Understanding evidence in policy-making

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by Grace Piddington, Eleanor Mackillop & James Downe


Different views of evidence
The role of evidence in the policy-making process is contentious. Those who design policy have different perspectives on what constitutes rigorous evidence – whether that is a preference for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or lived experience. Our recent research article, published in Policy & Politics aims to improve understanding of how policy actors in Scotland and Wales view evidence. It finds that perceptions of evidence are not bounded by institutional, professional, or territorial criteria. Rather, they are much more fluid, with the individual’s understanding evolving over time.

Evidence profiles
Our research found four profiles which can help us to understand what constitutes evidence for policy actors. Each profile outlined describes one possible way to understand evidence and its role in the policy-making process. This list is not exhaustive but provides insight into some of the ways that evidence is viewed.

  • Evidence based policy making Idealists: this profile typically prioritises rigorous and clear evidence in decision-making processes. Their preference for high-quality research and systematic reviews can lead to a greater emphasis on evidence-based practices and interventions.
  • Pragmatists: They tend to take a more flexible and context-specific approach toevidence. Pragmatists value practical experience and local knowledge in addition to research findings.
  • Inclusive: Members of this profile emphasise a broad range of evidence sources, including individual stories and lived experiences. They value diverse perspectives and the incorporation of multiple forms of evidence in decision-making.
  • Political: This profile is characterised by a critical view of evidence and a focus on power relations in decision-making. They may question traditional hierarchies of evidence and challenge dominant narratives.
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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON Policy Learning: Types, Mechanisms and Effects. BLOG 1: Ad hoc groups and policy learning under crisis: more than a ‘quick fix’

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by Sreeja Nair 


Each time a crisis hits, be it a natural disaster, pandemic or a corruption scandal, several ad hoc units are assembled by governments for quick action, only to be dismantled soon after the crisis becomes manageable or settles. Are these groups deployed as a signal of assurance to the public that indeed some action is being taken, or to bypass long-drawn bureaucratic processes in favour of quick action or to efficiently assemble and utilise resources under crisis? Perhaps all of the above. The possibilities of how ad hoc groups can be structured and the range of functions these can offer are plenty.  

The term ‘adhocracy’ first featured in the book titled ‘The Temporary Society’ (Bennis and Slater, 1968) to describe flexible, unstructured and adaptable organisational models, which operated in stark contrast to a typical bureaucracy. Owing to their transient nature, policy learning opportunities brought about by ad hoc groups, have received little attention in public policy literature. Our new article in Policy and Politics presents insights from an exploratory study to understand the diverse institutional roles played by ad hoc groups deployed during crisis.  

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How and why equal pay remains on the EU agenda?

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by Sophie Jacquot
UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles 


In my recently published article in Policy & Politics, I ask how and why equal pay remains on the EU agenda, and, relatedly, if policy failure can be useful in policymaking. 

Equal pay for equal work between women and men has been enshrined in European treaties since 1957. It is one of the EU’s founding principles, and, even though the EU’s action against gender inequalities has expanded to include areas as varied as domestic violence, integration of gender equality in external relations, gender budgeting or the articulation between private and working life, equal pay certainly remains the flagship and most symbolic policy domain of the EU gender equality policy. Equal pay can be considered as an identity marker for the EU.  Implementing the principle of equal pay has regularly been on the European policy-making agenda since the 1970s with new legislation, case law, soft regulation, etc. However, the gender pay gap in the EU is 13% in 2022. It means that women would need to work 1.5 extra months to make up the difference. It also means that progress in closing the gender pay gap is extremely slow: it decreased by only 2.8% pp in 10 years.  

Source: Extract from Equal Pay? Time to close the gap! (European Commission, November 2022, https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2022-11/equal_pay_day_factsheet_2022_en_1_0.pdf). Reproduction allowed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. 

Given these (poor) results, the EU equal pay policy could be assessed as a failure and its existence questioned. But, on the contrary, the EU equal pay policy seems unaffected by failure. Recently, the von der Leyen Commission has put equal pay at the heart of the Union of Equality programme and has proposed a Directive on pay transparency, which was adopted on 10 May 2023. My recent article “Can failure be useful in policy-making? The case of EU equal pay policy” explores this paradox: Why and how, despite repeated implementation failure, is the EU equal pay policy still up and running? 

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Latest Policy Process research from Policy & Politics free to access

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As proud co-sponsors of the Conference on Policy Process Research 2024, we bring you our latest policy process research, free to access for the conference period from 15-17 May. 

Please look out for members of our team attending COPPR! 


Happy reading! 

Organisation, information processing, and policy change in US federal bureaucracies 
Authors: Samuel Workman, Scott E. Robinson, and Tracey Bark 

Identifying proactive and reactive policy entrepreneurs in collaborative networks in flood risk management 
Authors: Per Becker, Jörgen Sparf, and Evangelia Petridou 

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The climate crisis and radical political action

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by Hubert Buch-Hansen and Martin Bæk Carstensen


Addressing the existential threat posed by the climate and biodiversity crises requires deep-seated transformative change. Such change necessitates political action far more radical than that characterising current mainstream policymaking. Yet what sort of policymakers and policymaking could foster the needed radical transformations towards ecological sustainability? This is the question we address in our recent article published in Policy & Politics entitled What kind of political agency can foster radical transformation towards ecological sustainability?  

The paper takes “degrowth” as an example of a radical political project, contemplating the sort of political action that could bring about the type of policies its proponents call for. Degrowth involves deep transformations towards a society co-existing harmoniously within itself and with nature. To bring about such transformations, degrowth proponents, for instance, suggest eco-taxes and limits placed on advertising, caps on income and wealth, subsidies for organic agriculture and regulation making it illegal for companies to produce products that cannot be repaired.  

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Policy & Politics highlights collection on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis: free to access from 1st May – 31 July 2024

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by Sarah Brown, Journals Manager

Policy & Politics highlights collection on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis: free to access from 1st May – 31 July 2024 

Barely out of the media spotlight it seems, the role of experts in policymaking is as topical now as it was during the Covid-19 pandemic. So, we’re delighted to introduce our new special issue re-examining this hotly debated topic – Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis. 

The Covid-19 pandemic increased the focus on the relationship between experts and politicians. For example, health experts globally became engaged in new ways of exchanging knowledge where they recommended strategies for coping with the pandemic and gave advice to governments and citizens. New institutional structures for exchanging knowledge came about, organised around communities of expertise, advisory committees, public campaigns and the crisis management operations of state agencies. These have also been evident during other crises, such as climate change and specific economic and political crises. 

In Western liberal democracies, politics and expertise are, ideally at least, seen as preconditions for each other. Here, experts provide knowledge and advice based on the latest research and politicians make decisions based on that expert advice. Experts are, in this view, neutral and unbiased, providing legitimacy to the policy process.

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Policy responsiveness and its administrative organisation in China 

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by Yao Liu, Eduardo Araral, Jiannan Wu


Do policy makers in China care about public opinion? Our recent article published in Policy & Politics demonstrates that Chinese governments effectively address public demands, especially on environmental issues, using online petition data and fiscal expenditure records. 

We focused on a relatively new channel for assessing public opinion, namely online petitioning via official platforms. These represent a new tool for public expression, distinct from more traditional institutionalized and non-institutionalized channels. On the one hand, compared to traditional petitioning, they provide greater accessibility. As long as there is internet access, members of the public can easily leave online messages. On the other hand, compared to public opinion expressed on social media, online petitioning is subject to specific regulations and demonstrate a certain level of official moderation, rather than relying solely on unmoderated input from the public.  

Response agencies, the department within local government responsible for collecting and responding to these public opinions, bridge the gap between the public and policy makers and act as a “transit point” to help organise the process of converting public opinion into policy action. Using a theoretical framework that analysed the roles of different response agencies in converting public opinion into policy action, we focussed on two dimensions: political authority and interest homogeneity. Specifically, policy responsiveness improves significantly when government response agencies demonstrate a high level of political authority and share homogeneous interests with citizens. 

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Crisis management in English local government: the limits of resilience

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By Tania Arrieta and Jonathan S. Davies

In our recently published article in Policy & Politics, we explore the context for local authorities in England that have been pushed to develop “resilience.” This has been as a result of the austerity policies that have led to the phasing out of the Revenue Support Grant (e.g., a grant given to local authorities to finance expenditure on any service), increased service demand and the need to absorb more responsibilities in their communities. Whilst having a reduced capacity, local authorities also faced the challenges imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the cost of living-crisis. Several have issued Section 114 “bankruptcy” notices indicating that they cannot balance their budgets as required by law, further escalating pressure on local services in responding to the growing inability of many to meet basic subsistence costs, such as the cost of food and housing.

Exploring resilience through the lens of crisis management, our article investigates in what ways and for whom resilience generates positive, zero and negative- sum outcomes. We believe this is a crucial moment in understanding the medium and longer-term consequences of resilience measures deployed by councils to ameliorate the effects of austerity, as they face rising financial hardship with a severely depleted resource base. Our work centres on four resilience strategies used by two unitary authorities in the East Midlands in England: Leicester City Council and Nottingham City Council. These resilience strategies are savings, reserves, collaboration, and investment.  

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The policy impact of dissension within the Violence Against Women and Girls Movement

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By Leah McCabe


Women’s movements often play a crucial role in highlighting the problem of violence against women and girls (VAWG) and driving policy change, but what happens when feminists cannot agree on the most effective way forward? In my recent article published in Policy & Politics, I discuss how this very dilemma unfolded within the Scottish VAWG movement. While the movement has made significant gains in incorporating feminist concerns in domestic abuse/VAWG policy, making effective use of the new structures facilitated by devolution, it encountered difficulties in reaching a consensus on the definition of domestic abuse.

Specifically, my study revealed an enduring internal disagreement around the dominance of (single-axis) gendered frames. This policy framing conceptualises domestic abuse as a cause and consequence of gender inequality and patriarchal structures – a perspective subsequently integrated in national policy in 2000. However, organisations supporting Black and minority ethnic victims/survivors have argued that this conceptualisation of the problem oversimplifies the issue, failing to account for the complexity of violence. Instead, feminists from these organisations have advocated for intersectional frames which acknowledge the interlocking gendered, classed, and racialised dynamics of violence. Ultimately, these actors have not been granted similar access to policymaking processes, resulting in the marginalisation of their perspectives. Significantly, these internal debates have endured in the decades following devolution.

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Advocacy coalitions, soft power, and policy change in Mexican electricity policy: a discourse network analysis 

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by Raúl Gutiérrez-Meave


A central hypothesis in the influential policy process theory, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) posits that major policy change is unlikely if the coalition defending the status quo retains power. However, operationalising which coalition is in power has proven challenging.

In my recent article on this topic published in Policy and Politics, I argue that coalition power can be operationalised based on two dimensions: formal authority over decisions (hard power) and the ability to shape policy preferences through discourse (soft power). Employing discourse network analysis to capture the relative dominance of competing coalitions based on discourse interactions, I analysed the contentious 20-year-old debate surrounding the proposed liberalisation of the Mexican electricity generation sector.

The findings align with the ACF hypothesis; they show that the status quo coalition maintained consistent soft power when two reform attempts to liberalise the sector failed. This discursive dominance corresponded with continued policy stability, supporting the ACF hypothesis. However, major policy change occurred when the reforming coalition gained discursive influence and internal consensus, leading to a shift in soft power dynamics.

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