08/06/2026
(1) Title of Book Chapter: "Beyond policy science and the emergence of critical policy studies in Asia"
Author: Noe John Joseph E. Sacramento
Abstract: This chapter rethinks the core emergence of the so-called Asian Century in relation to the evolution and growth of the policy studies discipline. Despite Asia's growing participation in global governance, economics, and socio-political systems, the chapter argues that the phenomenon of the Asian Century largely reflects the persistent dominance of Anglo-American techno-empiricist epistemological paradigms in policy practice—mainly centered in policy science. It critically questions whether Asia's participation in the Asian Century represents an emancipatory shift for policy scholars, given the historical dominance of Western approaches in the discipline. To investigate this, the global participation of Asian policy scholars in critical policy discourse is analyzed. This exploration reveals an emancipating presence of Asian critical scholars, underscoring that much remains to be done. Furthermore, with the rise of illiberal democracies, autocracies, and authoritarian forces in the Global East, it highlights a pressing need to redirect policy scholarship toward more critical, interpretivist, and emancipatory frameworks.
Access here: https://cvsc.upcebu.edu.ph/index.php/project/beyond-policy-science-and-the-emergence-of-critical-policy-studies-in-asia/
(2) Title of Book Chapter: "Challenges of policy process in the face of technocracy and high inequalities across Asia"
Author(s): Noe John Joseph E. Sacramento and Piyapong Boossabong
Abstract: Technocrats play a pivotal role in shaping policies across Asia. This chapter reveals the Asian policy landscape of technocracy and high inequalities. They are interrelated as high inequalities fuel technocratic governance. These conditions are the predicament with which policy analysts in Asia must work. The chapter discusses the necessity of bringing “the public” back to policy after the rise of technocracy. This involves identifying potential alternatives, exploring new directions, and introducing approaches prioritizing people over experts, decentering elitist perspectives, and amplifying the voices of ordinary citizens, who are often marginalized by technocratic and elitist power structures. While the chapter criticizes technocratic traditions, it acknowledges the contextual complexity that requires diverse approaches to coexist. From a critical pragmatic perspective, the challenge is how to reimagine technocracy so it is more sensitive to non-technical knowledge and challenges power hierarchies in this region to promote equitable and inclusive policies.
Access here: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035319602.00015
(3) Title of Book Chapter: "Policy styles and norms in Asia: a critical and interpretive reflection"
Author(s): Piyapong Boossabong, Noe John Joseph E. Sacramento, and Antonio D. Salazar Jr.
Abstract: This chapter discusses policy styles and norms in Asia. It conceptualizes styles and norms as the art side of public policy that determines the political and bureaucratic construction of policy nature. Policy styles and norms can be perceived as the dominant policy discourse in a particular setting that reflects policy framing, preferences, and meaning. The style is a performative part of the norm. With this lens, the chapter highlights five operative policy discourses as the main Asian policy styles and norms: state, spirituality and the human-centric approach, communitarianism, sufficiency and self-reliance, and technological solutionism. The chapter clarifies their characteristics and illustrates how these operative policy discourses dominate policy domains in the major part of the region. It also examines their real-world implications.
Access here: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035319602.00013
(4) Title of Book Chapter: "Public policy in the Philippines: taking the road less traveled toward decentering experts and power"
Author(s): Noe John Joseph Sacramento, Antonio D. Salazar Jr., and Clyde Ben A. Gacayan
Abstract: This chapter looks into the history and contemporary developments of public policy in the Philippines. It argues that public policy in the country did not establish itself as a discipline with its own distinct epistemology and ontology. Rather, it is dismembered and continuously reconfigured depending on the ‘part’ or ‘parts’ frequently operationalized and instrumentalized by more established disciplines. In making sense of ‘Philippine Public Policy’, the chapter rethinks and unpacks the scholarships in those related disciplines. It moves beyond the mere definition of public policy in the country to examine its existential crisis. It highlights that we can no longer afford to propagate another messy spiral of identity in the field of public policy in the Philippines, as the mainstream disciplines have experienced before. This existential crisis ends with the necessity to take the road less traveled toward decentering experts and power.
Access here: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035319602.00035
