Social Policy Research Centre
Improving alcohol and other drug policy by focusing on values
Published on the 28 May 2024
This NHMRC-funded program of work provides a multi-disciplinary multi project focus on studying the role of values in policy decisions, policy development, and for actors within policy processes.Ìý
There are three streams of work:
- Uncovering current policy values (for example in decriminalisation or cannabis policy) and interrogating the value positions taken up during policy development processes
- Analysing values in research and researchers
- Integrating community values into policy to increase democratic responsiveness of alcohol and drug policies
Drawing on public policy theory and political science, the program employs qualitative, sociological and anthropological methods alongside quantitative research and documentary analyses to surface and analyse the role of values across the many spaces of drug policy.
Research Centre
Research Area
Drug Policy Modelling Program
- Years
- Publications
- Funding agency
- Collaborators
2023 to 2027
- Kelaita, P., Grealy, M., & Ritter, A. (2024). Values in drug policy documents: applying Schwartz’s values theory to the report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into the Drug ‘Ice’ (NSW). Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy.
- Kelaita, P., Ritter, A., Davies, A., & Akmal, H. A. (2025). Designing Better Drug Regulation: Lessons from Policy Design Methods.ÌýContemporary Drug Problems.Ìý
- Stevens, A., Ritter, A., & Askew, R. (2025). Studying moralities in drug policy: An editorial introduction.ÌýDrugs: Education, Prevention and Policy.
- Curchin K, Weight T, Ritter A. (2025) Paternalism in Australian parliamentary debate: the case of drug testing social security recipients.ÌýJournal of Social Policy.
- Zakimi N, Bouchard M, Ritter A, Greer A. (2024) Working in a relational way is everything: Perceptions of power and value in a drug policy-making network. Health Res Policy Syst.
- Askew R, Ritter A. (2023) When self-direction meets conformity: Surfacing Schwartz's 10 basic human values in drug policy dialogue with lived/living experience participants. International Journal of Drug Policy.
- McLauchlan L; Kelaita P; Kowalski M; Ritter A.Ìý(2023). Post-retirement enlightenment syndrome: Worthy of investigation,ÌýInternational Journal of Drug Policy.Ìý
National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant
- Jack Wilson
- USYD
- Matilda Centre
