Paul Cairney - Health and Care Research Wales conference 2020

Why don’t policymakers listen to your evidence, and what can you do about it?

Paul Cairney, Professor of Politics and Public Policy

https://paulcairney.wordpress.com/cv/ p.a.cairney@stir.ac.uk @Cairneypaul

Audience questions to help me calibrate 1.What is good research evidence, and how do you gather it?

2. What other knowledge is relevant?

3. How do you put it all together to make policy ‘evidence based’ or ‘informed’ 4. Are you a political actor?

Let’s relate our answers to 3 general explanations for a lack of ‘evidence based policymaking’

‘Evidence-based policymaking’ 1. Policymakers have different ideas about what counts as good evidence (and there are many ‘policymakers’ across many levels and types of government) Put another way: there are many legitimate sources of policy relevant knowledge

Framing: the policymaking context 2. They have to ignore almost all evidence ‘Bounded rationality’ prompts 2 shortcuts: - to set goals and identify the best sources of information to reduce uncertainty - to use gut-level, habitual, emotional, or beliefdriven short cuts to reduce ambiguity

3. They do not control the policy process: it is not a simple cycle or set of linear stages

What should we do about it?

Let’s understand how policymaking works …then …

Consider some deceptively simple options

Simple responses, also known as Herculean tasks Find out where the action is (‘actors’) Learn the rules (‘institutions’) Learn the language/ currency (‘ideas’) Build trust and form alliances (‘networks’) Exploit changing conditions, crises, or events

Take home sensible sounding advice …

• Tell a story, since evidence will not speak for itself • Get attention for your story at the expense of others • Be flexible: a successful strategy in one venue will fail in another • Form coalitions and empower your allies • Learn from entrepreneurs: produce a feasible solution, exploit the right time to sell it

…. but what did I miss out?

• • • •

Environments trump entrepreneurs The opportunities and rewards are not shared equally There may be few incentives to develop the skills No quick fixes

• [*segue to Steve Martin*]