Based on a systematic analysis of nearly 400 publications, this review article identifies four contrasting perspectives on evidence-based policy (EBP). One school of thought advocates reinforcing demands that governments pay more attention to research. A second perspective argues for the reform of the relationships between researchers and policy-makers. A third emphasises the need to reinvent formal procedures that govern the generation and use of evidence. The fourth rejects the possibility that research can simultaneously meet disciplinary standards and meaningfully address the needs of policy-makers. The paper concludes that to respond to the challenges facing EBP, researchers must develop a more realistic grasp of the task environment in which ministers and senior officials operate, reject naïve but prevalent assumptions about the level of analytical rationality in government, and recognise that direct and sustained engagement with policy-makers may not be compatible with career advancement in academia.
What can we learn from the evidence on evidence-based policy (EBP)? We summarize and synthesize the themes that converge from the observations of those scholars who have studied EBP, including studies of "science and public policy" and "knowledge utilization." Many characteristics of the policy-making environment escape the notice of the majority of advocates of EBP; we examine them in summary. Next, we identify key lessons from research that addresses directly the practice of policy-making. A substantial consensus on the experience of EBP in policy-making emerges. However, when we examine the conclusions of various students of EBP as to the requirements for its successful implementation, we see that no consensus exists as to the way ahead. EBP will remain a popular ideal among scientists and social scientists because of its intuitive appeal, but would not appear to offer a simple prospect of rapid and significant improvement in the application of research to public policy.Sommaire : Que pouvons-nous apprendre des preuves concernant les politiques fondées sur des données probantes (PFDP)? À partir des observations de chercheurs qui ont étudié les PFDP, y compris des recherches sur la « science et les politiques publiques » et sur « l'utilisation des connaissances », nous résumons et faisons la synthèse des sujets convergents. De nombreuses caractéristiques pertinentes au secteur de la prise de décisions, que nous étudions en résumé, semblent échapper à la majorité des adeptes des PFDP; nous identifions ensuite les principales leçons tirées de la recherche portant directement sur la prise de décisions. Nous constatons alors l'émergence d'un consensus considérable. Néanmoins, en se penchant sur les résultats obtenus par divers chercheurs de PFDP concernant les exigences requises pour leur mise en oeuvre réussie, il n'existe pas de consensus sur la façon de procéder. Bien que les PFDP restent un idéal prisé au sein de la communauté scientifique et des spécialistes en sciences sociales à cause de leur attrait intuitif, elles ne semblent pas offrir de perspective simple pour améliorer l'application de la recherche aux politiques publiques de manière rapide et importante.What can we learn from the evidence on evidence-based policy (EBP)? We cannot do a randomized controlled test or a statistically rigorous meta-
2 See, e.g. H. McIlwain, 'Chemical contributions, especially from the nineteenth century, to knowledge of the brain and its functioning', in F. N. L. Poynter (ed.), History and Philosophy of Knowledge of the Brain and its Functions, Oxford, 1957, p. 183. ' Nerve cell, in its modem usage, did not attain real currency until around the turn of the century. 'I do not know why one should restrict the term "nerve-cell" to the body of the cell and thus exclude from that term the cell-processes. This is not done for any other kind of cell, and it appears to me that the custom which has hitherto prevailed with regard to nerve-cells in this matter is not only inadvisable but even misleading'. E. A. Schafer, 'The nerve cell considered as the basis of neurology', Brain, 1893, 16, 134. 4 Clarke and O'Malley, 'The neuron versus nerve net controversy', op. cit., 87-138. Quote from p. 88. ' For other general accounts, see A. Andreoli, Zur geschichtlichen Entwicklung der Neuronentheorie, Basle, Stuttgart, 1961. C. McC. Brooks, 'Current developments in thought and the past evolution of ideas concerning integrative function' in F. N. L. Poynter (ed.), op. cit., 235-52. F. Fearing, Reflex Action, 182-85. E. G. T. Liddell, The Discovery of Reflexes, 25-30. See also the studies of Sherrington cited below.
Many academics misunderstand public life and the conditions under which policy is made. This article examines misconceptions in three major academic traditions—policy as science (e.g., ‘evidence‐based policy’), normative political theory, and the mini‐public school of deliberative democracy—and argues that the practical implications of each of these traditions are limited by their partial, shallow and etiolated vision of politics. Three constitutive features of public life, competition, publicity and uncertainty, compromise the potential of these traditions to affect in any fundamental way the practice of politics. Dissatisfaction with real existing democracy is not the consequence of some intellectual or moral failure uniquely characteristic of the persona publica, and attempts to reform it are misdirected to the extent that they imagine a better public life modeled on academic ideals.
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