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The Role of Evidence in Theories of the Policy Process

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The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making

Abstract

This chapter identifies an ‘ideal-type’ of evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) and the factors required to produce an ‘optimal’ policy process. It compares this image with more realistic accounts of policymaking based on theoretical and empirical policy studies. These studies provide two main ways to understand EBPM: one explains the ‘evidence-policy gap’ with reference to key problems with the demand and supply of evidence; the other identifies the cognitive limits of policymakers, and an unpredictable policymaking environment. From this discussion, the chapter identifies three key tenets of EBPM to guide further analysis.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Cairney (2012a: 179) on the use and meaning of many network terms, such as ‘policy communities’. The term ‘subsystem’ is used more in the US theories.

  2. 2.

    Haidt (2001: 814) draws on the idea of intuitionism (people grasp moral truths as a form of perception, not reflection) to suggest that ‘moral reasoning is usually an ex post facto process used to influence the intuitions (and hence judgements) of other people’; one has an instant gut response to certain issues and ‘when faced with a social demand for a verbal justification, one becomes a lawyer trying to build a case rather than a judge searching for the truth’.

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    Paul Cairney

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Cairney, P. (2016). The Role of Evidence in Theories of the Policy Process. In: The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making. Palgrave Pivot, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51781-4_2

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