Week 9- Evidence Based Policy

Question 1

List direct methods governments use to shape the applied sciences

Answer 1

• Investment in government-funded research units on specific problems
• Managing the policy-research functions inside many government agencies
• Commissioning external consultants to undertake specific contract research

Question 2

How do governments exercise indirect influence?

Answer 2

• Determining national priority areas
• Providing rewards and recognition for commercially focused knowledge and technical forms of scientific excellence
• Encouraging contestability in some policy arenas by diversifying their sources of advice, including think tanks and contractors, and encouraging a wider range of instruments to deal with policy challenges, like market-based mechanisms and de-regulatory options

Question 3

What key questions of New Public Management is evidence based policy believed to provide greater assistance in answering?

Answer 3

• What options will ‘deliver the goods’?
• How can programs be improved to get greater ‘value for money’?
• How can innovation and competition be expanded to drive productivity?
• How can program managers achieve specific ‘outcomes’ for clients and stakeholders (rather than just ‘manage programs’)?
• In summary, ‘what works’?

Question 4

Outline the evidence for addressing complex policy problems in the 1970s-1980s

Answer 4

• Innovative analytical frameworks tackling traditional problems
• Improved program performance
• De-regulation of many policy domains and outsourcing of services by state was linked to key focus on program performance issues
• Some risk to steering capabilities in some public sector agencies

Question 5

Outline the evidence for addressing complex policy problems in the 1990s

Answer 5

• Increased investment in central units for policy analysis and commissioning evidence based consultancy reports
• Dealing more directly with major complex issues requiring more comprehensive approach to policy design and service delivery
• Policy processes often became less technocratic and more open to ‘network’ approaches
• Moved to tackle complex unresolved problems in response to demands and pressures of citizens for whom services were inadequate
• Poor rate of return on major social program investments led to the wider search for new approaches
• Awakening of political interest created opportunity for social sciences to offer solutions
• Question arose as to what kind of investment in data/information would be needed to generate the necessary knowledge, to understand complex problems and create viable solutions
• Increased technologies for data gathering and analysis
• What kinds of information would be of most value for stakeholders and decision-makers dealing with the challenges of complex inter-related problems with many stakeholders?

Question 6

Outline the two ends of the spectrum of problems

Answer 6

• Problems are many and varied
• One end, discrete, bounded, linked to particular sets of info and actors. ‘Technical’ approach is dominant
• Other end, problems are complex and inter-linked. ‘Negotiated’ or ‘relational’ approach to problem solving

Question 7

What is argued about technical vs network approaches to problems?

Answer 7

• Argued technical approaches are increasingly inadequate
• Networks and partnerships allow for a diversity of stakeholder ‘evidence’. Argued that addressing complex inter-linked problems requires strong emphasis on social relations and stakeholder perception inherent in policy direction and program success

Question 8

Define evidence in relation to policy work

Answer 8

• ‘Evidence’ is knowledge generated by applied research
• Our ideas about ‘evidence-based’ policy may change as we move from a more technical to a relational approach

Question 9

List the elements of political knowledge vital to policy

Answer 9

• Considering and adjusting strategies or tactics
• Undertaking agenda-setting
• Determining priorities
• Undertaking persuasion and advocacy
• Communicating key messages and ideological spin
• Shaping and responding to issues of accountability
• Building coalitions of support
• Negotiating trade-offs and compromises

Question 10

With whom does political knowledge primarily inhere?

Answer 10

• Politicians
• Parties
• Organised groups
• Public affairs media

Question 11

What is the availability of political knowledge?

Answer 11

• Some knowledge is private
• Most is widely dispersed to the public through mass media

Question 12

How is political knowledge characterised?

Answer 12

• Knowledge is diffuse, highly fluid and heavily contested due to its partisan and adversarial context

Question 13

Define ‘evidence’ in relation to political knowledge

Answer 13

• ‘Evidence’ in political knowledge is often a selection of convenient ‘facts’ to support an argument, with large areas of other information ignored, dismissed as tainted or deemed irrelevant
• In political game, special pleading and deception are normalised

Question 14

What is ‘data-proof’ and what does it mean if a policy is ‘data-proof’?

Answer 14

• Some policy positions are ‘data-proof’ or ‘evidence-proof’ in that their evidence base has been narrowed by political commitments, perhaps closely linked to the values and ideological positions of political leaders or parties
• Critical commentary is unwelcome
• Few research projects are commissioned, with some expectation that reports may assist in upholding a certain view

Question 15

Define scientific knowledge in relation to policy work

Answer 15

• Systematic analysis of current and past trends and analysis of the casual inter-relationships that explain conditions and trends
• Range of disciplinary and cross disciplinary knowledges that contribute to policy

Question 16

What is there seldom consensus on among social scientists?

Answer 16

The nature of problems, causes of trends or relationships and best approach for solutions

Question 17

What approaches are at the forefront of addressing multi-layered social problems?

Answer 17

• Inter-disciplinary approaches
• Behavioural and applied social sciences, ‘systematic reviews’ apply rigorous standards to examine the state of current knowledge, giving recognition to studies which focus on assessing the casual effects of specific interventions

Question 18

What methodologies are used to gather scientific knowledge?

Answer 18

• Experimental approach utilises randomised controlled trials to test the efficacy of specific interventions
• Some methodologies associated with a hermeneutic approach, including a large proportion of ‘action-research’ projects tend to regard policy and program assessment as akin to iterative social learning projects

Question 19

Define practical implementation knowledge in relation to policy

Answer 19

• ‘Practical wisdom’ of professionals in their ‘communities of practice’ and the organisational knowledge associated with managing program implementation

Question 20

Who has practical implementation knowledge?

Answer 20

• Professional and managerial communities are often segmented, not well connected
• Operate in public, private and non-profit NGO sectors

Question 21

What do roles in practical implementation entail?

Answer 21

• Managers and professionals deal with everyday problems of program implementation and client service
• Roles require managing upwards, downwards and outwards to external stakeholders

Question 22

What happens as formal knowledge bodies in practical implementation knowledge evolves?

Answer 22

• They tend to become systematised, codified and linked to standards and guidelines

Question 23

What does professional ethos in human services make room for?

Answer 23

• Professional ethos in human services makes room for unique cases and for the meaning systems of clients.
• This provides the mental space for creating organisational climates that are more favourable to case-based learning and more broadly the adoption of ‘organisational learning’ approaches
• Time is necessary for improvement

Question 24

List useful research questions about the three lenses

Answer 24

• Is there a low or high level of mutual awareness, recognition and understanding of each other’s approaches?
• Is there a substantial ‘cultural divide’ between these forms of knowledge, and if so, are there any useful mechanisms/incentives to promote working together more closely?
• In the jostling for salience or in the competition between these sets of ideas, does one form of knowledge typically ‘trump’ the others?

Question 25

How is research viewed from a govt viewpoint?

Answer 25

• Research findings will assist but not determine policy directions and adjustments
• There is debate as to what stage of the policy process research is most valuable

Question 26

What does the government expect from managers and professionals implementing programs?

Answer 26

• Govt expects managers and professionals implementing programs will do so with technical skill and efficiency

Question 27

How are communities of practice impacted?

Answer 27

• Communities of practice may feel disenfranchised, especially when practical experts in delivery are not centrally involved in early discussions about how programs are designed and delivered

Question 28

How do govts deduce policy decisions?

Answer 28

• Govt is not good at hearing implementers. Some perspective sharing must still occur
• For govts, policy decisions are not deduced in a neutral objective manner, but from politics, judgement and debate

Question 29

What does policy debate and analysis involve?

Answer 29

• Policy debate and analysis involves interplay between facts, norms and desired actions, in which ‘evidence’ is diverse and contestable

Question 30

List circumstances under which problems become worthy of investigation for govts

Answer 30

• A perception of crisis or urgency
• A role of political mandates and priorities
• The role of expert judgement and advice
• Organisational and issue histories
• The changing context of social values and public opinion

Question 31

How are problems viewed differently through different knowledge lenses?

Answer 31

• Some policy areas are more divergent and contested than others. Over time, some may become stable, while others may be subject to disagreement, others may lack a solid information base
• In contentious policy areas, the terms of evidentiary debate may be overwhelmed by partisan voices, despite the best efforts of those who wish to retain an ‘objective’ stance

Question 32

What do researchers risk?

Answer 32

• Researchers who seek to may an objective contribution in such areas may risk being harnessed to positions proposed by strong advocates on one side of the debate and accordingly disparaged by others