The Complexity of Evidence: Reflections on Research Utilisation in a Heavily Politicised Policy Area

Mark Monaghan

45 citations0/0 files storedSocial Policy and Society

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Social Science and Policy Research Evaluation and Performance Assessment Policy Transfer and Learning

Abstract

Exploring evidence utilisation in a heavily politicised policy area, this paper suggests that established models of research utilisation provide inadequate grounds to conceptualise the evidence and policy relationship in this context. This is because they operate at too high a level of abstraction and have a narrow understanding of the association. Using recent developments in UK drug classification policy as a case study, a newer ‘processual model’ is (tentatively) advocated. This highlights the complexity and nuance of the policy process and its accompanying use of evidence which, it is claimed, more accurately depicts the evidence and policy relationship in this particular scenario.

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References

1990The consequences of modernity 1959The Science of "Muddling Through"1989Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media.1968The policy-making process 1979Using Social Research in Public Policy Making.1966The Art of Judgment: A Study of Policy Making 1998Have we learned anything new about the use of evaluation?1998Have We Learned Anything New About the Use of Evaluation?

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2016Deconstructing the debate over evidence-based policy 2016‘Pragmatic complexity’ a new foundation for moving beyond ‘evidence-based policy making’?2017Wicked tendencies in policy problems: rethinking the distinction between social and technical problems 2014Social construction and the evidence-based drug policy endeavour 2018Evidence and morality in harm-reduction debates: can we use value-neutral arguments to achieve value-driven goals?2012Evidence and Contestation in the Indigenous Policy Domain: Voice, Ideology and Institutional Inequality

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