Recorded in front of a live studio audience (of undergraduate social policy students). This lecture ties well to the short explainer Policy Concepts in 1000 Words: ‘Evidence Based Policymaking’ but I also wrote a separate post to accompany this talk ‘Evidence-based Policymaking’ and the Study of Public Policy:
'This post accompanies a 40 minute lecture which considers ‘evidence-based policymaking’ (EBPM) through the lens of policy theory. The theory is important, to give us a language with which to understand EBPM as part of a wider discussion of the policy process, while the lens of EBPM allows us to think through the ‘real world’ application of concepts and theories.
To that end, I’ll make three key points:
- Definitions and clarity are important. ‘Evidence-based policymaking’, ‘evidence-based policy’ and related phrases such as ‘policy based evidence’ are used incredibly loosely in public debates. A focus on basic questions in policy studies – what is policy, and how can we measure policy change? – helps us clarify the issues, reject superficial debates on ‘evidence-based policy versus policy-based evidence’, and in some cases identify the very different assumptions people make about how policymaking works and should work.
- Realistic models are important. Discussing EBPM helps us identify the major flaws in simple models of policymaking such as the ‘policy cycle’. I’ll discuss the insights we gain by considering how policy scholars describe the implications of policymaker ‘bounded rationality’ and policymaking complexity.
- Realistic strategies are important. There is a lot of academic discussion of the need to overcome ‘barriers’ between evidence and policy. It is often atheoretical, producing naïve recommendations about improving the supply of evidence and training policymakers to understand it. I identify two more useful (but potentially controversial) strategies: be manipulative and learn where the ‘action’ is.
Definitions and clarity are important, so what is ‘evidence-based policymaking’?
... see ‘Evidence-based Policymaking’ and the Study of Public Policy for the rest
