Can Government Think? by Hartley Kris;

Author:Hartley, Kris;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3569370
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group

Part III

Evidence-based policy

9 Foundational thinkers in epistemology

At the heart of pragmatic policymaking is knowledge. In combination with a systematic process to incorporate knowledge into the formulation and decisionmaking stages of the policy development cycle, the capacity to procure and analyze data is critical to overcoming governance habits based on ideology and patronage, which can be unenlightened at best and destructive at worst. The phrase “evidence-based policy” is broad and has been applied in a variety of settings for multiple purposes. Indeed, it is a term laden with colloquial ambiguity but at its core implies that policy development can be sanitized from some potentially harmful discursive, negotiative, and political dynamics that often inform it. This chapter proceeds under the definition of evidence-based policymaking as that which is informed by robust, defensible, non-partisan research. It does not make strong arguments on the usage end but instead explores the process by which knowledge is developed for policy use, with a special focus on the types of problems confronting government. As such, the chapter necessarily focuses on the more detailed issues related to research analysis, setting the stage for the concluding chapter’s description of how institutional and administrative architecture can establish a more favorable environment for the adoption of evidence-based policy. This chapter first examines the lasting influence on research made by foundational thinkers of social science and economics, continues with a critique of debates within these circles, and concludes by proposing how these contributions have been applied to research methods for modern governance challenges, specifically a case of financial regulation.

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