by Elizabeth Koebele with Sarah Brown
Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations on evidence-based policymaking, policy learning in multi-level and crisis contexts and the representation of diverse identities in public policy
It’s that time of year again to update your course syllabi with the latest research. Here at Policy & Politics, we hope to make that job easier for you by providing suggestions for teaching three important and timely themes in your policy courses.
Our first theme, showcasing three articles, is evidence-based policymaking (EBP). Of interest to students and scholars alike, our articles on EBP span a variety of perspectives that challenge mainstream views and showcase new angles on how EBP affects policy process dynamics. They should all lead to interesting classroom discussions and assignments about the meaning and validity of EBP.
The next three articles in our collection tackle different aspects of policy learning – an ever-popular topic with students and scholars alike, according to our readership data! These selected articles advance the dialogue on this important topic by exploring how learning may be fostered or constrained by multi-level governance structures and in crisis contexts.
Finally, we are proud to showcase our innovative cluster of articles on the representation of diverse identities in public policy, which is central to the values of the Policy & Politics editorial team. We feature a range of different contexts and perspectives on this important area of research and policy practice.
Evidence-Based Policymaking
In keeping with the journal’s emphasis on highlighting the political contexts of policymaking, our first article on EBP, authored by Arno Simons and Alexander Schniedermann, investigates instrument constituency dynamics in what it terms ‘the neglected politics behind evidence-based policy’. Through their research, the authors illustrate why EBP is not a self-evident theory of policymaking and set out why it still thrives, despite the evidence against its use.
Staying with a more critical approach to EBP, our next article, by author team Geoff Bates et al., looks at what types of health evidence diverse actors find most persuasive in a complex policy system. Here, the authors argue that the impact of evidence depends on many factors, including how it is presented and translated. To address complex health challenges collectively, it helps if the diverse actors involved can draw on evidence that is accessible and meaningful to all.
Our final article on EBP, authored by Lars Dorren and Eva E.A. Wolf, investigates the question of How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict. A popular explanation for governments’ persistent enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking is its expected capacity to solve policy conflict, but research remains divided on whether or not EBP can achieve this. The authors show that, although EBP channels conflict in a way that prompts engagement from stakeholders, it also escalates conflict by misrepresenting the nature of policy processes. As such, their findings suggest that managing participants’ expectations about what evidence is, and can do, is crucial for fostering productive policy conflict.
Policy Learning in Multi-level and Crisis Contexts
Our first article on this theme, by Kristin Taylor et al., examines the contextual factors that promote and constrain policy learning in local government. Examining several communities’ responses to a common disaster event, the authors identify characteristics associated with policy learning, as well as those that may limit learning and lead to inequitable policy outcomes.
Our second article, from Bishoy Louis Zaki and Ellen Wayenberg, looks at how policy learning takes place across multiple levels of governance during crises. Examining the case of the Belgian COVID-19 policy response, the authors find that the existing multilevel governance structures resulted in the policy learning process being deconstructed into smaller heterogenous learning processes at different levels. Such decentralised approaches to learning provided the space for customised, yet often fragmented policy responses.
Our final article on this theme, by Simone Busetti and Maria Stella Righettini, examines policy learning across two implementations of the Italian food stamp programme during COVID-19. Here, the authors found evidence for learning in that most municipalities implemented changes during the second delivery of the programme due to lessons learned during the first delivery, in addition to making broader changes to other social programmes. However, the window of opportunity for learning closed quickly and some lessons learned soon became obsolete in a rapidly changing context.
Representation of Diverse Identities in Public Policy
Our first article on this theme, by Rhys Andrews, asks if women leaders of non-profit public service organisations help to reduce the gender pay gap or not. Although the findings show that non-profit service providers with women in the most senior organisational positions may have a lower gender pay gap, representation in the upper echelons in general is not likely to influence gender pay equality. This raises questions about whether a glass ceiling may be present, as has been observed in state-led public service organisations.
Moving on to think about identities in policymaking, our second article, by Elizabeth Bell and Edith Lui, highlights the importance of integrating identity in policy design theory. Starting from the premise that the distribution of policy benefits and burdens is shaped by policymakers’ social constructions of target populations, the authors examine how factors such as linked fate, intersectionality and identity complexity impact public support for affirmative action in the US. The authors find that low-income and non-White respondents were more likely to support socioeconomic or race-based affirmative action, respectively, but that partisanship can moderate this effect.
Our third and final article on this theme, by Charlène Calderaro, examines the racialisation of sexism. By analysing the role of race framings in the pre-adoption phases of policies against street harassment in France and Britain, the article suggests that nationally embedded assumptions about race have a significant impact on the framing of anti-gender-based violence policy.
These are only some of the themes that recent Policy & Politics articles debate. The recommended articles here would all make great contributions to syllabi in various social science fields under the suggested or related topics. There is a full bibliography below, allowing you to copy and paste easily into your syllabus.
All the articles featured in this reading list blog are free to access from August 1st until the end of September. We hope you enjoy the collection!
Evidence-Based Policymaking
- The neglected politics behind evidence-based policy: shedding light on instrument constituency dynamics (Simons and Schniedermann) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16225469993170
- What types of health evidence persuade policy actors in a complex system? (Bates et al.) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16814103714008
- How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict (Dorren)
Policy Learning in Multi-level and Crisis Contexts
- Analysing the contextual factors that promote and constrain policy learning in local government (Taylor et al.) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16574892242428
- How does policy learning take place across a multilevel governance architecture during crises? (Zaki and Wayenberg) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16680922931773
- Policy learning from crises: lessons learned from the Italian food stamp programme (Busetti and Righettini) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16678318518550
Representation of Diverse Identities in Public Policy
- Do women leaders of nonprofit public service organisations help to reduce the gender pay gap? (Rhys)
- Integrating identity in policy design theory (Bell and Lui) https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16587888968118
- The racialisation of sexism: how race frames shape anti-street harassment policies in Britain and France (Calderaro)
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