‘How long must these sufferers wait for the compensation they deserve?’

That question was the title of an op-ed that I wrote for the Scotsman on 11 July 2000 about compensation for people with haemophilia infected by hepatitis-C through blood products in the NHS. The answer turned out to be decades, largely because the UK government has always resisted the idea of compensation for treatment by the NHS, but with exceptions in relation to HIV or with reference to wider financial support by the state.

Currently high attention in 2024 relates to the strong likelihood of a new UK government announcement on meaningful compensation, prompted largely by the work of the Infected Blood Inquiry . For a summary of key developments, see What is the infected blood scandal and will victims get compensation?

Below, I reproduce that Scotsman op-ed to provide background on UK government resistance to compensation, then link to some resources on how the issue played out in Scotland in the early years of devolution. In short, it became an intergovernmental relations issue when (1) there was pressure on the Scottish Government (then ‘Executive’) to respond, but (2) the UK government resisted successfully the idea that the Scottish Government could go its own way.

‘How long must these sufferers wait for the compensation they deserve?’

“SCOTTISH haemophiliacs are eagerly awaiting the results of a government investigation into the issue of hepatitis-C infection through blood products. However, this is an issue which should concern us all, not only because of the extent of suffering this type of infection causes, but also because it strikes at the heart of the whole question of compensation within the NHS.

It is also fitting that this issue should raise its head during the annual international AIDS conference, since – at least politically – the similarities between hep-C and HIV infection are uncanny. So how do we explain why HIV -infected haemophiliacs were compensated over ten years ago and yet haemophiliacs infected by hepatitis-C have had to wait until now even to hear if they have a case?

HIV and hepatitis-C are both particularly serious infections. The former – unless we believe Professor Duesberg – causes AIDS and diminishes the body’s ability to overcome subsequent infections, however slight. The latter, in the long term, causes chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. Either infection combined with haemophilia causes devastation among sufferers, their families and their friends. So why does one particular sufferer receive compensation and another doesn’t?

To put it bluntly, the main reason may well be that hepatitis-C is far less likely to capture the imagination of the public, Parliament or the government of the day. Hepatitis-C, unlike HIV, is only transmitted through blood and so its incidence within the general public is much less likely. Rather, on the whole it will only affect haemophiliacs and intravenous drug users. It is associated with minorities and/or deviance. It is unlikely to be able to maintain attention for any particular length of time. This is the key to the difference – HIV caught the public’s imagination because it was, and still is, presented as an infection which did or does not discriminate. It is transmitted sexually; it is transmitted through blood; it is transmitted from mother to baby; for a while it was thought that it might even be transmitted through saliva. It therefore affects us all and, albeit to a lesser and lesser extent, HIV continues to grab the headlines.

It is this crucial difference which informs much of the process of compensation. In both cases successive British (and now Scottish) governments attempted to deny responsibility for the compensation of those infected through blood products. However, this was largely unsuccessful with HIV because the issue just did not go away.

When, in the early Eighties, ministers denied the links between blood products and HIV, newspapers were filled with scientific reports which suggested otherwise. When ministers tried to delegate responsibility for HIV infections to haemophiliac specialists or health authorities, Parliament asserted its right to hold them to account. When the government accepted both the links and the responsibility, but not the need for compensation, the continuous public reaction forced a U-turn in government policy. And finally when the government accepted the need to compensate, but only those haemophiliacs who constituted a “special case”, it was again defeated by the threat of legal action supported by media, British Medical Association and MPs.

But is this likely to happen in the case of hepatitis-C? While those affected may take hope from the fact that the Scottish executive is finally taking their plight seriously, there is still one major obstacle to the granting of compensation – precedent. The most striking aspect of HIV in this regard was that the government could not afford to grant “no-fault” compensation to anyone suffering at the hands of the NHS for fear of opening the floodgates for a succession of similar claims. So, when granting a “trust fund” to HIV -infected haemophiliacs, it argued that these were “wholly exceptional circumstances”, with the implication that such compensation (although it was never termed as such) would never be repeated.

On the other hand, there is hope to be taken from this process, not least because since then the government has argued that those non-haemophiliacs infected with HIV through blood products were “also a very special case.” It seems, then, that to be successful a group just has to agree that what it is receiving is an exceptional compassionate payment rather than “compensation”.

More seriously, whether the government likes it or not, it has already set the precedent for haemophiliacs, when it recognised in 1990 that theirs were “wholly exceptional circumstances” and that haemophilia combined with another serious condition merited compensation, however this is phrased.

The government therefore has a responsibility to treat hepatitis-C sufferers in the same way as it treated those infected with HIV, irrespective of the findings of its investigation”

Attention in the Scottish Parliament (2001)

For example, the Scottish Parliament Health and Social Care Committee report in 2001 argued that sufferers should receive financial support, but largely rejected the idea of compensation:

‘100. Should this assistance that we advocate be described as compensation? “Compensation” implies negligence or fault, and on the (admittedly limited) basis of the evidence we considered, we do not think that this has been established. In the end, what matters most, in our view, is not what this assistance is called. What does matter is that it makes a clear, practical difference, and that it is delivered promptly. We would like to see a scheme established within twelve months’.

Compensation as an issue of intergovernmental relations (2003-)

By early 2003, the issue became an IGR issue. Barry Winetrobe’s report in February 2003 noted that:

“9.3 Hepatitis C referral to the JCPC

It has been reported in late January that differences in legal advice to the UK Government and the Scottish Executive over the latter’s proposal to make ex gratia payments to Hepatitis C sufferers, whose condition was caused by contaminated blood, may have to be resolved ultimately by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Two difficulties appear to be relevant, one of which (similar to earlier arguments over free personal care) involves possible clawback through the (reserved) social security system of some of the payments made by the Executive. The other relates to the more general question of whether the Executive actually has the power to make such payments. This appears to be a reference to Head F (social security) of the list of reserved matters in schedule 5 of the Scotland Act, which, in its interpretation provisions, may exclude such payments from the Executive’s devolved competence or the Parliament’s legislative competence”

Cairney (2006: 433) relates compensation to disputes between the UK and Scottish governments:

“This imbalance of power is apparent when disputes rise to the surface. The most high profile policy of the first Scottish Parliament session (1999–2003) was the decision in Scotland to depart from the UK line and implement the recommendations of the Sutherland Report on ‘free’ personal care for the elderly. … if the UK government had been sympathetic to the policy a solution would have been found, but general Whitehall indifference to Scotland had turned to specific hostility (particularly since UK ministers failed to persuade their Scottish counterparts to maintain a UK line). This approach was also taken with the issue of Hepatitis C compensation in Scotland, with the Department of Work and Pensions threatening to reduce benefit payments to those in receipt of Scottish Executive compensation (Lodge, 2003 reproduced below). This case was taken further, with Whitehall delaying Scottish payments on the basis of competence (health devolved, but compensation for injury and illness reserved) until it came up with a UK-wide scheme to be implemented in Scotland (Anon., 2004a)”

Cairney (2011: 98-9) notes:

“Hepatitis C became a cause of relative tension, with the UK Government apparently willing to challenge the Scottish Executive’s right to provide compensation (payments related to injury and illness are reserved), until it came up with a UK-wide compensation scheme (with which Scottish ministers were less happy) (Winetrobe, February 2003: 39–40; February 2004: 42; May 2004: Cairney, 2006: 433; January 2007: 83). The Scottish Executive and UK Government also faced calls for a public inquiry into Hep C in 2006 (Cairney, September 2006: 75). The Scottish Government oversaw its own inquiry on Hep C, partly to put pressure on the UK Government to follow suit (Cairney, May 2008: 87; May 2009: 58)”

The ‘view from the centre’

May 2003: Guy Lodge’s report states that:

“The dispute between the UK government and the Scottish Executive, over the decision by the Executive to provide compensation to anyone who contracted Hepatitis C on the NHS in the 1970s and 1980s as a result of contaminated blood, has continued this quarter. The Scottish Health Minister, Malcolm Chisholm, announced proposals for ex gratia payments in January 2003, but has had to concede that no payments will be made until the Scottish Executive resolves the issue with Westminster. The dispute centres on whether or not the Department for Work and Pensions will try and ‘clawback’ the money used by the Executive in compensation through the social security system. There is also a debate over whether the Executive actually has the power to make such payments. 

In what many in Scotland have interpreted as a snub to the Scottish Parliament, Andrew Smith, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, has refused to appear before the Health Committee, which had invited him to give evidence on the issue. 

The SNP have been keen to raise the issue at Westminster. On 21 May, Annabelle Ewing quizzed the Prime Minister on why no compensation had been made during questions to the Prime Minister. 

Annabelle Ewing (SNP – Perth): The Prime Minister will be aware that the Scottish Parliament agreed at the beginning of this year to pay compensation to hepatitis C sufferers in Scotland who contracted the disease through contaminated NHS blood products. However, not a penny piece has yet been paid, as a result of dithering by Westminster over jurisdiction. Can I inject a sense of urgency into the debate and ask the Prime Minister to confirm today that Westminster will not frustrate the will of the Scottish Parliament to pay compensation under exemption from the benefits clawback regulations? Surely the Prime Minister would agree that the people involved have already waited far too long for justice.

The Prime Minister: I am aware of the Scottish Executive’s decision to pay compensation to hepatitis C sufferers. I am not aware of the other particular problem to which the hon. Lady has just drawn attention. I shall look into it, and write to her about it.

Annabelle Ewing also raised the issue on 20 May at Scotland Office questions in which Liddell suggests that a decision will be made after the elections in Scotland. 

Annabelle Ewing : Surely the key issue is whether she will fight for the right of the Scottish Parliament to pay compensation and for a 100 per cent exemption from the benefit clawback rules. If she will not do that, will she explain to hepatitis C sufferers in Scotland why on earth Scottish taxpayers are paying £7 million for the running costs of her office?

Mrs. Liddell: There are serious legal and policy-based issues in relation to hepatitis C. There have been extensive discussions between the Scottish Executive and the Department for Work and Pensions, not least on whether payments should be taken into account as capital or income when someone claims income-related benefits. Those discussions could not continue because of the Scottish Parliament elections. As soon as the Minister for Health and Community Care is in place in the Scottish Parliament, those discussions will continue”

Chapter 7: Constitutional Policy and Brexit

This post by Sean Kippin introduces chapter 7 of Politics and Policy Making in the UK by Paul Cairney and Sean Kippin. It examines Brexit, which is a portmanteau combining Britain and exit from membership of the European Union. The Brexit referendum ballot wording was ‘Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?’ and people could vote to ‘Remain a member of the European Union’ or ‘Leave the European Union’.

Photo (9.12.20) of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson (left) and President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (right) (Source)

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU) in January 2020 was a major constitutional change. A June 2016 referendum delivered a narrow but decisive victory for ‘Leave’ over ‘Remain’’ (52% to 48%).

The Leave slogan ‘take back control’ drew on the Westminster Story (Chapter 3) to present EU membership as incompatible with British democracy and sovereignty. However, turning Brexit into policy reality in the intervening years illustrated the lack of control that UK policymakers actually have over decisions, outcomes, and consequences.

In Chapter 7, we relate Brexit to three perspectives: as the symbol of a policy problem (policy analysis), policymaking problem (policy studies), and problem of social and economic inequalities (critical policy analysis).

Policy analysis: how did policymakers approach Brexit?

We describe the referendum as a poor solution to an ill-defined problem. For example, former Prime Minster David Cameron had treated the referendum as a means of placating his party and the Eurosceptic media following his failure to renegotiate the UK’s terms of membership (Cameron then resigned after the vote). For others, Brexit was the alleged solution to a poor economy or low control over immigration, or the campaign was part of  a ‘populist’ approach to relate EU membership to control by out of touch political elites.

5 step analysis helps to analyse Brexit as a policy problem and help to identify the problems faced by new Prime Minister Theresa May. First, actors defined Brexit as a problem in different ways: they debated over when to trigger Article 50, what powers the government had to enact Brexit, the UK Parliament’s role, and which issues to pursue in preliminary negotiations.

Second, policy actors identified very different feasible solutions, such as:

• ‘Soft Brexit’, leaving the EU but retaining economic union by remaining in either or both of the Single Market and Customs Union.
• ‘Hard Brexit’, leaving EU institutions, but coming to various bilateral agreements over areas of mutual interest.
• ‘No deal Brexit’, leaving without any formalised arrangements (often treated as the ultimate bad outcome).
• Some proposed different avenues to avoiding or ‘undoing’ Brexit, such as a confirmatory or second referendum (known by advocates as a ‘People’s Vote’).

Third and fourth, the main trade-offs between (and estimates of the effect of) the different solutions amounted to favouring sovereignty (i.e. control over trade and immigration policy), or maintaining economic union and a soft border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Theresa May announced ‘red lines’ which closed off many possibilities. The status of Northern Ireland involved particularly contested trade-offs. Ultimately, political dynamics and feasibility issues ruled out many options, including soft Brexit and No Deal Brexit.

Fifth, the House of Commons failed to find a mutually acceptable way forward (including ruling out the  ‘attractive fudge’ of the ‘Chequers Plan’). May resigned and was replaced by the Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. Johnson called and won a General Election, then secured a similar deal to one considered by May (though Johnson’s government would keep Northern Ireland within the Single Market, to the consternation of Northern Ireland unionists). A ‘differentiated Brexit’ would ultimately take effect in 2020.

Policy studies: did Brexit change the UK’s ‘multi-level’ policymaking system?

Brexit exposed long-standing debates about the feasibility and fairness of different ways to govern. Debates on ‘multi-level governance’ explore whether there is an ‘optimal’ division of policymaking functions, such as in one authoritative centre or shared between different ‘territorial’ levels of government. Advocates of multi-level governance argue that the dispersion of power across different centres is more efficient and democratic than central state control, but these divisions relate more to the competing political demands to take or share power at the different levels, rather than a technocratic process of constitutional design.  

There is some evidence that the UK government has become more centralised and majoritarian in approach, although the impact is difficult to measure. The main sectoral changes (Table 7.1 below) are in salient areas, such as immigration, where the UK has ended the ‘free movement of people’ (a key European freedom) and now operates a reformed trade regime (but has not really solved the problem of immigration described by prominent Leave campaigners). There have also been constitutional knock on effects, such as the adverse impact of the new UK internal market policy on devolved government autonomy (accentuated by high profile disputes, such as regarding the UK government’s veto of the Scottish Parliament Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill).

Critical Policy Analysis: Who is winning and losing due to Brexit? 

The clear winners of the impacts of Brexit are hard to identify. So far, it is far easier to identify losses, and to note that those with more resources are far better placed to endure the hardship.  According to some Leave campaigners, but not reality, some of the biggest beneficiaries of Brexit were to be a ‘left behind’ working class, centred in the deindustrialised ‘emblematic sites of revolt’ such as Sunderland. Rather, there have mostly been visible losses, such as among the minority ethnic groups, women, and disabled people who lost EU funding and important legal protections.

How does Brexit inform our Westminster and Complex Government stories?

The ‘take back control’ message embodies the Westminster story of centralised top-down control, but the Brexit process exposed the limits to that control. The Government endured years of delay and political setbacks, provoking multiple leadership crises which threatened the viability of Brexit and ended successive premierships. The process also exposed the limitations of the UK Parliament, which couldn’t find a solution to an ostensibly straightforward problem (outlined in detail by UK in a Changing Europe).

Brexit challenges one aspect of the complex government story by simplifying the multi-level policymaking system. However, policymaking complexity remains a necessity, reflecting bounded rationality and the inevitable delegation of policymaking to a large number and wide range of actors across the UK political system.

Take home messages

• The Brexit referendum illustrated the strength of the ‘Westminster story’, when voters chose to ‘take back control’.
• Brexit entailed years of delay and setbacks, political crises, threatening its viability. It illustrates the complexity of the policymaking process.
• The post-Brexit system is relatively simplified, removing one ‘level’ of government, however complexity and delegation are a necessity rather than a choice.
• Brexit created many losers, and few winners. Those with greater resources are generally better able to withstand the negative consequences.

We are recruiting a lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling

Update 16.6.22 The panel received 87 applications, with around 25 applicants having substantial track records in teaching and research. As such, around 20 people did not make the shortlist despite being appointable at our grade 7 or 8 level. We also received applications from many early career applicants who showed great future potential but were relatively unable to show how they would ‘hit the ground running’ in terms of this particular post. In that context, not making the shortlist is primarily a sign of the competitiveness of the field at this level.

‘The Division of History, Heritage and Politics wishes to appoint a suitably qualified and experienced Grade 7/8 Lecturer in International Politics. International Politics is a core element of our interdisciplinary research in relation to politics, including human rights and justice, and policy, including climate change, energy, security, resource conflict, and health. The appointee will pursue a programme of research, including research outputs and funding applications, in that context. We are open to applicants with regional specialisms (such as European or Asian politics). We also welcome a critical focus on gendered and racialised dimensions of international politics’.

Please see our Vacancy page for the full details: https://www.stir.ac.uk/about/work-at-stirling/list/details/?jobId=3088&jobTitle=Lecturer%20in%20International%20Politics

I am one of the pre-interview contacts and these are my personal thoughts on that process, which blend background information and some helpful advice. These notes are also there to address a potentially major imbalance in the informal side to recruitment: if you do not have the contacts and networks that help give you the confidence to seek information (on the things not mentioned in the further particulars), here is the next best thing: the information I would otherwise give you on the phone. This approach is also handy under the current circumstances, in which (a) the vacancy will run for a short period (28 days, with a deadline of 7^th June, and interviews on 20^th June), because (b) we need someone to start in September.

Here are some general tips on the application and interview processes.

The application process:

• At this stage, the main documents are the CV and the cover letter.
• You should keep the cover letter short to show your skills at concise writing (I suggest 1-page). Focus on what you can offer the Division specifically, given the nature of our call and further particulars.
• Lecturers will be competing with many people who have completed a PhD and have some publications – so what makes your CV stand out?
• We take teaching very seriously. Within our division, we plan an overall curriculum together, discuss regularly if it is working, and come to agreements about how to teach and assess work. We pride ourselves on being a small and friendly bunch of people, open to regular student contact and, for example, committed to meaningful and regular feedback.
• You might think generally about how you would contribute to teaching and learning in that context. In particular, you should think about how, for example, you would deliver large undergraduate modules (in which you may only be an expert on some of the material) as well as the smaller, more specialist and advanced, modules closer to your expertise. However, please also note that your main initial contribution is specific:

‘The appointee will contribute to our successful Masters Programme in International Conflict and Cooperation (ICC) and BA programmes in International Politics, as well as doctoral and dissertation supervision. An ability to deliver the introductory undergraduate module Introduction to International Politics (POLU9X3), as well as design an advanced undergraduate and ICC module, is essential. The ability to teach qualitative and quantitative research methods is welcome’.

The interview process

The shortlisting should be finished by around the 13^th June so, all going well, you will know if you have reached the interview stage by 14^th June. The interviews will take place – on Teams – on 20^th June. 

The interview stage

By the interview stage, here are the things that you should normally know:

• The teaching and research specialisms of the division and their links to cross-divisional research.
• The kinds of courses that the division would expect you to teach.

Perhaps most importantly, you need to be able to articulate why you want to come and work at Stirling. ‘Why Stirling?’ or ‘Why this division?’ is usually the first question in an interview, so you should think about it in advance. We recommend doing some research on Stirling and the division/ faculty, to show in some detail that you have a considered reply (beyond ‘it is a beautiful campus’ and ‘I need a job’). Since it is the first question, your answer will set the tone for the rest of the interview. You might check, for example, who you might share interests with in the Division, and how you might  develop links beyond the division or faculty, since this is likely to be a featured question too.

• Then you might think about what you would bring to the University in a wider sense, such as through well-established (domestic and international) links with other scholars in academic networks.
• Further, since ‘impact’ is of rising importance, you might discuss your links with people and organisations outside of the University, and how you have pursued meaningful engagement with the public or practitioners to maximise the wider contribution of your research.

The interview format

For open-ended contracts, we tend to combine (a) presentations to divisional (and other interested) staff in the morning, with (b) interviews in the afternoon. They will almost certainly be on Teams. The usual expectation is that if you can’t make the date, you can’t get the job. In addition:

• We recommend keeping the presentation compact, to show that you can present complex information in a concise and clear way. Presentations are usually a mix of what you do in research and what you will contribute in a wider sense to the University.
• The usual interview panel format at this level is five members: one subject specialist from the Division (in this case, me), one member of the Faculty (in this case, our Head of Division), the Dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities, a senior manager of the University (in the chair), and a senior academic in another Faculty.
• So, only 1 member of your panel will be a specialist in Politics. This means that (at the very least) you need to describe your success in a way that a wider audience will appreciate. For example, you would have to explain the significance of a single-author article in the top-rated journal in your field.

It sounds daunting, but we are a friendly bunch and want you to do well. You might struggle to retain all of our names (nerves), so focus on the types of question we ask – for example, the general question to get you started will be from the senior manager, and the research question from the divisional representative. There are often more men than women on the panel (although no more than 3 to 2), and they are often all-white panels, but I hope that we are providing other more useful ‘signals’ about our commitment to equality and diversity.

I am happy to answer your questions, via email in the first instance  p.a.cairney@stir.ac.uk

Can A Government Really Take Control Of Public Policy?

This post first appeared on the MIHE blog to help sell my book.

During elections, many future leaders give the impression that they will take control of public policy. They promise major policy change and give little indication that anything might stand in their way.

This image has been a major feature of Donald Trump’s rhetoric on his US Presidency. It has also been a feature of campaigns for the UK withdrawal from the European Union (‘Brexit’) to allow its leaders to take back control of policy and policymaking. According to this narrative, Brexit would allow (a) the UK government to make profound changes to immigration and spending, and (b) Parliament and the public to hold the UK government directly to account, in contrast to a distant EU policy process less subject to direct British scrutiny.

Such promises are built on the false image of a single ‘centre’ of government, in which a small number of elected policymakers take responsibility for policy outcomes. This way of thinking is rejected continuously in the modern literature. Instead, policymaking is ‘multi-centric’: responsibility for policy outcomes is spread across many levels and types of government (‘centres’), and shared with organisations outside of government, to the extent that it is not possible to simply know who is in charge and to blame. This arrangement helps explain why leaders promise major policy change but most outcomes represent a minor departure from the status quo.

Some studies of politics relate this arrangement to the choice to share power across many centres. In the US, a written constitution ensures power sharing across different branches (executive, legislative, judicial) and between federal and state or local jurisdictions. In the UK, central government has long shared power with EU, devolved, and local policymaking organisations.

However, policy theories show that most aspects of multi-centric governance are necessary. The public policy literature provides many ways to describe such policy processes, but two are particularly useful.

The first approach is to explain the diffusion of power with reference to an enduring logic of policymaking, as follows:

• The size and scope of the state is so large that it is always in danger of becoming unmanageable. Policymakers manage complexity by breaking the state’s component parts into policy sectors and sub-sectors, with power spread across many parts of government.
• Elected policymakers can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of issues for which they are responsible. They pay attention to a small number and ignore the rest. They delegate policymaking responsibility to other actors such as bureaucrats, often at low levels of government.
• At this level of government and specialisation, bureaucrats rely on specialist organisations for information and advice. Those organisations trade that information/advice and other resources for access to, and influence within, the government.
• Most public policy is conducted primarily through small and specialist ‘policy communities’ that process issues at a level of government not particularly visible to the public, and with minimal senior policymaker involvement.

This description suggests that senior elected politicians are less important than people think, their impact on policy is questionable, and elections may not provide major changes in policy. Most decisions are taken in their name but without their intervention.

A second, more general, approach is to show that elected politicians deal with such limitations by combining cognition and emotion to make choices quickly. Although such action allows them to be decisive, they occur within a policymaking environment over which governments have limited control. Government bureaucracies only have the coordinative capacity to direct policy outcomes in a small number of high priority areas. In most other cases, policymaking is spread across many venues, each with their own rules, networks, ways of seeing the world, and ways of responding to socio-economic factors and events.

In that context, we should always be sceptical when election candidates and referendum campaigners (or, in many cases, leaders of authoritarian governments) make such promises about political leadership and government control.

A more sophisticated knowledge of policy processes allows us to identify the limits to the actions of elected policymakers, and develop a healthier sense of pragmatism about the likely impact of government policy. The question of our age is not: how can governments take back control? Rather, it is: how can we hold policymakers to account in a complex system over which they have limited knowledge and even less control?

Understanding Public Policy 2nd edition

All going well, it will be out in November 2019. We are now at the proofing stage.

I have included below the summaries of the chapters (and each chapter should also have its own entry (or multiple entries) in the 1000 Words and 500 Words series).

 

Evidence-informed policymaking: context is everything

I thank James Georgalakis for inviting me to speak at the inaugural event of IDS’ new Evidence into Policy and Practice Series, and the audience for giving extra meaning to my story about the politics of ‘evidence-based based policymaking’. The talk (using powerpoint) and Q&A is here:

 

James invited me to respond to some of the challenges raised to my talk – in his summary of the event – so here it is.

I’m working on a ‘show, don’t tell’ approach, leaving some of the story open to interpretation. As a result, much of the meaning of this story – and, in particular, the focus on limiting participation – depends on the audience.

For example, consider the impact of the same story on audiences primarily focused on (a) scientific evidence and policy, or (b) participation and power.

Normally, when I talk about evidence and policy, my audience is mostly people with scientific or public health backgrounds asking why do policymakers ignore scientific evidence? I am usually invited to ruffle feathers, mostly by challenging a – remarkably prevalent – narrative that goes like this:

• We know what the best evidence is, since we have produced it with the best research methods (the ‘hierarchy of evidence’ argument).
• We have evidence on the nature of the problem and the most effective solutions (the ‘what works’ argument).
• Policymakers seems to be ignoring our evidence or failing to act proportionately (the ‘evidence-policy barriers’ argument).
• Or, they cherry-pick evidence to suit their agenda (the ‘policy based evidence’ argument).

In that context, I suggest that there are many claims to policy-relevant knowledge, policymakers have to ignore most information before making choices, and they are not in control of the policy process for which they are ostensibly in charge.

Limiting participation as a strategic aim

Then, I say to my audience that – if they are truly committed to maximising the use of scientific evidence in policy – they will need to consider how far they will go to get what they want. I use the metaphor of an ethical ladder in which each rung offers more influence in exchange for dirtier hands: tell stories and wait for opportunities, or demonise your opponents, limit participation, and humour politicians when they cherry-pick to reinforce emotional choices.

It’s ‘show don’t tell’ but I hope that the take-home point for most of the audience is that they shouldn’t focus so much on one aim – maximising the use of scientific evidence – to the detriment of other important aims, such as wider participation in politics beyond a reliance on a small number of experts. I say ‘keep your eyes on the prize’ but invite the audience to reflect on which prizes they should seek, and the trade-offs between them.

Limited participation – and ‘windows of opportunity’ – as an empirical finding

I did suggest that most policymaking happens away from the sphere of ‘exciting’ and ‘unruly’ politics. Put simply, people have to ignore almost every issue almost all of the time. Each time they focus their attention on one major issue, they must – by necessity – ignore almost all of the others.

For me, the political science story is largely about the pervasiveness of policy communities and policymaking out of the public spotlight.

The logic is as follows. Elected policymakers can only pay attention to a tiny proportion of their responsibilities. They delegate the rest to bureaucrats at lower levels of government. Bureaucrats lack specialist knowledge, and rely on other actors for information and advice. Those actors trade information for access. In many cases, they develop effective relationships based on trust and a shared understanding of the policy problem.

Trust often comes from a sense that everyone has proven to be reliable. For example, they follow norms or the ‘rules of the game’. One classic rule is to contain disputes within the policy community when actors don’t get what they want: if you complain in public, you draw external attention and internal disapproval; if not, you are more likely to get what you want next time.

For me, this is key context in which to describe common strategic concerns:

• Should you wait for a ‘window of opportunity’ for policy change? Maybe. Or, maybe it will never come because policymaking is largely insulated from view and very few issues reach the top of the policy agenda.
• Should you juggle insider and outsider strategies? Yes, some groups seem to do it well and it is possible for governments and groups to be in a major standoff in one field but close contact in another. However, each group must consider why they would do so, and the trade-offs between each strategy. For example, groups excluded from one venue may engage (perhaps successfully) in ‘venue shopping’ to get attention from another. Or, they become discredited within many venues if seen as too zealous and unwilling to compromise. Insider/outsider may seem like a false dichotomy to experienced and well-resourced groups, who engage continuously, and are able to experiment with many approaches and use trial-and-error learning. It is a more pressing choice for actors who may have only one chance to get it right and do not know what to expect.

Where is the power analysis in all of this?

I rarely use the word power directly, partly because – like ‘politics’ or ‘democracy’ – it is an ambiguous term with many interpretations (see Box 3.1). People often use it without agreeing its meaning and, if it means everything, maybe it means nothing.

However, you can find many aspects of power within our discussion. For example, insider and outsider strategies relate closely to Schattschneider’s classic discussion in which powerful groups try to ‘privatise’ issues and less powerful groups try to ‘socialise’ them. Agenda setting is about using resources to make sure issues do, or do not, reach the top of the policy agenda, and most do not.

These aspects of power sometimes play out in public, when:

• Actors engage in politics to turn their beliefs into policy. They form coalitions with actors who share their beliefs, and often romanticise their own cause and demonise their opponents.
• Actors mobilise their resources to encourage policymakers to prioritise some forms of knowledge or evidence over others (such as by valuing scientific evidence over experiential knowledge).
• They compete to identify the issues most worthy of our attention, telling stories to frame or define policy problems in ways that generate demand for their evidence.

However, they are no less important when they play out routinely:

• Governments have standard operating procedures – or institutions – to prioritise some forms of evidence and some issues routinely.
• Many policy networks operate routinely with few active members.
• Certain ideas, or ways of understanding the world and the nature of policy problems within it, becomes so dominant that they are unspoken and taken for granted as deeply held beliefs. Still, they constrain or facilitate the success of new ‘evidence based’ policy solutions.

In other words, the word ‘power’ is often hidden because the most profound forms of power often seem to be hidden.

In the context of our discussion, power comes from the ability to define some evidence as essential and other evidence as low quality or irrelevant, and therefore define some people as essential or irrelevant. It comes from defining some issues as exciting and worthy of our attention, or humdrum, specialist and only relevant to experts. It is about the subtle, unseen, and sometimes thoughtless ways in which we exercise power to harness people’s existing beliefs and dominate their attention as much as the transparent ways in which we mobilise resources to publicise issues. Therefore, to ‘maximise the use of evidence’ sounds like an innocuous collective endeavour, but it is a highly political and often hidden use of power.

See also:

I discussed these issues at a storytelling workshop organised by the OSF:

See also:

Policy in 500 Words: Power and Knowledge

The politics of evidence-based policymaking

Palgrave Communications: The politics of evidence-based policymaking

Using evidence to influence policy: Oxfam’s experience

The UK government’s imaginative use of evidence to make policy

 

The Politics of Evidence-Based Policymaking: ANZSOG talks

This post introduces a series of related talks on ‘the politics of evidence-based policymaking’ (EBPM) that I’m giving as part of larger series of talks during this ANZOG-funded/organised trip.

The EBPM talks begin with a discussion of the same three points: what counts as evidence, why we must ignore most of it (and how), and the policy process in which policymakers use some of it. However, the framing of these points, and the ways in which we discuss the implications, varies markedly by audience. So, in this post, I provide a short discussion of the three points, then show how the audience matters (referring to the city as a shorthand for each talk).

The overall take-home points are highly practical, in the same way that critical thinking has many practical applications (in other words, I’m not offering a map, toolbox, or blueprint):

• If you begin with (a) the question ‘why don’t policymakers use my evidence?’ I like to think you will end with (b) the question ‘why did I ever think they would?’.
• If you begin by taking the latter as (a) a criticism of politics and policymakers, I hope you will end by taking it as (b) a statement of the inevitability of the trade-offs that must accompany political choice.
• We may address these issues by improving the supply and use of evidence. However, it is more important to maintain the legitimacy of the politicians and political systems in which policymakers choose to ignore evidence. Technocracy is no substitute for democracy.

3 ways to describe the use of evidence in policymaking

1. Discussions of the use of evidence in policy often begin as a valence issue: who wouldn’t want to use good evidence when making policy?

However, it only remains a valence issue when we refuse to define evidence and justify what counts as good evidence. After that, you soon see the political choices emerge. A reference to evidence is often a shorthand for scientific research evidence, and good often refers to specific research methods (such as randomised control trials). Or, you find people arguing very strongly in the almost-opposite direction, criticising this shorthand as exclusionary and questioning the ability of scientists to justify claims to superior knowledge. Somewhere in the middle, we find that a focus on evidence is a good way to think about the many forms of information or knowledge on which we might make decisions, including: a wider range of research methods and analyses, knowledge from experience, and data relating to the local context with which policy would interact.

So, what begins as a valence issue becomes a gateway to many discussions about how to understand profound political choices regarding: how we make knowledge claims, how to ‘co-produce’ knowledge via dialogue among many groups, and the relationship between choices about evidence and governance.

2. It is impossible to pay attention to all policy relevant evidence.

There is far more information about the world than we are able to process. A focus on evidence gaps often gives way to the recognition that we need to find effective ways to ignore most evidence.

There are many ways to describe how individuals combine cognition and emotion to limit their attention enough to make choices, and policy studies (to all intents and purposes) describe equivalent processes – described, for example, as ‘institutions’ or rules – in organisations and systems.

One shortcut between information and choice is to set aims and priorities; to focus evidence gathering on a small number of problems or one way to define a problem, and identify the most reliable or trustworthy sources of evidence (often via evidence ‘synthesis’). Another is to make decisions quickly by relying on emotion, gut instinct, habit, and existing knowledge or familiarity with evidence.

Either way, agenda setting and problem definition are political processes that address uncertainty and ambiguity. We gather evidence to reduce uncertainty, but first we must reduce ambiguity by exercising power to define the problem we seek to solve.

3. It is impossible to control the policy process in which people use evidence.

Policy textbooks (well, my textbook at least!) provide a contrast between:

• The model of a ‘policy cycle’ that sums up straightforward policymaking, through a series of stages, over which policymakers have clear control. At each stage, you know where evidence fits in: to help define the problem, generate solutions, and evaluate the results to set the agenda for the next cycle.
• A more complex ‘policy process’, or policymaking environment, of which policymakers have limited knowledge and even less control. In this environment, it is difficult to know with whom engage, the rules of engagement, or the likely impact of evidence.

Overall, policy theories have much to offer people with an interest in evidence-use in policy, but primarily as a way to (a) manage expectations, to (b) produce more realistic strategies and less dispiriting conclusions. It is useful to frame our aim as to analyse the role of evidence within a policy process that (a) we don’t quite understand, rather than (b) we would like to exist.

The events themselves

Below, you will find a short discussion of the variations of audience and topic. I’ll update and reflect on this discussion (in a revised version of this post) after taking part in the events.

Social science and policy studies: knowledge claims, bounded rationality, and policy theory

For Auckland and Wellington A, I’m aiming for an audience containing a high proportion of people with a background in social science and policy studies. I describe the discussion as ‘meta’ because I am talking about how I talk about EBPM to other audiences, then inviting discussion on key parts of that talk, such as how to conceptualise the policy process and present conceptual insights to people who have no intention of deep dives into policy theory.

I often use the phrase ‘I’ve read it, so you don’t have to’ partly as a joke, but also to stress the importance of disciplinary synthesis when we engage in interdisciplinary (and inter-professional) discussion. If so, it is important to discuss how to produce such ‘synthetic’ accounts.

I tend to describe key components of a policymaking environment quickly: many policy makers and influencers spread across many levels and types of government, institutions, networks, socioeconomic factors and events, and ideas. However, each of these terms represents a shorthand to describe a large and diverse literature. For example, I can describe an ‘institution’ in a few sentences, but the study of institutions contains a variety of approaches.

Background post: I know my audience, but does my other audience know I know my audience?

Academic-practitioner discussions: improving the use of research evidence in policy

For Wellington B and Melbourne, the audience is an academic-practitioner mix. We discuss ways in which we can encourage the greater use of research evidence in policy, perhaps via closer collaboration between suppliers and users.

Discussions with scientists: why do policymakers ignore my evidence?

Sydney UNSW focuses more on researchers in scientific fields (often not in social science).  I frame the question in a way that often seems central to scientific researcher interest: why do policymakers seem to ignore my evidence, and what can I do about it?

Then, I tend to push back on the idea that the fault lies with politics and policymakers, to encourage researchers to think more about the policy process and how to engage effectively in it. If I’m trying to be annoying, I’ll suggest to a scientific audience that they see themselves as ‘rational’ and politicians as ‘irrational’. However, the more substantive discussion involves comparing (a) ‘how to make an impact’ advice drawn from the personal accounts of experienced individuals, giving advice to individuals, and (b) the sort of advice you might draw from policy theories which focus more on systems.

Background post: What can you do when policymakers ignore your evidence?

Early career researchers: the need to build ‘impact’ into career development

Canberra UNSW is more focused on early career researchers. I think this is the most difficult talk because I don’t rely on the same joke about my role: to turn up at the end of research projects to explain why they failed to have a non-academic impact.  Instead, my aim is to encourage intelligent discussion about situating the ‘how to’ advice for individual researchers into a wider discussion of policymaking systems.

Similarly, Brisbane A and B are about how to engage with practitioners, and communicate well to non-academic audiences, when most of your work and training is about something else entirely (such as learning about research methods and how to engage with the technical language of research).

Background posts:

What can you do when policymakers ignore your evidence? Tips from the ‘how to’ literature from the science community

What can you do when policymakers ignore your evidence? Encourage ‘knowledge management for policy’

See also:

1. A similar talk at LSHTM (powerpoint and audio)

Now available as a live recording (of the powerpoint and sound; the hand waving exists only in our memories and our hearts) https://t.co/UcK5IdVL0R https://t.co/tKFt0OcSYC

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) November 21, 2018

2. European Health Forum Gastein 2018 ‘Policy in Evidence’ (from 6 minutes)

https://webcasting.streamdis.eu/Mediasite/Play/8143157d976146b4afd297897c68be5e1d?catalog=62e4886848394f339ff678a494afd77f21&playFrom=126439&autoStart=true

 

See also:

Evidence-based policymaking and the new policy sciences

 

The UK government’s imaginative use of evidence to make policy

This post describes a new article published in British Politics (Open Access). Please find:

(1) A super-exciting video/audio powerpoint I use for a talk based on the article

(2) The audio alone (link)

(3) The powerpoint to download, so that the weblinks work (link) or the ppsx/ presentation file in case you are having a party (link)

(4) A written/ tweeted discussion of the main points

May I have your attention as I describe to you my new article, 'The UK government’s imaginative use of evidence to make policy'? https://t.co/AD4BZBRsUf pic.twitter.com/c4P1NHJgNF

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) January 8, 2018

In retrospect, I think the title was too subtle and clever-clever. I wanted to convey two meanings: imaginative as a euphemism for ridiculous/ often cynical and to argue that a government has to be imaginative with evidence. The latter has two meanings: imaginative (1) in the presentation and framing of evidence-informed agenda, and (2) when facing pressure to go beyond the evidence and envisage policy outcomes.

So I describe two cases in which its evidence-use seems cynical, when:

1. Declaring complete success in turning around the lives of ‘troubled families’
2. Exploiting vivid neuroscientific images to support ‘early intervention’

Then I describe more difficult cases in which supportive evidence is not clear:

1. Family intervention project evaluations are of limited value and only tentatively positive
2. Successful projects like FNP and Incredible Years have limited applicability or ‘scalability’

As scientists, we can shrug our shoulders about the uncertainty, but elected policymakers in government have to do something. So what do they do?

At this point of the article it will look like I have become an apologist for David Cameron’s government. Instead, I’m trying to demonstrate the value of comparing sympathetic/ unsympathetic interpretations and highlight the policy problem from a policymaker’s perspective:

I suggest that they use evidence in a mix of ways to: describe an urgent problem, present an image of success and governing competence, and provide cover for more evidence-informed long term action.

The result is the appearance of top-down ‘muscular’ government and ‘a tendency for policy to change as is implemented, such as when mediated by local authority choices and social workers maintaining a commitment to their professional values when delivering policy’

I conclude by arguing that ‘evidence-based policy’ and ‘policy-based evidence’ are political slogans with minimal academic value. The binary divide between EBP/ PBE distracts us from more useful categories which show us the trade-offs policymakers have to make when faced with the need to act despite uncertainty.

As such, it forms part of a far wider body of work …

The article is part of (1) a larger project on ‘the politics of evidence-based policymaking’https://t.co/0haxkUcdba pic.twitter.com/jIPjBfqleW

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) January 8, 2018

The article is also part of (2) a larger project on politics, prevention, and early intervention in the lives of children and adults, with @EmilyStDenny https://t.co/rUTi1UIyGI pic.twitter.com/blIbLbkjbd

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) January 8, 2018

In both cases, the common theme is that, although (1) the world of top-down central government gets most attention, (2) central governments don’t even know what problem they are trying to solve, far less (3) how to control policymaking and outcomes.

In that wider context, it is worth comparing this talk with the one I gave at the IDS (which, I reckon is a good primer for – or prequel to – the UK talk):

@CairneyPaul came to @IDS_UK and challenged our assumptions about evidence use – are we just generating evidence with people who already agree with us? Watch https://t.co/EwvySbqLQs @TransformUre @JordanTchil @mleach_ids @JohnGaventa

— James Georgalakis (@Bloggs74) January 17, 2019

See also:

Early intervention policy, from ‘troubled families’ to ‘named persons’: problems with evidence and framing ‘valence’ issues

Why doesn’t evidence win the day in policy and policymaking?

(found by searching for early intervention)

See also:

Here’s why there is always an expectations gap in prevention policy

Social investment, prevention and early intervention: a ‘window of opportunity’ for new ideas?

(found by searching for prevention)

Powerpoint for guest lecture: Paul Cairney UK Government Evidence Policy

#EU4Facts: 3 take-home points from the JRC annual conference

See EU4FACTS: Evidence for policy in a post-fact world

Evidence-based policy making in an post fact world. Follow the #EU4facts debate today https://t.co/LaszStnsgA #posttruth #fakenews pic.twitter.com/uKecgbh39r

— Digital EU 🇪🇺 (@DigitalEU) September 26, 2017

The JRC’s annual conference has become a key forum in which to discuss the use of evidence in policy. At this scale, in which many hundreds of people attend plenary discussions, it feels like an annual mass rally for science; a ‘call to arms’ to protect the role of science in the production of evidence, and the protection of evidence in policy deliberation. There is not much discussion of storytelling, but we tell each other a fairly similar story about our fears for the future unless we act now.

For me, the failure scenario is not an option.
Because every time we mistrust #science, it undermines the progress of humanity.#EU4Facts

— Carlos Moedas (@Moedas) September 26, 2017

Last year, the main story was of fear for the future of heroic scientists: the rise of Trump and the Brexit vote prompted many discussions of post-truth politics and reduced trust in experts. An immediate response was to describe attempts to come together, and stick together, to support each other’s scientific endeavours during a period of crisis. There was little call for self-analysis and reflection on the contribution of scientists and experts to barriers between evidence and policy.

This year was a bit different. There was the same concern for reduced trust in science, evidence, and/ or expertise, and some references to post-truth politics and populism, but with some new voices describing the positive value of politics, often when discussing the need for citizen engagement, and of the need to understand the relationship between facts, values, and politics.

My address to #EU4FACTS at JRC on role of science advice as a bastion against the post-truth/post-trust polemic; https://t.co/vJWoXAI7EB

— peter gluckman (@PeterGluckman) September 27, 2017

For example, a panel on psychology opened up the possibility that we might consider our own politics and cognitive biases while we identify them in others, and one panellist spoke eloquently about the importance of narrative and storytelling in communicating to audiences such as citizens and policymakers.

Excellent walk the talk example by @KuperSimon when describing policy making lessons from football. #EU4FACTS pic.twitter.com/BlDL2nSJM9

— Mona Victoria Wallin (@monawallin) September 26, 2017

A focus on narrative is not new, but it provides a challenging agenda when interacting with a sticky story of scientific objectivity. For the unusually self-reflective, it also reminds us that our annual discussions are not particularly scientific; the usual rules to assess our statements do not apply.

Storytelling & policy: lessons from (1) the grey literature https://t.co/oAgmjvR7FR (2) polsci literature https://t.co/2mpTY3Sbho #eu4facts

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) September 26, 2017

As in studies of policymaking, we can say that there is high support for such stories when they remain vague and driven more by emotion than the pursuit of precision. When individual speakers try to make sense of the same story, they do it in different – and possibly contradictory – ways. As in policymaking, the need to deliver something concrete helps focus the mind, and prompts us to make choices between competing priorities and solutions.

I describe these discussions in two ways: tables, in which I try to boil down each speaker’s speech into a sentence or two (you can get their full details in the programme and the speaker bios); and a synthetic discussion of the top 3 concerns, paraphrasing and combining arguments from many speakers:

1. What are facts?

The key distinction began as between politics-values-facts which is impossible to maintain in practice.

#EU4FACTS I hope people reflect on @senseaboutsci Tracey Brown's pt about the problematic fact v value distinction https://t.co/qf1E1LUMkW

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) September 26, 2017

Yet, subsequent discussion revealed a more straightforward distinction between facts and opinion, ‘fake news’, and lies. The latter sums up an ever-present fear of the diminishing role of science in an alleged ‘post truth’ era.

2. What exactly is the problem, and what is its cause?

The tables below provide a range of concerns about the problem, from threats to democracy to the need to communicate science more effectively. A theme of growing importance is the need to deal with the cognitive biases and informational shortcuts of people receiving evidence: communicate with reference to values, beliefs, and emotions; build up trust in your evidence via transparency and reliability; and, be prepared to discuss science with citizens and to be accountable for your advice. There was less discussion of the cognitive biases of the suppliers of evidence.

3. What is the role of scientists in relation to this problem?

Not all speakers described scientists as the heroes of this story:

• Some described scientists as the good people acting heroically to change minds with facts.
• Some described their potential to co-produce important knowledge with citizens (although primarily with like-minded citizens who learn the value of scientific evidence?).
• Some described the scientific ego as a key barrier to action.
• Some identified their low confidence to engage, their uncertainty about what to do with their evidence, and/ or their scientist identity which involves defending science as a cause/profession and drawing the line between providing information and advocating for policy. This hope to be an ‘honest broker’ was pervasive in last year’s conference.
• Some (rightly) rejected the idea of separating facts/ values and science/ politics, since evidence is never context free (and gathering evidence without thought to context is amoral).

Often in such discussions it is difficult to know if some scientists are naïve actors or sophisticated political strategists, because their public statements could be identical. For the former, an appeal to objective facts and the need to privilege science in EBPM may be sincere. Scientists are, and should be, separate from/ above politics. For the latter, the same appeal – made again and again – may be designed to energise scientists and maximise the role of science in politics.

Yet, energy is only the starting point, and it remains unclear how exactly scientists should communicate and how to ‘know your audience’: would many scientists know who to speak to, in governments or the Commission, if they had something profoundly important to say?

MEP Rubig: the attitude ‘I have made up my mind, don’t bother me with facts’ undermines quality of policy making #EU4FACTS @EU_ScienceHub

— Maive Rute (@MaiveRute) September 26, 2017

Keynotes and introductory statements from panel chairs

Vladimír Šucha: We need to understand the relationship between politics, values, and facts. Facts are not enough. To make policy effectively, we need to combine facts and values.

Tibor Navracsics: Politics is swayed more by emotions than carefully considered arguments. When making policy, we need to be open and inclusive of all stakeholders (including citizens), communicate facts clearly and at the right time, and be aware of our own biases (such as groupthink).

Sir Peter Gluckman: ‘Post-truth’ politics is not new, but it is pervasive and easier to achieve via new forms of communication. People rely on like-minded peers, religion, and anecdote as forms of evidence underpinning their own truth. When describing the value of science, to inform policy and political debate, note that it is more than facts; it is a mode of thinking about the world, and a system of verification to reduce the effect of personal and group biases on evidence production. Scientific methods help us define problems (e.g. in discussion of cause/ effect) and interpret data. Science advice involves expert interpretation, knowledge brokerage, a discussion of scientific consensus and uncertainty, and standing up for the scientific perspective.

Carlos Moedas: Safeguard trust in science by (1) explaining the process you use to come to your conclusions; (2) provide safe and reliable places for people to seek information (e.g. when they Google); (3) make sure that science is robust and scientific bodies have integrity (such as when dealing with a small number of rogue scientists).

Pascal Lamy: 1. ‘Deep change or slow death’ We need to involve more citizens in the design of publicly financed projects such as major investments in science. Many scientists complain that there is already too much political interference, drowning scientists in extra work. However, we will face a major backlash – akin to the backlash against ‘globalisation’ – if we do not subject key debates on the future of science and technology-driven change (e.g. on AI, vaccines, drone weaponry) to democratic processes involving citizens. 2. The world changes rapidly, and evidence gathering is context-dependent, so we need to monitor regularly the fitness of our scientific measures (of e.g. trade).

Jyrki Katainen: ‘Wicked problems’ have no perfect solution, so we need the courage to choose the best imperfect solution. Technocratic policymaking is not the solution; it does not meet the democratic test. We need the language of science to be understandable to citizens: ‘a new age of reason reconciling the head and heart’.

Former commissioner Kuneva We need evidence to govern better as we cannot afford to fail #EU4Facts #evidence4gov We need better policies

— Stephane Jacobzone (@SJacobzone) September 26, 2017

Panel: Why should we trust science?

Jonathan Kimmelman: Some experts make outrageous and catastrophic claims. We need a toolbox to decide which experts are most reliable, by comparing their predictions with actual outcomes. Prompt them to make precise probability statements and test them. Only those who are willing to be held accountable should be involved in science advice.

Johannes Vogel: We should devote 15% of science funding to public dialogue. Scientific discourse, and a science-literature population, is crucial for democracy. EU Open Society Policy is a good model for stakeholder inclusiveness.

Tracey Brown: Create a more direct link between society and evidence production, to ensure discussions involve more than the ‘usual suspects’. An ‘evidence transparency framework’ helps create a space in which people can discuss facts and values. ‘Be open, speak human’ describes showing people how you make decisions. How can you expect the public to trust you if you don’t trust them enough to tell them the truth?

Francesco Campolongo: Claude Juncker’s starting point is that Commission proposals and activities should be ‘based on sound scientific evidence’. Evidence comes in many forms. For example, economic models provide simplified versions of reality to make decisions. Economic calculations inform profoundly important policy choices, so we need to make the methodology transparent, communicate probability, and be self-critical and open to change.

Frmr comm'r Geoghegan-Quinn stresses importance of "winning hearts & minds" 2combat posttruth. Scientists must communicate better #EU4Facts pic.twitter.com/g2luVqR55h

— Graeme Taylor (@leekandpotato) September 26, 2017

Panel: the politician’s perspective

Janez Potočnik: The shift of the JRC’s remit allowed it to focus on advocating science for policy rather than policy for science. Still, such arguments need to be backed by an economic argument (this policy will create growth and jobs). A narrow focus on facts and data ignores the context in which we gather facts, such as a system which undervalues human capital and the environment.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn: Policy should be ‘solidly based on evidence’ and we need well-communicated science to change the hearts and minds of people who would otherwise rely on their beliefs. Part of the solution is to get, for example, kids to explain what science means to them.

https://twitter.com/MIWilliamauthor/status/912781964880510977

Panel: Redesigning policymaking using behavioural and decision science

Steven Sloman: The world is complex. People overestimate their understanding of it, and this illusion is burst when they try to explain its mechanisms. People who know the least feel the strongest about issues, but if you ask them to explain the mechanisms their strength of feeling falls. Why? People confuse their knowledge with that of their community. The knowledge is not in their heads, but communicated across groups. If people around you feel they understand something, you feel like you understand, and people feel protective of the knowledge of their community. Implications? 1. Don’t rely on ‘bubbles’; generate more diverse and better coordinated communities of knowledge. 2. Don’t focus on giving people full information; focus on the information they need at the point of decision.

Stephan Lewandowsky: 97% of scientists agree that human-caused climate change is a problem, but the public thinks it’s roughly 50-50. We have a false-balance problem. One solution is to ‘inoculate’ people against its cause (science denial). We tell people the real figures and facts, warn them of the rhetorical techniques employed by science denialists (e.g. use of false experts on smoking), and mock the false balance argument. This allows you to reframe the problem as an investment in the future, not cost now (and find other ways to present facts in a non-threatening way). In our lab, it usually ‘neutralises’ misinformation, although with the risk that a ‘corrective message’ to challenge beliefs can entrench them.

Françoise Waintrop: It is difficult to experiment when public policy is handed down from on high. Or, experimentation is alien to established ways of thinking. However, our 12 new public innovation labs across France allow us to immerse ourselves in the problem (to define it well) and nudge people to action, working with their cognitive biases.

Simon Kuper: Stories combine facts and values. To change minds: persuade the people who are listening, not the sceptics; find go-betweens to link suppliers and recipients of evidence; speak in stories, not jargon; don’t overpromise the role of scientific evidence; and, never suggest science will side-line human beings (e.g. when technology costs jobs).

2 page recap of 10 hours of debate for those who could not participate in #EU4Facts https://t.co/jqzN3M4FPF

— Vladimir Sucha (@VladimirSucha) September 26, 2017

Panel: The way forward

Jean-Eric Paquet: We describe ‘fact based evidence’ rather than ‘science based’. A key aim is to generate ‘ownership’ of policy by citizens. Politicians are more aware of their cognitive biases than we technocrats are.

Anne Bucher: In the European Commission we used evidence initially to make the EU more accountable to the public, via systematic impact assessment and quality control. It was a key motivation for better regulation. We now focus more on generating inclusive and interactive ways to consult stakeholders.

Ann Mettler: Evidence-based policymaking is at the heart of democracy. How else can you legitimise your actions? How else can you prepare for the future? How else can you make things work better? Yet, a lot of our evidence presentation is so technical; even difficult for specialists to follow. The onus is on us to bring it to life, to make it clearer to the citizen and, in the process, defend scientists (and journalists) during a period in which Western democracies seem to be at risk from anti-democratic forces.

Mariana Kotzeva: Our facts are now considered from an emotional and perception point of view. The process does not just involve our comfortable circle of experts; we are now challenged to explain our numbers. Attention to our numbers can be unpredictable (e.g. on migration). We need to build up trust in our facts, partly to anticipate or respond to the quick spread of poor facts.

Rush Holt: In society we can find the erosion of the feeling that science is relevant to ‘my life’, and few US policymakers ask ‘what does science say about this?’ partly because scientists set themselves above politics. Politicians have had too many bad experiences with scientists who might say ‘let me explain this to you in a way you can understand’. Policy is not about science based evidence; more about asking a question first, then asking what evidence you need. Then you collect evidence in an open way to be verified.

What can EU learn from US experience in trying to reconcile the worlds of #science & #politics? Listen to @RushHolt, @aaas CEO #EU4Facts pic.twitter.com/U7GuFjMLkE

— EU_ScienceHub (@EU_ScienceHub) September 27, 2017

Phew!

That was 10 hours of discussion condensed into one post. If you can handle more discussion from me, see:

Psychology and policymaking: Three ways to communicate more effectively with policymakers

The role of evidence in policy: EBPM and How to be heard  

Practical Lessons from Policy Theories

The generation of many perspectives to help us understand the use of evidence

How to be an ‘entrepreneur’ when presenting evidence

 

 

 

Policy Concepts in 500 Words: Social Construction and Policy Design

Why would a democratic political system produce ‘degenerative’ policy that undermines democracy? Social Construction and Policy Design (SCPD) describes two main ways in which policymaking alienates many citizens:

1. The Social Construction of Target Populations

High profile politics and electoral competition can cause alienation:

1. Political actors compete to tell ‘stories’ to assign praise or blame to groups of people. For example, politicians describe value judgements about who should be rewarded or punished by government. They base them on stereotypes of ‘target populations’, by (a) exploiting the ways in which many people think about groups, or (b) making emotional and superficial judgements, backed up with selective use of facts.
2. These judgements have a ‘feed-forward’ effect: they are reproduced in policies, practices, and institutions. Such ‘policy designs’ can endure for years or decades. The distribution of rewards and sanctions is cumulative and difficult to overcome.
3. Policy design has an impact on citizens, who participate in politics according to how they are characterised by government. Many know they will be treated badly; their engagement will be dispiriting.

Some groups have the power to challenge the way they are described by policymakers (and the media and public), and receive benefits behind the scenes despite their poor image. However, many people feel powerless, become disenchanted with politics, and do not engage in the democratic process.

SCTP depicts this dynamic with a 2-by-2 table in which target populations are described positively/ negatively and more or less able to respond:

2. Bureaucratic and expert politics

Most policy issues are not salient and politicised in this way. Yet, low salience can exacerbate problems of citizen exclusion. Policies dominated by bureaucratic interests often alienate citizens receiving services. Or a small elite dominates policymaking when there is high acceptance that (a) the best policy is ‘evidence based’, and (b) the evidence should come from experts.

Overall, SCPD describes a political system with major potential to diminish democracy, containing key actors (a) politicising issues to reward or punish populations or (b) depoliticising issues with reference to science and objectivity. In both cases, policy design is not informed by routine citizen participation.

Take home message for students: SCPD began as Schneider and Ingram’s description of the US political system’s failure to solve major problems including inequality, poverty, crime, racism, sexism, and effective universal healthcare and education. Think about how its key drivers apply elsewhere: (1) some people make and exploit quick and emotional judgements for political gain, and others refer to expertise to limit debate; (2) these judgements inform policy design; and, (3) policy design sends signals to citizens which can diminish or boost their incentive to engage in politics.

For more, see the 1000-word and 5000-word versions. The latter has a detailed guide to further reading.

 

 

 

 

How can governments better collaborate to address complex problems?

This is a guest post by William L. Swann (left) and Seo Young Kim (right), discussing how to use insights from the Institutional Collective Action Framework to think about how to improve collaborative governance. The full paper has been submitted to the series for Policy and Politics called Practical Lessons from Policy Theories.

Many public policy problems cannot be addressed effectively by a single, solitary government. Consider the problems facing the Greater Los Angeles Area, a heavily fragmented landscape of 88 cities and numerous unincorporated areas and special districts. Whether it is combatting rising homelessness, abating the country’s worst air pollution, cleaning the toxic L.A. River, or quelling gang violence, any policy alternative pursued unilaterally is limited by overlapping authority and externalities that alter the actions of other governments.

Problems of fragmented authority are not confined to metropolitan areas. They are also found in multi-level governance scenarios such as the restoration of Chesapeake Bay, as well as in international relations as demonstrated by recent global events such as “Brexit” and the U.S.’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. In short, fragmentation problems manifest at every scale of governance, horizontally, vertically, and even functionally within governments.

What is an ‘institutional collective action’ dilemma?

In many cases governments would be better off coordinating and working together, but they face barriers that prevent them from doing so. These barriers are what the policy literature refers to as ‘institutional collective action’ (ICA) dilemmas, or collective action problems in which a government’s incentives do not align with collectively desirable outcomes. For example, all governments in a region benefit from less air pollution, but each government has an incentive to free ride and enjoy cleaner air without contributing to the cost of obtaining it.

The ICA Framework, developed by Professor Richard Feiock, has emerged as a practical analytical instrument for understanding and improving fragmented governance. This framework assumes that governments must match the scale and coerciveness of the policy intervention (or mechanism) to the scale and nature of the policy problem to achieve efficient and desired outcomes.

For example, informal networks (a mechanism) can be highly effective at overcoming simple collective action problems. But as problems become increasingly complex, more obtrusive mechanisms, such as governmental consolidation or imposed collaboration, are needed to achieve collective goals and more efficient outcomes. The more obtrusive the mechanism, however, the more actors’ autonomy diminishes and the higher the transaction costs (monitoring, enforcement, information, and agency) of governing.

Three ways to improve institutional collaborative governance

We explored what actionable steps policymakers can take to improve their results with collaboration in fragmented systems. Our study offers three general practical recommendations based on the empirical literature that can enhance institutional collaborative governance.

First, institutional collaboration is more likely to emerge and work effectively when policymakers employ networking strategies that incorporate frequent, face-to-face interactions.

Government actors networking with popular, well-endowed actors (“bridging strategies”) as well as developing closer-knit, reciprocal ties with a smaller set of actors (“bonding strategies”) will result in more collaborative participation, especially when policymakers interact often and in-person.

Policy network characteristics are also important to consider. Research on estuary governance indicates that in newly formed, emerging networks, bridging strategies may be more advantageous, at least initially, because they can provide organizational legitimacy and access to resources. However, once collaboratives mature, developing stronger and more reciprocal bonds with fewer actors reduces the likelihood of opportunistic behavior that can hinder collaborative effectiveness.

Second, policymakers should design collaborative arrangements that reduce transaction costs which hinder collaboration.

Well-designed collaborative institutions can lower the barriers to participation and information sharing, make it easier to monitor the behaviors of partners, grant greater flexibility in collaborative work, and allow for more credible commitments from partners.

Research suggests policymakers can achieve this by

1. identifying similarities in policy goals, politics, and constituency characteristics with institutional partners
2. specifying rules such as annual dues, financial reporting, and making financial records reviewable by third parties to increase commitment and transparency in collaborative arrangements
3. creating flexibility by employing adaptive agreements with service providers, especially when services have limited markets/applications and performance is difficult to measure.

Considering the context, however, is crucial. Collaboratives that thrive on informal, close-knit, reciprocal relations, for example, may be severely damaged by the introduction of monitoring mechanisms that signal distrust.

Third, institutional collaboration is enhanced by the development and harnessing of collaborative capacity.

Research suggests signaling organizational competencies and capacities, such as budget, political support, and human resources, may be more effective at lowering barriers to collaboration than ‘homophily’ (a tendency to associate with similar others in networks). Policymakers can begin building collaborative capacity by seeking political leadership involvement, granting greater managerial autonomy, and looking to higher-level governments (e.g., national, state, or provincial governments) for financial and technical support for collaboration.

What about collaboration in different institutional contexts?

Finally, we recognize that not all policymakers operate in similar institutional contexts, and collaboration can often be mandated by higher-level authorities in more centralized nations. Nonetheless, visible joint gains, economic incentives, transparent rules, and equitable distribution of joint benefits and costs are critical components of voluntary or mandated collaboration.

Conclusions and future directions

The recommendations offered here are, at best, only the tip of the iceberg on valuable practical insight that can be gleaned from collaborative governance research. While these suggestions are consistent with empirical findings from broader public management and policy networks literatures, much could be learned from a closer inspection of the overlap between ICA studies and other streams of collaborative governance work.

Collaboration is a valuable tool of governance, and, like any tool, it should be utilized appropriately. Collaboration is not easily managed and can encounter many obstacles. We suggest that governments generally avoid collaborating unless there are joint gains that cannot be achieved alone. But the key to solving many of society’s intractable problems, or just simply improving everyday public service delivery, lies in a clearer understanding of how collaboration can be used effectively within different fragmented systems.

Why Advocacy Coalitions Matter and How to Think about Them

This is a guest post by Professor Chris Weible (left) and Professor Karin Ingold (right), discussing how to use insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework to think about how to engage in policymaking. The full paper has been submitted to the series for Policy and Politics called Practical Lessons from Policy Theories.

There are many ways that people relate to their government.  People may vote for their formal representatives through elections.  Through referendums and initiatives, people can vote directly to shape public policy.  More indirect ways include through informal representation via political parties or interest groups and associations.

This blog addresses another extremely important way to relate government via “advocacy coalitions.”

What are advocacy coalitions?

Advocacy coalitions are alliances of people around a shared policy goal. People associated with the same advocacy coalition have similar ideologies and worldviews and wish to change a given policy (concerning health, environmental, or many other issues) in the same direction.

Advocacy coalitions can include anyone regularly seeking to influence a public policy, such as elected and government officials, members of political parties or interest groups, scientists, journalists, or members of trade unions and non-for-profit/ ‘third sector’ organizations.

The coalition is an informal network of allies that usually operate against an opposing coalition consisting of people who advocate for different policy directions.  As one coalition tries to outmaneuver the other, the result is a game of political one-upmanship of making and unmaking public policies that can last years to decades.

Political debates over normative issues endure for a long time, advocacy coalitions have the ability to span levels of government from local to national, and they integrate traditional points of influence in a political system, from electoral politics to regulatory decision-making.

How to think about coalitions and their settings

Consider the context in which political debates over policy issues occur. Context might include the socio-cultural norms and rules that shape what strategies might be affected and the usefulness of political resources.

The ACF elevates the importance of context from an overlooked set of opportunities and constraints to a set of factors that should be considered as conditioning political behavior.  We can develop coalition strategies and identify key political resources, but their utility and effectiveness will be contextually driven and will change over time. That is, what works for political influence today might not work in the future.

How to become involved in an advocacy coalition?

People engage in politics differently based on a range of factors, including how important the issue is to them, their available time, skills, and resources, and general motivations.

• People with less time or knowledge can engage in coalitions as “auxiliary participants.”
• Individuals for whom an issue is of high relevance, or those who see their major expertise in a specific subsystem, might want to shape coalition politics and strategies decisively and become “principal participants.”
• People wanting to mitigate conflict might choose to play a “policy broker” role
• People championing ideas can play the role of “policy entrepreneurs.”
• General citizens can see themselves playing the role of a “political soldier” contributing to their cause when called upon by the leaders of any coalition.

How do coalitions form and maintain themselves? 

Underlying the coalition concept is an assumption that people are most responsive to threats to what they care about. Coalitions form because of these threats that might come from a rival’s proposed policy solutions, a particular characterization of problems, and from major events (e.g., a disaster). Motivated by fundamental values, the chronic presence of threats from opponents is another reason that coalitions persist. People stay mobilized because they know that, if they disengage, people with whom they disagree may influence societal outcomes.

How to identify an advocacy coalition?

There is no single way to identify a coalition, but here are four strategies to try.

1. Look for people holding formal elected or unelected positions in government with authority and an interest to affect a public policy issue.
2. Identify people from outside of government participating in the policy process (e.g., rulemaking, legislative hearings, etc.).
3. Identify people with influential reputations that often seek to influence government through more informal means (e.g., blogging).
4. Uncover those individuals who are not currently mobilized but who might be in the future, for example by identifying who is threatened or who could benefit from the policy decision.

These four strategies emphasize formal competences and informal relations, and the motivations that actors might have to participate in an issue.

This blog is more about how to think about relations between people and government and less on identifying concrete strategies for influencing government. Political strategies are not applicable all the time and vary in degree of success and failure based on a gamut of factors.

The best we can do is to offer ways of thinking about political engagement, such as through the ideas that are summarized here and then trust people to assess their current situation, and act in effective ways.

Practical Lessons from Policy Theories

These links to blog posts (the underlined headings) and tweets (with links to their full article) describe a new special issue of Policy and Politics, published in April 2018 and free to access until the end of May.

Practical lessons from policy theories@policy_politics special issue Guest edited by Chris @chris_weible and me, and free to download (for now) https://t.co/bSNd5LBRdF

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

In the introduction, we use the much-argued position – "many scholars hide behind a veil of jargon and obfuscation" – to encourage each author to state the contribution of their field in simple terms https://t.co/m0CxfctglA pic.twitter.com/nAQczVTdXZ

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

Three habits of successful policy entrepreneurs

In my article 'Three habits of successful policy entrepreneurs', I summarise the insights of 'multiple streams' analysis to show how entrepreneurs engage with the politics of evidence-based policymaking https://t.co/PPI3Q3orzc pic.twitter.com/nINp02ogCq

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

Telling stories that shape public policy

In 'Narratives as tools for influencing policy change', Deserai Crow and Mike Jones describe 5 key elements of good storytelling for policy https://t.co/nXTwEhc0qP pic.twitter.com/4VEzYrUdpL

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

How to design ‘maps’ for policymakers relying on their ‘internal compass’

In 'Using cultural theory to navigate the policy process', Richard Simmons describes how policymaking rules are internalised in individuals and reproduced in organisations https://t.co/IbiBqJ9qJn pic.twitter.com/hQVlRJKZSP

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

Three ways to encourage policy learning

In 'The lessons of policy learning', Claire Dunlop and @ProfCRadaelli explain the gap between policy learning as important aim but often-dysfunctional process https://t.co/IYiWAcTxVF pic.twitter.com/voc8UoJ49b

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

How can governments better collaborate to address complex problems?

In 'Practical prescriptions for governing fragmented governments', William Swann and @serena_y_kim_ use Institutional Collection Action (ICA) to explain how policymaking organisations can work together effectively https://t.co/7TIuRTfpvO pic.twitter.com/c3biW9JXYa

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

How do we get governments to make better decisions?

Policymakers have to process *too much information* (not too little). In 'Drawing practical lessons from punctuated equilibrium theory', @ckoski79 and Samuel Workman describe how organisations could process information effectively https://t.co/beNyeiDUbN pic.twitter.com/FSuBhVTnW7

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

How to navigate complex policy designs

In 'Policy design and the added-value of the institutional analysis development framework', @tanyaheikkila and Krister Andersson describe how to cooperate effectively to design good policy https://t.co/yMZhpB6Eog pic.twitter.com/acixaV6brd

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

Why advocacy coalitions matter and how to think about them

Last but not least, in 'Why advocacy coalitions matter and practical insights about them', @chris_weible and Karin Ingold explain the many ways in which people cooperate to influence politics and policy https://t.co/cYYp5tYcZO pic.twitter.com/36xsq2yAF8

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) April 30, 2018

None of these abstract theories provide a ‘blueprint’ for action (they were designed primarily to examine the policy process scientifically). Instead, they offer one simple insight: you’ll save a lot of energy if you engage with the policy process that exists, not the one you want to see.

Then, they describe variations on the same themes, including:

1. There are profound limits to the power of individual policymakers: they can only process so much information, have to ignore almost all issues, and therefore tend to share policymaking with many other actors.
2. You can increase your chances of success if you work with that insight: identify the right policymakers, the ‘venues’ in which they operate, and the ‘rules of the game’ in each venue; build networks and form coalitions to engage in those venues; shape agendas by framing problems and telling good stories, design politically feasible solutions, and learn how to exploit ‘windows of opportunity’ for their selection.

Background to the special issue

Don't miss 'Political Influence: A Seminar on Drawing Practical Lessons from Policy Theory' on 15 May. Watch online: https://t.co/fwvv1Qfysl pic.twitter.com/26HFRZOTck

— Policy & Politics (@policy_politics) May 10, 2017

Chris Weible and I asked a group of policy theory experts to describe the ‘state of the art’ in their field and the practical lessons that they offer.

Our next presentation was at the ECPR in Oslo:

Our #ecprconf17 panel Practical Lessons from Theories of the Policy Process https://t.co/kEo5MCQKvh has blogs>papers https://t.co/iOVlvaVH0e

— Professor Paul Cairney (@CairneyPaul) September 5, 2017

The final articles in this series are now complete, but our introduction discusses the potential for more useful contributions

‘Co-producing’ comparative policy research: how far should we go to secure policy impact?

See also our project website IMAJINE.

Two recent articles explore the role of academics in the ‘co-production’ of policy and/or knowledge.

• Matt Flinders, Matt Wood, and Malaika Cunningham, in The politics of co-production: risks, limits and pollution, examine: the perception by some academics that co-producing knowledge with other actors ‘pollutes’ the research; and, the risks of building up the expectations of your partners when the impact of this work (and of the partners in helping to produce it) is often limited.
• Kathryn Oliver and I, in Evidence-based policymaking is not like evidence-based medicine, so how far should you go to bridge the divide between evidence and policy?, examine the dilemmas faced by researchers when they try to ‘co-produce’ evidence-informed policy, including whether to ‘frame’ evidence in relation to the beliefs of policymakers, and assert superior knowledge claims to influence policy delivery.

Both papers suggest (I think) that academic engagement in the ‘real world’ is highly valuable, and that we should not pretend that we can remain aloof from politics when producing new knowledge (research production is political even if it is not overtly party political). They also suggest that it is fraught with difficulty and, perhaps, an often-thankless task with no guarantee of professional or policy payoffs (intrinsic motivation still trumps extrinsic motivation).

So, what should we do?

I plan to experiment a little bit while conducting some new research over the next 4 years. For example, I am part of a new project called IMAJINE, and plan to speak with policymakers, from the start to the end, about what they want from the research and how they’ll use it. My working assumption is that it will help boost the academic value and policy relevance of the research.

I have mocked up a paper abstract to describe this kind of work:

In this paper, we use policy theory to explain why the ‘co-production’ of comparative research with policymakers makes it more policy relevant: it allows researchers to frame their policy analysis with reference to the ways in which policymakers frame policy problems; and, it helps them identify which policymaking venues matter, and the rules of engagement within them.  In other words, theoretically-informed researchers can, to some extent, emulate the strategies of interest groups when they work out ‘where the action is’ and how to adapt to policy agendas to maximise their influence. Successful groups identify their audience and work out what it wants, rather than present their own fixed views to anyone who will listen.

Yet, when described so provocatively, our argument raises several practical and ethical dilemmas about the role of academic research. In abstract discussions, they include questions such as: should you engage this much with politics and policymakers, or maintain a critical distance; and, if you engage, should you simply reflect or seek to influence the policy agenda? In practice, such binary choices are artificial, prompting us to explore how to manage our engagement in politics and reflect on our potential influence.

We explore these issues with reference to a new Horizon 2020 funded project IMAJINE, which includes a work package – led by Cairney – on the use of evidence and learning from the many ways in which EU, national, and regional policymakers have tried to reduce territorial inequalities.

So, in the paper we (my future research partner and I), would:

• Outline the payoffs to this engage-early approach. Early engagement will inform the research questions you ask, how you ask them, and how you ‘frame’ the results. It should also help produce more academic publications (which is still the key consideration for many academics), partly because this early approach will help us speak with some authority about policy and policymaking in many countries.
• Describe the complications of engaging with different policymakers in many ‘venues’ in different countries: you would expect very different questions to arise, and perhaps struggle to manage competing audience demands.
• Raise practical questions about the research audience, including: should we interview key advocacy groups and private sources of funding for applied research, as well as policymakers, when refining questions? I ask this question partly because it can be more effective to communicate evidence via policy influencers rather than try to engage directly with policymakers.
• Raise ethical questions, including: what if policymaker interviewees want the ‘wrong’ questions answered? What if they are only interested in policy solutions that we think are misguided, either because the evidence-base is limited (and yet they seek a magic bullet) or their aims are based primarily on ideology (an allegedly typical dilemma regards left-wing academics providing research for right-wing governments)?

Overall, you can see the potential problems: you ‘enter’ the political arena to find that it is highly political! You find that policymakers are mostly interested in (what you believe are) ineffective or inappropriate solutions and/ or they think about the problem in ways that make you, say, uncomfortable. So, should you engage in a critical way, risking exclusion from the ‘coproduction’ of policy, or in a pragmatic way, to ‘coproduce’ knowledge and maximise your chances of their impact in government?

The case study of territorial inequalities is a key source of such dilemmas …

…partly because it is difficult to tell how policymakers define and want to solve such policy problems. When defining ‘territorial inequalities’, they can refer broadly to geographical spread, such as within the EU Member States, or even within regions of states. They can focus on economic inequalities, inequalities linked strongly to gender, race or ethnicity, mental health, disability, and/ or inequalities spread across generations. They can focus on indicators of inequalities in areas such as health and education outcomes, housing tenure and quality, transport, and engagement with social work and criminal justice. While policymakers might want to address all such issues, they also prioritise the problems they want to solve and the policy instruments they are prepared to use.

When considering solutions, they can choose from three basic categories:

1. Tax and spending to redistribute income and wealth, perhaps treating economic inequalities as the source of most others (such as health and education inequalities).
2. The provision of public services to help mitigate the effects of economic and other inequalities (such as free healthcare and education, and public transport in urban and rural areas).
3. The adoption of ‘prevention’ strategies to engage as early as possible in people’s lives, on the assumption that key inequalities are well-established by the time children are three years old.

Based on my previous work with Emily St Denny, I’d expect that many governments express a high commitment to reduce inequalities – and it is often sincere – but without wanting to use tax/ spending as the primary means, and faced with limited evidence on the effectiveness of public services and prevention. Or, many will prefer to identify ‘evidence-based’ solutions for individuals rather than to address ‘structural’ factors linked to factors such as gender, ethnicity, and class. This is when the production and use of evidence becomes overtly ‘political’, because at the heart of many of these discussions is the extent to which individuals or their environments are to blame for unequal outcomes, and if richer regions should compensate poorer regions.

‘The evidence’ will not ‘win the day’ in such debates. Rather, the choice will be between, for example: (a) pragmatism, to frame evidence to contribute to well-established beliefs, about policy problems and solutions, held by the dominant actors in each political system; and, (b) critical distance, to produce what you feel to be the best evidence generated in the right way, and challenge policymakers to explain why they won’t use it. I suspect that (a) is more effective, but (b) better reflects what most academics thought they were signing up to.

For more on IMAJINE, see New EU study looks at gap between rich and poor and The theory and practice of evidence-based policy transfer: can we learn how to reduce territorial inequalities?

For more on evidence/ policy dilemmas, see Kathryn Oliver and I have just published an article on the relationship between evidence and policy

 

Writing an essay on politics, policymaking, and policy change

I tend to set this simple-looking question for coursework in policy modules: what is policy, how much has it changed, and why? Students get to choose the policy issue, timeframe (and sometimes the political system), and relevant explanatory concepts.

On the face of it, it looks super-simple: A+ for everyone!

Give it a few more seconds, and you can see the difficulties:

1. We spent a lot of time agreeing that it seems almost impossible to define policy (explained in 1000 Words and 500 Words)
2. There are a gazillion possible measures of policy change (1000 Words and 500 Words)
3. There is an almost unmanageable number of models, concepts, and theories to use to explain policy dynamics (I describe about 25 in 1000 Words each)

I try to encourage some creativity when solving this problem, but also advise students to keep their discussion as simple and jargon-free as possible (often by stretching an analogy with diving, in which a well-executed simple essay can score higher than a belly-flopped hard essay).

Choosing a format: the initial advice

1. Choose a policy area (such as health) or issue (such as alcohol policy).
2. Describe the nature of policy, and the extent of policy change, in a particular time period (such as in the post-war era, since UK devolution, or since a change in government).
3. Select one or more policy concept or theory to help structure your discussion and help explain how and why policy has changed.

For example, a question might be: What is tobacco policy in the UK, how much has it changed since the 1980s, and why? I use this example because I try to answer that – UK and global – question myself, even though my 2007 article on the UK is too theory-packed to be a good model for an undergraduate essay.

Choosing a format: the cautionary advice

You may be surprised about how difficult it is to answer a simple question like ‘what is policy?’ and I will give you considerable credit for considering how to define and measure it, by identifying, for example, the use of legislation/ regulation, funding, staff, and ‘nodality’ and/ or by considering the difference between, say, policy as a statement of intent or a long term outcome. In turn, a good description and explanation of policy change is difficult. If you are feeling ambitious, you can go further, to compare, say, two issues (such as tobacco and alcohol) or places (such UK Government policy and the policy of another country), but sometimes a simple and narrow discussion can be as, or more, effective. Similarly, you can use many theories or concepts to aid explanation, but often one theory will do. Note that (a) your description of your research question, and your essay structure, is more important than (b) your decision on what topic to focus or concepts to use.

Choosing a topic: the ‘joined up’ advice

The wider aim is to encourage students to think about the relationship between different perspectives on policy theory and analysis. For example, in a blog and policy analysis paper they try to generate attention to a policy problem and advocate a solution. Then, they draw on policy theories and concepts to reflect on their papers, highlighting (say): the need to identify the most important audience; the importance of framing issues with a mixture of evidence and emotional appeals; and, the need to present ‘feasible’ solutions.

The reflection can provide a useful segue to the essay, since we’re already identifying important policy problems, advocating change, reflecting on how best to encourage it – such as by presenting modest objectives – and then, in the essay, trying to explain (say) why governments have not taken that advice in the past. Their interest in the policy issue can prompt interest in researching the issue further; their knowledge of the issue and the policy process can help them develop politically-aware policy analysis. All going well, it produces a virtuous circle.

Some examples from my pet subject

Let me outline how I would begin to answer the three questions with reference to UK tobacco policy. I’m offering a brief summary of each section rather than presenting a full essay with more detail (partly to hold on to that idea of creativity – I don’t want students to use this description as a blueprint).

What is modern UK tobacco policy?

Tobacco policy in the UK is now one of the most restrictive in the world. The UK government has introduced a large number of policy instruments to encourage a major reduction of smoking in the population. They include: legislation to ban smoking in public places; legislation to limit tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship; high taxes on tobacco products; unequivocal health education; regulations on tobacco ingredients; significant spending on customs and enforcement measures; and, plain packaging measures.

[Note that I selected only a few key measures to define policy. A fuller analysis might expand on why I chose them and why they are so important].

How much has policy changed since the 1980s?

Policy has changed radically since the post-war period, and most policy change began from the 1980s, but it was not until the 2000s onwards that the UK cemented its place as one of the most restrictive countries. The shift from the 1980s relates strongly to the replacement of voluntary agreements and limited measures with limited enforcement with legislative measures and stronger enforcement. The legislation to ban tobacco advertising, passed in 2002, replaced limited bans combined with voluntary agreements to (for example) keep billboards a certain distance from schools. The legislation to ban smoking in public places, passed in 2006 (2005 in Scotland), replaced voluntary measures which allowed smoking in most pubs and restaurants. Plain packaging measures, combined with large and graphic health warnings, replace branded packets which once had no warnings. Health education warnings have gone from stating the facts and inviting smokers to decide, and the promotion of harm reduction (smoke ‘low tar’), to an unequivocal message on the harms of smoking and passive smoking.

[Note that I describe these changes in broad terms. Other articles might ‘zoom’ in on specific instruments to show how exactly they changed]

Why has it changed?

This is the section of the essay in which we have to make a judgement about the type of explanation: should you choose one or many concepts; if many, do you focus on their competing or complementary insights; should you provide an extensive discussion of your chosen theory?

I normally recommend a very small number of concepts or simple discussion, largely because there is only so much you can say in an essay of 2-3000 words.

For example, a simple ‘hook’ is to ask if the main driver was the scientific evidence: did policy change as the evidence on smoking (and then passive smoking) related harm became more apparent? Is it a good case of ‘evidence based policymaking’? The answer may then note that policy change seemed to be 20-30 years behind the evidence [although I’d have to explain that statement in more depth] and set out the conditions in which this driver would have an effect.

In short, one might identify the need for a ‘policy environment’, shaped by policymakers, and conducive to a strong policy response based on the evidence of harm and a political choice to restrict tobacco use. It would relate to decisions by policymakers to: frame tobacco as a public health epidemic requiring a major government response (rather than primarily as an economic good or issue of civil liberties); place health departments or organisations at the heart of policy development; form networks with medical and public health groups at the expense of tobacco companies; and respond to greater public support for control, reduced smoking prevalence, and the diminishing economic value of tobacco.

This discussion can proceed conceptually, in a relatively straightforward way, or with the further aid of policy theories which ask further questions and help structure the answers.

For example, one might draw on punctuated equilibrium theory to help describe and explain shifts of public/media/ policymaker attention to tobacco, from low and positive in the 1950s to high and negative from the 1980s.

Or, one might draw on the ACF to explain how pro-tobacco coalitions helped slow down policy change by interpreting new scientific evidence though the ‘lens’ of well-established beliefs or approaches (examples from the 1950s include filter tips, low tar brands, and ventilation as alternatives to greater restrictions on smoking).

One might even draw on multiple streams analysis to identify a ‘window of opportunity for change (as I did when examining the adoption of bans on smoking in public places).

Any of these approaches will do, as long as you describe and justify your choice well. One cannot explain everything, so it may be better to try to explain one thing well.

Using psychological insights in politics: can we do it without calling our opponents mental, hysterical, or stupid?

One of the most dispiriting parts of fierce political debate is the casual use of mental illness or old and new psychiatric terms to undermine an opponent: she is mad, he is crazy, she is a nutter, they are wearing tin foil hats, get this guy a straitjacket and the men in white coats because he needs to lie down in a dark room, she is hysterical, his position is bipolar, and so on. This kind of statement reflects badly on the campaigner rather than their opponent.

I say this because, while doing some research on a paper on the psychology of politics and policymaking (this time with Richard Kwiatkowski, as part of this special collection), there are potentially useful concepts that seem difficult to insulate from such political posturing. There is great potential to use them cynically against opponents rather than benefit from their insights.

The obvious ‘live’ examples relate to ‘rational’ versus ‘irrational’ policymaking. For example, one might argue that, while scientists develop facts and evidence rationally, using tried and trusted and systematic methods, politicians act irrationally, based on their emotions, ideologies, and groupthink. So, we as scientists are the arbiters of good sense and they are part of a pathological political process that contributes to ‘post truth’ politics.

The obvious problem with such accounts is that we all combine cognitive and emotional processes to think and act. We are all subject to bias in the gathering and interpretation of evidence. So, the more positive, but less tempting, option is to consider how this process works – when both competing sides act ‘rationally’ and emotionally – and what we can realistically do to mitigate the worst excesses of such exchanges. Otherwise, we will not get beyond demonising our opponents and romanticising our own cause. It gives us the warm and fuzzies on twitter and in academic conferences but contributes little to political conversations.

A less obvious example comes from modern work on the links between genes and attitudes. There is now a research agenda which uses surveys of adult twins to compare the effect of genes and environment on political attitudes. For example, Oskarsson et al (2015: 650) argue that existing studies ‘report that genetic factors account for 30–50% of the variation in issue orientations, ideology, and party identification’. One potential mechanism is cognitive ability: put simply, and rather cautiously and speculatively, with a million caveats, people with lower cognitive ability are more likely to see ‘complexity, novelty, and ambiguity’ as threatening and to respond with fear, risk aversion, and conservatism (2015: 652).

My immediate thought, when reading this stuff, is about how people would use it cynically, even at this relatively speculative stage in testing and evidence gathering: my opponent’s genes make him stupid, which makes him fearful of uncertainty and ambiguity, and therefore anxious about change and conservative in politics (in other words, the Yoda hypothesis applied only to stupid people). It’s not his fault, but his stupidity is an obstacle to progressive politics. If you add in some psychological biases, in which people inflate their own sense of intelligence and underestimate that of their opponents, you have evidence-informed, really shit political debate! ‘My opponent is stupid’ seems a bit better than ‘my opponent is mental’ but only in the sense that eating a cup of cold sick is preferable to eating shit.

I say this as we try to produce some practical recommendations (for scientist and advocates of EBPM) to engage with politicians to improve the use of evidence in policy. I’ll let you know if it goes beyond a simple maxim: adapt to their emotional and cognitive biases, but don’t simply assume they’re stupid.

See also: the many commentaries on how stupid it is to treat your political opponents as stupid

https://twitter.com/JonHaidt/status/804678258914689024

Stop Calling People “Low Information Voters”

Evidence Based Policy Making: 5 things you need to know and do

These are some opening remarks for my talk on EBPM at Open Society Foundations (New York), 24^th October 2016. The OSF recorded the talk, so you can listen below, externally, or by right clicking and saving. Please note that it was a lunchtime talk, so the background noises are plates and glasses (or you can read the transcript if you want to see how unintelligible a talk can look on paper).

‘Evidence based policy making’ is a good political slogan, but not a good description of the policy process. If you expect to see it, you will be disappointed. If you seek more thoughtful ways to understand and act within political systems, you need to understand five key points then decide how to respond.

1. Decide what it means.

EBPM looks like a valence issue in which most of us agree that policy and policymaking should be ‘evidence based’ (perhaps like ‘evidence based medicine’). Yet, valence issues only command broad agreement on vague proposals. By defining each term we highlight ambiguity and the need to make political choices to make sense of key terms:

• Should you use restrictive criteria to determine what counts as ‘evidence’ and scientific evidence?
• Which metaphor, evidence based or informed, describes how pragmatic you will be?
• The unclear meaning of ‘policy’ prompts you to consider how far you’d go to pursue EBPM, from a one-off statement of intent by a key actor, to delivery by many actors, to the sense of continuous policymaking requiring us to be always engaged.
• Policymaking is done by policymakers, but many are unelected and the division between policy maker/ influencer is often unclear. So, should you seek to influence policy by influencing influencers?

2. Respond to ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ thought.

‘Comprehensive rationality’ describes the absence of ambiguity and uncertainty when policymakers know what problem they want to solve and how to solve it, partly because they can gather and understand all information required to measure the problem and determine the effectiveness of solutions.

Instead, we talk of ‘bounded rationality’ and how policymakers deal with it. They employ two kinds of shortcut: ‘rational’, by pursuing clear goals and prioritizing certain kinds and sources of information, and ‘irrational’, by drawing on emotions, gut feelings, deeply held beliefs, habits, and familiarity, make decisions quickly.

I say ‘irrational’ provocatively, to raise a key strategic question: do you criticise emotional policymaking (describing it as ‘policy based evidence’) and try somehow to minimise it, adapt pragmatically to it, or see ‘fast thinking’ more positively in terms of ‘fast and frugal heuristics’? Regardless, policymakers will think that their heuristics make sense to them, and it can be counterproductive to simply criticise their alleged irrationality.

3. Think about how to engage in complex systems or policy environments.

‘Policy cycle’ describes the idea that there is a core group of policymakers at the ‘centre’, making policy from the ‘top down’, and pursuing their goals in a series of clearly defined and well-ordered stages, such as: agenda setting, policy formulation, legitimation, implementation, and evaluation. In this context, one might identify how to influence a singular point of central government decision.

However, a cycle model does not describe policymaking well. Instead, we tend to identify the role of less ordered and more unpredictable complex systems, or policy environments containing:

• A wide range of actors (individuals and organisations) influencing policy at many levels of government. Scientists and practitioners are competing with many actors to present evidence in a particular way to secure a policymaker audience.
• A proliferation of rules and norms maintained by different levels or types of government. Support for particular ‘evidence based’ solutions varies according to which organisation takes the lead and how it understands the problem.
• Important relationships (‘networks’) between policymakers and powerful actors. Some networks are close-knit and difficult to access because bureaucracies have operating procedures that favour particular sources of evidence and some participants over others, and there is a language – indicating what ways of thinking are in good ‘currency’ – that takes time to learn.
• A tendency for certain ‘core beliefs’ or ‘paradigms’ to dominate discussion. Well-established beliefs provide the context for policymaking: new evidence on the effectiveness of a policy solution has to be accompanied by a shift of attention and successful persuasion.
• Policy conditions and events that can reinforce stability or prompt policymaker attention to lurch at short notice. In some cases, social or economic ‘crises’ can prompt lurches of attention from one issue to another, and some forms of evidence can be used to encourage that shift, but major policy change is rare.

These factors suggest that an effective engagement strategy is not straightforward: our instinct may be to influence elected policymakers at the ‘centre’ making authoritative choices, but the ‘return on investment’ is not clear. So, you need to decide how and where to engage, but it takes time to know ‘where the action is’ and with whom to form coalitions.

4. Recognise that EBPM is only one of many legitimate ‘good governance’ principles.

There are several principles of ‘good’ policymaking and only one is EBPM. Others relate to the value of pragmatism and consensus building, combining science advice with public values, improving policy delivery by generating ‘ownership’ of policy among key stakeholders, and sharing responsibility with elected local policymakers.

Our choice of which principle and forms of evidence to privilege are inextricably linked. For example, some forms of evidence gathering seem to require uniform models and limited local or stakeholder discretion to modify policy delivery. The classic example is a programme whose value is established using randomised control trials (RCTs). Others begin with local discretion, seeking evidence from service user and local practitioner experience. This principle seems to rule out the use of RCTs. Of course, one can try to pursue both approaches and a compromise between them, but the outcome may not satisfy advocates of either approach or help produce the evidence that they favour.

5. Decide how far you’ll go to achieve EBPM.

These insights should prompt us to see how far we are willing, and should, go to promote the use of certain forms of evidence in policymaking. For example, if policymakers and the public are emotional decision-makers, should we seek to manipulate their thought processes by using simple stories with heroes, villains, and clear but rather simplistic morals? If policymaking systems are so complex, should we devote huge amounts of resources to make sure we’re effective? Kathryn Oliver and I also explore the implications for proponents of scientific evidence, and there is a live debate on science advice to government on the extent to which scientists should be more than ‘honest brokers’.

Where we go from there is up to you

The value of policy theory to this topic is to help us reject simplistic models of EBPM and think through the implications of more sophisticated and complicated processes. It does not provide a blueprint for action (how could it?), but instead a series of questions that you should answer when you seek to use evidence to get what you want. They are political choices based on value judgements, not issues that can be resolved by producing more evidence.

Realistic ‘realist’ reviews: why do you need them and what might they look like?

This discussion is based on my impressions so far of realist reviews and the potential for policy studies to play a role in their effectiveness. The objectives section formed one part of a recent team bid for external funding (so, I acknowledge the influence of colleagues on this discussion, but not enough to blame them personally). We didn’t get the funding, but at least I got a lengthy blog post and a dozen hits out of it.

I like the idea of a ‘realistic’ review of evidence to inform policy, alongside a promising uptake in the use of ‘realist review’. The latter doesn’t mean realistic: it refers to a specific method or approach – realist evaluation, realist synthesis.

The agenda of the realist review already takes us along a useful path towards policy relevance, driven partly by the idea that many policy and practice ‘interventions’ are too complex to be subject to meaningful ‘systematic review’.

The latter’s aim – which we should be careful not to caricature – may be to identify something as close as possible to a general law: if you do X, the result will generally be Y, and you can be reasonably sure because the studies (such as randomised control trials) meet the ‘gold standard’ of research.

The former’s aim is to focus extensively on the context in which interventions take place: if you do X, the result will be Y under these conditions. So, for example, you identify the outcome that you want, the mechanism that causes it, and the context in which the mechanism causes the outcome. Maybe you’ll even include a few more studies, not meeting the ‘gold standard’, if they meet other criteria of high quality research (I declare that I am a qualitative researcher, so you call tell who I’m rooting for).

Realist reviews come increasingly with guide books and discussions on how to do them systematically. However, my impression is that when people do them, they find that there is an art to applying discretion to identify what exactly is going on. It is often difficult to identify or describe the mechanism fully (often because source reports are not clear on that point), say for sure it caused the outcome even in particular circumstances, and separate the mechanism from the context.

I italicised the last point because it is super-important. I think that it is often difficult to separate mechanism from context because (a) the context is often associated with a particular country’s political system and governing arrangements, and (b) it might be better to treat governing context as another mechanism in a notional chain of causality.

In other words, my impression is that realist reviews focus on the mechanism at the point of delivery; the last link in the chain in which the delivery of an intervention causes an outcome. It may be wise to also identify the governance mechanism that causes the final mechanism to work.

Why would you complicate an already complicated review?

I aim to complicate things then simplify them heroically at the end.

Here are five objectives that I maybe think we should pursue in an evidence review for policymakers (I can’t say for sure until we all agree on the principles of science advice):

1. Focus on ways to turn evidence into feasible political action, identifying a clear set of policy conditions and mechanisms necessary to produce intended outcomes.
2. Produce a manageable number of simple lessons and heuristics for policymakers, practitioners, and communities.
3. Review a wider range of evidence sources than in traditional systematic reviews, to recognise the potential trade-offs between measures of high quality and high impact evidence.
4. Identify a complex policymaking environment in which there is a need to connect the disparate evidence on each part of the ‘causal chain’.
5. Recognise the need to understand individual countries and their political systems in depth, to know how the same evidence will be interpreted and used very differently by actors in different contexts.

Objective 1: evidence into action by addressing the politics of evidence-based policymaking

There is no shortage of scientific evidence of policy problems. Yet, we lack a way to use evidence to produce politically feasible action. The ‘politics of evidence-based policymaking’ produces scientists frustrated with the gap between their evidence and a proportionate policy response, and politicians frustrated that evidence is not available in a usable form when they pay attention to a problem and need to solve it quickly. The most common responses in key fields, such as environmental and health studies, do not solve this problem. The literature on ‘barriers’ between evidence and policy recommend initiatives such as: clearer scientific messages, knowledge brokerage and academic-practitioner workshops, timely engagement in politics, scientific training for politicians, and participation to combine evidence and community engagement.

This literature makes limited reference to policy theory and has two limitations. First, studies focus on reducing empirical uncertainty, not ‘framing’ issues to reduce ambiguity. Too many scientific publications go unread in the absence of a process of persuasion to influence policymaker demand for that information (particularly when more politically relevant and paywall-free evidence is available elsewhere). Second, few studies appreciate the multi-level nature of political systems or understand the strategies actors use to influence policy. This involves experience and cultural awareness to help learn: where key decisions are made, including in networks between policymakers and influential actors; the ‘rules of the game’ of networks; how to form coalitions with key actors; and, that these processes unfold over years or decades.

The solution is to produce knowledge that will be used by policymakers, community leaders, and ‘street level’ actors. It requires a (23%) shift in focus from the quality of scientific evidence to (a) who is involved in policymaking and the extent to which there is a ‘delivery chain’ from national to local, and (b) how actors demand, interpret, and use evidence to make decisions. For example, simple qualitative stories with a clear moral may be more effective than highly sophisticated decision-making models or quantitative evidence presented without enough translation.

Objective 2: produce simple lessons and heuristics

We know that the world is too complex to fully comprehend, yet people need to act despite uncertainty. They rely on ‘rational’ methods to gather evidence from sources they trust, and ‘irrational’ means to draw on gut feeling, emotion, and beliefs as short cuts to action (or system 1 and 2 thinking). Scientific evidence can help reduce some uncertainty, but not tell people how to behave. Scientific information strategies can be ineffective, by expecting audiences to appreciate the detail and scale of evidence, understand the methods used to gather it, and possess the skills to interpret and act on it. The unintended consequence is that key actors fall back on familiar heuristics and pay minimal attention to inaccessible scientific information. The solution is to tailor evidence reviews to audiences: examining their practices and ways of thinking; identifying the heuristics they use; and, describing simple lessons and new heuristics and practices.

Objective 3: produce a pragmatic review of the evidence

To review a wider range of evidence sources than in traditional systematic reviews is to recognise the trade-offs between measures of high quality (based on a hierarchy of methods and journal quality) and high impact (based on familiarity and availability). If scientists reject and refuse to analyse evidence that policymakers routinely take more seriously (such as the ‘grey’ literature), they have little influence on key parts of policy analysis. Instead, provide a framework that recognises complexity but produces research that is manageable at scale and translatable into key messages:

• Context. Identify the role of factors described routinely by policy theories as the key parts of policy environments: the actors involved in multiple policymaking venues at many levels of government; the role of informal and formal rules of each venue; networks between policymakers and influential actors; socio-economic conditions; and, the ‘paradigms’ or ways of thinking that underpin the consideration of policy problems and solutions.
• Mechanisms. Focus on the connection between three mechanisms: the cause of outcomes at the point of policy delivery (intervention); the cause of ‘community’ or individual ‘ownership’ of effective interventions; and, the governance arrangements that support high levels of community ownership and the effective delivery of the most effective interventions. These connections are not linear. For example, community ownership and effective interventions may develop more usefully from the ‘bottom up’, scientists may convince national but not local policymakers of the value of interventions (or vice versa), or political support for long term strategies may only be temporary or conditional on short term measures of success.
• Outcomes. Identify key indicators of good policy outcomes in partnership with the people you need to make policy work. Work with those audiences to identify a small number of specific positive outcomes, and synthesise the best available evidence to explain which mechanisms produce those outcomes under the conditions associated with your region of study.

This narrow focus is crucial to the development of a research question, limiting analysis to the most relevant studies to produce a rigorous review in a challenging timeframe. Then, the idea from realist reviews is that you ‘test’ your hypotheses and clarify the theories that underpin this analysis. This should involve a test for political as well as technical feasibility: speak regularly with key actors i to gauge the likelihood that the mechanisms you recommend will be acted upon, and the extent to which the context of policy delivery is stable and predictable and if mechanism will work consistently under those conditions.

Objective 4: identify key links in the ‘causal chain’ via interdisciplinary study

We all talk about combining perspectives from multiple disciplines but I totally mean it, especially if it boosts the role of political scientists who can’t predict elections. For example, health or environmental scientists can identify the most effective interventions to produce good health or environmental outcomes, but not how to work with and influence key people. Policy scholars can identify how the policy process works and how to maximise the use of scientific evidence within it. Social science scholars can identify mechanisms to encourage community participation and the ownership of policies. Anthropologists can provide insights on the particular cultural practices and beliefs underpinning the ways in which people understand and act according to scientific evidence.

Perhaps more importantly, interdisciplinarity provides political cover: we got the best minds in many disciplines and locked them in a room until they produced an answer.

We need this cover for something I’ll call ‘informed extrapolation’ and justify with reference to pragmatism: if we do not provide well-informed analyses of the links between each mechanism, other less-informed actors will fill the gap without appreciating key aspects of causality. For example, if we identify a mechanism for the delivery of successful interventions – e.g. high levels of understanding and implementation of key procedures – there is still uncertainty: do these mechanisms develop organically through ‘bottom up’ collaboration or can they be introduced quickly from the ‘top’ to address an urgent issue? A simple heuristic for central governments could be to introduce training immediately or to resist the temptation for a quick fix.

Relatively-informed analysis, to recommend one of those choices, may only be used if we can back it up with interdisciplinary weight and produce recommendations that are unequivocal (although, again, other approaches are available).

Objective 5: focus intensively on one region, and one key issue, not ‘one size fits all’

We need to understand individual countries or regions – their political systems, communities, and cultural practices – and specific issues in depth, to know how abstract mechanisms work in concrete contexts, and how the same evidence will be interpreted and used differently by actors in those contexts. We need to avoid politically insensitive approaches based on the assumption that a policy that works in countries like (say) the UK will work in countries that are not (say) the UK, and/ or that actors in each country will understand policy problems in the same way.

But why?

It all looks incredibly complicated, doesn’t it? There’s no time to do all that, is there? It will end up as a bit of a too-rushed jumble of high-and-low quality evidence and advice, won’t it?

My argument is that these problems are actually virtues because they provide more insight into how busy policymakers will gather and use evidence. Most policymakers will not know how to do a systematic review or understand why you are so attached to them. Maybe you’ll impress them enough to get them to trust your evidence, but have you put yourself into a position to know what they’ll do with it? Have you thought about the connection between the evidence you’ve gathered, what people need to do, who needs to do it, and who you need to speak to about getting them to do it? Maybe you don’t have to, if you want to be no more than a ‘neutral scientist’ or ‘honest broker’ – but you do if you want to give science advice to policymakers that policymakers can use.

 

We need better descriptions than ‘evidence-based policy’ and ‘policy-based evidence’: the case of UK government ‘troubled families’ policy

Here is the dilemma for ‘evidence-based’ ‘troubled families’ policy: there are many indicators of ‘policy based evidence’ but few (if any) feasible and ‘evidence based’ alternatives.

Viewed from the outside, TF looks like a cynical attempt to produce a quick fix to the London riots, stigmatise vulnerable populations, and hoodwink the public into thinking that the central government is controlling local outcomes and generating success.

Viewed from the inside, it is a pragmatic policy solution, informed by promising evidence which needs to be sold in the right way. For the UK government there may seem to be little alternative to this policy, given the available evidence, the need to do something for the long term and to account for itself in a Westminster system in the short term.

So, in this draft paper, I outline this disconnect between interpretations of ‘evidence based policy’ and ‘policy based evidence’ to help provide some clarity on the pragmatic use of evidence in politics:

cairney-offshoot-troubled-families-ebpm-5-9-16

See also:

Governments think it’s OK to use bad evidence to make good policy: the case of the UK Government’s ‘troubled families’

Early intervention policy, from ‘troubled families’ to ‘named persons’: problems with evidence and framing ‘valence’ issues

In each of these posts, I note that it is difficult to know how, for example, social policy scholars should respond to these issues – but that policy studies help us identify a choice between strategies. In general, pragmatic strategies to influence the use of evidence in policy include: framing issues to catch the attention or manipulate policymaker biases, identifying where the ‘action’ is in multi-level policymaking systems, and forming coalitions with like-minded and well-connected actors. In other words, to influence rather than just comment on policy, we need to understand how policymakers would respond to external evaluation. So, a greater understanding the routine motives of policymakers can help produce more effective criticism of its problematic use of evidence. In social policy, there is an acute dilemma about the choice between engagement, to influence and be influenced by policymakers, and detachment to ensure critical distance. If choosing the latter, we need to think harder about how criticism of PBE makes a difference.

Governments think it’s OK to use bad evidence to make good policy: the case of the UK Government’s ‘troubled families’

The UK Government’s ‘troubled families’ policy appears to be a classic top-down, evidence-free, and quick emotional reaction to crisis. It developed after riots in England (primarily in London) in August 2011. Within one week, and before announcing an inquiry into them, then Prime Minister David Cameron made a speech linking behaviour directly to ‘thugs’ and immorality – ‘people showing indifference to right and wrong…people with a twisted moral code…people with a complete absence of self-restraint’ – before identifying a breakdown in family life as a major factor (Cameron, 2011a).

Although the development of parenting programmes was already government policy, Cameron used the riots to raise parenting to the top of the agenda:

We are working on ways to help improve parenting – well now I want that work accelerated, expanded and implemented as quickly as possible. This has got to be right at the top of our priority list. And we need more urgent action, too, on the families that some people call ‘problem’, others call ‘troubled’. The ones that everyone in their neighbourhood knows and often avoids …Now that the riots have happened I will make sure that we clear away the red tape and the bureaucratic wrangling, and put rocket boosters under this programme …with a clear ambition that within the lifetime of this Parliament we will turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families in the country.

Cameron reinforced this agenda in December 2011 by stressing the need for individuals and families to take moral responsibility for their actions, and for the state to intervene earlier in their lives to reduce public spending in the long term:

Officialdom might call them ‘families with multiple disadvantages’. Some in the press might call them ‘neighbours from hell’. Whatever you call them, we’ve known for years that a relatively small number of families are the source of a large proportion of the problems in society. Drug addiction. Alcohol abuse. Crime. A culture of disruption and irresponsibility that cascades through generations. We’ve always known that these families cost an extraordinary amount of money…but now we’ve come up the actual figures. Last year the state spent an estimated £9 billion on just 120,000 families…that is around £75,000 per family.

The policy – primarily of expanding the provision of ‘family intervention’ approaches – is often described as a ‘classic case of policy based evidence’: policymakers cherry pick or tell tall tales about evidence to justify action. It is a great case study for two reasons:

1. Within this one programme are many different kinds of evidence-use which attract the ire of academic commentators, from an obviously dodgy estimate and performance management system to a more-sincere-but-still-criticised use of evaluations and neuroscience.
2. It is easy to criticise the UK government’s actions but more difficult to say – when viewing the policy problem from its perspective – what the government should do instead.

In other words, it is useful to note that the UK government is not winning awards for ‘evidence-based policymaking’ (EBPM) in this area, but less useful to deny the politics of EBPM and hold it up to a standard that no government can meet.

The UK Government’s problematic use of evidence

Take your pick from the following ways in which the UK Government has been criticised for its use of evidence to make and defend ‘troubled families’ policy.

Its identification of the most troubled families: cherry picking or inventing evidence

At the heart of the programme is the assertion that we know who the ‘troubled families’ are, what causes their behaviour, and how to stop it. Yet, much of the programme is built on a value judgements about feckless parents, and tipping the balance from support to sanctions, and unsubstantiated anecdotes about key aspects such as the tendency of ‘worklessness’ or ‘welfare dependency’ to pass from one generation to another.

The UK government’s target of almost 120000 families was based speculatively on previous Cabinet Office estimates in 2006 that about ‘2% of families in England experience multiple and complex difficulties’. This estimate was based on limited survey data and modelling to identify families who met five of seven criteria relating to unemployment, poor housing, parental education, the mental health of the mother, the chronic illness or disability of either parent, an income below 60% of the median, and an inability to by certain items of food or clothing.

It then gave locally specific estimates to each local authority and asked them to find that number of families, identifying households with: (1) at least one under-18-year-old who has committed an offense in the last year, or is subject to an ASBO; and/ or (2) has been excluded from school permanently, or suspended on three consecutive terms, in a Pupil Referral Unit, off the school roll, or has over 15% unauthorised absences over three consecutive terms; and (3) an adult on out of work benefits.

If the household met all three criteria, they would automatically be included. Otherwise, local authorities had the discretion to identify further troubled families meeting two of the criteria and other indicators of concerns about ‘high costs’ of late intervention such as, ‘a child who is on a Child Protection Plan’, ‘Families subject to frequent police call-outs or arrests’, and ‘Families with health problems’ linked to mental health, addiction, chronic conditions, domestic abuse, and teenage pregnancy.

Its measure of success: ‘turning around’ troubled families

The UK government declared almost-complete success without convincing evidence. Success ‘in the last 6 months’ to identify a ‘turned around family’ is measured in two main ways: (1) the child no longer having three exclusions in a row, a reduction in the child offending rate of 33% or ASB rate of 60%, and/or the adult entering a relevant ‘progress to work’ programme; or (2) at least one adult moving from out of work benefits to continuous employment. It was self-declared by local authorities, and both parties had a high incentive to declare it: local authorities received £4000 per family payments and the UK government received a temporary way to declare progress without long term evidence.

The declaration is in stark contrast to an allegedly suppressed report to the government which stated that the programme had ‘no discernible effect on unemployment, truancy or criminality’. This lack of impact was partly confirmed by FOI requests by The Guardian – demonstrating that at least 8000 families received no intervention, but showed improvement anyway – and analysis by Levitas and Crossley which suggests that local authorities could only identify families by departing from the DCLG’s initial criteria.

Its investment in programmes with limited evidence of success

The UK government’s massive expansion of ‘family intervention projects’, and related initiatives, is based on limited evidence of success from a small sample of people from a small number of pilots. The ‘evidence for the effectiveness of family intervention projects is weak’ and a government-commissioned systematic review suggests that there are no good quality evaluations to demonstrate (well) the effectiveness or value-for-money of key processes such as coordinated service provision. The impact of other interventions, previously with good reputations, has been unclear, such as the Family Nurse Partnership imported from the US which so far has produced ‘no additional short-term benefit’. Overall, Crossley and Lambert suggest that “the weight of evidence surrounding ‘family intervention’ and similar approaches, over the longue durée, actually suggests that the approach doesn’t work”. There is also no evidence to support its heroic claim that spending £10000 per family will save £65000.

Its faith in sketchy neuroscientific evidence on the benefits of early intervention

The government is driven partly by a belief in the benefits of early intervention in the lives of children (from 0-3, or even before birth), which is based partly on the ‘now or never’ argument found in key reviews by Munro and Allen (one and two).

Policymakers take liberties with neuroscientific evidence to emphasise the profound effect of stress on early brain development (measured, for example, by levels of cortisol found in hair samples). These accounts underpinning the urgency of early intervention are received far more critically in fields such as social science, neuroscience, and psychology. For example, Wastell and White find no good quality scientific evidence behind the comparison of child brain development reproduced in Allen’s reports.

Now let’s try to interpret and explain these points partly from a government perspective

Westminster politics necessitates this presentation of ‘prevention’ policies

If you strip away the rhetoric, the troubled families programme is a classic attempt at early intervention to prevent poor outcomes. In this general field, it is difficult to know what government policy is – what it stands for and how you measure its success. ‘Prevention’ is vague, plus governments make a commitment to meaningful local discretion and the sense that local actors should be guided by a combination of the evidence of ‘what works’ and its applicability to local circumstances.

This approach is not tolerated in Westminster politics, built on the simple idea of accountability in which you know who is in charge and therefore to blame! UK central governments have to maintain some semblance of control because they know that people will try to hold them to account in elections and general debate. This ‘top down’ perspective has an enduring effect: although prevention policy is vague, individual programmes such as ‘troubled families’ contain enough detail to generate intense debate on central government policy and performance and contain elements which emphasise high central direction, including sustained ministerial commitment, a determination to demonstrate early success to justify a further rollout of policy, and performance management geared towards specific measurable outcomes – even if the broader aim is to encourage local discretion.

This context helps explain why governments appear to exploit crises to sell existing policies, and pursue ridiculous processes of estimation and performance measurement. They need to display strength, show certainty that they have correctly diagnosed a problem and its solution, and claim success using the ‘currency’ of Westminster politics – and they have to do these things very quickly.

Consequently, for example, they will not worry about some academics complaining about policy based evidence – they are more concerned about their media and public reception and the ability of the opposition to exploit their failures – and few people in politics have the time (that many academics take for granted) to wait for research. This is the lens through which we should view all discussions of the use of evidence in politics and policy.

Unequivocal evidence is impossible to produce and we can’t wait forever

The argument for evidence-based-policy rather than policy-based-evidence suggests that we know what the evidence is. Yet, in this field in particular, there is potential for major disagreement about the ‘bar’ we set for evidence.

For some, it relates to a hierarchy of evidence in which randomised control trials (RCTs) and their systematic review are at the top: the aim is to demonstrate that an intervention’s effect was positive, and more positive than another intervention or non-intervention. This requires experiments: to compare the effects of interventions in controlled settings, in ways that are directly comparable with other experiments.

As table 1 suggests, some other academics do not adhere to – and some reject – this hierarchy. This context highlights three major issues for policymakers:

1. In general, when they seek evidence, they find this debate about how to gather and analyse it (and the implications for policy delivery).
2. When seeking evidence on interventions, they find some academics using the hierarchy to argue the ‘evidence for the effectiveness of family intervention projects is weak’. This adherence to a hierarchy to determine research value also doomed to failure a government-commissioned systematic review: the review applied a hierarchy of evidence to its analysis of reports by authors who did not adhere to the same model. The latter tend to be more pragmatic in their research design (and often more positive about their findings), and their government audience rarely adheres to the same evidential standard built on a hierarchy. In the absence of someone giving ground, some researchers will never be satisfied with the available evidence and elected policymakers are unlikely to listen to them.
3. The evidence generated from RCTs is often disappointing. The so-far-discouraging experience of the Family Nurse Partnership has a particularly symbolic impact, and policymakers can easily pick up a general sense of uncertainty about the best policies in which to invest.

So, if your main viewpoint is academic, you can easily conclude that the available evidence does not yet justify massive expansion in the troubled families programme (perhaps you might prefer the Scottish approach of smaller scale piloting, or for the government to abandon certain interventions altogether).

However, if you are a UK government policymaker feeling the need to act – and knowing that you always have to make decisions despite uncertainty – you may also feel that there will never be enough evidence on which to draw. Given the problems outlined above, you may as well act now than wait for years for little to change.

The ends justify the means

Policymakers may feel that the ends of such policies – investment in early intervention by shifting funds from late intervention – may justify the means, which can include a ridiculous oversimplification of evidence. It may seem almost impossible for governments to find other ways to secure the shift, given the multiple factors which undermine its progress.

Governments sometimes hint at this approach when simplifying key figures – effectively to argue that late intervention costs £9bn while early intervention will only cost £448m – to reinforce policy change: ‘the critical point for the Government was not necessarily the precise figure, but whether a sufficiently compelling case for a new approach was made’.

Similarly the vivid comparison of healthy versus neglected brains provides shocking reference points to justify early intervention. Their rhetorical value far outweighs their evidential value. As in all EBPM, the choice for policymakers is to play the game, to generate some influence in not-ideal circumstances, or hope that science and reason will save the day (and the latter tends to be based on hope rather than evidence). So, the UK appeared to follow the US’ example in which neuroscience ‘was chosen as the scientific vehicle for the public relations campaign to promote early childhood programs more for rhetorical, than scientific reasons’, partly because a focus on, for example, permanent damage to brain circuitry is less abstract than a focus on behaviour.

Overall, policymakers seem willing to build their case on major simplifications and partial truths to secure what they believe to be a worthy programme (although it would be interesting to find out which policymakers actually believe the things they say). If so, pointing out their mistakes or alleging lies can often have a minimal impact (or worse, if policymakers ‘double down’ in the face of criticism).

Implications for academics, practitioners, and ‘policy based evidence’

I have been writing on ‘troubled families’ while encouraging academics and practitioners to describe pragmatic strategies to increase the use of evidence in policy.

Our starting point is relevant to this discussion – since it asks what we should do if policymakers don’t think like academics:

• They worry more about Westminster politics – their media and public reception and the ability of the opposition party to exploit their failures – than what academics think of their actions.
• They do not follow the same rules of evidence generation and analysis.
• They do not have the luxury of uncertainty and time.

Generally, this is a useful lens through which we should view discussions of the realistic use of evidence in politics and policy. Without being pragmatic – to recognise that policymakers will never think like scientists, and always face different pressures – we might simply declare ‘policy based evidence’ in all cases. Although a commitment to pragmatism does not solve these problems, at least it prompts us to be more specific about categories of PBE, the criteria we use to identify it, if our colleagues share a commitment to those criteria, what we can reasonably expect of policymakers, and how we might respond.

In disciplines like social policy we might identify a further issue, linked to:

1. A tradition of providing critical accounts of government policy to help hold elected policymakers to account. If so, the primary aim may be to publicise key flaws without engaging directly with policymakers to help fix them – and perhaps even to criticise other scholars for doing so – because effective criticism requires critical distance.
2. A tendency of many other social policy scholars to engage directly in evaluations of government policy, with the potential to influence and be influenced by policymakers.

It is a dynamic that highlights well the difficulty of separating empirical and normative evaluations when critics point to the inappropriate nature of the programmes as they interrogate the evidence for their effectiveness. This difficulty is often more hidden in other fields, but it is always a factor.

For example, Parr noted in 2009 that ‘despite ostensibly favourable evidence … it has been argued that the apparent benign-welfarism of family and parenting-based antisocial behaviour interventions hide a growing punitive authoritarianism’. The latter’s most extreme telling is by Garrett in 2007, who compares residential FIPs (‘sin bins’) to post-war Dutch programmes resembling Nazi social engineering and criticises social policy scholars for giving them favourable evaluations – an argument criticised in turn by Nixon and Bennister et al.

For present purposes, note Nixon’s identification of ‘an unusual case of policy being directly informed by independent research’, referring to the possible impact of favourable evaluations of FIPs on the UK Government’s move way from (a) an intense focus on anti-social behaviour and sanctions towards (b) greater support. While it would be a stretch to suggest that academics can set government agendas, they can at least enhance their impact by framing their analysis in a way that secures policymaker interest. If academics seek influence, rather than critical distance, they may need to get their hands dirty: seeking to understand policymakers to find alternative policies that still give them what they want.