Academics and Public Policy Informing Policy-Analysis and Policy Making

CHAPTER 23 Academics and Public Policy: Informing Policy-Analysis and Policy Making* DANIEL COHN Introduction Academics those who hold permanent faculty positions at universities and colleges -have a somewhat privileged position when it comes to public policy making and analysis in liberal democracies such as Canada Unlike bureaucrats, they are not burdened by the responsibility to represent an official position they might not agree with Unlike politicians and corporate actors, they are free from the need to produce immediate results These and other freedoms also impose a heavier responsibility on academic experts to advocate for good policy that is the result of careful analysis, that goes beyond simple technical advice and which is developed in the service of norms (Cairns 1995, 288-289; Lasswell 1951, 9-10) It is sometimes suggested that this creates two separate and distinct worlds of policy research (see for example, Caplan 1979) In one, academics sit comfortably in their ivory towers attempting to generate knowledge aimed at creating a perfect world In the other, public servants sweat away in the trenches of government searching for information that can be employed to analyze situations and develop workable policies that will meet the needs of less than perfect people and that will, hopefully, make the world a little less imperfect In this chapter we will see that there is indeed some truth behind this view However it is also substantially false As has been discussed in the introductory chapter to this volume (Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock 2006), the two communities argument is itself problematic as it ignores the large number of individuals and organizations that constitute a third community interested in policy inquiry, the knowledge brokers These are neither disinterested academics, nor are they the ultimate public policy decisionmakers, such as senior public servants and political leaders (Lindquist 1990) As McNutt notes (2005, 35), it is impossible to understand how knowledge is utilized without adequately taking account of this large group of actors So as to avoid confusion, this chapter will reserve the title of decision-makers for senior officials and politicians Other public servants, those described by Dobuzinskis, Laycock and Howlett (2006), as being ‘proximate’ to power, but not the final decision-makers, such as policy analysts, research staffers, and members of advisory commissions and councils, will be referred to as policy-advisors When reference is made to both decision-makers and policy-advisors together, the term policy-makers will be used Knowledge brokers, as the title suggests, have one foot in the academic camp where science is used in an effort to generate knowledge and information, and one foot in the policy-making camp where knowledge and information are acted upon Knowledge brokers are found both in the state and the myriad of organizations that try to influence the state There is considerable overlap among the individuals who constitute the three communities and a continuing dialogue between the members of the three communities As will be seen, many public policy-advisors try to stay abreast of the knowledge and information produced by academic researchers and often incorporate the findings of academic research into the work they conduct on behalf of decision-makers Similarly, many academics understand that there is a difference between the ideal world of theoretical studies and the needs of policy-advisors and decision-makers They frequently redraft their scholarly works so as to more clearly convey the lessons that they hold for policy-makers facing specific situations and disseminate their research findings in ways that makes them more accessible (Landry, et al 2003; Landry, et al 2001) One reason that this dialogue is often overlooked is because those searching for evidence of its existence sometimes fail to discover the places where it can be found (Lavis et al 2002, 147) The chapter also looks at the ways in which the hypothesized gap between academic researchers and policy-makers can become an issue for concern This gap can result in meaningful harm if the causes for it are not properly understood by academic experts attempting to create knowledge and information Academics have to accept that the scientific knowledge that they seek to create is only one of many different types of evidence that policy-advisors have to take account of when they conduct policy-analyses Most notably, policy-advisors and the decision-makers whom they serve must consider the fit between any proposed policy and the context in which it is being proposed This is sometimes set up as a battle between truth (as revealed by impartial academic research) and ignorance (as revealed by political activity) However, democratic political processes are in fact a mechanism for reconciling, or at least selecting among, multiple truths The policy recommendations generated by academic researchers are only one of these many competing truths (Albaek 1995) Knowledge Users, Generators and Brokers As stated above, the division between decision-makers (the first community) and academics engaged in the creation of knowledge and information (the second community) is not as great as it first appears This is because the divide is bridged to a considerable degree by a third community, the knowledge brokers Lindquist argues that the third community is comprised of: Individuals and organizations that not have the power to make policy decisions, but, unlike the academic community, they possess a clear aspiration of policy relevance in the work they undertake This work called policy inquiry… consists of publication and convocation activities as well as the generation of information (1990, 31) In simple terms these actors use knowledge and information to produce products such as analyses that are useful to decision-makers and then disseminate these products so as to influence or advise decision-makers In Lindquist’s understanding, members of this third community can be divided into four groups depending on whether they work inside the state or in the private sector (including both market organizations and civil society groups) and by whether or not their work is designed primarily for public consumption or the proprietary use of their organization (1990, 37) Those we are calling policy-advisors work inside the state and their work is primarily for the proprietary use of the state This third community helps us understand how the gap between academics and decision-makers is bridged when it is realized how pervasive this third community is and how much overlap there is between it and academics In terms of the pervasiveness of the organizations that belong to the third community, it is helpful to consider figure contained in the introductory chapter to this volume (Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock 2006) The research staffs (both permanent employees and contractors) for government ministries, cabinet committees, central agencies and taskforces are all part of the third community, as are investigatory commissions, public inquiries and research councils In the private sector there are consultants, research staffers in political parties, interest groups of every sort and research centres (sometimes called think tanks) Many of the chapters in this book are devoted to organizations and individuals who comprise this third public policy community (see for example, Abelson 2006; Jackson and Baldwin 2006; Phillips 2006; Speers 2006; Stritch 2006) The Canadian and provincial states have invested considerable time and effort in facilitating dialogue among third community actors as well as between them and actors from the other two communities in the hope of improving public policy Examples include the recently created Policy Research Initiative, or PRI, and the more narrowly focused and now defunct Economic Council of Canada (Dobuzinskis, 2006; Voyer, 2006) Royal Commissions also often sponsor extensive research programs in the course of their work that serves a similar purpose of bring together all three communities in a given field As Salter notes (2006), even if a given commission’s findings are not adopted, its research program can have a substantial long-term impact However, the Canadian federal state’s investments in policy research and analysis have been somewhat erratic Many of the major institutions that once provided the Canadian federal state with internal policy analysis and policy making capacity, and which were built up over the years, such as the above mentioned Economic Council of Canada, were swept away in the cost cutting of the 1980s and 1990s Increasingly finding itself lacking internal policy analysis and policy making capacity, initiatives such as the PRI were commenced in the late 1990s so as to try create an interdepartmental cohort of policy-analysts interested in, and with the resources to engage in medium to long-term research questions Importantly, the PRI also aims to build bridges to external members of the third community in academia and the private sector (Voyer, 2006) Academics that have activated themselves to shape policy play important roles in most forms of third community organizations It should be acknowledged that the involvement of English-Canadian academics in private sector third community organizations has historically been seen as low when measured by the standards of Quebec or the behaviour of academics in other countries Rather, it has been argued English-Canadian academics are more likely to participate in third community activities by serving as short-term (or contract) policy-advisors to the state or by assuming more permanent roles either as policy advisors or decision-makers (Brooks and Gagnon 1988) However, this view might be outdated (Bradford 1998, 108), especially with the widespread growth of what Lindquist (1993, 576) calls ‘policy club’ style research centres in Canada Abelson (2002, 20-21) specifically describes these organizations as seeking to bring together academic researchers and policy-makers with similar interests In fact, most of the contributors to this volume, including the author of this chapter, have one foot in the academic community and one foot (or at least a couple of toes) in the third community, some have also had careers in the decision-making community as well.1 With this in mind it should not be surprising that when Landry et al surveyed Canadian social scientists, nearly 50 percent reported that they always or usually make an effort to transmit the results of their research to those with the ability to shape public policy On the other hand, only 12 percent felt that their research findings led to applications while only percent were willing to say that their research always led to policy applications (2001, 339-340) On the surface this result would seem quite depressing However, these descriptive statistics are only part of the story As will be seen, academic researchers are often more influential than it appears Furthermore, it will also be seen that whether or not academic researchers engage in third community activities is an important predictor of the impact that their research will have Academic Research and Public Policy: Decisions and Analysis Before dealing with the literature on how academic research is used in policy-analysis and policy-making, we must first pause and consider how policy-advisors make decisions as to how to go about their jobs Do they carefully analyze situations to the smallest detail, weigh up the costs and benefits associated with each and every potential option and then recommend the best solution, or, they seek to take some short cuts? This is essentially the debate between those who see public policy-analysis and policy-making as rational processes and those who see them as more sufficing activities Those who describe policy analysis and policy making as sufficing activities, argue that policyadvisors and the decision-makers whom they serve are not so much looking for an ideal solution as one that works reasonably well Authors have proposed different theories that seek to explain how policy-advisors and decision-makers take short cuts, limiting the range of potential solutions that they consider when making decisions One of the most prominent and earliest of these was Charles E Lindblom (1959) who suggested that those engaged in policy-making in democratic states act ‘incrementally.’ In other words, in most cases policy-advisors start their search for solutions with the status quo Those solutions closest to the status quo are canvassed first, those furthest away are canvassed last When choosing among alternatives, decision-makers will prefer solutions found in a range bounded by the minimum change that is necessary to more or less accomplish the new goals of public policy and the maximum change that is possible without incurring undue political resistance Sometimes policy-advisors cannot find recommendations that fall into that ideal space and the decision-makers whom they serve have to settle for either a policy that even more imperfectly meets their goals but can be more easily adopted or a policy that meets their goals but is likely to create substantial political resistance Others since Lindblom have created models that seek to detail when decisionmakers can be expected to act incrementally and when they might feel free to accept advice to act more radically These opportunities are described as policy windows and are said to come about when society deems the current state of affairs in some area of policy as a problem, potential solutions become known, and the political will to act also simultaneously materializes (Kingdon 1984) Some windows are narrower and only provide the opportunity for incremental policy changes Some windows are larger and allow for more radical changes in public policy Other authors have developed more sophisticated models that describe forms of decision making other than rationality and incrementalism Howlett and Ramesh (2003, 162-184) provide a summary of these more advanced attempts to model public-policy making Perhaps the simplest way to think about these various styles of policy-making is as a continuum At one pole are rationalist approaches, where it is predicted that decision-makers and the policy-advisors that assist them are searching for the best solution to a problem regardless of the difficulties or complications that this ideal solution might present and the time it takes to find the best solution At the other pole are the sufficing styles epitomized by the incrementalist approach, where it is predicted that decision-makers and the policy-advisors are searching for the solution that is quickest to find and which presents the least difficulties and complications, even if this is not a perfect solution for the policy problem under consideration It is equally important to remember, as the concept of policy windows suggests, that under different circumstances the same actors might be more rational or sufficing Therefore, one must also take account of context As Howlett and Lindquist argue (2006), different decision making strategies and contexts ought to be reflected to some degree in the decisions made by policy-advisors to use different policy analysis techniques Vining and Boardman (2006) group these techniques into four large families depending on whether or not the impacts to be considered are restricted to those that can be fully monetized (in other words, whether or not all the costs and benefits can be expressed in dollar terms) and whether or not efficiency is the sole goal that is to be maximized or other goals, such as equity, the impact of the policy on governmental revenue, ethics and political feasibility must also be considered If one were engaged in a more sufficing style of decision making, such a style might be conceived as leading to an analytic process that reduces consideration of impacts and goals that confound ease of analysis or political feasibility With this in mind it is easy to see why academic researchers and policy-makers can sometimes be uneasy partners While academic researchers are trained to rationally search for THE answer, this answer might not fit the context within which public policyadvisors feel compelled to operate on a given issue at a given time due to the concerns that decision-makers are known to have It also might take so long to find THE answer, that its proponents miss the proverbial boat, with the policy window narrowing appreciably during the time that a highly rational search takes In this sense, there is sometimes too much expected of academic research (Albaek 1995, 79-80) The idea that any one article or book is going to produce a specific, relatively immediate, and predictable change in the course of public policy, regardless of the context within which policy-makers are acting is somewhat unrealistic and likely to lead to disappointment (Landry et al 2003, 193) However, on occasion, such ‘instrumental’ utilizations of knowledge happen (Gerson 1996, 5-6; Borins 2003, 248-250) The impact of academic research on public policy is perhaps more realistically captured by envisioning academic research as ‘informing’ policy-making and analysis, rather than searching for concrete examples showing that a specific piece of research caused a specific policy decision (Lavis et al 2002, 140) This approach to knowledge utilization sees the impact of academic research on public policy as occurring when policy-makers become aware of a school of thought regarding an issue that has come to prominence within some academic field They will adopt the general findings of this approach into their work if and when they encounter a problem for which it provides a useful way to understand such problems or ideas for solutions In this sense, it is not possible to understand the impact of academic research outside of the context within which it is used Second, it is not so much the individual works of academics that are influencing policy-makers but the schools of thought towards given issues that these specific works represent and collectively compose (Landry et al 2003, 193) These schools of thought towards a given issue are also sometimes called policy paradigms Neoliberals urged governments to encourage both as much economic competition as possible and policies that promote flexibility in adjusting to these forces among Canadian families and businesses A key ingredient in doing this would be to negotiate trade and investment liberalization agreements with the United States and if possible other countries as well In the words of Grinspun and Kreklewich (1994), who are critics of this coalition, such agreements act as a ‘conditioning frameworks,’ that reward societies promoting flexibility and competition, and which punish those that seek to protect citizens from economic forces This coalition of academic researchers and business advocates developed a network of third community institutions and venues through which they could interact with public sector policy-advisors As well, they also used this network to educate and lobby both public decision-makers and those who help to shape public opinion In sum they used this network to coordinate their actions, expand the circle of people concerned about public policy who understood their ideas and to develop their arguments into a properly articulated policy paradigm (Ernst 1992; Langille 1987; Carroll and Murray 2001) The policy window that they needed came in 1982 when the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau appointed a royal commission to study the Canadian economy The appointment of the ‘Macdonald Commission’ was a tacit acknowledgement that the status quo in terms of economic policy was failing The Commission broadly endorsed the line of thought advanced by the neoliberals (Bradford 1998, 115) and, as is well known, the Mulroney government followed up on the Macdonald Commission’s recommendations by signing first the Canada US Free Trade Agreement and the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement (Doern and Tomlin 1991; Cameron and Tomlin 2000) Sabatier (1987) describes partnerships such as the one that emerged between neoliberal academic economists, business, policy-advisors and the decision-makers who eventually implemented the Macdonald Commission’s recommendations as an advocacy coalition This is a collection of individuals who share normative and empirical beliefs and seek to work in concert with one another He also argues that to be a genuine advocacy coalition, the partnership must be relatively stable and last for a considerable amount of time, a decade or two rather than months The forming of an advocacy coalition represents a substantial realignment of political forces and in the case described here, this realignment eventually produced a change in the policy paradigm within which economic policy is made in Canada Thomas J Courchene, professor of economics and public policy at Queen’s University, was a central actor in this coalition Addressing those who might be interested in promoting further economic liberalization he had the following advice: ‘It is instructive to recall the free trade issue Here, we economists had done our homework well, so that when the window of opportunity arose, we were well prepared (1999, 313314).’ As we have seen context is an important variable It determines the scope that policy-advisors have to search for solutions to the problems that they are dealing with and the range of goals and impacts that they can include in their analyses, as well as the sorts of answers that the decision-makers whom they advise are looking for Academics and Policy-Making: Taking Account of Context To summarize the argument made so far it can be noted that academics generally not influence policy directly They can have a greater impact by engaging in third community activities and by building alliances with other third community actors (both in the public and private sector), and ideally with public decision-makers also These alliances sometimes coalesce into advocacy coalitions Second, the glue which often unites an advocacy coalition is a policy paradigm These are comprised of definitions of problems, understandings of the processes that create these problems and views as to which policies are best suited for dealing with them Over the long-term, these policy paradigms steer analysis by indicating which goals ought to be prioritized and which impacts should be evaluated or ignored Third, context is crucial for understanding how and when these coalitions can succeed and also for understanding the degree to which such success is likely to occur Figure depicts the relationship between these ideas as they impact on policy making [Figure about here] This figure represents the likely range of movement in four major areas of welfare state policy Following Kingdon (1984) we can call these policy windows These windows are produced by a hypothetical context as seen from the perspective of those academic researchers who are members of an advocacy coalition promoting policies based in an equally hypothetical policy paradigm Note that policies have a current position on a continuum ranging from poor to good This is based on the opinions of the advocacy coalition members whose work is informed by this particular policy paradigm Also note that the range of movement that is likely, whether positively, or negatively, in each of the four policy areas is not evenly distributed In some cases the window provides more room on the positive side This indicates that the range of policy options that decision-makers are likely to see as feasible, given the current context, are more in keeping with what those who support this hypothetical policy paradigm would see as good policy In other cases the window provides more room on the downside This indicates that the range of policy options that decision-makers are likely to see as feasible, given the current context, are more in keeping with what those who support this hypothetical policy-paradigm would see as poor policy In some cases the window is wider This indicates that, given the context, decision-makers are likely to have more autonomy to deal with the policy issue in question In some cases these window is narrower This indicates that, given the context, decision-makers are likely to have less autonomy to deal with the policy issue If we could somehow develop a valid and reliable methodology for measuring these spaces, we could use these ideas to assist academics, private sector third community actors, and most notably policy-advisors, to predict both the range of policy options that decision-makers will feel free to consider in terms of distance from the status quo and the direction of change at any given time Unfortunately, the best we can at present is to advise them that certain events, when combined with other contextual variables such as: political institutions, social, political and economic forces, as well as policy legacies, tend to lead to bigger policy windows than would otherwise occur (Keeler 1993; Pierson and Smith 1993) Consequently, those seeking to incorporate political feasibility into a policy analysis have to accept that measures of feasibility will have a certain degree of softness about them These ideas regarding context also provide a warning for those who produce knowledge and information in academia Failure to take proper account of context can lead to a policy initiative that goes nowhere However, this is not the worst thing that can happen Under certain circumstances it can also lead to a policy intervention that, while begun with the best of intentions, has potentially harmful consequences Academics thinking about ideal and theoretically perfect solutions have a tendency to engage in exhaustive analysis that leads to complex policy recommendations and advice involving numerous inter-related policy recommendations, the removal of any one of which can erase the anticipated benefits of the other recommendations and potentially cause harm In many cases, such complex advice is tantamount to recommending that the state change the policy paradigm that it uses to deal with a given policy area As was also noted, at some point information derived from sources other than academic research will also have to be considered As a result, it can be assumed that ideas and concerns of others will be raised and have to be given consideration by policy-advisors when they analyze the problem and by the decision-makers whom they advise (Gagnon 1989, 564) Without a very strong advocacy coalition comprising partners from all three communities (academics, knowledge brokers and decision-makers), as well as a coherent argument as to why the previous policy paradigm is flawed (rather than just a consensus that current policy is flawed), it is unlikely that a policy paradigm shift will occur along the lines favoured by academic researchers or even that a complex policy will be adopted in anything close to its entirety Such an outcome should not be seen as either surprising, nor as necessarily bad, rather it should be understood as the result of the process of compromise and bartering that are the daily chores of politicians and their advisors who seek to steer policy through democratic institutions Cohn (2004) documents two cases where academics failed to take proper account of context when advising the state to undertake complex policy reform (Canadian Medical Human Resources Policy and American Social Assistance Reform) In both cases the recommendations formulated by the academics were only adopted to the extent that they fit the needs of advocacy coalitions and policy paradigms that the academics did not subscribe to In both cases the resulting policies were seen as potentially harmful for society by the academics involved (Ellwood 1996a and 1996b; Barer and Stoddart 1999, 40; Stoddart and Barer 1999) Academic experts who wish to participate in third community activities would be well advised to think carefully about the task they are about to embark on What is the relationship between what they wish to propose and the paradigm presently shaping public policy? Who will support their views? Is there a coherent policy paradigm that unites them or are they partners of convenience? In other words, is there an advocacy coalition that they can participate in and rely on for support? Who will oppose them? Are they an advocacy coalitions and if so, what public policy paradigms they espouse? Is there anything that can be done to either reduce the chances of ending up with a poor policy or to improve the chances of ending up with a good one? Three strategies seem to stand out: The first is to accept the limits imposed by the context and not make proposals that go outside of its anticipated limits Following Lindblom (1959) this can be described as adopting an incremental approach The second strategy that academic policy experts can employ is to provide a program of policies that presents challenges in terms of adoption given the context, yet policies that are also compartmentalized In other words, a set of recommendations that will each have a positive impact but not have to be adopted in total to produce some benefit The final strategy that scholarly experts can employ is much tougher and time consuming Rather than immediately engage in trying to shape policy, they can undertake political activity to shift the context within which policy is made by working with other likeminded individuals in both the third and first community to create an effective advocacy coalition and a coherent policy paradigm to rival the one presently guiding state decisions As Landry et al (2003; 2001) note, those who choose this path must develop mechanisms for engaging decision-makers, venues where they can discuss their ideas with them and publications geared to their needs It is only with such support that a complex policy is likely to move through the political process as a whole piece Here, the example of Canada’s neoliberal academics and the business advocacy coalition is instructive One of the reasons given by the Mulroney government for discontinuing the Economic Council of Canada was that it represented an increasingly un-necessary expense given the reliance policy-makers were placing on advice from external third community sources such as academics and private sector research centres (Dobuzinskis 2006) In other words, the neoliberal academics had moved from their selfperceived status as outsiders to that of insiders, capable of trumping and even displacing major bureaucratic institutions In the shape of Canadian business, they had won over a powerful interest to their viewpoint, and within the state a cadre of policy-advisors and decision makers as well This advocacy coalition not only succeeded in shifting policy but the whole policy paradigm within which economic issues are analyzed and policy is made As a result they also improved the chances that their views would dominate public policy-making over the long-term Few academic researchers and social groups have goals that lofty, however, the general approach is still sound, even for those with more modest ambitions References Albaek, Erik 1995 ‘Between Knowledge and Power: Utilization of Social Science in Public Policy Making.’ Policy Sciences 28(1), 79-100 Abelson, Donald E 2006 ‘Any Ideas? 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Canada after Wage and Price Control Vancouver: Fraser Institute Figure Likely Limits for Policy Movement as viewed by a given School of Academic Researchers for Four Elements of Welfare State Policy in a Given Context Current Policy Technically Good Policy Technically Poor Policy Income Support Policies Maximum Erosion That Is Likely To Occur Given Current Context Labour Market Policies Health Care Policies Maximum Progress That Is Likely To Occur Given Current Context Education & Training Policy Notes * The author’s interest and concern with the issues covered in this chapter grew from his reading of Alain C Cairns’ ‘Citizens, Scholars and the Constitution’ (1995) It further develops ideas first presented in a paper written for a conference honouring the career of Professor Cairns which was titled: Rethinking Citizenship in the Canadian Federation Along side of his purely academic work, the author is (or has been) a member of the Executive Board of the Institute of Public Administration of Canada’s Vancouver Regional Chapter, an associate member of two university based public policy research centres, as well as a research associate with a private sector research centre (or think tank) On occasions, he has also served as a contract researcher to government agencies, appeared as a witness before legislative committees, and been a participant in ‘stake-holder consultations’ convened by governmental agencies Keynes, in his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) is credited with theoretically demonstrating why labour markets not necessarily reach a balance of supply and demand no matter how far wages fall In doing this, Keynes himself was giving voice to a growing school of thought within economics that the interventionist policies already adopted by several governments throughout the western world to combat the Depression of the 1930s, were not simply expedient measures, but theoretically sound policies that ought to be continued after the crisis had abated (Lipsey 1984, 14) ... Research and Public Policy: Decisions and Analysis Before dealing with the literature on how academic research is used in policy- analysis and policy- making, we must first pause and consider how policy- advisors... between those who see public policy- analysis and policy- making as rational processes and those who see them as more sufficing activities Those who describe policy analysis and policy making as sufficing... Howlett, Michael and M Ramesh 2003 Studying Public Policy: Policy Cycles and Policy Subsystems, Second Edition Toronto: Oxford University Press Jackson, Andrew and Bob Baldwin 2006 ? ?Policy Analysis