75

In the context of this special issue on process tracing, this article shall illustrate how this (new) research protocol can be used to analyse public policies. First of all, this article shall describe the similarities that this method, which is centred on the identification and sequencing of causal mechanisms at work in a given political process, shares with certain analytical tools for policy analysis (sequential analysis, neo-institutionalism, change analyses, etc.). We shall then identify how this method, often discussed in a very abstract way, can provide operational tools that allow for a more systematic and detailed analysis of the trajectories of public policies. In fact, causal mechanisms, which we believe to be the central elements of the process tracing research protocol, can be better deconstructed both individually and in context using the “3-Is“ model: the sequencing of any public policy can indeed be described by identifying the mechanisms stemming from ideas, interests and institutions.