Academics and Public Policy Informing Policy-Analysis and Policy Making

As will be seen, many public policy-advisors try to stay abreast of the knowledge andinformation produced by academic researchers and often incorporate the findings ofacademic research i

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 tothis volume (Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock 2006), the two communities argument isitself problematic as it ignores the large number of individuals and organizations thatconstitute a third community interested in policy inquiry, the knowledge brokers Theseare neither disinterested academics, nor are they the ultimate public policy decision-makers, such as senior public servants and political leaders (Lindquist 1990) As McNuttnotes (2005, 35), it is impossible to understand how knowledge is utilized withoutadequately taking account of this large group of actors So as to avoid confusion, thischapter will reserve the title of decision-makers for senior officials and politicians Otherpublic servants, those described by Dobuzinskis, Laycock and Howlett (2006), as being

‘proximate’ to power, but not the final decision-makers, such as policy analysts, researchstaffers, and members of advisory commissions and councils, will be referred to aspolicy-advisors When reference is made to both decision-makers and policy-advisorstogether, the term policy-makers will be used

Knowledge brokers, as the title suggests, have one foot in the academic campwhere science is used in an effort to generate knowledge and information, and one foot inthe policy-making camp where knowledge and information are acted upon Knowledgebrokers are found both in the state and the myriad of organizations that try to influencethe state There is considerable overlap among the individuals who constitute the threecommunities 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 andinformation produced by academic researchers and often incorporate the findings ofacademic research into the work they conduct on behalf of decision-makers Similarly,

many academics understand that there is a difference between the ideal world oftheoretical studies and the needs of policy-advisors and decision-makers They frequentlyredraft their scholarly works so as to more clearly convey the lessons that they hold forpolicy-makers facing specific situations and disseminate their research findings in waysthat makes them more accessible (Landry, et al 2003; Landry, et al 2001) One reasonthat this dialogue is often overlooked is because those searching for evidence of itsexistence 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 betweenacademic researchers and policy-makers can become an issue for concern This gap canresult in meaningful harm if the causes for it are not properly understood by academicexperts attempting to create knowledge and information Academics have to accept thatthe scientific knowledge that they seek to create is only one of many different types ofevidence 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 considerthe fit between any proposed policy and the context in which it is being proposed This issometimes set up as a battle between truth (as revealed by impartial academic research)and ignorance (as revealed by political activity) However, democratic political processesare in fact a mechanism for reconciling, or at least selecting among, multiple truths Thepolicy recommendations generated by academic researchers are only one of these manycompeting truths (Albaek 1995)

Knowledge Users, Generators and Brokers

As stated above, the division between decision-makers (the first community) andacademics engaged in the creation of knowledge and information (the secondcommunity) is not as great as it first appears This is because the divide is bridged to aconsiderable degree by a third community, the knowledge brokers Lindquist argues thatthe third community is comprised of:

Individuals and organizations that do not have the power to makepolicy decisions, but, unlike the academic community, they dopossess a clear aspiration of policy relevance in the work theyundertake This work called policy inquiry… consists ofpublication and convocation activities as well as the generation ofinformation (1990, 31)

In simple terms these actors use knowledge and information to produce productssuch 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 ofthis third community can be divided into four groups depending on whether they workinside the state or in the private sector (including both market organizations and civilsociety groups) and by whether or not their work is designed primarily for publicconsumption or the proprietary use of their organization (1990, 37) Those we are callingpolicy-advisors work inside the state and their work is primarily for the proprietary use ofthe state

This third community helps us understand how the gap between academics anddecision-makers is bridged when it is realized how pervasive this third community is andhow much overlap there is between it and academics In terms of the pervasiveness ofthe organizations that belong to the third community, it is helpful to consider figure 1contained in the introductory chapter to this volume (Dobuzinskis, Howlett and Laycock

2006) The research staffs (both permanent employees and contractors) for governmentministries, cabinet committees, central agencies and taskforces are all part of the thirdcommunity, as are investigatory commissions, public inquiries and research councils Inthe private sector there are consultants, research staffers in political parties, interestgroups of every sort and research centres (sometimes called think tanks) Many of thechapters in this book are devoted to organizations and individuals who comprise this thirdpublic 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 infacilitating dialogue among third community actors as well as between them and actorsfrom the other two communities in the hope of improving public policy Examplesinclude the recently created Policy Research Initiative, or PRI, and the more narrowlyfocused 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 agiven field As Salter notes (2006), even if a given commission’s findings are notadopted, its research program can have a substantial long-term impact However, theCanadian federal state’s investments in policy research and analysis have been somewhaterratic Many of the major institutions that once provided the Canadian federal state withinternal policy analysis and policy making capacity, and which were built up over theyears, such as the above mentioned Economic Council of Canada, were swept away inthe cost cutting of the 1980s and 1990s Increasingly finding itself lacking internal policyanalysis 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 thirdcommunity in academia and the private sector (Voyer, 2006).

Academics that have activated themselves to shape policy play important roles inmost forms of third community organizations It should be acknowledged that theinvolvement of English-Canadian academics in private sector third communityorganizations has historically been seen as low when measured by the standards ofQuebec or the behaviour of academics in other countries Rather, it has been arguedEnglish-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 morepermanent roles either as policy advisors or decision-makers (Brooks and Gagnon 1988).However, this view might be outdated (Bradford 1998, 108), especially with thewidespread growth of what Lindquist (1993, 576) calls ‘policy club’ style researchcentres in Canada Abelson (2002, 20-21) specifically describes these organizations asseeking 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, haveone foot in the academic community and one foot (or at least a couple of toes) in the thirdcommunity, 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 surveyedCanadian social scientists, nearly 50 percent reported that they always or usually make aneffort to transmit the results of their research to those with the ability to shape publicpolicy On the other hand, only 12 percent felt that their research findings led to

applications while only 3 percent were willing to say that their research always led topolicy applications (2001, 339-340) On the surface this result would seem quitedepressing However, these descriptive statistics are only part of the story As will beseen, academic researchers are often more influential than it appears Furthermore, it willalso be seen that whether or not academic researchers engage in third communityactivities 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-analysisand 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 smallestdetail, weigh up the costs and benefits associated with each and every potential optionand then recommend the best solution, or, do they seek to take some short cuts? This isessentially the debate between those who see public policy-analysis and policy-making asrational processes and those who see them as more sufficing activities Those whodescribe policy analysis and policy making as sufficing activities, argue that policy-advisors and the decision-makers whom they serve are not so much looking for an idealsolution as one that works reasonably well Authors have proposed different theories thatseek to explain how policy-advisors and decision-makers take short cuts, limiting therange of potential solutions that they consider when making decisions One of the mostprominent and earliest of these was Charles E Lindblom (1959) who suggested that thoseengaged in policy-making in democratic states act ‘incrementally.’ In other words, inmost 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 canvassedlast When choosing among alternatives, decision-makers will prefer solutions found in arange bounded by the minimum change that is necessary to more or less accomplish thenew goals of public policy and the maximum change that is possible without incurringundue political resistance Sometimes policy-advisors cannot find recommendations thatfall into that ideal space and the decision-makers whom they serve have to settle foreither a policy that even more imperfectly meets their goals but can be more easilyadopted or a policy that meets their goals but is likely to create substantial politicalresistance.

Others since Lindblom have created models that seek to detail when makers can be expected to act incrementally and when they might feel free to acceptadvice to act more radically These opportunities are described as policy windows and aresaid to come about when society deems the current state of affairs in some area of policy

decision-as a problem, potential solutions become known, and the political will to act alsosimultaneously materializes (Kingdon 1984) Some windows are narrower and onlyprovide the opportunity for incremental policy changes Some windows are larger andallow for more radical changes in public policy Other authors have developed moresophisticated models that describe forms of decision making other than rationality andincrementalism Howlett and Ramesh (2003, 162-184) provide a summary of these moreadvanced attempts to model public-policy making Perhaps the simplest way to thinkabout these various styles of policy-making is as a continuum At one pole are rationalistapproaches, where it is predicted that decision-makers and the policy-advisors that assistthem 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 bestsolution At the other pole are the sufficing styles epitomized by the incrementalistapproach, where it is predicted that decision-makers and the policy-advisors are searchingfor the solution that is quickest to find and which presents the least difficulties andcomplications, even if this is not a perfect solution for the policy problem underconsideration It is equally important to remember, as the concept of policy windowssuggests, that under different circumstances the same actors might be more rational orsufficing Therefore, one must also take account of context.

As Howlett and Lindquist argue (2006), different decision making strategies andcontexts ought to be reflected to some degree in the decisions made by policy-advisors touse different policy analysis techniques Vining and Boardman (2006) group thesetechniques into four large families depending on whether or not the impacts to beconsidered are restricted to those that can be fully monetized (in other words, whether ornot all the costs and benefits can be expressed in dollar terms) and whether or notefficiency is the sole goal that is to be maximized or other goals, such as equity, theimpact of the policy on governmental revenue, ethics and political feasibility must also beconsidered If one were engaged in a more sufficing style of decision making, such a stylemight be conceived as leading to an analytic process that reduces consideration ofimpacts and goals that confound ease of analysis or political feasibility

With this in mind it is easy to see why academic researchers and policy-makerscan sometimes be uneasy partners While academic researchers are trained to rationallysearch for THE answer, this answer might not fit the context within which public policy-advisors 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 narrowingappreciably during the time that a highly rational search takes In this sense, there issometimes too much expected of academic research (Albaek 1995, 79-80) The idea thatany one article or book is going to produce a specific, relatively immediate, andpredictable change in the course of public policy, regardless of the context within whichpolicy-makers are acting is somewhat unrealistic and likely to lead to disappointment(Landry et al 2003, 193) However, on occasion, such ‘instrumental’ utilizations ofknowledge do happen (Gerson 1996, 5-6; Borins 2003, 248-250)

The impact of academic research on public policy is perhaps more realisticallycaptured by envisioning academic research as ‘informing’ policy-making and analysis,rather than searching for concrete examples showing that a specific piece of researchcaused a specific policy decision (Lavis et al 2002, 140) This approach to knowledgeutilization sees the impact of academic research on public policy as occurring whenpolicy-makers become aware of a school of thought regarding an issue that has come toprominence within some academic field They will adopt the general findings of thisapproach into their work if and when they encounter a problem for which it provides auseful way to understand such problems or ideas for solutions In this sense, it is notpossible to understand the impact of academic research outside of the context withinwhich it is used Second, it is not so much the individual works of academics that areinfluencing policy-makers but the schools of thought towards given issues that thesespecific works represent and collectively compose (Landry et al 2003, 193) Theseschools of thought towards a given issue are also sometimes called policy paradigms

Hall (1990, 59) describes a policy paradigm as defining: ‘the broad goals behind policy,the related problems or puzzles that policy-makers have to solve to get there, and, in largemeasure the kind of instruments that can be used to attain these goals.’ In other words,policy paradigms when adopted from academic work into policy-making and accepted bydecision-makers can help policy-advisors take short cuts in their analyses More will besaid about policy paradigms below Before proceeding, however, it is important to notethat this approach to understanding how academic work influences policy does not seeknowledge utilization as a single act, but rather a multiple stage process by which ideasare converted into actions

When Landry et al (2003) investigated the utilization of university research inCanadian public policy, they employed a modified version of the Knott and Wildavskymulti-stage model of knowledge utilization (1980):

1.) Reception: policy-makers receive academic research relevant to their

work

2.) Cognition: policy-makers read and understand the academic work they

have received

3.) Discussion: policy-makers engage in meetings, conferences or workshops

to discuss the findings of the academic work

4.) Reference: policy-makers cite the work and its findings in their own

reports or documents

5.) Adoption: policy-makers encourage the adoption of the results reported in

the work as official policy

6.) Influence: the findings of the work in question influence decisions in the

policy-makers administrative unit

Landry, et al (2003) surveyed 833 policy-makers and found that whenexpectations for individual academic works are reduced to a more realistic level, andinstead, an assessment is made of the impact of academic research as a whole, rather thanthe impact of any one researcher on a specific policy outcome, the output of academia

appears influential in most public policy fields However, there is no denying that thestages of knowledge utilization laid out above form something of an inverted pyramid or

a funnel, with fewer and fewer ideas being utilized at latter stages of the process bypolicy-makers

One limit to using the evidence from Landry et al.’s study in this chapter is thatthey do not differentiate between those public officials we have described here as thirdcommunity actors (knowledge brokers engaged in policy inquiry) whom we have referred

to as policy-advisors, and first community actors (those engaged in decision-making).Based on Landry et al.’s discussion of how they went about collecting their sample (2003,196-197) it is likely that many of those they surveyed are indeed third community actorsrather than those that have been described here as public policy decision-makers On theother hand, their adaptation of Knott and Wildavsky’s multi-stage approach to decisionmaking is instructive to think about in three community terms It could be argued that asone progresses from the earlier to the later stages of the process interaction shifts fromthat between the second (or academic) community and the third community (ofknowledge brokers and policy inquiry) to that between the third community and the first(public policy decision-makers) It is in the third community that knowledge andinformation generated by academic research is put to use in policy analysis and thedevelopment of potential policy solutions for the phenomena defined as problems.Therefore the work of such actors is as important to the development of policy paradigms

as are the academics of the second community

Landry, et al (2003 and 2001) also explored what makes some academic researchfindings more influential than others What they found is that the adoption of research

findings into the policy-making process is primarily an interactive affair One of the mostimportant predictors of the influence of academic research proved to be ‘user context.’This means tailoring academic work to the expected needs of policy-makers would benext to impossible outside of the very immediate short-term This is because suchtailoring would require academics to predict the future Not just future developments intheir own fields of research, but the entire context in which decision-makers and policy-practitioners will need knowledge and information from their fields What is possible is

to establish academics as a reliable source of usable knowledge and information.Therefore, it is not enough for academic researchers simply to produce publications, theymust also advocate for their work They must make an effort to put their work in front ofpolicy-makers in a format that highlights the policy implications, so that when a relevantpolicy window opens, it is there This is best done through forging linkages betweenacademia and public policy-makers at a more general level By organizing events andforums that bring academics and policy-makers together, such as the events andcollaborative research sponsored by programs such as the PRI (Voyer 2006) and byopening up avenues for academics to spend time within the public sector and for policy-makers to spend time within academia (Borins 2003, 250)

Knowledge utilization depends on disorderly interactions between

researchers and users, rather than on linear sequences beginning with the

needs of researchers or the needs of users The more sustained and

intense the interaction between researchers and users, the more likely

utilization will occur (Landry et al 2003, 195)

In other words, academics must engage in the activities of the third community inorder to improve the likelihood that their work will have an impact on public policy Thisfinding has been generally confirmed in other research, for example Lavis et al.’s

exploratory study of the utilization of health services research in Canadian provinces(2002) Lavis et al drive the point home in their recommendation that researchers andthose who fund research should consider activities of the sort noted above to be part ofthe ‘ “real” work of research, not a superfluous add-on’ (2002, 146).

Activated Academics in Action: Economic Reform

One of the best examples of a group of academic researchers successfully following theapproach described above are the economists and others who advocated for a change inCanada’s macro-economic policies away from state intervention during the late 1970s.Working in conjunction with business spokespeople and interest groups, they developed acoherent argument that Canada’s overall economic policies developed since the end ofthe second world war had reached a dead end They argued that the economic crises ofthe 1970s were as much the result of public policy miscues brought on by the Keynesianeconomic policy paradigm as economic conditions

Keynesianism takes its name from that of the British economist John MaynardKeynes, who was a critic of the economic orthodoxy prevailing during the economicdepression of the 1930s (1936).2 The basic problem identified by Keynesianism was thepropensity of capitalist economies to fall into situations of either extreme unemployment

or extreme price inflation that could become persistent enough as to disrupt the viability

of democratic societies and which cannot be corrected by market forces alone Theparadigm holds that it is a key responsibility of the state to intervene in the economy so

as to moderate these extreme variations in the business cycle by managing demand (theability of people to purchase things) by acting ‘counter-cyclically.’ Keynesians argued the

best way to do this was through policies that supplement the incomes of ordinary families

in times of low economic demand so as to boost economic activity, and that withdrawsuch state aid or even tax it back in times of high demand so as to slow the economy.Income support programs (such as social assistance, unemployment insurance, pensionplans, and price supports for farmers), and ‘make-work schemes’ that provide jobs inpoor economic times were all supported by Keynesians as mechanisms for stabilizing theeconomy Therefore this policy paradigm is also associated with the development ofmodern welfare states In Keynesian terms, debt and deficit levels as well as tax rates arenot seen as goals a government ought to meet but as tools for managing the economy.Gradually, Keynesian economists came to believe that they could not only use thesetechniques to stave off major catastrophes but also use them to fine-tune the economy so

as to produce ever more consistent economic performance The aim of Keynesianeconomists shifted from preventing the sort of mass unemployment seen in theDepression to ensuring full employment (Leeson 1999 and 1997)

It should be noted that for many years there was a strong public consensus infavour of the Keyensian policy paradigm Moderating the swings of the business cyclebenefited not only workers but corporations as well In fact, in both the United States andCanada, prominent business leaders were at the forefront of the coalitions whichpressured government to adopt the Keynesian policy paradigm (Ferguson 1995, 79-98;Finkle 1977, 356-357) However, in the 1970s something unexpected occurred Canadaand the other western industrialized democracies entered a period of severe economiccrisis as technological developments, changing trade patterns and rising oil prices hit theglobal economy almost simultaneously (Cox 1987, 273-284) As the decade progressed

things got worse as so-called stagflation set in This is persistent and simultaneously highunemployment and inflation (Tobin 1982, 518) For policy-advisors trained in Keynesiananalysis this posed a dilemma, forcing them to choose between stimulating employment,risking more inflation, or fighting inflation, and risking more unemployment (Boothe andPurvis 1997, 210) At the same time as this was occurring; academic economists and asmall but growing body of analysts in both the public and private third community began

to ask decision-makers to consider two interesting questions: Why was it that countriessuch as Canada had such difficulty in adjusting to changing circumstances? Was itpossible that attempts to stabilize the economy, maintain employment in spite of crisesand generally protect Canadians from risks and change were in fact compounding theproblems faced by the country (see for example Walker 1977; Courchene 1980 and 1984;Grubel 1984; Lipsey 1984)?

Two ideas, emerging from academic economics were of particular concern inCanada and other industrialized democracies These were the natural rate ofunemployment and the rational expectation theories The natural rate of unemploymenttheory holds that in every country there is a rate of unemployment which is inevitable due

to the structure of the economy and the public policies that govern it According to thistheory, efforts to force unemployment lower than this structural level in the short-termtend to create inflation (Friedman 1968) Therefore, longer-term measures (such aspolicies to improve educational levels and promote new investments) that change thestructure of the economy are seen as more desirable than the short-term measuresfavoured by Keynesians to fight unemployment by encouraging demand

Meanwhile the rational expectations theory argued that Keynesianism might