Policy feedback research faces a potential pivot point owing to recent theoretical and substantive advances. Concerted attention now spans new scientific communities, such as climate focused socio-technical transitions literature, as well as reinvigorated attention to environmental politics or policy. Rather than being interested in abstractly explaining policy stability and change, this latest turn turns feedback theory in order to help find practical answers to long-term policy challenges. This introduction to our special issue of Policy Sciences aims to take stock of recent developments in policy feedback research and highlight some areas that could be addressed to move the field forward. We argue for taking seriously the original dictum of policy feedback as a loop in which policy is treated as both the start and end point of analysis. This requires integrating advances in policy design scholarship through shared conceptualizations of ‘policy,’ ‘actors’ and ‘agency’. Doing so, we posit, will champion more comprehensive understandings of the effectiveness of policy design choices in general, and long-term oriented policy change in particular.

中文翻译：

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长期政策设计：机构、政策反馈和政策变化

由于最近的理论和实质性进展，政策反馈研究面临着一个潜在的支点。一致的关注现在跨越了新的科学界，例如以气候为重点的社会技术转型文献，以及重新关注环境政治或政策。与其对抽象地解释政策稳定性和变化感兴趣，这一最新的转折转向了反馈理论，以帮助找到应对长期政策挑战的实际答案。我们对政策科学特刊的介绍旨在评估政策反馈研究的最新发展，并强调一些可以推动该领域向前发展的领域。我们主张认真对待政策反馈的原始格言作为一个循环，其中政策被视为分析的起点和终点。这需要通过“政策”、“行动者”和“机构”的共享概念来整合政策设计学术的进步。我们认为，这样做将有助于更全面地了解一般政策设计选择的有效性，尤其是长期导向的政策变化。