Abstract
The opposing views in the scholarly debate on evidence-based policy (EBP) have recently been labeled ‘rationalist’ and ‘constructivist’, where the former are positive to EBP and the latter are not. This framing of the debate is suboptimal, as it conflates critical positions that should be kept separate. This article suggests that the debate should be understood as one between idealists, realists, and counter-idealists about EBP. The realist position, that is, that EBP is difficult or impossible to achieve in practice, has already been treated at length in the debate. The conflict between idealism and counter-idealism, to the contrary, has been neglected. This article aims to stimulate the scholarly debate on EBP by initiating a principled discussion between idealism and counter-idealism about EBP, which should motivate proponents of EBP to formulate their ideal with substantial moral arguments. This places the debate on EBP in the context of normative political theory, where it rightfully belongs.
Key messages
The scholarly debate on evidence-based policy (EBP) has been framed as one between ‘rationalists’ and ‘constructivists’.
It is better understood as one between idealists, realists, and counter-idealists.
The principled conflict between idealism and counter-idealism is treated at length.
The discussion should motivate proponents of EBP to formulate their ideal with substantial moral arguments.
Introduction
It has been said that the so-called evidence-based policy (EBP) movement is united through a common wish to take ‘ideology and politics out of the policy process’ (Botterill, 2017: 1). Under this description, EBP proponents want public decision making to be guided by scientific evidence, so that the electorate determines the political ends and epistemic authorities determine the political means of public policy; the people say what, experts say how. In recent scholarly discussions, proponents and critics of EBP have been called ‘rationalists’ and ‘constructivists’ (Newman, 2017; Standring, 2017; Strassheim, 2017). Rationalists, in this attempt to structure the debate, are optimists about the prospects of achieving EBP in practice. It is also implicit that they find EBP morally desirable. Constructivists, to the contrary, are either pessimists about the prospects of achieving EBP, sceptical to the desirability thereof, or both. This article aims to contribute to the discussion on EBP by taking a different approach to it.
The article takes as starting point the critique that EBP is difficult, or impossible, to achieve in practice. EBP is then interpreted as a political ideal. This leads to a distinction between idealists, realists, and counter-idealists about EBP, instead of the prior distinction between rationalists and constructivists. In this categorisation, proponents of EBP (‘idealists’) support a political ideal based on instrumental rationality, whereas critics target feasibility constraints of that ideal (‘realists’) and/or its substantial moral content (‘counter-idealists’). This approach to the scholarly debate on EBP achieves three things. First, it distinguishes realists from counter-idealists – two groups of critics that have previously been conflated. Second, it should motivate EBP proponents to formulate their ideal with substantial moral arguments. Third, it places the debate on EBP in the context of normative political theory, where it rightfully belongs.
Discussion
Background
It is difficult to capture the EBP movement in a formal definition. However, for the present purposes a broad categorisation suffices: EBP proponents are those who want to significantly raise the influence that research and evidence has on policy making and adopt that wish as an overarching aim in politics to promote instrumental rationality in the policy process (cf. Cairney, 2017). EBP proponents trace the intellectual roots of their ideal to evidence-based medicine and efforts to assess the strength of evidence in relation to the risks and benefits of different treatment alternatives, suggesting that ‘the same aspirations and, up to a point, the same set of methods, including randomized trials and meta-reviews of the literature, can be applied to the study of policy issues’ (Botterill and Hindmoor, 2012: 369).
The broad aim of the movement has been subjected to criticism on a number of key points. Perhaps most commonly, critics argue that EBP is difficult, or even impossible, to achieve in practice. For instance, Brian W. Head argues that ‘we cannot expect to construct a policy system that is fuelled primarily by objective research findings. Creating more systematic linkages between rigorous research and the processes of policy-making would require long and complex effort at many levels’ (Head, 2010: 80). Linda Courtenay Botterill and Andrew Hindmoor argue that it is ‘naïve’ to believe that EBP can be achieved by a more scientifically informed and designed policy process (Botterill and Hindmoor, 2012: 369). According to Andrea R. Migone and Kathy L. Brock, ‘policy advice exists in a highly contextualized environment… where there is no immediate, linear connection between it and policy decisions’ (Migone and Brock, 2017: 373). For reasons such as these, Richard D. French writes that ‘the majority of proponents of EBP do not grasp the realities of policy-making’ (French, 2018: 429).1
This is not necessarily true for all proponents. It is possible that some of them champion EBP as a political ideal. Proponents in that subgroup, that is, idealists, can be expected to be unmoved by attempts to refute their theory on pragmatic grounds such as those accounted for above. Their defense of EBP is as a political ideal and should be understood and assessed in principle. The question, according to this view, is not whether the ideal of EBP is practically feasible, but whether there is anything wrong about the ideal as such.
There are two main opposing views of EBP idealism. First, the critics accounted for above can be understood as realists, as they target the various constraints to achieving EBP in practice. Some of them, such as Sue Duncan (Duncan, 2005) and Ian Sanderson (Sanderson, 2009), have attempted to formulate more practical alternatives to EBP idealism. These realists do not focus on instrumental rationality, but on the various other ways in which evidence can inform policy. Other realists, such as Larry S. Luton (Luton, 2007) and French (French, 2018), seem to dismiss EBP altogether. Second, critics can be understood as counter-idealists. Critics in this group are not concerned with realist arguments. Instead, they target the EBP ideal as such, arguing that there are substantial moral problems connected to it. Counter-idealists are underrepresented in the scholarly debate on EBP. Therefore, the remainder of this article will be occupied with questions concerning EBP idealism and counter-idealism and how the conflict between these positions should be understood.
Ideal and realist political theory
There are numerous suggestions as to how ideal and realist theory should be understood (Simmons, 2010; Hamlin and Stemplowska, 2012; Valentini, 2012). One of the first detailed discussions of the notion of ‘ideal’ theory is found in O’Neill (1987). In it, Onora O’Neill takes ideal theory to be an instance of abstract reasoning. ‘Abstract ethical and political theories’, O’Neill writes in an explication of criticism of ideal theory, ‘make assumptions about agency which are not satisfied by human agents’ (1987: 56). O’Neill defends abstraction in political philosophy, arguing, among other things, that it is both a necessary and an unavoidable form of thinking.
There are various criticisms of ideal theory (see, for example, Mills, 2005; Sen, 2006; Farelly, 2007; Wiens, 2015; Levy, 2016). For the present purposes, the most important criticism concerns the feasibility of ideal theory. In broad terms, the debate on feasibility is about practical constraints to idealisations. One way of understanding the problem is through the Kantian principle, ‘ought implies can’; should it be the case that a political ideal (or some element of it) is practically impossible to achieve, critics would argue that this practical constraint matters to the truth status of the theory (see, for example, Estlund, 2014; 2016; Wiens, 2016; 2018; Erman and Möller, 2019).
Nicholas Southwood has formulated a thought example that illustrates the problem of feasibility. The reader is asked to consider a hypothetical polity, Pecunia, in which the economic position of the poor could be improved by progressive taxation (Southwood, 2016: 7). But, the middle-class majority in Pecunia cannot bring themselves to work at that level of taxation, meaning that an improved economic position of the poor (by means of taxation) is not feasible. In light of this setup, consider the following claim: ‘The Pecunians ought to improve the economic position of the poor by progressive taxation’ (Southwood, 2016: 7). Many would share the intuition that the claim is false, as it demands the infeasible. On the other hand, to many the claim also seems to be true; it states what the Pecunians ought to do, regardless of whether they would meet the moral demand. The example thus cuts to the centre of the debate on feasibility and whether practical constraints to political ideals matter to their truth status.
Some of those who think that feasibility constraints matter to the truth status of political principles advocate realist political theory (see, for example, Arvan, 2014; Östbring, 2019). Realist theories are not marked by, for instance, assumptions of strict compliance, as in John Rawls’s renowned theory of justice (cf. Simmons, 2010). In realist theories, people may lack a sense of justice, or they comply merely to some limited extent with normative demands. The purpose of realist theories, in this sense, is to provide guidance with regard to how ideals should be met; they specify the road to justice rather than justice itself.
The evidence-based policy ideal
It is beyond the present purposes to develop an EBP ideal here. Instead, I will suggest what such an ideal would accomplish and discuss some of the problems that can be expected to be associated with it. My aim is not to defend EBP. Instead, I wish to demonstrate that there is a principled, or philosophical, dimension to EBP ideals and stimulate a discussion of it. However, some brief comments on the substance of a hypothetical EBP ideal are necessary as to enable further discussion.
In the final chapter of their book Evidence-Based Policy Making in the Social Sciences, editors Gerry Stoker and Mark Evans pose the question, ‘what would the perfect evidence-based policy system look like when you have got it?’ (Stoker and Evans, 2016: 264). They put together a list of 15 answers suggested by executive members of the Australian and New Zealand bureaucracies. The items in italics are areas where Stoker and Evans believe that social science researchers could contribute (2016: 265):
Where policy advisors have the capacity to act and the competences to understand the choices available to them.
A policy system that works beyond the electoral cycle and focuses on long-term issues of national significance.
A system that utilises existing capacity.
A system that is proactive to changes in the field of action.
Where there is room for experimentation.
Where innovation is incentivised.
Where the capacity to speak truth to power exists.
Where there are clear accountabilities.
Where policy and evidence are effectively integrated.
Where information systems allow for the effective flow of information from the front line.
Where evidence is freely debated and shared.
Where better practice is shared.
Where there is access to evidence and, by implication, strong productive working relationships with knowledge institutions.
Where there is effective use of innovation intermediaries.
Where there are demand- and supply-side incentives to engage in evidence-based policy making.
Stoker and Evans’s list does not form a complete political ideal for EBP. However, it points in the direction of one. In brief, it points to an ideal in which policy making agencies have all the institutional capacities that are necessary for incorporating evidence and put it into practice so as to attain instrumental rationality in the policy process.
One other tentative EBP ideal can be found among advocates of randomised control trials (RCTs) in public policy (see, for example, Bird et al, 2011). For instance, Haynes et al argue that RCTs should be used ‘to test the effectiveness of public policy interventions’ (Haynes et al, 2012: 4). They suggest nine steps to ‘test, learn, and adapt’ to ‘what works’ (2012: 5). Their RCT model is one kind of EBP ideal, although it is more restricted than a hypothetical alternative in which all policies should achieve instrumental rationality. Thus, the distinction should be made between EBP ideals of different degrees. Some are demanding, others less so. However, they are all of the same nature, held together by their advocates’ pursuit of instrumental rationality, and can thus be treated alike on a principled level of inquiry. Therefore, in what follows I will discuss the EBP ideal as a singular notion, in recognition of the fact that different ideals can vary both in kind and in degree.
The EBP ideal is intended to be ideologically neutral. For instance, socialists, conservatives, and liberals, should be equally faithful to it, as the ideal is not committed to any substantial normative content (beyond the above mentioned) such as, for instance, equality, order, or liberty. Proponents of EBP are not interested in which political ends to pursue, but only in how the chosen ends should be attained.
Merits of the evidence-based policy ideal
In this subsection, I discuss three merits of the EBP ideal – although I am certain that proponents could find more. A first merit of the EBP ideal is that it can function as an organising principle. It is at least prima facie true that policy based on evidence is morally better than policy that is not based on evidence. Any version of the EBP ideal must include an explanation why, beyond mere intuition. That explanation would be reason-giving to agents in the domain of public policy. In that domain, agents could point to the ideal and say, ‘follow that!’ The ideal would be action-guiding for agents in the domain of public policy just as, for instance, Jesus and Muhammad are action-guiding for agents in the domain of religion. To continue the religious analogy, it does not matter to believers that they cannot lead their lives just as their religious role models do – what matters is that the models motivate them to try. Likewise, it does not matter much to the practical value of the EBP ideal that it cannot be fulfilled, as long as its function as an organising principle remains.
A second merit of the EBP ideal is that it enables evaluation. Southwood has argued that under an evaluative understanding of the ‘ought’ in the Kantian principle that ‘ought implies can’, ought-claims are ‘fit to be used by an appropriately situated evaluator in evaluating’, that is, in assessing behaviour (Southwood, 2016: 25; emphasis in original). Under an evaluative understanding of ‘ought’, it does not matter to the truth status of the EBP ideal whether it is feasible; the ideal suffices as a justificatory base for the judgment that policy makers are morally blameworthy if they fail to abide by it. This would explain at least part of the strength in claims such as, ‘policy makers should follow the advice of experts’ and ‘the head of the administration must have known that the negative outcome was predictable, yet she proceeded on that course; therefore, she should resign’. Furthermore, as reflected in the latter claim, by extension evaluation enables holding public officials accountable for their policy decisions.
A third merit of the EBP ideal is that it can be action-guiding in particular instances despite that it is infeasible in completeness. The feasibility constraints discussed in the first main section above target EBP as an overarching agenda for public policy. It is not necessarily the case that those constraints are present in all policy areas, or for all policy problems. In particular instances of policy making, EBP may be possible. For instance, in a manuscript, Karim Jebari argues that a political decision to introduce grades experimentally from the age of 10 in Swedish schools (instead of, as today, at the age of 12) can be criticised on the grounds that the reform conflicts with EBP-based policy recommendations (Jebari, 2019). Thus, an important difference should be recognised between global and local EBP, where the latter is action-guiding despite the feasibility constraints of the former.
Principled objections to the evidence-based policy ideal
Just as there are merits of the EBP ideal on a principled level, there are also principled objections to it. These counter-idealist objections challenge the prima facie truth that policy based on evidence is morally better than policy that is not based on evidence. Here, I discuss three such objections that I believe that EBP proponents should take seriously.
The first objection to the EBP ideal is that it can conflict with other values attached to the policy process. Although the view is not uncontroversial, many would share the belief that decisions in politics are sometimes symbolic, and that there can be values attached to such actions beyond their practical effects. For instance, Swedes are known (at least among themselves) to be good at queuing. Standing in orderly lines for the bus, the ATM, and the cinema is one of the things that characterise Swedes as a people. I would assume that a law mandating people to stand in orderly lines before things would not have any effect whatsoever on the behaviour of queuing Swedes; they are already doing it. However, over the last decade Sweden has seen the rise of a right-wing nationalist movement, represented in the parliament by the party the Sweden Democrats. Should a law be passed today mandating people to stand in orderly lines before things, this would have a significant symbolic value attached to it. Supporters of the Sweden Democrats would likely praise the law, as it would represent some nationalist value that they cherish. Opponents of the same party would instead be likely to protest it wildly. Neither camp would be able to point out any real practical effects of the law; their attitude towards it would be based on their attitude to its symbolic value. It is possible that symbolic values of that kind could conflict with the value of instrumental rationality.
This example illustrates a flaw in the EBP ideal. The evidence in a policy problem can be clear, and a course of action thus be mandated by the EBP ideal, despite there being reasons not to choose that particular course because it carries the wrong symbolic content. Thus, the view is reasonable that instrumental rationality is not the only value attached to public policy. The EBP ideal fails to account for that possibility. In this discussion the conflicting value has concerned symbolism, other alternatives include values attached to political personas (‘it is the right policy, but the wrong policy maker’), overarching policy agendas (‘the policy would achieve the political end too soon before the full effects of our second policy, which is important for our country’s international reputation, have been realised’), and dignity (‘sure, the policy would work, but we just cannot require that of our staff’). Proponents of EBP must explain why their chosen value trumps others in the policy process.
The second objection to the EBP ideal is that it may be substantially wrong to implement policy efficiently. One characteristic of liberal democracies is that changes in the political system occur slowly; it takes time to turn the ship around. While that inertia is sometimes disadvantageous, such as in the case of combatting climate change, it is in some cases a desirable feature. The most illustrative example concerns moral decay. The slow process of large-scale policy change in liberal democracies offers protection from fascism, communism, and other morally objectionable end-states. We should not desire instrumental rationality in the many small steps that together lead to the dismantling of liberal democracy.
As a thought example that illustrates this problem, suppose that the electorate in a democracy has chosen the policy that one of its minority groups should be exterminated. To be clear, this argument assumes that the EBP ideal is intended to apply to policies within the constraints of liberal democratic values, such as human rights, the rule of law, and institutional stability. For instance, proponents of EBP do not commit to the view that it is desirable to implement a policy to murder all members of the minority group efficiently, even if that end has been decided upon by the electorate or its political leaders; there are constraints to the ideal. But, some policies do not cross such boundaries as independent policies, despite doing so as a bundle. Murdering everyone in the minority group efficiently may require a well-functioning network of railroads, a meritocratic administration for issues concerning social identity, and a well-educated and obedient special task force within the police. The EBP ideal would mandate instrumental rationality in achieving each of these prerequisites of moral decay, blind to their combined effects.
Thus, it is not necessarily the case that policy should always be implemented efficiently. Slow and inefficient change is sometimes desirable to protect important values, and it may be difficult for an EBP ideal to account for this possibility while remaining neutral about which changes are undesirable.
The third objection to the EBP ideal is that it must be justified beyond mere intuition. That is, it is intuitively sound that policy should be guided by evidence to achieve instrumental rationality. There are two complexities involved with this intuition. The first is that instrumental rationality requires a moral defence, as demonstrated by the arguments in this subsection. The second is that proponents of EBP must provide evidence that evidence advances instrumental rationality in the policy process. The third objection to the EBP ideal concerns this latter complexity.
The title of French’s article, cited and referred to above, is ‘Lessons from the evidence on evidence-based policy’ (French, 2018). The question here is what that evidence says about efficient policy. About policy makers, French writes that ‘[a]daptability, insight into others, stamina, persuasiveness, and self-mastery matter far more than analytical capacity’ (French, 2018: 430). What is more, ‘[s]uccessful decision makers develop their own brand of rationality, their own type of expertise, to cope with their task environment, which it is self-defeating to ignore’ (2018: 431). Thus, personality traits and intellectual capabilities that are often exalted in the EBP movement (neutrality, rationality, and so on) are not always among the traits and capabilities that best further the movement’s aims. Proponents of the EBP ideal must consider this and justify any claims they might have of desirable competences among policy makers and policy advisors (cf. the brief discussion in the subsection ‘The evidence-based policy ideal’ above).
It is too easy to imagine that policy-makers start with objectives and search for means to achieve them. Policy-makers start with problems and enter into a dialectic with the means available to address them until some feasible match of problem, means, and plausible ends is achieved. Objectives evolve along with means; they do not necessarily precede them.
Similarly, challenging the EBP movement’s trust in quantitative evidence, Pearce et al argue that ‘evidence best informs policy when it is attentive to local contexts, lay knowledge and political demands alongside the more abstract, technical data which is often assumed to be the bedrock of EBP’ (Pearce et al, 2014: 164). Thus, it is far from evident that evidence as such advances instrumental rationality in the policy process. Among many other things, evidence must be supplemented with interpretation (Pearce et al, 2014) and a special kind of social skills (French, 2018). To conclude, ‘people seeking to inject more scientific evidence into policymaking, may not be paying enough attention to the science of policymaking’ (Cairney, 2016: 7).
It must be noted that the third objection to the EBP ideal is different from the arguments targeting the feasibility of the ideal. The third objection does not concern the prospects of achieving the EBP ideal in practice. It targets the belief that more or better evidence and competence further instrumental rationality in the policy process; EBP proponents must provide evidence for this belief to justify their ideal with more solid support than mere intuition.
Conclusions
It is clear there are serious feasibility constraints to achieving the EBP ideal. However, from the arguments above, it should also be clear that those constraints do not suffice to overthrow the ideal altogether. The EBP ideal is just that; an ideal. It is a theoretical construction which should be assessed in principle.
Taken together, the arguments in this article should motivate proponents of EBP to develop their ideal as a political theory. Its constitutive elements should be spelled out in detail and be defended from objections such as those suggested above. Perhaps most importantly, at least from a moral perspective, EBP proponents should balance their claims against competing, counter-idealist, claims – not least concerning the value base of their ideal, namely that instrumental rationality is of a certain importance relative to other values connected to the policy process. They should delimit their ideal accordingly.
There is a philosophical or principled dimension to this project; EBP is not morally or politically neutral. Instead, it is a value-loaded concept, and its proponents are political actors. Thus, the conversation on EBP is, at least in some respects, a conversation in normative political theory. The EBP movement should engage in problems concerning justification, justice, end-states, equality, order, and liberty, among other things, to place their claims in a wider normative context where they can be recognised for what they are; namely, political claims. It is my hope that this article will contribute to that discussion.
Note
This is only an illustrative selection of the criticism of EBP. See also, e.g., Albæk, 1995; Cairney, 2017; Nutley et al, 2007; Pearce et al, 2014 and Weingart, 2003.
Research ethics statement
The author of this paper has declared that research ethics approval was not required since the paper does not present or draw directly on data/findings from empirical research.
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to Gustav Nilsonne, the editor, and two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments on earlier versions of this article. All remaining mistakes are of course mine only.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.
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