conflict escalation

2023 Policy & Politics Reading List

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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.

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How evidence-based policymaking helps and hinders policy conflict

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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.

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