8 - Consuming Advice

Question 1

Baekgaard et al.

(Prior beliefs affect use of policy advice)

Answer 1

Politcians are biased by prior attitudes when interpreting info.

However, despite expectations, the impact of prior attitudes increased when more evidence is provided.

The more this info is at odds with their prior attitudes, the more likely politicians are to misinterpret it.

Question 2

Peters and Nagel 1

(Why do Zombie ideas persist?)

Answer 2

• The persistence of weak or unworkable ideas is not entirely a function of the machinations of political elites or policy advocates.
• If an idea does not resonate with voters - unlikely to survive very long, & the politicians advocating this idea may have a limited political life expectancy.
• Sheer inertia often plays a role, especially when there is no ready alternative to continuing to make the same arguments again and again.
• But political power and use of failed ideas to maintain that political power are also central factors in the preservation of ideas.
• Also maintained through ideologies and beliefs that may be difficult to dislodge, even when not successful in producing the desired, and assumed, results.

Question 3

Peters and Nagel 2

(Why do Zombie ideas persist?)

Answer 3

Not all bad!

• Need to acknowledge that policies and their success depend on their environments. Environments and contexts change. For this reason, it is crucial to keep in mind that a policy, that has not worked out in the past, is not by default going to fail again.
• The survival of zombie ideas has positive aspects. It’s about the competition of ideas, which is crucial for functioning democracies.
• And given the swinging of the political pendulum, both of ideas and political parties, between right and left it may be that ideas that we now treat with disdain may not only prevail but actually become effective in dealing with real policy issues.

Question 4

Keynes

(Ideas)

Answer 4

Are “more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else.”

(But still little scholarship).

Question 5

Mehta

Answer 5

Ideas at 3 levels of generality: policy solutions, problem definitions, and public philosophies or zeitgeist.

It also consider interactions between the levels of ideas, with a particular interest in “upward-flowing” interactions, showing that not only does the conception of a problem constrain policy alternatives, but the fate of specific policy solutions also can have an impact on problem definitions or even broader public philosophies.