Introduction

Whether working in the community sector, research, advocacy or perhaps even government, individuals want to know how to get heard and how to have an impact on policy. But for the most part, as Clavier and De Leeuw suggest, the “complex and shifting rationalities of public policy making still largely elude” many of us (Clavier and de Leeuw 2013, p. 3). Both in the academic literature and in practice, two different views of policy exist which often sit in tension with one another. One depicts the policy process as a rational act, typically following a cycle (albeit not necessarily in a linear fashion). The other (and increasingly popular) presents policy as messy, inherently political and frequently inscrutable.