The sustainable future of implementation research: On the development of the field and its paradoxes

__Abstract__ As fashionable as implementation studies were in the 1970s and 1980s, as en vogue it has become four decades later to consider implementation as a research theme of the past. It is clear that in the study of government new themes and concepts have been put on the agenda. In the ‘age of governance’ that study takes place under a variety of headings beyond ‘implementation’. At the same time a continued attention to what happens with policies-on-paper can be observed. In this special issue the development of implementation research as a scholarly field is assessed. A closer look reveals some paradoxes, but also steady advancement