TY - CHAP
T1 - Politics, public administration, and evidence-based policy
AU - Newman, Joshua
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - There is a growing trend in academic scholarship of public policy to discount the role of evidence in informing public sector decision making, both in positive terms (public policy decisions are not, and possibly cannot be, based on evidence) and normative terms (public policy should not be based on evidence). This chapter presents an overview of the current debates in this area, and argues that many viewpoints, although popular, are too extreme, rely on questionable assumptions, and in some cases are somewhat counterproductive. Evidence-based policy is not, as is often argued by critics, a fixed end goal under which decision making is automated, reducing governance to a series of algorithms performed by machines or by human technocrats. Rather, it is an aspiration to enhance the quality of information that feeds into the decision making process, expand the capacity of the public sector's administrative apparatus to process this information and use it for the creation of advice, and educate the voting public on important matters of public concern. Seen in this light, evidence-based policy is an approach concerned with improving public sector decision making, and ultimately, the governing of society.
AB - There is a growing trend in academic scholarship of public policy to discount the role of evidence in informing public sector decision making, both in positive terms (public policy decisions are not, and possibly cannot be, based on evidence) and normative terms (public policy should not be based on evidence). This chapter presents an overview of the current debates in this area, and argues that many viewpoints, although popular, are too extreme, rely on questionable assumptions, and in some cases are somewhat counterproductive. Evidence-based policy is not, as is often argued by critics, a fixed end goal under which decision making is automated, reducing governance to a series of algorithms performed by machines or by human technocrats. Rather, it is an aspiration to enhance the quality of information that feeds into the decision making process, expand the capacity of the public sector's administrative apparatus to process this information and use it for the creation of advice, and educate the voting public on important matters of public concern. Seen in this light, evidence-based policy is an approach concerned with improving public sector decision making, and ultimately, the governing of society.
KW - Evidence-based policy
KW - Evidence-informed policy
KW - Policy analysis
KW - Policy capacity
KW - Research utilization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85152063186&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4337/9781839109447.00014
DO - 10.4337/9781839109447.00014
M3 - Chapter (Book)
AN - SCOPUS:85152063186
SN - 9781839109430
T3 - Elgar Handbooks in Public Administration and Management
SP - 82
EP - 92
BT - Handbook on the Politics of Public Administration
A2 - Ladner, Andreas
A2 - Sager, Fritz
PB - Edward Elgar Publishing
CY - Cheltenham UK
ER -