by Lars Dorren and Eva E.A Wolf
Although one would expect evidence based policy making (known as ‘EBPM’: meaning the introduction of facts and figures in policy processes) to help bring clarity to policy conflicts, this is not always the case. In fact, it can have the very opposite effect, as our recently published research article argues: “How evidence-based policy making helps and hinders policy conflict”.
Previous research has shown that evidence can help conflicting parties move past their differences by temporarily offering them a set of principles to which they all can ascribe. EBPM also gives people the tools to scrutinise decisions, and comes with transparent procedures. However, our study shows that working based on EBPM principles does not always help policy conflict. We looked at the way in which a piece of evidence called the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) impacted existing conflicts in three large infrastructure projects in Flanders. The observed processes revolved around determining the preferred option among multiple proposed solutions for an infrastructural issue that needed to be addressed. We found that, in these processes, the introduction of an EBPM-type instrument such as the EIA also created confusion.
In our specific cases, the EIA occupied a very central place in policy processes; much of the stakeholder involvement revolved around providing input for the EIAs, and a considerable amount of time of the civil servants working on the project went into managing the process of making the EIAs. This led participants—mainly citizen stakeholders—to believe that they were participating in a rather horizontal policy process in which they could exert influence through contributing facts, and in which the final decision would be made based on the outcomes of these EIAs, which had to be as thorough as possible for this to happen properly.
This was not the reality of the policy processes participants found themselves in. Instead, the projects took place in a hierarchical context; politicians had the mandate to decide what would be built, even if that decision went against other participants’ reading of what would be best, according to the EIA. Rather than solving or clarifying policy conflict, this discrepancy between the expectations and the reality of a policy context seemed to further fuel conflicts. Two specific examples of this were (i) making politicians appear to interfere with an objective, horizontal process and (ii) civil servants rushing a process in which thoroughness was the most important thing.
Policy makers wanting to rely on EBMP-type instruments such as the EIA thus need to be aware of their potential adverse effects. Instead of bringing clarity, EBPM in the case studies we researched had the potential to fuel policy conflict, and damage the reputation of the policy makers involved, as well as of EBPM itself. Based on these findings, we developed two recommendations for policy makers to prevent adverse effects from occurring. Firstly, they should refrain from positioning analytical instruments such as the EIA as decision-making instruments. Secondly, they should communicate clearly about the instrument’s place in relation to administrative timeframes and its function in the hierarchy of a policy process. In this way, the findings suggest that managing participants’ expectations about what evidence is and what role it plays in the policy process is key in fostering productive policy conflict.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics:
Dorren, L., & Wolf, E. E. (2023). How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict, Policy & Politics, 51(3), 486-507 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16836237135216
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