Introduction: Evidence-Based Policy: A Concept in Geographical and Substantive Expansion

Abstract

1 EBP--The Rise of a Research Topic Over the past decade, the notion of 'evidence-based policy' (EBP) has become increasingly popular in many policy areas (Davies et al. 2000) and has spread internationally (Head 2010; Nutley et al. 2010). Politicians and civil servants seem to be attaching more weight to utilizing research evidence for policy purposes than ever before. The term EBP has originally been coined by the Labour Government in power in the United Kingdom (UK) between 1997 and 2010. Tony Blair's Government emphasized the relevance of rigorous scientific analysis to improve policy-making. Political decisions, it was argued, ought to be 'based on a comprehensive and foresighted understanding of evidence' (Cabinet Office 1999). The slogan 'what matters is what works' was intended to signal the end of policy-making based on political ideology or prejudice in favor of policy-making based on sound evidence (Nutley et al. 2007). EBP can be seen as the most recent efforts undertaken by governments over the past half century to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of public policy-making through the use of systematic evaluative rationality (Howlett 2009). It sustains the shift from input and process steering (defining resource allocations for specific processes or setting administrative guidelines to be followed) to output-oriented concepts of public steering that apply criteria based on 'results' (defining the desired policy effects). Although the appeal to EBP has received wide attention, its conceptual foundations are yet rather ambiguous (cf. also section 2 on central research issues). Not surprisingly, the efforts to strengthen EBP in the UK and elsewhere have been paralleled by a new wave of research interest in the relationship between evidence and politics. Publications dealing with questions about the generation, diffusion, and utilization of evidence (or expertise, scientific knowledge, etc.) for policy purposes have increased considerably (e.g. Boswell 2009; Frey 2010a; James and Jorgensen 2009; Ledermann 2008; Pawson 2006; Sager 2007; Schrefler 2010, Tenbensel 2004). Workshops at international conferences in public administration and political science on this topic have been flourishing. This issue of German Policy Studies is the result of such a gathering, held at the 2008 ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops in Rennes under the title 'The Politics of Evidence-based Policy-making'. We were among the sixteen participants, and together with the organizers Fritz Sager and Ray Pawson, we shared four intensive days with fruitful discussion, presenting our work to each other. We are pleased that we have been able to enlist five of the contributions for the present issue, which together represent a good assortment. The authors of this issue cover research topics that are relevant to EBP, ranging from the question of principle about the nature of evidence to down-to-earth issues that arise when trying to apply evidence to policy or practice. All articles have a qualitative empirical research part, which constitutes in some cases the core of the analysis, while it serves merely as an illustration in others. We tried to select empirical examples that span from the UK as the cradle of EBP to continental Europe where the concept has travelled to (Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland). This way, we would like to facilitate a comparative perspective on how the concept of EBP has developed. 2 Central Research Issues The concept of EBP is based on a twofold optimism: On the one hand it presumes that the quality of policies, their effectiveness and efficiency can be measured in an objective and conclusive way. On the other hand it assumes that policy-making can be rationalized. This optimism has been the starting point of many critics of EBP and gave reason to the allegation of naivety (Sanderson 2002; Parsons 2002, 2004; Widmer 2009; see also Monaghan in this issue). …