expertise

NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON POLICY EXPERTISE IN TIMES OF CRISIS. BLOG 4: The promise and performance of data ecosystems: Australia’s COVID-19 response

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis

Cosmo Howard and Bernadette Hyland-Wood


COVID-19 showed the world that statistical data are indispensable for government decision making, especially in times of crisis. Yet, data systems to support public policy were often found wanting during the pandemic.

In our recent article in Policy & Politics, we argue that contemporary data sharing systems often behave like natural ecosystems for several reasons. They can grow and adapt organically, their members are highly interdependent, they are steered by powerful ‘keystone actors’ like government agencies and big tech companies, and they can be harnessed to provide benefits for society. This makes modern data systems different from older models, which relied on a single official statistical agency or a tight network of data providers to supply statistics for policy making. To test the operation of data ecosystems in practice, we investigated how Australia’s infectious disease data ecosystem functioned during COVID-19. We found strong evidence for organic growth and adaptation, but we also saw that keystone actors like government departments sometimes restricted access to data, which hampered the work of some data analysts within the ecosystem. Furthermore, there was often insufficient leadership by keystone actors to ensure that data ecosystems functioned coherently, resulting in disagreements over interpreting the data, as well as gaps in data coverage.

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Investigating the scientific knowledge–policy interface in EU climate policy 

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis

Claire Dupont, Jeffrey Rosamond and Bishoy L. Zaki


In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, we provide an historical overview of the evolution of some of the knowledge processes and linkages that are involved in EU climate policy. We explore whether developments in these knowledge exchanges reflect shifts in the politicisation of climate change.  

To address this question, we outline a conceptual model of politicisation that accounts for two different effects: (i) prioritisation leading to enabling conditions for knowledge exchange, and (ii) polarisation leading to constraining conditions. We analyse the politicisation of climate change in the EU since the 1990s, and discuss two key aspects of how knowledge exchanges develop: formal and informal aspects. Focusing on knowledge exchange with the European Commission, our analysis reveals connections between the development of the formal and informal aspects of knowledge exchange and changes in politicisation over time. We find that when the politicisation of climate change led to a negative or constraining context, informal knowledge exchanges stopped, making it more challenging for multidisciplinary scientific knowledge to be included. However, formal knowledge exchanges remained active, even under constraining conditions.  

In this way, our article provides a nuanced assessment of the connections between the effects of politicisation and the potential for meaningful scientific-policy knowledge exchange. It enhances our understanding of both the politicisation of climate change and the development of knowledge exchanges at the policy-science interface. 

You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Dupont, C., Rosamond, J., & Zaki, B. L. (2024). Investigating the scientific knowledge–policy interface in EU climate policy. Policy & Politics, 52(1), 88-107 from https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16861511996074

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON POLICY EXPERTISE IN TIMES OF CRISIS. BLOG 2: Is expertise politicised during crises?

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis

Peter Aagaard, Sevasti Chatzopoulou, and Birgitte Poulsen


Crisis seems to be everywhere these days. Where there is crisis, there is crisis management. And where there is crisis management, there are experts that advise politicians in decision-making. However, how does this sustained pressure from crises affect relationships between experts and politicians? Has expertise increasingly become politicised? Or do we see more scientisation of politics? And do relationships between experts and politicians vary across different political systems? These are all central questions addressed in our recently published article on Analysing expert advice on political decisions in times of crisis. They are important questions, because they deal with the legitimacy of decision-making and public sense-making in the era of recurring crises.  

In our article, we study how a crisis, like COVID-19, affected expert–politician relationships in Denmark, Greece, and the United States. Despite their differences, there were traces of the politicisation of expertise in all three cases. However, experts did not hold sway over elected politicians in any of the countries. In all three countries politicians relied on science selectively (also as partisan expertise) to publicly legitimise their strategies and decisions. The frontstage influence of experts played a minor but significant part across all three cases. Experts were aware of their role in the media during the crisis, often feeling a need to defend their science, perhaps even in opposition to their own government. (Perhaps you remember Fauci?) 

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NEW SPECIAL ISSUE BLOG SERIES ON POLICY EXPERTISE IN TIMES OF CRISIS: BLOG 1 – Policy expertise in turbulent times: introduction to Special Issue

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Special issue blog series on Policy Expertise in Times of Crisis.

Peter Aagaard, Marleen Easton, and Brian Head 


We are living in turbulent times. Governments have been confronted by multiple interacting crises, like the COVID-19 pandemic, global warming, and economic instability. All over the world, governments face challenges beyond their control, ranging from financial and political disruptions to pandemics, climate change, natural disasters, and threats to national security. These crisis situations are compounded by inevitable gaps in knowledge and uncertainties. This calls for policy advisors. Policy advisors do not just seek to maximise the efficiency of governance during crises. Policy advising also has implications for democratic accountability and legitimacy. 

Our article, just published, forms the introduction to a special issue on policy advising during crises. We collect, connect, and provide an overview of the literature in the field, and seek to build on this knowledge, offering new insights. 

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Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures

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by Ville Aula


Evidence-based policymaking is a popular approach to policy that has received widespread public attention during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as in the fight against climate change. It argues that policy choices based on rigorous, preferably scientific evidence should be given priority over choices based on other types of justification. However, delegating policymaking solely to researchers goes against the idea that policies are determined democratically.

In my recent article published in Policy & Politics: Evidence-based policymaking in the legislatures we explored the tension between politics and evidence in the national legislatures. While evidence-based policymaking has been extensively studied within governments, the legislative arena has received much less attention. The focus of the study was on understanding how legislators, legislative committees, and political parties together shape the use of evidence. We also wanted to explore how the interviewees understand timeliness and relevance of evidence, because lack of time is a key challenge within legislatures. The study is based on 39 interviews with legislators, party employees, and civil servants in Eduskunta, the national Parliament of Finland.

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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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Policy & Politics favourites of 2021

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Thea Cook, Journals Marketing ExecutiveThea-Cook

We wanted to share some of our readers’ favourite content that you might have missed. Please enjoy free access to some of our most read and highly cited articles, along with some of our editors’ highlights from recent issues. Continue reading →

Updating your course reading lists? Check out our essential reading recommendations for Public Policy, Politics and Social Policy from Policy & Politics

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All articles featured in this blog post are free to access until 31 October 2021

KoebeleIntroducing Elizabeth Koebele: our new Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Nevada, Reno.

I am thrilled to have begun serving as Digital Associate Editor for Policy & Politics in January 2021. I have spent the last few months taking over this position from my colleague, Oscar Berglund, who now serves as one of the journal’s co-editors. As many of us are beginning to plan for our policy and politics-focused courses next semester, I figured what better way to celebrate joining the P&P team than to share with you some of my favorite Policy & Politics articles that make a great fit on a variety of syllabi? I hope this saves you time and effort in mining our recent articles, while also ensuring your course materials reflect the latest research from the frontiers of the discipline.

My initial suggestions are structured around two general topics that I hope many of you find yourself teaching or studying: one focused on knowledge, and one focused on actors/influence. I’m also sharing my top picks for readings on an increasingly popular policy topic: policy diffusion/transfer. In each case, I’ve recommended three articles that represent some of the most significant research we’ve published recently. Please let me know what you think when you’re compiling your reading lists for the start of the academic year. I’d value your feedback and suggestions for future topics to cover! Continue reading →

Why evidence-based policy is political 

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SimonsArno Simons

The idea that public policy should be informed by scientific knowledge has great appeal. There is a growing understanding among politicians, the media and the public that decision making—especially on complex issues such as climate change and biodiversity—must include a scientific evaluation of the underlying problems and the available solutions. The reasoning is that, without science, public policies are most likely doomed to be irrational or ideological or both. To dissociate themselves from such “bad policy making” and to express their commitment to science in the policy process, policy makers and analysts have come to adopt the slogan “evidence-based policy” (EBP). Continue reading →

Experts – how influential are they in policymaking?

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Feb highlightsJohan Christensen with Sarah Brown

Highlights collection free to access from 1 February 2021 – 30 April 2021

Experts – how influential are they? By Johan Christensen based on his P&P article on Expert knowledge and policymaking: a multi-disciplinary research agenda

“We have to listen to the experts.” During the coronavirus pandemic, this phrase has been repeated by politicians across the world. Only a few years ago, we were told that “people have had enough of experts”. Now experts are back in demand. At press conferences, prime ministers are flanked by public health experts. And governments have set up a dizzying number of expert groups and task forces to examine policy measures to stop the spread of the virus, to formulate strategies to exit the crisis, and even to investigate the government response to the crisis. Continue reading →