EVENT: [MAIDS-GRID TALK SERIES: EXPERT RESEARCH SEMINAR #3]

Doing Policy Otherwise: Critical Policy Studies and the Interpretive Turn in Asia

Public policy in Asia has developed alongside, and in dialogue with, governance frameworks and analytical traditions that tend to privilege technocratic expertise, rational-comprehensive models, and positivist approaches to policy analysis, often without fully accounting for the region’s political complexity and social diversity. The limits of these dominant approaches (their inadequacy in the face of political complexity, inequality, and contested governance) have driven the critical turn in policy studies. Critical Policy Studies (CPS), emerging as an onto-epistemological challenge to policy science in the latter half of the twentieth century, has since built an expanding epistemic community with recent deepening engagements in Asia. This analysis interrogates the relevance and urgency of CPS as an alternative lens for public policy and policy analysis in the region. It foregrounds how the critical and interpretive turn reframes both the definition of policy problems and the question of whose knowledge and experiences count in governance. These stakes are especially pressing in Asia, where authoritarianism, post-truth politics, and illiberal democracy have strained democratic deliberation and exposed the limits of technocratic governance. It is precisely within these conditions that an alternative, contextually grounded perspective on public policy becomes not merely desirable, but necessary.

SPEAKER:

Dr. Noe John Sacramento

Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu

Adjunct Faculty, Chiang Mai University School of Public Policy

Noe John Sacramento is an assistant professor of public policy and political science at the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu. He is also a nonresident adjunct faculty at the School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. John has done research on deliberative policy analysis, the technical and participatory nexus in smart city planning, informality, dramaturgy, and emotionality in deliberation, and the critical pragmatist logic in policy analysis in high inequalities. He is also interested in the developments of critical policy studies in Asia, the interpretive and constructivist turn in public policy across the region, and how policy knowledge is contested and challenged in the face of power. His recent book with Routledge (2026) is on “Policy Analysis in High Inequalities in Asia: Critical and Pragmatic Perspective” (co-authors: Piyapong Boossabong and Pobsook Chamchong).

MODERATOR

John Ryan Jacot is a MAIDS student at the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. His thesis examines a coastal land reclamation project in a peri-urban town in Cebu, Philippines, asking why and how coastal land reclamation emerged as a practice for spatializing sustainable urban development. Drawing on assemblage thinking and critical urban theory, it traces how diverse spatial, political, economic, and discursive elements were enrolled along the coastal frontier to render the project possible. It also reflects on alternatives for more socially just and ecologically sound urbanisms along contested coastal frontiers. Previously, he served as a fellow with the Urban Studies Program of the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies, where the team examined flooding in Metro Cebu and emergent urban challenges in low-lying island communities in Bohol, Philippines.

“MAIDS-GRID Talk: Expert Research Seminar” is a new initiative conceived and managed by GRID Ph.D. students. It provides a dedicated space for experts from diverse fields to share insights on the multifaceted issues within development studies.

VENUE AND DATE

Time and Date: Tuesday, 02 June 2026, at 10:00 – 11:30 AM (GMT+7)

Format: Hybrid

Online: Via Zoom

In-person: Smart Classroom, Floor 7, Faculty of Political Science, Kasem Udayanin, Chulalongkorn University

Registration: Scan the QR code on the poster or click here:

Online:https://chula.zoom.us/meeting/register/02fK2xxLR723kVt8k9RyXg#/registration

In-person: https://forms.gle/piG2tRUZ4z6JJrLE9