Call for Papers. Special Issue: “Comparative Public Policies: Innovations and Challenges in a Latin America Under Strain”
Call for Papers
Special Issue:
“Comparative Public Policies: Innovations and Challenges in a Latin America Under Strain”
Propuestas Críticas en Trabajo Social – Critical Proposals in Social Work is a bilingual journal of the Department of Social Work at the University of Chile. Its purpose is to promote debate and the development of proposals in response to the impacts of neoliberal capitalism, inequalities, and oppressions affecting various sectors of society. Within this framework, it seeks to disseminate analyses and discussions on social issues from theoretical-conceptual, political, and historical perspectives, grounded in the plurality of critical approaches within the social sciences and from Social Work debates in dialogue with other disciplines.
For this reason, the journal welcomes contributions from various disciplines and methodological traditions, including studies based on qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-method designs, with participatory and/or collaborative approaches. These may be connected to territories, communities, collectives, social movements, and public policies. The journal also accepts theoretical discussion articles in essay format and book reviews.
Latin America is undergoing a period of profound institutional and social transformations, driven by new citizen demands, technological advances, and growing expectations for state responses that are closer, more inclusive, and collaborative. In this context, rethinking the public sphere requires going beyond a logic centered solely on efficiency, placing citizenship, its rights, and demands at the heart of the debate.
Against this backdrop, Issue 11 of the journal—coordinated by the cluster for Effective Innovations in Public Policy (NIEPP) of the Department of Social Work—seeks to reflect on and analyze public policy innovation processes from a comparative perspective. The aim is to understand how these innovations affect the implementation and evaluation of public policies while requiring the development and revision of design and investment logics, the strengthening of professional teams, and the promotion of sustained improvements in policy effectiveness based on a rights-based approach.
This call for papers is framed in commemoration of the centennial of Social Work in Chile and the organization of the XXIV Seminar of the Latin American Association of Education and Research in Social Work (ALAEITS), to be held in October 2025. These milestones offer an opportunity to foster debate not only from a historical perspective, but also around the tensions, challenges, and prospects of Social Work and public policy in a regional context shaped by epochal shifts and profound transformations in the state and citizens' demands
In this regard, we welcome submissions for this dossier that reflect on the following thematic areas, though not exclusively:
- Reconfiguration of the state and public policies, state capacities, and regulation.
- Privatization of welfare and its impact on the social rule of law.
- Tensions and debates on public policies in Latin American countries.
- Political advocacy, public innovation, and theoretical-methodological approaches to rights guarantees.
- Innovative social experiences and interventions in rights-based public policies.
Deadlines and Guidelines
Submissions in Spanish and English are accepted until October 30, 2025, for publication in Issue 11 of the journal on April 30, 2026.
All submissions must be uploaded via the journal’s online platform.
Guidelines for manuscript preparation and submission:
https://revistapropuestascriticas.uchile.cl/index.php/RPCTS
All articles are reviewed under a double-masked peer review system based on the following criteria: https://revistapropuestascriticas.uchile.cl/index.php/RPCTS/politicas
Author instructions:
https://revistapropuestascriticas.uchile.cl/index.php/RPCTS/about/submissions
