Conversations in Conflict Studies Series(3)

An Adversarial Methodology for Exploring Interest-based Conflicts in Chinese Policy-making Context with Ya Li This presentation is based on a recently published paper Experimental Policy Research Methodology: Exploring China’s Policy Issues Adversarially in Laboratory. It partly reflects Ya Li's research in recent years. The purposed adversarial methodology was proposed to deal with the specific challenges for policy making in current Chinese context: Interest groups can hardly find any institutionalized channel to express their concerns. The lack of organized public participation obstructs the structuring of a focused, thorough debate of interest-based policy options. Policy makers lack both methods and ability to clarify contradictory evidence interwoven with interest conflicts in policy debates. In this presentation, Li will discuss these challenges, and present the seminar-gaming based and meta-synthesis supported experimental policy research methodology (EPRM), and brief its current and potential implementations in practice. The implication of EPRM to deliberative policy analysis will be discussed. He will also give a short introduction of his forthcoming book Experimental Policy Research Methodology: Theory and Practice. DATE: April 7th 2010 TIME: 11:30 a.m. PLACE: 400 Eggers Hall