Week 1: Evidence-Informed Public Policy

Guiding Questions

In this first meeting, we will talk about the role of evidence in politics. What is evidence-based (evidence-informed) public policy? Where does it come from? What is considered evidence and why is not all policy based on evidence? Read the required texts with an eye on these questions. You might also want to check out the list of groups promoting evidence-based public policy (see resource page). How do they promote evidence-use?

Required readings

• Baron, Jon (2018). A Brief History of Evidence-Based Policy. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 678(1), pp. 40–50.
• Bowers, Jake and Testa, Paul F (2019). Better Government, Better Science: The Promise of And Challenges Facing the Evidence-Informed Policy Movement. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, pp. 521–542.
• Bogenschneider, Karen and Corbett, Thomas (2021). Evidence-Based Policymaking: Envisioning a New Era Of Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Routledge. [PDF on Moodle]

Further reading

• Gueron, Judith M and Rolston, Howard (2013). Fighting for Reliable Evidence. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Nutley, Sandra and Webb, James (2000). Evidence and the Policy Process. In Davies, Huw and Nutley, Sandra and Smith, Peter (Ed.), Introducing Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Public Services (pp. 13-42). Bristol: The Policy Press.
• Haskins, Ron (2018). Evidence-Based Social Policy: The Promise and Challenges of a Movement. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
• Mehmood, Sultan and Naseer, Shaheen and Chen, Daniel L. (2021). Training Policymakers in Econometrics. Unpublished manuscript. Working Paper.

Suggested media

• The Big Idea: Should Scientists Run the Country?, The Guardian, September 27, 2021
• The Quiet Movement to Make Government Fail Less Often, The New York Times, July 15, 2014