In this book, scholars and (reflexive) practitioners will tell their ‘stories’ about their work in the field of policy, but first we need to consider the nature of the stories and ‘accounts’ of policy. Talking about ‘policymakers’ implies identifiable actors creating a clearly visible product: ‘policy.’ But when policy is seen in more ambiguous terms, it becomes more difficult to objectively define what the policy ‘is’ or the work that created it. Representing this ambiguous reality as policy is an exercise in interpretation, which is accomplished by policy practices themselves, but also through the scholarly endeavors that analyze the policy-making processes. What is considered ‘policy work’ is part of this process of representation engaged in by both practitioners and observers. So neither ‘policy’ nor ‘policy work’ can be seen as neutral phenomena, instead, they are part of the process of learning how people attempt to understand and shape practice, and relate this to the broader attempts to ‘govern’ societies and channel political processes. This means that values and interests are at stake, and that the outcomes of policy processes will produce both winners and losers, which will no doubt affect the various interpretations. Critical forms of policy analysis, for example, aim not only to represent policies as openly as possible, but also to disclose the processes involved in the creation of policy, the voices heard (and not heard), and to inform and involve those left out of the process. Policy work is an exercise in the social construction of meaning, but the deconstruction of policy through analysis is also part of this policy process.

This section thus focuses on meta-accounts, observations of how accounts of policy work are constructed and utilized. But first we must understand ‘policy’ as a meta-account within our understanding of governing, and within this account, the sort of practices that are explained and validated. Hal Colebatch shows that there are distinct and overlapping accounts of policy that focus on different aspects of the process of governing. Policy can be seen as a process of authoritative choice that emphasizes the positions of leaders, decisions and programs. It can be seen as structured interaction that focuses on the interplay between different participants with distinct agendas.