention to their deliberative potential, rethinking whether or not and how they may broaden and enrich public deliberation. Drawing on a discursive approach to deliberative democracy that focuses on interpretive practices, this article analyzes the deliberative potential of a range of civil society organizations in the controversy over hydraulic fra…
Civil society organizations and deliberative policy making
Tensions in deliberative practice
Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a ‘view from civil society’. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its ‘dual strategy’ through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outs…
The narrative properties of ideology
Illustrating the Value of Critical Methodologies Through Third-sector Gender Studies
To encourage methodological pluralism in the field, this paper examines an illustrative sample of articles that apply critical approaches to third-sector studies focused on gender. Specifically, the paper analyzes three articles that were previously identified as among the most critical work on gender in the field between 1970 and 2009 to illustrate how critical research is produced and the value it brings to third-sector studies. We find this wo…
Critical Scholarship on Global Civil Society
Critical policy studies and the politics of post-truth politics
The notion that we live in an age of ‘post-truth politics’ has acquired nearly the status of common sense by now. What does this mean for critical policy studies? Does the world finally admit that
Exploring counter hegemony and action research to address the climate crisis
This essay argues that climate change as a policy issue sits at the interface of several overlapping crises and must be understood within this broader context, which seems to parallel Gramsci's notion of the interregnum. In this context, competing coalitions not only contest the more visible policy problem (climate change) but also attempt to reshape governing institutions in alignment with their values. Rather than promote evidence-based policy …
On the social relevance of Critical Policy Studies in times of turmoil
What counts? Policy evidence in public hearing testimonies
Anticipating the future in a violent field
How does Lasswell’s vision of the policy sciences apply in a violent policy field? How does it interface with the social movements emerging in civil society to demand redress, many of which have much deeper roots in historical forms of oppression, and whose proponents are skeptical, sometimes deeply so, of the university and of policymakers as change agents? This article draws on theories of anticipation to extend Lasswell’s ideas in two ways. Fi…
The Importance of Narrative for Public Administration
From Consent to Mutual Inquiry
The Leadership for a Changing World (LCW) program is a joint endeavor between the Ford Foundation, the Advocacy Institute, and the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. This paper focuses on the experiences of the Research and Documentation component of LCW – lead by a research team from the Wagner School – during the initial implementation phases of the research. This component formed an inquiry group consisting of both academic re…
It's About Time
As a form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry contributes to the pursuit of high-quality public administration scholarship, along with other forms of explanatory research that have dominated the field. In this article we discuss the unique features of narrative inquiry, review how this research orientation has been used in public administration, and use our experience with a national, multimodal, multiyear research project on social-chang…
Narrative Inquiry and the Search for Connectedness
Maintaining a vibrant field of public administration requires ongoing efforts to link the worlds of academic researchers and practitioners. We suggest that research itself, traditionally pursued by academics, is a promising mechanism for making this connection. In particular, researchers and practitioners in public administration can do research together in a way that enhances mutual learning, draws on the strengths of each to create useful knowl…
Integrating Rigor and Relevance in Public Administration Scholarship
A traditional view of scholarly quality defines rigor as the application of method and assumes an implicit connection with relevance. But as an applied field, public administration requires explicit attention to both rigor and relevance. Interpretive scholars' notions of rigor demand an explicit inclusion of relevance as an integral aspect of quality. As one form of interpretive research, narrative inquiry illuminates how this can be done. We use…
Environmental justice and deliberative democracy
This article examines how civil society organizations transmit policy ideas to decision makers in deliberative politics. Drawing on a case of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, it focuses on how they respond to hegemonic power and considers action within “the deliberative system,” including deliberative forums and broader public discourse. I find that civil society actors use both discursive and coercive forms of power …
Tensions in deliberative practice
Based on an interpretive case study of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice, this article investigates deliberative democracy by taking a ‘view from civil society’. It examines the Network's efforts to develop policy ideas and transmit them through diverse deliberative spheres and elaborates its ‘dual strategy’ through which it both collaborated with government agents in deliberative forums and took independent action outs…
Addressing Democratic and Citizenship Deficits
Civil society organizations and deliberative policy making
Indication and inference
How does one draw inferences from a conceptual framework that mixes research paradigms? How does one go about convincing others that this is a worthy enterprise in narrative analysis? These are the
The deliberative potential of civil society organizations
Civil society organizations play myriad roles in democracies. Scholars are beginning to pay more attention to their deliberative potential, rethinking whether or not and how they may broaden and enrich public deliberation. Drawing on a discursive approach to deliberative democracy that focuses on interpretive practices, this article analyzes the deliberative potential of a range of civil society organizations in the controversy over hydraulic fra…
Dynamic Discourse Coalitions on hydro-fracking in Europe and the United States
Hydraulic fracturing for shale gas is a controversial issue in most countries. In these controversies, actors use discursive boundary work to convince various audiences of their position. Discursive boundary work is a communicative strategy that involves the framing of facts in contrast to other kinds of arguments. In this article we develop the Dynamic Discourse Coalition (DDC) approach to study how discourse coalitions deploy discursive boundar…
What does it mean to teach ‘interpretively’
The ‘interpretive turn’ has gained traction as a research approach in recent decades in the empirical social sciences. While the contributions of interpretive research and interpretive research methods are clear, we wonder: Does an interpretive perspective lend itself to – or even demand – a particular style of teaching? This question was at the heart of a roundtable discussion we organised at the 2014 Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) Internati…
Crowded Advocacy
In the hydrofracturing controversy in New York advocates hotly contested notions of the problem, what should be done, by whom, and how. This controversy can be characterized as “crowded advocacy,” involving intense mobilization and counter-mobilization of advocates with competing perspectives. Extant theories about the expansion of advocacy organizations are unclear about how advocates’ interactions shape the policy arena, particularly when there…
The narrative properties of ideology
The Importance of Narrative for Public Administration
Critical policy studies and the politics of post-truth politics
The notion that we live in an age of ‘post-truth politics’ has acquired nearly the status of common sense by now. What does this mean for critical policy studies? Does the world finally admit that
Social Equity in Public Administration
This article presents a “Call to Action” Social Equity Manifesto developed at the Minnowbrook at 50 conference. The Social Equity Manifesto identifies several critical areas of emphasis that can help move toward the achievement of social equity in the research, teaching, and practice of public administration. Regarding research, we discuss the presence of social equity manuscripts in PAR, JPART, and ATP. Interestingly, the coverage of class inequ…
Critical policy studies and the politics of authoritarian neoliberalism
Critical policy studies and the politics of authoritarian neoliberalism." Critical Policy Studies, 13(1), pp. 1–2
Anticipating the future in a violent field
How does Lasswell’s vision of the policy sciences apply in a violent policy field? How does it interface with the social movements emerging in civil society to demand redress, many of which have much deeper roots in historical forms of oppression, and whose proponents are skeptical, sometimes deeply so, of the university and of policymakers as change agents? This article draws on theories of anticipation to extend Lasswell’s ideas in two ways. Fi…
Keeping Your Enemies Close
Explaining the mechanisms that structure policy networks is an important subject of public management research as networks are key mechanisms of convening actors across public, private, and nonprofit sectors to design and implement public policies. Previous research focuses on the positive role of trust in building network structures in the context of social service delivery. But many policy networks can be adversarial, particularly those that op…
Illustrating the Value of Critical Methodologies Through Third-sector Gender Studies
To encourage methodological pluralism in the field, this paper examines an illustrative sample of articles that apply critical approaches to third-sector studies focused on gender. Specifically, the paper analyzes three articles that were previously identified as among the most critical work on gender in the field between 1970 and 2009 to illustrate how critical research is produced and the value it brings to third-sector studies. We find this wo…
On the social relevance of Critical Policy Studies in times of turmoil
Interpretive Engagement and the Study of Civil Society Networks
This article explores the use of interpretive methodologies to study civil society networks within the field of third sector research. Interpretive methodologies situate reality as both socially constructed and negotiated and seek to understand meaning and meaning-making practices, which from a critical perspective act as forces of and derivatives of power relations. In particular, we develop the concept “interpretive engagement” to highlight a c…
What counts? Policy evidence in public hearing testimonies
Critical Scholarship on Global Civil Society
Political science (26 works) · Sociology (25 works) · Law (21 works) · Law (18 works) · Politics (17 works) · Public Administration (12 works) · Public relations (11 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Public Policy and Administration Research (9 works)