Doctoral Dissertation Research: Regulatory Transformations and the Co-Production of Social Change

Cuny Graduate School University Center, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

Doctoral student Michael Polson (Graduate Center, City University of New York), under the guidance of Dr. Leith Mullings, will investigate how citizens negotiate changes in law and regulatory policy. Everyday thousands of people navigate what can be a contradictory landscape, particularly concerning legal changes in medical regulation. The researcher will examine the process of social change in the realm of regulation as a dynamic system of co-production rather than a top-down change. Using a variety of social science research methods, he will study the product landscape as a network comprised of producers, consumers, policymakers, and medical professionals. He will conduct interviews and participant observation, collect and analyze social network data, and apply Actor-Network Theory to explore the intersections of legal and medical change. The goal is to understand the practices and discourses, institutional and power dynamics, and circulation of people, commodities and knowledge within this dynamic network and how they relate to the processes of social change. The research is important because it will contribute to social scientific understanding of contemporary contours of regulation and public policy. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.