Policy Analysis in 750 Words: How to communicate effectively with policymakers

This post forms one part of the Policy Analysis in 750 words series overview. The title comes from this article by Cairney and Kwiatkowski on ‘psychology based policy studies’.

One aim of this series is to combine insights from policy research (1000, 500) and policy analysis texts. How might we combine insights to think about effective communication?

1. Insights from policy analysis texts

Most texts in this series relate communication to understanding your audience (or client) and the political context. Your audience has limited attention or time to consider problems. They may have a good antennae for the political feasibility of any solution, but less knowledge of (or interest in) the technical details. In that context, your aim is to help them treat the problem as worthy of their energy (e.g. as urgent and important) and the solution as doable. Examples include:

• Bardach: communicating with a client requires coherence, clarity, brevity, and minimal jargon.
• Dunn: argumentation involves defining the size and urgency of a problem, assessing the claims made for each solution, synthesising information from many sources into a concise and coherent summary, and tailoring reports to your audience.
• Smith: your audience makes a quick judgement on whether or not to read your analysis. Ask yourself questions including: how do I frame the problem to make it relevant, what should my audience learn, and how does each solution relate to what has been done before? Maximise interest by keeping communication concise, polite, and tailored to a policymaker’s values and interests.

2. Insights from studies of policymaker psychology

These insights emerged from the study of bounded rationality: policymakers do not have the time, resources, or cognitive ability to consider all information, possibilities, solutions, or consequences of their actions. They use two types of informational shortcut associated with concepts such as cognition and emotion, thinking ‘fast and slow’, ‘fast and frugal heuristics’, or, if you like more provocative terms:

• ‘Rational’ shortcuts. Goal-oriented reasoning based on prioritizing trusted sources of information.
• ‘Irrational’ shortcuts. Emotional thinking, or thought fuelled by gut feelings, deeply held beliefs, or habits.

We can use such distinctions to examine the role of evidence-informed communication, to reduce:

• Uncertainty, or a lack of policy-relevant knowledge. Focus on generating ‘good’ evidence and concise communication as you collate and synthesise information.
• Ambiguity, or the ability to entertain more than one interpretation of a policy problem. Focus on argumentation and framing as you try to maximise attention to (a) one way of defining a problem, and (b) your preferred solution.

Many policy theories describe the latter, in which actors: combine facts with emotional appeals, appeal to people who share their beliefs, tell stories to appeal to the biases of their audience, and exploit dominant ways of thinking or social stereotypes to generate attention and support. These possibilities produce ethical dilemmas for policy analysts.

3. Insights from studies of complex policymaking environments

None of this advice matters if it is untethered from reality.

Policy analysis texts focus on political reality to note that even a perfectly communicated solution is worthless if technically feasible but politically unfeasible.

Policy process texts focus on policymaking reality: showing that ideal-types such as the policy cycle do not guide real-world action, and describing more accurate ways to guide policy analysts.

For example, they help us rethink the ‘know your audience’ mantra by:

Identifying a tendency for most policy to be processed in policy communities or subsystems:

• Elected policymakers prioritise some issues and ignore the rest, and pay attention to some information and ignore the rest.
• Note the importance of ‘serial’ and ‘parallel’ processing: policymakers may process issues one at a time, but political systems process many issues in many different venues (or multiple ‘centres’).
• This dynamic produces many different audiences spread across policymaking systems: blurring boundaries between those who make and influence policy; following their own rules, norms, or dominant ways to understand problems (and assumptions about whose framing and whose knowledge matters); and, responding to different policy conditions or events (which might create different windows of opportunity for action).

Showing that many policymaking ‘centres’ create the instruments that produce policy change

Gone are the mythical days of a small number of analysts communicating to a single core executive (and of the heroic researcher changing the world by speaking truth to power). Instead, we have many analysts engaging with many centres, creating a need to not only (a) tailor arguments to different audiences, but also (b) develop wider analytical skills (such as to foster collaboration and the use of ‘design principles’).

How to communicate effectively with policymakers

In that context, we argue that effective communication requires analysts to:

1. Understand your audience and tailor your response (using insights from psychology)

2. Identify ‘windows of opportunity’ for influence (while noting that these windows are outside of anyone’s control)

3. Engage with real world policymaking rather than waiting for a ‘rational’ and orderly process to appear (using insights from policy studies).

See also:

Why don’t policymakers listen to your evidence?

3. How to combine principles on ‘good evidence’, ‘good governance’, and ‘good practice’

Entrepreneurial policy analysis

Policy Analysis in 750 words: Eugene Bardach’s (2012) Eightfold Path

Please see the Policy Analysis in 750 words series overview before reading the summary.

Eugene Bardach (2012) A Practical Guide for Policy Analysis 4^th ed. (CQ Press)

Bardach (2012) describes policy analysis in eight steps:

1. ‘Define the problem’.

Provide a diagnosis of a policy problem, using rhetoric and eye-catching data to generate attention.

2. ‘Assemble some evidence’.

Gather relevant data efficiently (to reflect resource constraints such as time pressures). Think about which data are essential and when you can substitute estimation for research. Speak with the consumers of your evidence to anticipate their reaction.

3. ‘Construct the alternatives’.

Identify the relevant and feasible policy solutions that your audience might consider, preferably by identifying how the solution would work if implemented as intended. Think of solutions as on a spectrum of acceptability, according to the extent to which your audience will accept (say) market or state action. Your list can include things governments already do (such as tax or legislate), or a new policy design. Focus on the extent to which you are locking-in policymakers to your solution even if it proves to be ineffective (if you need to invest in new capital).

4. ‘Select the criteria’.

Use value judgements to decide which solution will produce the best outcome. Recognise the political nature of policy evaluation, based your measures to determine success. Typical measures relate to efficiency, equity and fairness, the trade-off between individual freedom and collective action, the extent to which a policy process involves citizens in deliberation, and the impact on a policymaker’s popularity.

5. ‘Project the outcomes’.

Focus on the outcomes that key actors care about (such as value for money), and quantify and visualise your predictions if possible. Prediction involves estimation based on experience (or guesswork), so do not over-claim. Establish if your solutions will meet an agreed threshold of effectiveness in terms of the money to be spent, or, present many scenarios based on changing your assumptions underpinning each prediction.

6. ‘Confront the trade-offs’.

Compare the pros and cons of each solution, such as how much of a bad service policymakers will accept to cut costs, or how much security is provided by a reduction in freedom. Assess technical and political feasibility; some solutions may be technically effective but too unpopular. Establish a baseline to help measure the impact of marginal policy changes, and compare costs and benefits in relation to something tangible (such as money).

7. ‘Decide’.

Examine your case through the eyes of a policymaker. Ask yourself: if this is such a good solution, why hasn’t it been done already?

8. ‘Tell your story’.

Identify your target audience and tailor your case. Weigh up the benefits of oral versus written presentation. Provide an executive summary. Focus on coherence and clarity.  Keep it simple and concise. Avoid jargon.

Policy analysis in a wider context: psychology and complexity

Bardach’s classic book provides a great way to consider the wider context in which you might construct policy advice (see pp6-9):

1. Policymaker psychology.

People engage emotionally with information. Any advice to keep it concise is incomplete without a focus on framing and persuasion. Simplicity helps reduce cognitive load, while framing helps present the information in relation to the beliefs of your audience. If so, ‘there is no way to appeal to all audiences with the same information’ or to make an ‘evidence based’ case. To pretend to be an objective policy analyst is a cop-out. To provide long, rigorous, and meticulous reports that few people read is futile. Tell a convincing story with a clear moral, or frame policy analysis to grab your audience’s attention and generate enthusiasm to solve a problem.

2. Policymaking complexity.

Policymakers operate in a policymaking environment of which they have limited knowledge and even less control. There is no all-powerful ‘centre’ making policy from the ‘top down’. We need to incorporate this environment into policy analysis: which actors make and influence policy; the rules they follow, the networks they form, the ideas that dominate debate; and the policy context and events that influence their attention to problems and optimism about solutions.

These factors warn us against ‘single shot’ policy analysis in which there is a one size fits all solution, and the idea that the selection of a policy solution from the ‘top’ sets in motion an inevitable cycle of legitimation, implementation, and evaluation. A simple description of a problem and its solution may be attractive, but success may also depend on persuading your audience at ‘the centre’ about the need to: (a) learn continuously and adapt their strategies through processes such as trial and error, and (b) cooperate with many other ‘centres’ to address problems that no single actor can solve.