Philippine Critical Policy Studies Initiative

06/02/2026

Policy Analysis in the Philippines Book Dissemination Workshop
Edited by: Kidjie Ian Saguin (University of Melbourne) and Noe John Sacramento (University of the Philippines Cebu & Chiang Mai University)

and

Philippine Public Policy Network Relaunch: Building a Sustainable Network of Public Policy Academics and Practitioners
February 6, 2026

01/09/2025

📺 Watch the Recording Now!

Did you miss the book talk and launch of the Philippine Critical Policy Studies Initiative? Don’t worry — you can now catch the full recording on the Critical Policy Studies Network YouTube channel.

📖 In his book Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation, Dr. Piyapong Boossabong shows how empathy, emotions, and lived experiences can transform policymaking into a more inclusive and people-centered process.

▶️ Watch here: https://youtu.be/po2M2DHYZ_M?si=EhRuxl1tfsKRmtOs

📩 For more details: [email protected]

🔗 Follow us: facebook.com/PhilippinesCPSI

Book Talk by Piyapong BoossabongBook Title: Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation (Palgrave Macmillan, ...

18/05/2025

📖 About “Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation”

In his latest book, “Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation,” Dr. Piyapong Boossabong proposes a shift in how we think about policymaking — one that moves beyond rigid, technocratic models to make space for emotions, lived experiences, and inclusive dialogue.

Rather than relying solely on expert knowledge, the book places the fears and hopes of citizens at the center of policy design (Boossabong, 2025). It argues that empathy is not a soft skill, it is a political tool for fostering social learning and better-informed, people-centered policies.

📚 Grounded in evidence from Thailand and enriched by global case studies, this book is essential reading for anyone reimagining policy from the ground up.

📌 Do not miss the chance to listen and engage directly from the author during the book talk on “Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation” and the online launching of the Philippine Critical Policy Studies Initiative.

🗓 Date: Friday, 6 June 2025
🕒 Time: 4:00 PM (Cebu, Philippines) | 3:00 PM (Bangkok) | 4:00 PM (Beijing) | 10:00 AM (Vienna) | 6:00 PM (Canberra)
💻 Platform: Zoom Video Conferencing

🔗 Register here:
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A

📩 For more details, contact us at: [email protected]
🔗 facebook.com/PhilippinesCPSI

11/05/2025

📖 Online Launching of the Philippine Critical Policy Studies Initiative and Book Talk on ‘Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation’

We are excited to invite you to a timely and engaging discussion on “Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation,” featuring Dr. Piyapong Boossabong from the School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University.

This session also marks the official launching of the Philippine Critical Policy Studies Initiative (Philippines-CPSI), a collaborative platform that seeks to push the boundaries of policy thinking through critical, inclusive, and context-sensitive approaches across Asia and the Pacific region.

🎙️ Discussants include:
Prof. Dr. Hendrik Wagenaar (University of Canberra, Australia)
Prof. Dr. Anna Durnova (University of Vienna, Austria)
Prof. Dr. Ya Li (Beihang University, China)

🗣️ Convenor and Co-Convenors:
Noe John Sacramento (University of the Philippines Cebu & Chiang Mai University, Thailand)
Antonio Salazar Jr. (University of the Philippines Tacloban College & Chiang Mai University, Thailand)
Clyde Ben Gacayan (University of the Philippines Visayas)

🗓 Date: Friday, 6 June 2025
🕒 Time: 4:00 PM (Cebu, Philippines) | 3:00 PM (Bangkok) | 4:00 PM (Beijing) | 10:00 AM (Vienna) | 6:00 PM (Canberra)
💻 Platform: Zoom Video Conferencing

📌 Register here:
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A
https://forms.gle/KCKnAW5Lc1wyVuY7A

This event is open to early career researchers, academics, and practitioners interested in public policy, democratic engagement, and the transformative role of empathy in governance.

📩 For more details, contact us at: [email protected]
🔗 facebook.com/PhilippinesCPSI

13/03/2025

Here's a book review of Deborah Stone's "Counting: How We Use Numbers to Decide What Matters" by Noe John JE Sacramento, published in the Critical Policy Studies Journal.

The review highlights lessons and insights from the work of Stone that offer a better lens to further the discussion of the possibility of making numbers and counting complementary to meanings, abstractions, and stories.

Follow this link to access the book review: https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2022.2060275

13/03/2025

This week, we highlight the work of Deborah Stone on
"Counting: How we use numbers to decide what matters."

The book offers critical views on ways in which policymaking uses and misuses numbers. Deborah Stone shows that to count, one needs to first decide what counts. Significantly, the arguments of the book present that numbers in themselves show a form of creative storytelling and, as such, are built on cultural assumptions, social conventions, and personal judgments.

More about this book: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/books/review/counting-deborah-stone.html

06/03/2025

This work of Noe John Joseph E. Sacramento criticizes techno-authoritarian domination of some policy actors which explicitly hampers a genuine grassroots involvement in the policy process, especially towards agenda-setting of immediate concerns like the climate change loss and damage. Critically understanding actors’ power and narratives is productive in identifying and propagating the type of deliberative spaces that speak truth to power.

Grassroots involvement on Global South policy narratives and deliberative action on climate change loss and damage

This paper investigates how power and narratives among actors relate to agenda-setting and deliberation in the context of climate change loss and damage. The focus is to understand how grassroots voices manifest their concerns on intensifying economic and non-economic impacts of climate change loss and damage that affect them. This paper is based on the case of the Southeast Asia climate change loss and damage workshop in Bohol, Philippines, in August 2022. It utilizes lesson drawing as a critical and productive approach to make sense of the observations from the perspectives of participant observers and facilitators. The findings presents that there are different levels of power and dominant narratives actors in a deliberative process propel in taking a stance over a particular issue towards agenda-setting and policy framing. The power and narratives help actors to maintain and emphasize their position, exercise authority, and, to some point, suppress weak voices. Narratives associated with emotions, sentiments, ideologies, and value systems of the grassroots, community leaders, and climate justice movements tend to be devalued by those in a high level of power and authority.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1108/PAP-12-2022-0146

06/03/2025

Thrilled to revisit the work of Clyde Ben A. Gacayan, who looks at the policymaking process pertinent to the Philippine anti-drug campaign through a policy tracing technique.

Till death (s) do us part?: Policy ‘design trace’of the Philippine Anti-Illegal Drug Campaign

The many political forces in support for and against Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs present a key challenge in drug policy analysis. As a highly politicized issue, drug policy concerns include questions of economic development, security, human rights, and public health. How has the policy evolved in the last two-and-a-half years of implementation given these different concerns? What can policy tracing contribute in understanding the policy?

The article examines the policymaking process pertinent to the Philippine anti-drug campaign through a policy tracing technique. The study employed a qualitative research design using multiple sources such as chronological media review, informant interviews with policy implementers, elites, and experts, as well as document review of legislations and official documents.

Link:https://cids.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Article_Gacayan.pdf

06/03/2025

We are sharing Antonio D. Salazar Jr.'s work, where he pointed out the adaptive and deliberative potential of SLBs in crisis situations and the value of a DPA in understanding SLB theory and research.

The role of discretion and street-level deliberative practices in the COVID-19 crisis response: Lessons from the Philippines

This study investigates the role of frontline workers, such as the Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERTs) in the Philippines, as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) in implementing COVID-19 community quarantine policies. Drawing from SLB theory and deliberative policy analysis (DPA), I explore how SLBs adapted to rapidly changing conditions by exercising discretion in interpreting and adapting the implementation of nationally formulated pandemic management policies to meet local realities. I argue that SLBs functioned as deliberative practitioners, mediating between national policies and local realities while engaging in deliberative practices with their clients. Using the experience of BHERTs in Palompon, Leyte in the Philippines as an illustrative case, I identified the policy mandates (policy-as-written) of the BHERTs; the challenges and constraints they faced in implementing community quarantine policies; and the discretion they exercised in implementing community quarantine policies (policy-as-practiced). The findings reveal that, to meet their policy mandates and address the challenges they faced, they engaged in deliberative practices and collaborated with citizens in implementing context-specific and creative strategies. Insights from this study highlight the adaptive and deliberative potential of SLBs in crisis situations and the value of a DPA in understanding SLB theory and research. By examining SLBs’ experiences during the pandemic, this study contributes to the SLB literature and offers practical lessons to policy practitioners in facilitating deliberation and developing context-specific solutions in times of crisis.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12671

06/03/2025

[Inaugural Highlight Post]

🤓 Sharing the most recent book of Piyapong Boossabong and venture into the emotions and empathy in policy design!

Empathetic Policy Design: Emotional Engagement, Inclusive Space, and Empowered Deliberation

This book sets out to develop a policy design process that is more inclusive by creating space for emotions and feelings. Rather than focus solely on expert knowledge, it places the fears and hopes of citizens at the heart of policy design, to facilitate meaningful interactions between policymakers and the citizens they serve. Focusing particularly on evidence from Thailand, but drawing on case studies from around the world, the book argues that empathetic policy design is crucial to foster social learning and better-informed policies. It also focuses on how emotions can be incorporated into policy design, and how policymakers of the future might use these design processes to create and implement policies that will benefit all. The book will appeal to all those interested in public policy and policy design.

Link: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-75002-1

06/03/2025

[Inaugural Highlight Post]

🤓 Check out the most recent book by Frank Fischer!

Critical Policy Inquiry: Interpreting Knowledge and Arguments
(Edward Elgar's Advances in Critical Policy Studies series)

Presenting a critical approach to the study of public policy and policy analysis, this book presents a postpositivist foundation that challenges empiricist and technocratic approaches to policy studies. Frank Fischer advances deliberative policy argumentation and the logic of practical reason, exploring how this approach can be used as a framework for interpreting the interaction of normative and empirical arguments in policy politics.

Link: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/critical-policy-inquiry-9781789900804.html?srsltid=AfmBOooJrn8uI8ReDM-EzhtEDepb1CNiPGdcfk1GTLPJ_mfEbYVmd7uO