There is much to be said for systems thinking or a systems-informed approach to key tasks such as evaluation. If the policy problem is complex, then we would not expect a single shot solution to work as intended in a linear or even straightforward way. If so, traditional ways to assess success or failure would be inappropriate. This broad argument has some traction, even in places associated with traditional evaluations in relation to policy cycles (such as the UK Treasury and its Magenta book supplement). However, just as systems thinking can mean 10 different things (and refer to two contradictory approaches), systems evaluation can involve very different tasks. Beware the possibility of contradictory ideas emerging from this process.
What exactly is a systems approach?
Systems thinking relates to the idea that key aspects of policy and policymaking resemble the complex systems that we find in nature, society, the brain, and information technology. Here, complex does not mean complicated. Rather, complex systems are greater than the sum of their parts, and exhibit non-linear dynamics, and prompt outcomes that emerge without central control.
Crucially, this argument can be related to many different types of policy relevant systems, including:
Complex policy problems. Policy problems are multi-faceted or inter-related, difficult to break down into specific parts, and not amenable to simple solutions.
Complex policy processes. Policymaking systems resemble complex systems
Complex policy mixes. ‘Policy’ is actually a policy mix, or large collection of policy instruments. The overall impact, of directing many policy instruments at one or more problems, is difficult to control or even predict. Overall policy incoherence may be a feature of such complexity.
In that context, I argue that people may be conflating three separate issues in the name of systems thinking evaluation, potentially with ironic unintended consequences. I make the distinction as follows:
Systems evaluations focusing on a complex policy problem, such as obesity. The aim is to identify the interconnectedness of the policy problem, such as to connect poverty, education, safe and healthy spaces, access to healthy food, commercial incentives, and so on. If so, we can adopt a ‘whole systems’ perspective to try to understand the problem, respond, and seek more meaningful ways to evaluate. This perspective may also be used to reject simplistic descriptions of problems (e.g. scroll down this page to see the ‘obesity system atlas’).
Systems evaluation focusing on a policymaking or governance problem, such as a lack of concerted attention or effective collaboration to solve a problem. The aim is to identify the interconnectedness of policy processes, such as: who is responsible for what, how does it all add up to systemic action, and what would a good policymaking system look like? Or, we may try to provide a map of policymaking responsibilities spread across levels of government (e.g. national/local) or sectors (e.g. health, education, transport, environment). If we intervene to change how we do things around here, we can assess the impact on things like levels of policy coherence or policymaking integration or cooperation. This perspective may also be used to counter the idea that one single centre of government can change things from the top-down.
Systems evaluation focusing on the overall impact of the policy mix. If many organisations use many instruments, is the policy mix coherent? Does each instrument reinforce or undermine the other? If we find limited success in relation to one instrument, is the problem really the other instruments? Or the delivery of the same instruments in different or unintended ways?
The potential irony arises if we recommend systems thinking in relation to one aspect but take a rather linear approach to others. Here, the classic mistake is to apply systems thinking to a problem but then act as if the solution can be produced by one central authority in a straightforward manner in a policymaking system. It is strange to see policy recommendations about problem complexity that do not recognise policymaking complexity. Why spend so much time identifying the interconnectedness of problems only to propose simple accounts of the responsibility for solutions?
One answer worth pursuing (because it represents a point of common ground) is that lots of people are inspired by Donella Meadows to find ‘leverage points’, ‘where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything’. Yet, Meadows notes there are ‘no cheap tickets’ to a full understanding of systems. In our case, there is no easy way to find leverage points in complex policymaking systems, even if you have a good sense of a complex problem.
In this piece, Professor Catherine Durose, Professor Sarah Ayres FAcSS, Professor John Boswell FAcSS, Professor Paul Cairney FAcSS, Dr Ian C Elliott, Professor Matthew Flinders, Professor Steve Martin and Professor Liz Richardson discuss how Positive Public Policy (PoPP) can drive performance improvements, save money, foster early interventions, align networks, and build capacity and momentum for more effective government.
Policy takeaways:
1. A different approach to policy-making is urgently required to address the chronic problems, complex crises and emerging challenges facing the UK.
2. Positive Public Policy (PoPP) encourages learning from success and failure to inform strategic, systemic and participatory approaches to government.
3. PoPP can drive performance improvements, save money, foster early interventions, align networks, and build capacity and momentum for more effective government. But to achieve it we need to find new ways to connect researchers with policymakers and practitioners across the UK.
Traditional approaches to policymaking struggle to deal with chronic problems such as health inequalities, growing crises such as the climate emergency, and emerging issues such as advances in artificial intelligence (AI). There is widespread acknowledgement of the need to transform the inner workings of government in order to rise to these challenges. The incoming UK government will be faced with an intimidating to-do list twinned with severe pressure on public spending. However, this presents an opportunity to create a more agile, coherent, responsive and effective approach to public policy. To assist in meeting this challenge, Positive Public Policy offers a coherent vision of how to achieve this and improve real-world outcomes.
The last two decades have witnessed a prolonged permacrisis during which the UK government has bounced reactively from financial crisis and austerity, through to Brexit, COVID-19, a cost-of-living crisis and increasing evidence of falling levels of public trust in politicians and in politics, matched by rising and increasingly concerning levels of anti-political sentiment. Our policymaking has been characterised by the dominance of a narrow range of perspectives, an emphasis on short-term outcomes and the backstory of the depletion of good governance. A limited form of Westminster-style democratic accountability continues to skew policy attention and resources to short-term and centralised approaches which have starkly revealed that what makes for ‘good’ politics, often fails to produce good policymaking.
Yet, there is shared recognition that business-as-usual in policy and policymaking is insufficient in a context of intense inequality, radical uncertainty, complexity and heightened polarisation. Further, there is a need to boost strategic policymaking capacity in order to live up to = the principles of effective government including the importance of being responsible and accountable, future-oriented, preventative, decentralised, co-productive, integrated, evidence-informed and equitable. The UK government recognised this in the Declaration on Government Reform published in July 2021. The General Election potentially offers a window of opportunity for meaningful change, but also a context of real challenge. So how can positive change be facilitated?
Effective government may be understood as a ‘magical’ concept: common sense enough to achieve political support, but evading a clear sense of how it can be achieved. It is rare to find a coherent account of how government can manage competing drivers. For example, governments centralise to avoid postcode lotteries, but decentralise to reflect local circumstances; they seek integration and coherence but create policy from within departmental ‘silos’. Reformers face significant obstacles. Policymakers frequently operate in complex systems, are constrained by a lack of resources and, are regularly blindsided by events, the electoral cycle, media stance or party politics. It is not possible to simply pull levers to make reforms happen. Add this to a sense that political capital is required across a range of priorities, and it is clear why simply muddling through becomes the default.
However, a different way of thinking about a ‘magical’ concept is that it provides an important port in a storm, an ideal to aspire to, and is useful in navigating challenging environments. In this sense, ‘effective government’ becomes a useful aspiration. But how can we achieve it? Aligning with the growing ‘Positive Public Policy’ (PoPP) movement, we challenge the assumption that public policy is doomed to fail and instead focus attention on learning from both failed and successful public policy. In doing so, we want to point to change and offer ways to learn from and share lessons of experiences from the past and other contexts.
PoPP embraces a range of approaches aiming to facilitate effective government and policymaking. Some are relatively new while others have been discussed and studied for decades without realising their full potential. These include the concept of the strategic state, systems-thinking, place-based approaches, evidence-informed government, public participation, and behavioural public policy. What connects these approaches is (i) an appreciation of the complexity and inter-connected nature of policy contexts, (ii) a belief in the capacity of collective action to address shared challenges, and (iii) a commitment to the collection, synthesis and application of different forms of knowledge. Each has been tested and is underpinned by an accumulation of evidence – including, good practice, frameworks, case studies, and policy learning – and together they provide a coherent reform agenda and a fresh portfolio of ways of designing and delivering high-performing public policy.
Years of instability in UK government have eroded underlying capacity for reform. The General Election will be conducted against the backdrop of financial stress across government, and no reform is cost-free. Will an incoming government give priority to getting its own house in order? And taking the leap of faith reform requires? Positive Public Policy embodies the vision of real change to drive change to address the significant social, economic and environmental challenges we face. It provides a range of approaches, tools and methods for designing and delivering effective public policy, and the clear, coherent and sustainable story of reform required to lower barriers to change and to leveraging resources.
What we need is the political will and sustained capacity to trial and test the insights of Positive Public Policy in a UK context, and this in turn calls for investment in connective and catalysing engagement opportunities between researchers and policymakers. There’s an urgent need to connect the positive public policy academic community with practitioners at scale in order to help constitute the policymaking tools that governments can use as they grapple with the ‘art of the possible’ to translate lofty ideals into practices that might work in their own context. Now is the time to attract and devote resources towards trialling, tracking and evaluating experimentation in more future-oriented, holistic, and more participatory approaches to government.
About the authors
Catherine Durose is Professor of Public Policy, and Co-Director of the Heseltine Institute for Public Policy, Practice and Place at the University of Liverpool. She is recognised as a leading expert on urban governance and public policy, with a particular focus on how citizens and communities can engage in the policy and decision-making that affects their everyday lives.
Sarah Ayres is Professor of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Bristol. Sarah’s work has explored the complexities of devolution and city governance by exploring the inter-play between formal and informal structures, processes and outcomes. Her research has provided critical insights into how ‘informal’ decision making, i.e. what happens behind closed doors between political elites, has shaped devolution in the UK. This research has made a distinctive contribution by examining the impact of so-called ‘informal governance’ on different aspects of mainstream governance theory, including political innovation, democracy, policy effectiveness and the creation of public value.
John Boswell is Professor of Politics at the University of Southampton. His research and teaching are in democratic governance, public policy and public administration, and he is one of the co-directors of the Centre for the South, a regional policy think tank. His interests centre around contemporary issues and themes in democratic governance and public policy, with his research being generally qualitative and interpretive in nature.
Paul Cairney is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling. He is a specialist in British politics and public policy, often focusing on the ways in which policy studies can explain the use of evidence in politics and policy, and how policymakers translate broad long term aims into evidence-informed objectives (for example, The Politics of Evidence-Based Policymaking, 2016).
Ian C Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Administration at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow and the Co-Editor-in-Chief of Public Administration and Development. His research includes work on strategy in government, public leadership and organisational change.
Matthew Flinders is Professor of Politics and the Founding Director of the Sir Bernard Crick Centre at the University of Sheffield. He is also Vice-President of the Political Studies Association and Chair of the Universities Policy Engagement Network. A former ESRC board member, he led the 2020 national review of research leadership – Fit for the Future – and is currently working with UKRI in relation to talent management and research culture investments. A former special advisor in both the House of Lords and House of Commons, he specialises in theoretically informed policy-relevant research and is a former ESRC National Impact Champion.
Steve Martin is Professor of Public Policy and Management at Cardiff University and Director of the Wales Centre for Public Policy. Prior to his current role he founded and directed the Centre for Local & Regional Government Research at Cardiff. Steve’s research focuses on evidence-informed policy, local government policy and public service improvement. He chaired the UK Government’s Expert Panel on Local Government and has acted as an adviser to the European Commission, UK, Scottish and Welsh Governments.
Liz Richardson is Professor of Public Administration at the University of Manchester. Her research interests include participatory urban governance; local politics and local government; public services; and public policy. She has an interest in methodological innovation including participatory research approaches, and experimental methods.
Douglas, S., Schillemans, T., ‘t Hart, P., Ansell, C., Bøgh Andersen, L., Flinders, M., Head, B., Moynihan, D., Nabatchi, T., O’Flynn, J. and Peters, B.G. (2021) ‘Rising to Ostrom’s challenge: an invitation to walk on the bright side of public governance and public service’, Policy Design and Practice, 4:4, 441-451 https://doi.org/10.1080/25741292.2021.1972517
Chapter 2 outlines the structure for UK policy case study analysis, comparing three perspectives: policy analysis, policy studies, and critical policy analysis.
This post summarises Chapter 2 but also signposts a wide range of additional resources on Cairney’s website to aid the study of UK policymaking, including:
The 750 page which includes a separate book, blog post, and podcast series on the 3 perspectives introduced here.
The 1000 and 500 pages which include a separate book, blog post, and podcast series on concepts and theories in policy studies.
Key examples of useful preparatory reading include:
5-Step guides break the policy analysis task into key requirements:
Define a policy problem identified by your client.
Problem definition requires analysts to gather sufficient data on its severity, urgency, cause, and our ability to solve it. Problem definition is a political process involving actors exercising power – such as through argumentation – to make sure that policymakers see a problem from a particular perspective.
2. Identify technically and politically feasible solutions.
Policy instruments have to work as intended if implemented (technical feasibility) and be acceptable to enough powerful people (political feasibility).
3. Use value-based criteria and political goals to compare solutions.
For example, values include efficiency (the maximum output for the same input) and equity (fairness of process and outcome). Political goals include the desire to make policy changes without facing too much opposition or unpopularity.
4. Predict the outcome of each feasible solution.
In other words, find reasonable ways to signal what would happen if you made this policy change.
5. Make a recommendation to your client.
Perspective 2: Policy studies
We then relate these simple guides to messier reality. Policy studies provide a contrast between ideal-types (artificial models) and real world policymaking.
This is not an evidence based process in which there are clear and obvious technical solutions to social and economic problems. It is a political process to get attention, define problems, and get the solutions you want. Policymakers need information to reduce uncertainty, but rely on their beliefs and exercise power to reduce ambiguity.
2. It is not a simple process with clear analytical stages mapping onto policymaking stages. Rather, think of these stages as essential functions or requirements, not what really happens. Or, the policy process contains a spirograph of cycles.
There are many ways to conceptualise these aspects of real world policymaking, in which policymakers are dealing with bounded rationality and complexity:
Incrementalism as a pragmatic response: (a) only analyse a few feasible solutions, (b) only depart incrementally from the status quo.
Punctuated equilibrium theory suggests that policy change is actually hyper-incremental and radical, not simply incremental. Why? Attention to one problem means ignoring 99 others. As chapter 3 suggests, ignoring the 99 other issues actually means delegating to policy communities.
The Advocacy Coalition Framework describes people entering politics to turn their beliefs into policy, forming coalitions with like-minded people and competing with other coalitions.
What is the common link?
Policy analysis is not a rational or technical response to problems.
It is a political act, taking place in a policy process over which no one has full understanding or control.
This act produces one more instrument to add to the overall ‘policy mix’. What we call ‘policy’ is actually a collection of instruments that have accumulated over time, and it is difficult to know what an additional instrument will do.
We can represent these common concepts in an image that (1) is as simple looking as the policy cycle, but (2) hints at policymaking complexity across many different ‘centres’.
This image tells a story that contrasts with the ideal type of comprehensive rationality and the policy cycle.
Instead of one powerful centre, there are many.
Instead of producing rational, orderly and stable policy making, these centres combine to produce dynamics that can be stable or unstable, and outcomes that can lurch from continuity to change.
A political system’s ‘central government’ may be the most powerful centre, but it tends to be broken down into many smaller ‘policy communities’ (see Chapter 3).
Senior policy makers could intervene in any issue at any time, but the logical consequence is to ignore most other issues.
Perspective 3: Critical policy analysis
For our purposes, CPA performs three tasks:
It pushes back on the idea that policymaking is chaos with random outcomes. Maybe the policy process is complex, but it is still characterized by unequal access, power, and outcomes.
The overall value of 3 perspectives on the study of UK politics and policymaking
5 step guides encourage the analytical and technical skills to interrogate policy problems systematically.
Policy studies relate these analytical processes to real world policymaking. Put simply, analysis focuses on what we require from policy and policymaking to solve problems. Policy theories and concepts explain why these requirements are not met in reality.
Critical policy analysis reminds us that policy analysis is not a rational, technical, objective process. It is a political process with unequal recognition and contributions of policy relevant knowledge, unfair rules, and unequal outcomes.
We need all three perspectives to: (1) analyse the UK’s pressing problems, (2) identify barriers to action (in chapter 3, by contrasting Westminster and Complex government stories), and (3) identify and challenge the inequalities that endure in politics and policymaking.
How can policy process research help to address policy and policymaking problems? This special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy seeks to address that question by examining the theory and practice of policy analysis. The call for papers sought state of the art articles that conceptualise the politics of policy analysis, and empirical studies that use theoretical insights to analyse and address real world problems. Contributions could draw on mainstream policy theories to explain how policymaking works, and/ or critical approaches that identify and challenge inequalities of power. Both approaches identify three general reference points or assumptions.
First, policy analysis is not a disinterested, objective search for truth and an optimal policy solution. It is not a technocratic process that can be separated from politics. Techniques such as cost-benefit analysis require technical skills, but are not a substitute for political debate. Therefore, phrases like ‘evidence based’ do not describe policymaking well.
Second, policy analysis is not part of a simple, orderly policy process. It does not contribute to a tightly managed policy cycle consisting of linear and clearly defined technical stages. Policymaking is a highly contested but unequal process. Many policymakers, analysts, and influencers cooperate or compete to use information selectively to define problems, and select policy solutions with inevitable winners and losers, in processes over which no actor has full understanding or control.
Third, optimal policy and linear policymaking are not good ideals anyway. The language of optimality depoliticises policy analysis and reduces attention to policy’s winners and losers. Simple images of policymaking suggest that policy problems are amenable to technical policy solutions. They downplay power and contestation. Ignoring or denying the politics of policy analysis is either naïve, based on insufficient knowledge of policymaking, or strategic, to exploit the benefits of portraying issues as technical and solutions as generally beneficial.
Further, governments are not in the problem solving business. Instead, they inherit policies that address some problems and create or exacerbate others, benefit some groups and marginalize others, or simply describe problems as too difficult to solve. The highest profile problems, such as global public health and climate change, require the kinds of (1) cooperation across many levels of government (and inside and outside of government), and (2) attention to issues of justice and equity, of which analysts could only dream.
This description of policymaking complexity presents a conundrum. On the one hand, there exist many five-step guides to analysis, accompanied by simple stage-based descriptions of policy processes, but they describe what policy actors would need or like to happen rather than policymaking reality. On the other, policy theory-informed studies are essential to explanation, but not yet essential reading for policy analysts. Policy theorists may be able to describe policy processes – and the role of policy analysts – more accurately than simple guides, but do not offer a clear way to guide action. Practitioner audiences are receptive to accurate descriptions of policymaking reality, but also want a take-home message that they can pick up and use in their work. Critical policy analysts may appreciate insights on the barriers to policy and policymaking change, but only if there is equal attention to how to overcome them.
We see this Special Issue as not only the source of five new articles but also the spark for a longer term discussion about how to engage head-on with this theory-practice conundrum. In this more general project, we seek new research that can perform a dual purpose, to:
improve policy theories and generate new empirical insights, and
provide practical lessons to non-specialist audiences, many of whom would otherwise use too-simple models of policymaking to guide their understanding.
The following articles engage with these issues in five different ways:
The recent COVID-19 pandemic has once again highlighted ambivalent feelings regarding the role of science. Governments worldwide have given an unprecedented platform to scientists, and many suddenly became the Prince’s closest advisors. However, the pandemic has also prompted a massive infodemic, some of which promotes skepticism regarding COVID-19 and scientific authority. Democracies and evidence-based policies have a love–hate history. Scientists tend to have an equivocal attitude towards their role in real-world matters, torn between the will to bring useful information to the debate, and the fear of being instrumentalized. This dynamic makes policy analysis all the more intriguing.
What is the role of political science in such activity? It is the discipline most directly concerned with real-world politics, but has also devoted much effort to distinguish itself from the applied matters of power and politics. Some streams of public policy – such as policy evaluation – have kept applied social science at the center of their activity, but are often received with polite indifference or marked skepticism among the scientific community. However, far from being subordinated to the constraints of political mandates and lacking independence, applied streams of policy analysis have – when performed properly – developed reflectivity and instruments to maintain an analytical distance from their object of study. Therefore, a stronger dialogue between applied and theoretical streams of policy analysis would benefit the discipline.
In this contribution, we address the question of hands-on policy analysis, and question what politics does to science and what science does to policies. The article is based on a case of applied policy evaluation. The research team has evaluated the highly controversial policy on medical cannabis in Switzerland. The team was asked to assess the legality and adequacy of its implementation against the backdrop of a parliamentary and administrative controversy. We hold that policy analysis has much to gain from undertaking applied studies around concrete policy problems, and vice versa. We discuss four specific challenges policy analysis faces in its applied endeavors:
political pressure (how to resist external pressure toward the results)
scientific integrity (how to balance scientific rigor and needs in the field)
access to sensitive data (how to manage explosive situations and confidential information), and
epistemic legitimacy (how to defend the distinctive added value of political science applied to sectoral and highly specialized issues).
Bringing transversal concepts and an external viewpoint, policy analysis can contribute to de-escalating controversies by providing a 360-degree perspective on the issue at hand, and by retracing the historical reasons that account for policy incoherencies of deadlocks. In return, applied mandates allow policy analysts to penetrate the realm of policies behind closed doors. Mavrot, C., Hadorn, S. and Sager, F. (2023) ‘Blood, Sweat, and Cannabis: Real-World Policy Evaluation of Controversial Issues’, Journal of European Public Policy, https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2023.2222141
Dr Johanna Hornung introduces the third article – Social identities and deadlocked debates on nuclear energy policy – to be published in the Journal of European Public Policy Special Issue ‘The Politics of Policy Analysis’. Hornung uses the issue of energy transitions to show that academics can translate conceptual advances into new avenues of research for analysts. The aim is to go further than encouraging an ‘evidence informed’ process, which is the usual – ineffective – refrain of scientists. Rather, try to understand why policymaking bottlenecks have arisen. Entrenched positions may reflect the ‘dominant identities’ of key participants, which have developed in relation to context-specific events, choices, and debates, prompting social groups to fiercely protect their stances. The implications for policy analysis are profound, since these stances may be impervious to the use of evidence and argumentation to update or challenge beliefs.
Among the multiple crises that our society faces today, the energy crisis is one of them. First put on the agenda in the context of a sustainability-oriented supply of energy, the debate on alternative energy sources has been fueled by global conflicts. It seems almost natural that in times when governments are considering the regulation of energy use in winter, or the reduction of temperatures in public swimming pools, that they are also open-endedly discussing solutions for providing energy efficiently and sustainably.
Yet, it seems as if some options are by default excluded from some national debates, while they are prominently adopted in others. This suggests that logics other than a rationalist or evidence-informed solution – based on a thorough weighing of costs and benefits – are at work.
Focusing on the debate on energy sources currently led in France and Germany, I start from the puzzle that (1) nuclear energy is very differently considered in both countries, and (2) the debates seem to be deadlocked nationally. More specifically, nuclear energy is an option that is not seriously considered as an alternative source of energy in Germany, neither politically nor in public debates. By contrast, France builds heavily on nuclear energy and perceives it as a sustainable source, thereby providing an answer to the current tradeoff between cheap, available, but unsustainable sources of energy on the one hand (especially gas and coal) and between cost-intensive sustainable sources of regenerative energy (especially solar and wind), which are not (yet) able to sufficiently cover demand.
To explain these deadlocked stances on nuclear energy, I apply a social psychological lens on social identities. The idea of the Social Identity Approach (SIA) and the perspective on Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP) is to focus on group dynamics and the effects that group identification has on individual thinking and behavior. The main argument is that instead of joining groups on the grounds of shared preferences, individuals hold preferences as a result of group membership. By belonging to a certain social group, individuals take over norms, values, and behavior, which manifest themselves the longer the group exists, the more contact individuals have with other group members, and the stronger the group identity is connected to the topic at hand.
For example, in France, the dominance of nuclear energy can be explained by the presence of a social group within the public sector, including actors from the sectoral industry, who themselves are closely tied to the state administration.
However, in Germany, the opposition towards nuclear energy is closely tied to the Green party, whose group identity is anti-nuclear at its core, which hampers an evidence-informed debate on nuclear energy.
I demonstrate these claims with a discourse network analysis of the period following the EU’s decision to label nuclear energy as climate-friendly.
Understanding the deadlocked debates on energy sources as expression of group identities, that dominate discourses and policymaking on nuclear energy, provides two important insights
1. If the energy decision is dependent on identity – and not on beliefs or rationally formed preferences – new information does not lead to learning or a decision based on an exchange of informed arguments.
2. If it is a question of social identities, overcoming the deadlock is only possible if superordinate social identities are provided, or if social groups are transformed.
These insights contribute to completely different practical advice: to achieve an evidence-informed debate on nuclear energy, it is necessary to pay attention to social group dynamics and the identity of groups, and not to the provision of rational arguments.
This article does not take a stand for or against nuclear energy. Rather, it shows that policy theory insights help to identify and resolve deadlocked debates.
Evidence-based policy is a hotly debated topic. Supporters argue that public sector decision making is in bad shape, influenced primarily by ideological thinking, pressure from special interest groups, and heavy demands on resource-poor public servants who are frequently asked to provide crucial advice within short timeframes. Critics argue that information is subjective, and decision-making is necessarily political, so evidence-based policy is in any case both unachievable and undesirable. However, this is where the debate has stalled.
We are rapidly entering an age of advanced computer systems that can recognise patterns, analyse large datasets, and autonomously improve their own programming, functions that are often referred to as ‘artificial intelligence’, or AI. The use of AI in the public sector is on the rise, in areas of service delivery as diverse as education, traffic management, and criminal justice.
What impact will AI have on how we think about evidence-based policy? Can we call information generated by computer algorithms, ‘evidence’? Are we prepared to deal with the ethical concerns inherent in letting computers inform decisions with material consequences for the lives of ordinary citizens and service users?
In this article, we argue that in light of advances in AI, debates about evidence-based policy will need to be updated. By looking at different arguments in support of and critical of evidence-based policy, and the various concerns that have been raised with respect to the ethical dilemmas related to using AI for public service delivery, we outline eight different directions in which the debate could advance. Then, using the SyRI welfare fraud detection scandal that brought down the government in the Netherlands in 2021 as an illustrative example, we show how different perspectives on evidence can actually be combined in a way that lets us see many sides of a complex issue at once. Discussions about the use of — or even the existence of — evidence in public sector decision making may already be lively, but the advent of AI threatens to make these debates even more competitive. However, it is possible that arguments that seem to be at odds could be made to work together, to support a more holistic understanding of how computers and automation can influence decision making, and how to prepare for policy controversies in an AI-enabled future.
Could policy theories help to understand and facilitate the pursuit of equity (or reduction of unfair inequalities)?
We are producing a series of literature reviews to help answer that question, beginning with the study of equity policy and policymaking in health, education, and gender research.
Each field has a broadly similar focus. Most equity researchers challenge the ‘neoliberal’ approaches to policy that favour low state action in favour of individual responsibility and market forces. They seek ‘social justice’ approaches, favouring far greater state intervention to address the social and economic causes of unfair inequalities, via redistributive or regulatory measures. They seek policymaking reforms to reflect the fact that most determinants of inequalities are not contained to one policy sector and cannot be solved in policy ‘silos’. Rather, equity policy initiatives should be mainstreamed via collaboration across (and outside of) government. Each field also projects a profound sense of disenchantment with limited progress, including a tendency to describe a too-large gap between their aspirations and actual policy outcomes. They describe high certainty about what needs to happen, but low confidence that equity advocates have the means to achieve it (or to persuade powerful politicians to change course).
Policy theories could offer some practical insights for equity research, but not always offer the lessons that some advocates seek. In particular, health equity researchers seek to translate insights on policy processes into a playbook for action, such as to frame policy problems to generate more attention to inequalities, secure high-level commitment to radical change, and improve the coherence of cross-cutting policy measures. Yet, policy theories are more likely to identify the dominance of unhelpful policy frames, the rarity of radical change, and the strong rationale for uncoordinated policymaking across a large number of venues. Rather than fostering technical fixes with a playbook, they encourage more engagement with the inescapable dilemmas and trade-offs inherent to policy choice. This focus on contestation (such as when defining and addressing policy problems) is more of a feature of education and gender equity research.
While we ask what policy theories have to offer other disciplines, in fact the most useful lessons emerge from cross-disciplinary insights. They highlight two very different approaches to transformational political change. One offers the attractive but misleading option of radical change through non-radical action, by mainstreaming equity initiatives into current arrangements and using a toolbox to make continuous progress. Yet, each review highlights a tendency for radical aims to be co-opted and often used to bolster the rules and practices that protect the status quo. The other offers radical change through overtly political action, fostering continuous contestation to keep the issue high on the policy agenda and challenge co-option. There is no clear step-by-step playbook for this option, since political action in complex policymaking systems is necessarily uncertain and often unrewarding. Still, insights from policy theories and equity research shows that grappling with these challenges is inescapable.
Ultimately, we conclude that advocates of profound social transformation are wasting each other’s time if they seek short-cuts and technical fixes to enduring political problems. Supporters of policy equity should be cautious about any attempt to turn a transformational political project into a technical process containing a ‘toolbox’ or ‘playbook’.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics:
Paul Cairney, Emily St.Denny, Sean Kippin, and Heather Mitchell (2022) ‘Lessons from policy theories for the pursuit of equity in health, education, and gender policy’, Policy and Politicshttps://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16487239616498
My contribution to this interdisciplinary academic-practitioner discussion is to present insights from political science and policy process research, which required me to define some terms (background) before identifying three cautionary messages.
However, note the verb/noun distinction, and common architectural metaphor, to distinguish between the (a) act of design, and (b) the output (e.g. the blueprints).
In terms of the outputs, tools can be defined narrowly as policy instruments – including tax/spending, regulations, staff and other resources for delivery, information sharing, ‘nudging’, etc. – or more widely to include the processes involved in their formulation (such as participatory and deliberative). Therefore, we could be describing:
A highly centralized process, involving very few people, to produce the equivalent of a blueprint.
A decentralized, and perhaps uncoordinated, process involving many people, built on the principle that to seek a blueprint would be to miss the point of participation and deliberation.
Policymaking research tends to focus on
(1) measuring policy change with reference to the ‘policy mix’ of these tools/ instruments, and generally showing that most policy change is minor (and some is major) (link1, link2, link3, link4), and/ or
(2) how to understand the complex policymaking systems or environments in which policy design processes take place.
These studies are the source of my messages of doom.
Three cautionary messages about new policy design
There is a major gap between the act of policy design and actual policies and policy processes. This issue led to the decline of old policy design studies in the 1980s.
While ‘new policy design’ scholars seek to reinvigorate the field, the old issues serve as a cautionary tale, reminding us that (1) policy design is not new, and (2) its decline did not relate to the lack of sophisticated skills or insights among policy designers.
In other words, these old problems will not simply be solved by modern scientific, methodological, or policy design advances. Rather, I encourage policy designers to pay particular attention to:
1. The gap between functional requirements and real world policymaking.
Policy analysts and designers often focus on what they need, or require to get their job done or produce the outcomes they seek.
Policy process researchers identify the major, inevitable, gaps between those requirements and actual policy processes (to the extent that the link between design and policy is often difficult to identify).
2. The strong rationale for the policy processes that undermine policy design.
Policy processes – and their contribution to policy mixes – may seem incoherent from a design perspective. However, they make sense to the participants involved.
Some relate to choice, including to share responsibility for instruments across many levels or types of government (without focusing on how those responsibilities will connect or be coordinated).
Some result from necessity, to delegate responsibility to many policy communities spread across government, each with their own ways to define and address problems (without the ability to know how those responsibilities will be connected).
3. The policy analysis and design dilemmas that cannot be solved by design methods alone.
When seen from the ‘top down’, design problems often relate to the perceived lack of delivery or follow-through in relation to agreed high level design outputs (great design, poor delivery).
When seen from the ‘bottom up’, they represent legitimate ways to incorporate local stakeholder and citizen perspectives. This process will inevitably produce a gap between different sources and outputs of design, making it difficult to separate poor delivery (bad?) from deviation (good?).
Such dynamics are solved via political choice rather than design processes and techniques.
You can hear my presentation below (it took a while to get going because I wasn’t sure who could hear me):
Notes on the workshop discussion
The workshop discussion prompted us initially to consider how many different people would define it. The range of responses included seeing policy design as:
a specific process with specific tools to produce a well-defined output (applied to specific areas conducive to design methods)
a more general philosophy or way of thinking about things like policy issues (compare with systems thinking)
a means to encourage experimentation (such as to produce a prototype policy instrument, use it, and reflect or learn about its impact) or change completely how people think about an issue
the production of a policy solution, or one part of a large policy mix
a niche activity in one unit of government, or something mainstreamed across governments
something done in government, or inside and outside of government
producing something new (like writing on a blank sheet of paper), adding to a pile of solutions, or redesigning what exists
primarily a means to empower people to tell their story, or as a means to improve policy advocacy (as in discussions of narrative/ storytelling)
something done with authoritative policymakers like government ministers (in other words, people with the power to make policy changes after they participate in design processes) or given to them (in other words, the same people but as the audience for the outcomes of design)
These definitions matter since they have very different implications for policy and practice. Take, for example, the link – made by Professor Liz Richardson – between policy design and the idea of evidence-based policymaking, to consider two very different scenarios:
A minister is directly involved in policy design processes. They use design thinking to revisit how they think about a policy problem (and target populations), seek to foster participation and deliberation, and use that process – perhaps continuously – to consider how to reconcile very different sources of evidence (including, say, new data from randomized control trials and powerful stories from citizens, stakeholders, service users). I reckon that this kind of scenario would be in the minds of people who describe policy design optimistically.
A minister is the intended audience of a report on the outcomes of policy design. You assume that their thoughts on a policy problem are well-established. There is no obvious way for them to reconcile different sources of policy-relevant evidence. Crucially, the fruits of your efforts have made a profound impact on the people involved but, for the minister, the outcome is just one of too-many sources of information (likely produced too soon before or after they want to consider the issue).
The second scenario is closer to the process that I describe in the main post, although policy studies would warn against seeing someone like a government minister as authoritative in the sense that they reside in the centre of government. Rather, studies of multi-centric policymaking remind us that there are many possible centres spread across political systems. If so, policy design – according to approaches like the IAD – is about ways to envisage a much bigger context in which design success depends on the participation and agreement of a large number of influential actors (who have limited or no ability to oblige others to cooperate).
By James Nicholls and Paul Cairney, for the University of Stirling MPH and MPP programmes.
There are strong links between the study of public health and public policy. For example, public health scholars often draw on policy theories to help explain (often low amounts of) policy change to foster population health or reduce health inequalities. Studies include a general focus on public health strategies (such as HiAP) or specific policy instruments (such as a ban on smoking in public places). While public health scholars may seek to evaluate or influence policy, policy theories tend to focus on explaining processes and outcomes.
To demonstrate these links, we present:
A long-read blog post to (a) use an initial description of a key alcohol policy instrument (minimum unit pricing, adopted by the Scottish Government but not the UK Government) to (b) describe the application of policy concepts and theories and reflect on the empirical and practical implications. We then added some examples of further reading.
A 45 minute podcast to describe and explain these developments (click below or scroll to the end)
Minimum Unit Pricing in Scotland: background and development
Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol was introduced in Scotland in 2018. In 2012, the UK Government had also announced plans to introduce MUP, but within a year dopped the policy following intense industry pressure. What do these two journeys tell us about policy processes?
When MUP was first proposed by Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems in 2007, it was a novel policy idea. Public health advocates had long argued that raising the price of alcohol could help tackle harmful consumption. However, conventional tax increases were not always passed onto consumers, so would not necessarily raise prices in the shops (and the Scottish Government did not have such taxation powers). MUP appeared to present a neat solution to this problem. It quickly became a prominent policy goal of public health advocates in Scotland and across the UK, while gaining increasing attention, and support, from the global alcohol policy community.
In 2008, the UK Minister for Health, Dawn Primarolo, had commissioned researchers at the University of Sheffield to look into links between alcohol pricing and harm. The Sheffield team developed economic models to analysis the predicted impact of different systems. MUP was included, and the ‘Sheffield Model’ would go on to play a decisive role in developing the case for the policy.
What problem would MUP help to solve?
Descriptions of the policy problem often differed in relation to each government. In the mid-2000s, alcohol harm had become a political problem for the UK government. Increasing consumption, alongside changes to the night-time economy, had started to gain widespread media attention. In 2004, just as a major liberalisation of the licensing system was underway in England, news stories began documenting the apparent horrors of ‘Binge Britain’: focusing on public drunkenness and disorder, but also growing rates of liver disease and alcohol-related hospital admissions.
In 2004, influential papers such as the Daily Mail began to target New Labour alcohol policy
Politicians began to respond, and the issue became especially useful for the Conservatives who were developing a narrative that Britain was ‘broken’ under New Labour. Labour’s liberalising reforms of alcohol licensing could conveniently be linked to this political framing. The newly formed Alcohol Health Alliance, a coalition set up under the leadership of Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, was also putting pressure on the UK Government to introduce stricter controls. In Scotland, while much of the debate on alcohol focused on crime and disorder, Scottish advocates were focused on framing the problem as one of public health. Emerging evidence showed that Scotland had dramatically higher rates of alcohol-related illness and death than the rest of Europe – a situation strikingly captured in a chart published in the Lancet.
Source: Leon, D. and McCambridge, J. (2006). Liver cirrhosis mortality rates in Britain from 1950 to 2002: an analysis of routine data. Lancet 367
The notion that Scotland faced an especially acute public health problem with alcohol was supported by key figures in the increasingly powerful Scottish National Party (in government since 2007), which, around this time, had developed working relationships with Alcohol Focus Scotland and other advocacy groups.
What happened next?
The SNP first announced that it would support MUP in 2008, but it did not implement this change until 2018. There are two key reasons for the delay:
Its minority government did not achieve enough parliamentary support to pass legislation. It then formed a majority government in 2011, and its legislation to bring MUP into law was passed in 2012.
Court action took years to resolve. The alcohol industry, which is historically powerful in Scotland, was vehemently opposed. A coalition of industry bodies, led by the Scotch Whisky Association, took the Scottish Government to court in an attempt to prove the policy was illegal. Ultimately, this process would take years, and conclude in rulings by the European Court of Justice (2016), Scottish Court of Session Inner House (2016), and UK Supreme Court (2017) which found in favour of the Scottish Government.
Once again, the alcohol industry swung into action, launching a campaign led by the Wine and Spirits Trade Association, asking ‘Why should moderate drinkers pay more?’
This public campaign was accompanied by intense behind-the-scenes lobbying, aided by the fact that the leadership of industry groups had close ties to Government and that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Beer had the largest membership of any APPG in Westminster. The industry campaign made much of the fact there was little evidence to suggest MUP would reduce crime, but also argued strongly that the modelling produced by Sheffield University was not valid evidence in the first place. A year after the adopting the policy, the UK Government announced a U-turn and MUP was dropped.
How can we use policy theories and concepts to interpret these dynamics?
Here are some examples of using policy theories and concepts as a lens to interpret these developments.
1. What was the impact of evidence in the case for policy change?
First, many political actors (including policymakers) have many different ideas about what counts as good evidence.
The assessment, promotion, and use of evidence is highly contested, and never speaks for itself.
Second, policymakers have to ignore almost all evidence to make choices.
They address ‘bounded rationality’ by using two cognitive shortcuts: ‘rational’ measures set goals and identify trusted sources, while ‘irrational’ measures use gut instinct, emotions, and firmly held beliefs.
Third, policymakers do not control the policy process.
There is no centralised and orderly policy cycle. Rather, policymaking involves policymakers and influencers spread across many authoritative ‘venues’, with each venue having its own rules, networks, and ways of thinking.
In that context, policy theories identify the importance of contestation between policy actors, and describe the development of policy problems, and how evidence fits in. Approaches include:
The acceptability of a policy solution will often depend on how the problem is described. Policymakers use evidence to reduce uncertainty, or a lack of information around problems and how to solve them. However, politics is about exercising power to reduce ambiguity, or the ability to interpret the same problem in different ways.
By suggesting MUP would solve problems around crime, the UK Government made it easier for opponents to claim the policy wasn’t evidence-based. In Scotland, policymakers and advocates focused on health, where the evidence was stronger. In addition, the SNP’s approach fitted within a wider political independence frame, in which more autonomy meant more innovation.
Policy actors tell stories to appeal to the beliefs (or exploit the cognitive shortcuts) of their audiences. A narrative contains a setting (the policy problem), characters (such as the villain who caused it, or the victim of its effects), plot (e.g. a heroic journey to solve the problem), and moral (e.g. the solution to the problem).
Supporters of MUP tended to tell the story that there was an urgent public health crisis, caused largely by the alcohol industry, and with many victims, but that higher alcohol prices pointed to one way out of this hole. Meanwhile opponents told the story of an overbearing ‘nanny state’, whose victims – ordinary, moderate drinkers – should be left alone by government.
Policymakers make strategic and emotional choices, to identify ‘good’ populations deserving of government help, and ‘bad’ populations deserving punishment or little help. These judgements inform policy design (government policies and practices) and provide positive or dispiriting signals to citizens.
For example, opponents of MUP rejected the idea that alcohol harms existed throughout the population. They focused instead on dividing the majority of moderate drinkers from irresponsible minority of binge drinkers, suggesting that MUP would harm the former more than help the latter.
This competition to frame policy problems takes place in political systems that contain many ‘centres’, or venues for authoritative choice. Some diffusion of power is by choice, such as to share responsibilities with devolved and local governments. Some is by necessity, since policymakers can only pay attention to a small proportion of their responsibilities, and delegate the rest to unelected actors such as civil servants and public bodies (who often rely on interest groups to process policy).
For example, ‘alcohol policy’ is really a collection of instruments made or influenced by many bodies, including (until Brexit) European organisations deciding on the legality of MUP, UK and Scottish governments, as well as local governments responsible for alcohol licensing. In Scotland, this delegation of powers worked in favour of MUP, since Alcohol Focus Scotland were funded by the Scottish Government to help deliver some of their alcohol policy goals, and giving them more privileged access than would otherwise have been the case.
The role of evidence in MUP
In the case of MUP, similar evidence was available and communicated to policymakers, but used and interpreted differently, in different centres, by the politicians who favoured or opposed MUP.
In Scotland, the promotion, use of, and receptivity to research evidence – on the size of the problem and potential benefit of a new solution – played a key role in increasing political momentum. The forms of evidence were complimentary. The ‘hard’ science on a potentially effective solution seemed authoritative (although few understood the details), and was preceded by easily communicated and digested evidence on a concrete problem:
There was compelling evidence of a public health problem put forward by a well-organised ‘advocacy coalition’ (see below) which focused clearly on health harms. In government, there was strong attention to this evidence, such as the Lancet chart which one civil servant described as ‘look[ing] like the north face of the Eiger’. There were also influential ‘champions’ in Government willing to frame action as supporting the national wellbeing.
Reports from Sheffield University appeared to provide robust evidence that MUP could reduce harm, and advocacy was supported by research from Canada which suggested that similar policies there had been successful elsewhere.
Advocacy in England was also well-organised and influential, but was dealing with a larger – and less supportive – Government machine, and the dominant political frame for alcohol harms remained crime and disorder rather than health.
Debates on MUP modelling exemplify these differences in evidence communication and use. Those in favour appealed to econometric models, but sometimes simplifying their complexity and blurring the distinction between projected outcomes and proof of efficacy. Opponents went the other way and dismissed the modelling as mere speculation. What is striking is the extent to which an incredibly complex, and often poorly understand, set of econometric models – and the ’Sheffield Model’ in particular – came to occupy centre stage in a national policy debate. Katikireddi and colleagues talked about this as an example of evidence as rhetoric:
Support became less about engagement with the econometric modelling, and more an indicator of general concern about alcohol harm and the power of the industry.
Scepticism was often viewed as the ‘industry position’, and an indicator of scepticism towards public health policy more broadly.
2. Who influences policy change?
Advocacy plays a key role in alcohol policy, with industry and other actors competing with public health groups to define and solve alcohol policy problems. It prompts our attention to policy networks, or the actors who make and influence policy.
People engage in politics to turn their beliefs into policy. They form advocacy coalitions with people who share their beliefs, and compete with other coalitions. The action takes place within a subsystem devoted to a policy issue, and a wider policymaking process that provides constraints and opportunities to coalitions. Beliefs about how to interpret policy problems act as a glue to bind actors together within coalitions. If the policy issue is technical and humdrum, there may be room for routine cooperation. If the issue is highly charged, then people romanticise their own cause and demonise their opponents.
MUP became a highly charged focus of contestation between a coalition of public health advocates, who saw themselves as fighting for the wellbeing of the wider community (and who believed fundamentally that government had a duty to promote population health), and a coalition of industry actors who were defending their commercial interests, while depicting public health policies as illiberal and unfair.
3. Was there a ‘window of opportunity’ for MUP?
Policy theories – including Punctuated Equilibrium Theory – describe a tendency for policy change to be minor in most cases and major in few. Paradigmatic policy change is rare and may take place over decades, as in the case of UK tobacco control where many different policy instruments changed from the 1980s. Therefore, a major change in one instrument could represent a sea-change overall or a modest adjustment to the overall approach.
Multiple Streams Analysis is a popular way to describe the adoption of a new policy solution such as MUP. It describes disorderly policymaking, in which attention to a policy problem does not produce the inevitable development, implementation, and evaluation of solutions. Rather, these ‘stages’ should be seen as separate ‘streams’. A ‘window of opportunity’ for policy change occurs when the three ‘streams’ come together:
Problem stream. There is high attention to one way to define a policy problem.
Policy stream. A technically and politically feasible solution already exists (and is often pushed by a ‘policy entrepreneur’ with the resources and networks to exploit opportunities).
Politics stream. Policymakers have the motive and opportunity to choose that solution.
However, these windows open and close, often quickly, and often without producing policy change.
This approach can help to interpret different developments in relation to Scottish and UK governments:
Problem stream
The Scottish Government paid high attention to public health crises, including the role of high alcohol consumption.
The UK government paid often-high attention to alcohol’s role in crime and anti-social behaviour (‘Binge Britain’ and ‘Broken Britain’)
Policy stream
In Scotland, MUP connected strongly to the dominant framing, offering a technically feasible solution that became politically feasible in 2011.
The UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s made a surprising bid to adopt MUP in 2012, but ministers were divided on its technical feasibility (to address the problem they described) and its political feasibility seemed to be more about distracting from other crises than public health.
Politics stream
The Scottish Government was highly motivated to adopt MUP. MUP was a flagship policy for the SNP; an opportunity to prove its independent credentials, and to be seen to address a national public health problem. It had the opportunity from 2011, then faced interest group opposition that delayed implementation.
The Coalition Government was ideologically more committed to defending commercial interests, and to framing alcohol harms as one of individual (rather than corporate) responsibility. It took less than a year for the alcohol industry to successfully push for a UK government U-turn.
As a result, MUP became policy (eventually) in Scotland, but the window closed (without resolution) in England.
Paul Cairney and Donley Studlar (2014) ‘Public Health Policy in the United Kingdom: After the War on Tobacco, Is a War on Alcohol Brewing?’ World Medical and Health Policy, 6, 3, 308-323PDF
Niamh Fitzgerald and Paul Cairney (2022) ‘National objectives, local policymaking: public health efforts to translate national legislation into local policy in Scottish alcohol licensing’, Evidence and Policy, https://doi.org/10.1332/174426421X16397418342227, PDF
Podcast
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By James Nicholls and Paul Cairney, for the University of Stirling MPH and MPP programmes.
There are strong links between the study of public health and public policy. For example, public health scholars often draw on policy theories to help explain (often low amounts of) policy change to foster population health or reduce health inequalities. Studies include a general focus on public health strategies (such as HiAP) or specific policy instruments (such as a ban on smoking in public places). While public health scholars may seek to evaluate or influence policy, policy theories tend to focus on explaining processes and outcomes,.
To demonstrate these links, we present this podcast and blog post to (1) use an initial description of a key alcohol policy instrument (minimum unit pricing in Scotland) to (2) describe the application of policy concepts and theories and reflect on the empirical and practical implications.
Using policy theories to interpret public health case studies: the example of a minimum unit price for alcohol | Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy (wordpress.com)
It would be a mistake to equate public policy with whatever a government says it is doing (or wants to do).
The most obvious, but often unhelpful, explanation for this statement is that politicians are not sincere when making policy promises, or not competent enough to see them through.
This focus on sincerity and ‘political will’ can be useful, but only scratches the surface of explanation.
The bigger source of explanation comes from the routine, pervasive, and inevitable contradictions of policy and policymaking.
The basic idea of contradictory aims and necessary trade-offs
I want to eat crisps and lose weight, but making a commitment to both does not achieve both. Rather, I cycle between each aim, often unpredictably, producing what might appear to be an inconsistent approach to my wellbeing.
These problems only get worse when more people and aims are involved. Indeed, a general description of ‘politics’ regards trying to find ways to resolve the many different preferences of many people in the same society. These preferences are intransitive, prompting policy actors to try to manipulate choice situations, or produce effective stories or narratives, to encourage one choice over another. Even if successful in once case, the overall impact of political action is not consistent.
The inevitable result of politics is that policymakers want to prioritise many policy aims and the aims that undermine them. When they pursue many contradictory aims, they have to make trade-offs and prioritise some aims over others. Sometimes, this choice is explicit. Sometimes, you have to work out what a government’s real priorities are when they seem sincerely committed to so many things. If so, we should not deduce government policy overall from specific statements and policies.
This basic idea plays out in many different ways, including:
Policymakers need to address many contradictory demands
Contradictions are inevitable when policymakers seek to offer policy benefits to many different groups for different reasons. Some benefits are largely rhetorical, others more substantive.
Ambiguity allows policy actors to downplay contradictions (temporarily) when generating support.
Contradictions are masked by ambiguity, such as when many different actors support the same vague ambition for very different reasons.
Policy silos contribute to contradictory action
Contradictions are exacerbated by inevitable and pervasive policy silos or ‘communities’ that seem immune to ‘holistic’ government. They multiply when governments have many departments pursuing many different aims. There may be a vague hope for joined-up policy, but a strong rationale for policy communities to specialise and become insulated.
The power to make policies – or create or amend policy instruments – is spread across many different venues of authority. If so, a key aim – stated often – is to find ways to cooperate to avoid contradictory policies and practices. The logical consequence of this distribution of powers, and the continuous search for meaningful cooperation, is that such contradictions are routine features, not bugs, of political systems.
Institutions contain contradictory rules and expectations
Contradictions are a feature of organisational and systemic rules and norms, in which the rules on paper are not the rules in use.
Policymaking systems exacerbate contradictions
Contradictions emerge from complex policymaking systems, in which unexpected outcomes emerge despite central government action.
Some of these outcomes simply emerge from routine policy delivery, when the actors carrying out policy have different ideas than the actors sending them instructions. Or, implementing actors do not have the resources or clarity to do what they think they are being told.
Examples of contradictions in policy and policymaking
Most governments are committed rhetorically (and often sincerely) to the public health agenda ‘Health in All Policies’ but also the social and economic policies that undermine it. The same goes for the more general aim of ‘prevention’.
In these kinds of cases, it is tempting to conclude that governments make promises energetically as a substitute for – not a signal of – action.
Levin et al note that the governments seeking to reduce climate change are also responsible for its inevitability.
The US and EU have subsidised the production and/or encouraged the sale of tobacco (to foster economic aims) at the same time as seeking tobacco control and discouraging smoking (to foster public health aims).
I apologise for every word in this post, and the capitalised 5-letter words in particular.
WORDLE is a SIMPLE word game (in US English). The aim is to identify a 5-letter word correctly in 6 guesses or fewer. Each guess has to be a real word, and you receive informative feedback each time: GREEN means you have the letter RIGHT and in the right position; yellow means the right letter in the wrong position; grey MEANS the letter does not appear in the word.
One strategy involves trial-and-error learning via 3 or 4 simple steps:
1. Use your initial knowledge of the English language to inform initial guesses, such as guessing a word with common vowels (I go for E and A) and consonants (e.g. S, T).
2. Learn from feedback on your correct and incorrect estimates.
3. Use your new information and deduction (e.g. about which combinations work when you exclude many options) to make informed guesses.
4. Do so while avoiding unhelpful heuristics, such as assuming that each letter will only appear once (or that the spelling is in UK English).
At least, that is how I play it. I get it in 3 just over half the time, and 4 or 5 in the rest. I make 2-4 ‘errors’ then succeed. In the context of the game’s rules, that is consistent success, RIGHT?
[insert crowbar GIF to try to get away with the segue]
That is the spirit of the idea of trial-and-error learning.
It is informed by previous knowledge, but also a recognition of the benefits of trying things out to generate new information, update your knowledge and skills (the definition of learning), and try again.
A positive normative account of this approach can be found in classic discussions of incrementalism and modern discussions of policymaking informed by complex systems insights:
‘To deal with uncertainty and change, encourage trial-and-error projects, or pilots, that can provide lessons, or be adopted or rejected, relatively quickly’.
Advocates of such approaches also suggest that we change how we describe them, replacing the language of policy failure with ERROR, at least when part of a process of continuous policy learning in the face of uncertainty.
At the heart of such advice are two guiding principles:
1. Recognise the limits to centralism when giving policy advice. There is no powerful centre of government, able to carry out all of its aims successfully, so do not build policy advice on that assumption.
2. Recognise the limits to our knowledge. Policymakers must make and learn from choices in the face of uncertainty, so do not kid yourself that one piece of analysis and action will do.
Much like the first two WORDLE guesses, your existing knowledge alone does not tell you how to proceed (regardless of the number of times that people repeat the slogan of ‘evidence-based policymaking’).
Political problems with trial and error
The main political problem with this approach is that many political systems – including adversarial and/or Westminster systems – are not conducive to learning from error. You may think that adapting continuously to uncertainty is crucial, but also be wary of recommending it to:
1. Politicians who will be held to account for failure. A government’s apparent failure to deliver on promises represents a resource for its opposition.
2. Organisations subject to government targets. Failure to meet strict statutory requirements is not seen as a learning experience.
More generally, your audience may face criticism whenever errors are associated with negative policy consequences (with COVID-19 policy representing a vivid, extreme example).
These limitations produce a major dilemma in policy analysis, in which you believe that you will not learn how to make good policy without trial-and-error but recognise that this approach will not be politically feasible. In many political systems, policymakers need to pretend to their audience that they know what the problem is and that they have the knowledge and power to solve it. You may not be too popular if you encourage open-minded experimentation. This limitation should not warn you against trial-and-error recommendations completely, but rather remind you to relate good-looking ideas to your policymaking context.
Please note that I missed my train stop while writing this post, despite many opportunities to learn from the other times it happened.
Policy studies and policy analysis guidebooks identify the importance of feasible policy solutions:
Technical feasibility: will this solution work as intended if implemented?
Political feasibility: will it be acceptable to enough powerful people?
For example, Kingdon treats feasibility as one of three conditions for major policy change during a ‘window of opportunity’: (1) there is high attention to the policy problem, (2) a feasible solution already exists, and (3) key policymakers have the motive and opportunity to select it.
Guidebooks relate this requirement initially to your policymaker client: what solutions will they rule out, to the extent that they are not even worth researching as options (at least for the short term)?
Further, this assessment relates to types of policy ‘tool’ or ‘instrument’: one simple calculation is that ‘redistributive’ measures are harder to sell than ‘distributive’, while both may be less attractive than regulation (although complex problems likely require a mix of instruments).
Incremental analysis. It is better to research in-depth a small number of feasible options than spread your resources too thinly to consider all possibilities.
Strategic analysis. The feasibility of a solution relates strongly to current policy. The more radical a departure from the current negotiated position, the harder it will be to sell.
As many posts in the Policy Analysis in 750 words series describe, this advice is not entirely useful for actors who seek rapid and radical departures from the status quo. Lindblom’s response to such critics was to seek radical change via a series of non-radical steps (at least in political systems like the US), which (broadly speaking) represents one of two possible approaches.
While incrementalism is not as popular as it once was (as a description of, or prescription for, policymaking), it tapped into the enduring insight that policymaking systems produce huge amounts of minor change. Rapid and radical policy change is rare, and it is even rarer to be able to connect it to influential analysis and action (at least in the absence of a major event). This knowledge should not put people off trying, but rather help them understand the obstacles that they seek to overcome.
Relating feasible solutions and strategies to ‘policy success’
One way to incorporate this kind of advice is to consider how (especially elected) policymakers would describe their own policy success. The determination of success and failure is a highly contested and political process (not simply a technical exercise called ‘evaluation’), and policymakers may refer – often implicitly – to the following questions when seeking success:
Political. Will this policy boost my government’s credibility and chances of re-election?
Process. Will it be straightforward to legitimise and maintain support for this policy?
Programmatic. Will it achieve its stated objectives and produce beneficial outcomes if implemented?
The benefit to analysts, in asking themselves these questions, is that they help to identify the potential solutions that are technically but not politically feasible (or vice versa).
The absence of clear technical feasibility does not necessarily rule out solutions with wider political benefits (for example, it can be beneficial to look like you are trying to do something good). Hence the popular phrase ‘good politics, bad policy’.
Nor does a politically unattractive option rule out a technically feasible solution (not all politicians flee the prospect of ‘good policy, bad politics’). However, it should prompt attention to hard choices about whose support to seek, how long to wait, or how hard to push, to seek policy change. You can see this kind of thinking as ‘entrepreneurial‘ or ‘systems thinking’ depending on how much faith you have in agency in highly-unequal political contexts.
Further reading
It is tempting to conclude that these obstacles to ‘good policy’ reflect the pathological nature of politics. However, if we want to make this argument, we should at least do it well:
1. You can find this kind of argument in fields such as public health and climate change studies, where researchers bemoan the gap between (a) their high-quality evidence on an urgent problem and (b) a disproportionately weak governmental response. To do it well, we need to separate analytically (or at least think about): (a) the motivation and energy of politicians (usually the source of most criticism of low ‘political will’), and (b) the policymaking systems that constrain even the most sincere and energetic policymakers. See the EBPM page for more.
2. Studies of Social Construction and Policy Design are useful to connect policymaking research with a normative agenda to address ‘degenerative’ policy design.
How should policy actors seek radical changes to policy and policymaking?
This question prompts two types of answer:
1. Be pragmatic, and change things from the inside
Pragmatism is at the heart of most of the policy analysis texts in this series. They focus on the needs and beliefs of clients (usually policymakers). Policymakers are time-pressed, so keep your analysis short and relevant. See the world through their eyes. Focus on solutions that are politically as well as technically feasible. Propose non-radical steps, which may add up to radical change over the long-term.
This approach will seem familiar to students of research ‘impact’ strategies which emphasise relationship-building, being available to policymakers, and responding to the agendas of governments to maximise the size of your interested audience.
It will also ring bells for advocates of radical reforms in policy sectors such as (public) health and intersectoral initiatives such as gender mainstreaming:
Health in All Policies is a strategy to encourage radical changes to policy and policymaking to improve population health. Common advice includes to: identify to policymakers how HiAP fits into current policy agendas, seek win-win strategies with partners in other sectors, and go to great lengths to avoid the sense that you are interfering in their work (‘health imperialism’).
Gender mainstreaming is a strategy to consider gender in all aspect of policy and policymaking. An equivalent playbook involves steps to: clarify what gender equality is, and what steps may help achieve it; make sure that these ideas translate across all levels and types of policymaking; adopt tools to ensure that gender is a part of routine government business (such as budget processes); and, modify existing policies or procedures while increasing the representation of women in powerful positions.
In other words, the first approach is to pursue your radical agenda via non-radical means, using a playbook that is explicitly non-confrontational. Use your insider status to exploit opportunities for policy change.
2. Be radical, and challenge things from the outside
Challenging the status quo, for the benefit of marginalised groups, is at the heart of critical policy analysis:
Reject the idea that policy analysis is a rationalist, technical, or evidence-based process. Rather, it involves the exercise of power to (a) depoliticise problems to reduce attention to current solutions, and (b) decide whose knowledge counts.
Identify and question the dominant social constructions of problems and populations, asking who decides how to portray these stories and who benefits from their outcomes.
This approach resonates with frequent criticisms of ‘impact’ advice, emphasising the importance of producing research independent of government interference, to challenge policies that further harm already-marginalised populations.
It will also rings bells among advocates of more confrontational strategies to seek radical changes to policy and policymaking. They include steps to: find more inclusive ways to generate and share knowledge, produce multiple perspectives on policy problems and potential solutions, focus explicitly on the impact of the status quo on marginalised populations, politicise issues continuously to ensure that they receive sufficient attention, and engage in outsider strategies to protest current policies and practices.
Does this dichotomy make sense?
It is tempting to say that this dichotomy is artificial and that we can pursue the best of both worlds, such as working from within when it works and resorting to outsider action and protest when it doesn’t.
However, the blandest versions of this conclusion tend to ignore or downplay the politics of policy analysis in favour of more technical fixes. Sometimes collaboration and consensus politics is a wonderful feat of human endeavour. Sometimes it is a cynical way to depoliticise issues, stifle debate, and marginalise unpopular positions.
This conclusion also suggests that it is possible to establish what strategies work, and when, without really saying how (or providing evidence for success that would appeal to audiences associated with both approaches). Indeed, a recurrent feature of research in these fields is that most attempts to produce radical change prove to be dispiriting struggles. Non-radical strategies tend to be co-opted by more powerful actors, to mainstream new ways of thinking without changing the old. Radical strategies are often too easy to dismiss or counter.
The latter point reminds us to avoid excessively optimistic overemphasis on the strategies of analysts and advocates at the expense of context and audience. The 500 and 1000 words series perhaps tip us too far in the other direction, but provide a useful way to separate (analytically) the reasons for often-minimal policy change. To challenge dominant forms of policy and policymaking requires us to separate the intentional sources of inertia from the systemic issues that would constrain even the most sincere and energetic reformer.
This post forms one part of the Policy Analysis in 750 words series. It draws on work for an in-progress book on learning to reduce inequalities. Some of the text will seem familiar if you have read other posts. Think of it as an adventure game in which the beginning is the same but you don’t know the end.
Policy learning is the use of new information to update policy-relevant knowledge. Policy transfer involves the use of knowledge about policy and policymaking in one government to inform policy and policymaking in another.
These processes may seem to relate primarily to research and expertise, but they require many kinds of political choices (explored in this series). They take place in complex policymaking systems over which no single government has full knowledge or control.
Therefore, while the agency of policy analysts and policymakers still matters, they engage with a policymaking context that constrains or facilitates their action.
Two approaches to policy learning: agency and context-driven stories
Policy analysis textbooks focus on learning and transfer as an agent-driven process with well-established guidance (often with five main steps). They form part of a functionalist analysis where analysts identify the steps required to turn comparative analysis into policy solutions, or part of a toolkit to manage stages of the policy process.
Analysts compete to define problems and determine the manner and sources of learning, in a multi-centric environment where different contexts will constrain and facilitate action in different ways. For example, varying structural factors – such as socioeconomic conditions – influence the feasibility of proposed policy change, and each centre’s institutions provide different rules for gathering, interpreting, and using evidence.
Think of two different ways to respond to this description of the policy process with this lovely blue summary of concepts. One is your agency-centred strategic response. The other is me telling you why it won’t be straightforward.
There are many policy makers and influencers spread across many policymaking ‘centres’
Find out where the action is and tailor your analysis to different audiences.
There is no straightforward way to influence policymaking if multiple venues contribute to policy change and you don’t know who does what.
Each centre has its own ‘institutions’
Learn the rules of evidence gathering in each centre: who takes the lead, how do they understand the problem, and how do they use evidence?
There is no straightforward way to foster policy learning between political systems if each is unaware of each other’s unwritten rules. Researchers could try to learn their rules to facilitate mutual learning, but with no guarantee of success.
Each centre has its own networks
Form alliances with policymakers and influencers in each relevant venue.
The pervasiveness of policy communities complicates policy learning because the boundary between formal power and informal influence is not clear.
Well-established ‘ideas’ tend to dominate discussion
Learn which ideas are in good currency. Tailor your advice to your audience’s beliefs.
The dominance of different ideas precludes many forms of policy learning or transfer. A popular solution in one context may be unthinkable in another.
Many policy conditions (historic-geographic, technological, social and economic factors) command the attention of policymakers and are out of their control. Routine events and non-routine crises prompt policymaker attention to lurch unpredictably.
Learn from studies of leadership in complex systems or the policy entrepreneurs who find the right time to exploit events and windows of opportunity to propose solutions.
The policy conditions may be so different in each system that policy learning is limited and transfer would be inappropriate. Events can prompt policymakers to pay disproportionately low or high attention to lessons from elsewhere, and this attention relates weakly to evidence from analysts.
Feel free to choose one or both forms of advice. One is useful for people who see analysts and researchers as essential to major policy change. The other is useful if it serves as a source of cautionary tales rather than fatalistic responses.
The latter descriptions, reflecting multi-centric policymaking, seem particularly relevant to major contemporary policy problems – such as global public health and climate crises – in which cooperation across (and outside of) many levels and types of government is essential.
Resolving ambiguity in policy analysis texts
This context helps us to interpret common (Step 1) advice in policy analysis textbooks: define a policy problem for your client, using your skills of research and persuasion but tailoring your advice to your client’s interests and beliefs. Yet, gone are the mythical days of elite analysts communicating to a single core executive in charge of formulating and implementing all policy instruments. Many analysts engage with many centres producing (or co-producing) many instruments. Resolving ambiguity in one centre does not guarantee the delivery of your aims across many.
‘Top down’ accounts see this issue through the lens of a single central government, examining how to reassert central control by minimising implementation gaps.
Policy analysis may focus on (a) defining the policy problem, and (b) ensuring the implementation of its solution.
‘Bottom up’ accounts identify the inevitability (and legitimacy) of policy influence in multiple centres. Policy analysis may focus on how to define the problem in cooperation with other centres, or to set a strategic direction and encourage other centres to make sense of it in their context.
This terminology went out of fashion, but note the existence of each tendency in two ideal-type approaches to contemporary policy problems:
1. Centralised and formalised approaches.
Seek clarity and order to address urgent policy problems. Define the policy problem clearly, translate that definition into strategies for each centre, and develop a common set of effective ‘tools’ to ensure cooperation and delivery.
Policy analysis may focus on technical aspects, such as how to create a fine-detail blueprint for action, backed by performance management and accountability measures that tie actors to specific commitments.
The tagline may be: ambiguity is a problem to be solved, to direct policy actors towards a common goal.
Seek collaboration to make sense of, and address, problems. Reject a single definition of the problem, encourage actors in each centre (or in concert) to deliberate to make sense of problems together, and co-create the rules to guide a continuous process of collective behaviour.
Policy analysis may focus on how to contribute to a collaborative process of sense-making and rule-making.
The tagline may be: ambiguity presents an opportunity to energise policy actors, to harness the potential for innovation arising from deliberation.
Pick one approach and stick with it?
Describing these approaches in such binary terms makes the situation – and choice between approaches – look relatively straightforward. However, note the following issues:
Many policy sectors (and intersectoral agendas) are characterised by intense disagreement on which choice to make. These disagreements intersect with others (such as when people seek not only transformative policy change to solve global problems, but also equitable process and outcomes).
Some sectors seem to involve actors seeking the best of both worlds (centralise and localise, formalise and deliberate) without recognising the trade-offs and dilemmas that arise.
I have described these options as choices, but did not establish if anyone is in the position to make or contribute to that choice.
In that context, resolving ambiguity in your favour may still be the prize, but where would you even begin?
Further reading
Well, that was an unsatisfying end to the post, eh? Maybe I’ll write a better one when some things are published. In the meantime, some of these papers and posts explore some of these issues:
This page describes a book and many posts on ‘prevention’ policy. We complain that governments use the phrase ‘prevention is better than cure’ without defining prevention, and that they want centralised and decentralised approaches to ‘preventive policymaking’.
A key argument in policy studies is that it is impossible to separate facts and values when making policy. We often treat our beliefs as facts, or describe certain facts as objective, but perhaps only to simplify our lives or support a political strategy (a ‘self-evident’ fact is very handy for an argument). People make empirical claims infused with their values and often fail to realise just how their values or assumptions underpin their claims.
This is not an easy argument to explain. One strategy is to use extreme examples to make the point. For example, Herbert Simon points to Hitler’s Mein Kampf as the ultimate example of value-based claims masquerading as facts. We can also identify historic academic research which asserts that men are more intelligent than women and some races are superior to others. In such cases, we would point out, for example, that the design of the research helped produce such conclusions: our values underpin our (a) assumptions about how to measure intelligence or other measures of superiority, and (b) interpretations of the results.
‘Wait a minute, though’ (you might say). “What about simple examples in which you can state facts with relative certainty – such as the statement ‘there are X number of words in this post’”. ‘Fair enough’, I’d say (you will have to speak with a philosopher to get a better debate about the meaning of your X words claim; I would simply say that it is trivially true). But this statement doesn’t take you far in policy terms. Instead, you’d want to say that there are too many or too few words, before you decided what to do about it.
In that sense, we have the most practical explanation of the unclear fact/ value distinction: the use of facts in policy is to underpin evaluations (assessments based on values). For example, we might point to the routine uses of data to argue that a public service is in ‘crisis’ or that there is a public health related epidemic (note: I wrote the post before COVID-19; it referred to crises of ‘non-communicable diseases’). We might argue that people only talk about ‘policy problems’ when they think we have a duty to solve them.
Or, facts and values often seem the hardest to separate when we evaluate the success and failure of policy solutions, since the measures used for evaluation are as political as any other part of the policy process. The gathering and presentation of facts is inherently a political exercise, and our use of facts to encourage a policy response is inseparable from our beliefs about how the world should work.
‘Modern science remains value-laden … even when so many people employ so many systematic methods to increase the replicability of research and reduce the reliance of evidence on individual scientists. The role of values is fundamental. Anyone engaging in research uses professional and personal values and beliefs to decide which research methods are the best; generate research questions, concepts and measures; evaluate the impact and policy relevance of the results; decide which issues are important problems; and assess the relative weight of ‘the evidence’ on policy effectiveness. We cannot simply focus on ‘what works’ to solve a problem without considering how we used our values to identify a problem in the first place. It is also impossible in practice to separate two choices: (1) how to gather the best evidence and (2) whether to centralize or localize policymaking. Most importantly, the assertion that ‘my knowledge claim is superior to yours’ symbolizes one of the most worrying exercises of power. We may decide to favour some forms of evidence over others, but the choice is value-laden and political rather than objective and innocuous’.
Implications for policy analysis
Many highly-intelligent and otherwise-sensible people seem to get very bothered with this kind of argument. For example, it gets in the way of (a) simplistic stories of heroic-objective-fact-based-scientists speaking truth to villainous-stupid-corrupt-emotional-politicians, (b) the ill-considered political slogan that you can’t argue with facts (or ‘science’), (c) the notion that some people draw on facts while others only follow their feelings, and (d) the idea that you can divide populations into super-facty versus post-truthy people.
A more sensible approach is to (1) recognise that all people combine cognition and emotion when assessing information, (2) treat politics and political systems as valuable and essential processes (rather than obstacles to technocratic policymaking), and (3) find ways to communicate evidence-informed analyses in that context. This article and 750 post explore how to reflect on this kind of communication.
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
‘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.
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:
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).
This post summarizes a key section of our review of education equity policymaking [see the full article for references to the studies summarized here].
One of the main themes is that many governments present a misleading image of their education policies. There are many variations on this theme, in which policymakers:
Describe the energetic pursuit of equity, and use the right language, as a way to hide limited progress.
Pursue ‘equity for all’ initiatives that ignore or downplay the specific importance of marginalization and minoritization, such as in relation to race and racism, immigration, ethnic minorities, and indigenous populations.
Pursue narrow definitions of equity in terms of access to schools, at the expense of definitions that pay attention to ‘out of school’ factors and social justice.
Minoritization is a strong theme in US studies in particular. US experiences help us categorise multiple modes of marginalisation in relation to race and migration, driven by witting and unwitting action and explicit and implicit bias:
The social construction of students and parents. Examples include: framing white students as ‘gifted’ and more deserving of merit-based education (or victims of equity initiatives); framing non-white students as less intelligent, more in need of special needs or remedial classes, and having cultural or other learning ‘deficits’ that undermine them and disrupt white students; and, describing migrant parents as unable to participate until they learn English.
Maintaining or failing to challenge inequitable policies. Examples include higher funding for schools and colleges with higher white populations, and tracking (segregating students according to perceived ability), which benefit white students disproportionately.
Ignoring social determinants or ‘out of school’ factors.
Creating the illusion of equity with measures that exacerbate inequalities. For example, promoting school choice policies while knowing that the rules restrict access to sought-after schools.
Promoting initiatives to ignore race, including so-called ‘color blind’ or ‘equity for all’ initiatives.
Prioritizing initiatives at the expense of racial or socio-economic equity, such as measures to boost overall national performance at the expense of targeted measures.
Game playing and policy subversion, including school and college selection rules to restrict access and improve metrics.
The wider international – primarily Global North – experience suggests that minoritization and marginalization in relation to race, ethnicity, and migration is a routine impediment to equity strategies, albeit with some uncertainty about which policies would have the most impact.
Other country studies describe the poor treatment of citizens in relation to immigration status or ethnicity, often while presenting the image of a more equitable system. Until recently, Finland’s global reputation for education equity built on universalism and comprehensive schools has contrasted with its historic ‘othering’ of immigrant populations. Japan’s reputation for containing a homogeneous population, allowing its governments to present an image of classless egalitarianism and harmonious society, contrasts with its discrimination against foreign students. Multiple studies of Canadian provinces provide the strongest accounts of the symbolic and cynical use of multiculturalism for political gains and economic ends:
As in the US, many countries use ‘special needs’ categories to segregate immigrant and ethnic minority populations. Mainstreaming versus special needs debates have a clear racial and ethnic dimension when (1) some groups are more likely to be categorised as having learning disabilities or behavioural disorders, and (2) language and cultural barriers are listed as disabilities in many countries. Further, ‘commonwealth’ country studies identify the marginalisation of indigenous populations in ways comparable to the US marginalisation of students of colour.
Overall, these studies generate the sense that the frequently used language of education equity policy can signal a range of possibilities, from (1) high energy and sincere commitment to social justice, to (2) the cynical use of rhetoric and symbolism to protect historic inequalities.
Examples:
Turner, E.O., and Spain, A.K., (2020) ‘The Multiple Meanings of (In)Equity: Remaking School District Tracking Policy in an Era of Budget Cuts and Accountability’, Urban Education, 55, 5, 783-812 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0042085916674060
Thorius, K.A. and Maxcy, B.D. (2015) ‘Critical Practice Analysis of Special Education Policy: An RTI Example’, Remedial and Special Education, 36, 2, 116-124 https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0741932514550812
Felix, E.R. and Trinidad, A. (2020) ‘The decentralization of race: tracing the dilution of racial equity in educational policy’, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 33, 4, 465-490 https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1681538
This post first appeared as Who controls public policy? on the UK in a Changing Europe website. There is also a 1-minute video, but you would need to be a completist to want to watch it.
Our #AcademicintheSpotlight series highlights social scientists doing innovative & dynamic research that you really ought to be aware of.
This week, it’s the turn of @CairneyPaul. Paul works on understanding the mechanics of public policy and policymaking. Interested? Read on… pic.twitter.com/bMs8RoQi2a
Most coverage of British politics focuses on the powers of a small group of people at the heart of government. In contrast, my research on public policy highlights two major limits to those powers, related to the enormous number of problems that policymakers face, and to the sheer size of the government machine.
First, elected policymakers simply do not have the ability to properly understand, let alone solve, the many complex policy problems they face. They deal with this limitation by paying unusually high attention to a small number of problems and effectively ignoring the rest.
Second, policymakers rely on a huge government machine and network of organisations (containing over 5 million public employees) essential to policy delivery, and oversee a statute book which they could not possibly understand.
In other words, they have limited knowledge and even less control of the state, and have to make choices without knowing how they relate to existing policies (or even what happens next).
These limits to ministerial powers should prompt us to think differently about how to hold them to account. If they only have the ability to influence a small proportion of government business, should we blame them for everything that happens in their name?
My approach is to apply these general insights to specific problems in British politics. Three examples help to illustrate their ability to inform British politics in new ways.
First, policymaking can never be ‘evidence based’. Some scientists cling to the idea that the ‘best’ evidence should always catch the attention of policymakers, and assume that ‘speaking truth to power’ helps evidence win the day.
As such, researchers in fields like public health and climate change wonder why policymakers seem to ignore their evidence.
The truth is that policymakers only have the capacity to consider a tiny proportion of all available information. Therefore, they must find efficient ways to ignore almost all evidence to make timely choices.
They do so by setting goals and identifying trusted sources of evidence, but also using their gut instinct and beliefs to rule out most evidence as irrelevant to their aims.
Second, the UK government cannot ‘take back control’ of policy following Brexit simply because it was not in control of policy before the UK joined. The idea of control is built on the false image of a powerful centre of government led by a small number of elected policymakers.
This way of thinking assumes that sharing power is simply a choice. However, sharing power and responsibility is borne of necessity because the British state is too large to be manageable.
Governments manage this complexity by breaking down their responsibilities into many government departments. Still, ministers can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of issues managed by each department. They delegate most of their responsibilities to civil servants, agencies, and other parts of the public sector.
In turn, those organisations rely on interest groups and experts to provide information and advice.
As a result, most public policy is conducted through small and specialist ‘policy communities’ that operate out of the public spotlight and with minimal elected policymaker involvement.
The logical conclusion is that senior elected politicians are less important than people think. While we like to think of ministers sitting in Whitehall and taking crucial decisions, most of these decisions are taken in their name but without their intervention.
Third, the current pandemic underlines all too clearly the limits of government power. Of course people are pondering the degree to which we can blame UK government ministers for poor choices in relation to Covid-19, or learn from their mistakes to inform better policy.
Many focus on the extent to which ministers were ‘guided by the science’. However, at the onset of a new crisis, government scientists face the same uncertainty about the nature of the policy problem, and ministers are not really able to tell if a Covid-19 policy would work as intended or receive enough public support.
Some examples from the UK experience expose the limited extent to which policymakers can understand, far less control, an emerging crisis.
Prior to the lockdown, neither scientists nor ministers knew how many people were infected, nor when levels of infection would peak.
They had limited capacity to test. They did not know how often (and how well) people wash their hands. They did not expect people to accept and follow strict lockdown rules so readily, and did not know which combination of measures would have the biggest impact.
When supporting businesses and workers during ‘furlough’, they did not know who would be affected and therefore how much the scheme would cost.
In short, while Covid-19 has prompted policy change and state intervention on a scale not witnessed outside of wartime, the government has never really known what impact its measures would have.
Overall, the take-home message is that the UK narrative of strong central government control is damaging to political debate and undermines policy learning. It suggests that every poor outcome is simply the consequence of bad choices by powerful leaders. If so, we are unable to distinguish between the limited competence of some leaders and the limited powers of them all.
These posts introduce you to key concepts in the study of public policy. They are all designed to turn a complex policymaking world into something simple enough to understand. Some of them focus on small parts of the system. Others present ambitious ways to explain the system as a whole. The wide range of concepts should give you a sense of a variety of studies out there, but my aim is to show you that these studies have common themes.
Paul Cairney: Politics & Public Policy 