Clearly, public policy-making is an activity that both generates and uses information. Both the role of public policy in relation to informational assets and the role of information technologies have been widely canvassed, But can the concept of information itself be used analytically to understand public policy-making? In pursuit of this objective, key theories of public policy are re-interpreted from an informational perspective using a process of reciprocal interrogation. From this analysis, three types of informational role are identified within the policy process: response, control and accountability; structured interaction; and meaning-making. In summary, it is argued that public policy enables collective responses to problems to be formulated and implemented through information transmission and signalling. Through institutional pattern-making, public policy structures and selects information flows. Finally, information forms the basis of meaning-making in public policy. As a result of this exploration, some suggestions are made as to how these concepts may be used to improve policy-making.

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DOI
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Issues
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Agnes Horvath, Magic and the Will to Science: A Political Anthropology of Liminal Technicality
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Gibson Burrell, Ronald Hartz, David Harvie, Geoff Lightfoot, Simon Lilley and Friends, Shaping for Mediocrity: The Cancellation of Critical Thinking at our Universities
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Bas de Boer, How Scientific Instruments Speak: Postphenomenology and Technological Mediations in Neuroscientific Practice
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Bjørn Lomborg, False Alarm
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How does innovation arise in the bicycle sector? The users’ role and their betrayal in the case of the ‘gravel bike’