Roundtable: Implications of GenAI for Interpretivist Politics and Policy Research

Abstract

Following APSA-funded research conducted at UniSC, this roundtable explores how generative and agentic AI mediate meaning, frame policy problems, and reshape interpretive authority in research and policymaking. The panel will examine how scholars can evaluate the influence of AI technologies on processes of data generation, interpretation, and analysis within interpretivist approaches. Particular attention will be given to how AI may alter who defines public problems, whose voices are amplified, and which perspectives endure within democratic processes. These questions are especially important for interpretive policy scholars concerned with representation, knowledge production, and the politics of meaning-making. The discussion will also consider when, how, and under what conditions AI should be used in policy research, particularly in projects centred on voice, lived experience, and contextual understanding. More broadly, the roundtable will address the challenge of reconciling the efficiencies of AI-assisted analysis with the risk that such technologies can decontextualise data and obscure underlying power relations.

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