Knowledge In Policy

Investigates the effects of research in the field of international development.. Examines the consequences of 23 research projects funded by Canada's International Development Research Centre in developing countries. Shows how research influence public policy and decision-making and how can contribute to better governance.

This important collection presents a radical reconception of the place of knowledge in contemporary policymaking in Europe, based not on assumptions about evidence, expertise or experience but on the different forms that knowledge takes. Knowledge is embodied in people, inscribed in documents and instruments, and enacted in specific circumstances. Empirical case studies of health and education policy in different national and international contexts demonstrate the essential interdependence of different forms and phases of knowledge. They illustrate the ways in which knowledge is mobilised and resisted, and draw attention to key problems in the processing and transformation of knowledge in policy work. This novel theoretical framework offers real benefits for policymakers, academics in public policy, public administration, management studies, sociology, education, public health and social work, and those with a practical interest in education and health and related fields of public policy.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. This book explores the critical role that local knowledge plays in public policy processes as well as its role in the co-production of policy relevant knowledge with the scientific and professional communities. The authors consider the mechanisms used by local organisations and the constraints and opportunities they face, exploring what the knowledge-to-policy process means, who is involved and how different communities can engage in the policy process. Ten diverse case studies are used from around Indonesia, addressing issues such as forest management, water resources, maritime resource management and financial services. By making extensive use of quotes from the field, the book allows the reader to ‘hear’ the perspectives and beliefs of community members around local knowledge and its effects on individual and community life.

This edited volume examines key questions about evidence-informed policymaking in Indonesia. It draws on insights and evidence acquired through the implementation of the Knowledge Sector Initiative, a donor-funded programme that aims to increase the demand for and use of evidence in policymaking in Indonesia. Featuring contributions from academics, policy researchers, policymakers and development practitioners, the volume will deepen readers’ understanding of how knowledge and politics shape the policymaking process in Indonesia. As such, it will be of interest to Indonesian and international researchers, academics, students, practitioners and policymakers concerned with various aspects of evidence-informed policymaking research and processes. In particular, regional and international development practitioners and development partners interested in learning from Indonesia’s efforts to improve how evidence is used to address key development challenges will find this volume valuable.

Harvesting Feminist Knowledge for Public Policy brings together 14 essays by feminist thinkers from different parts of the world, reflecting on the flaws in the current patterns of development and arguing for political, economic, and social changes to promote equality and sustainability. The contributors argue that the very approach being taken to understand and measure progress, and plan for and evaluate development, needs rethinking in ways that draw on the experiences and knowledge of women. All the essays, in diverse ways, offer proposals for alternative ideas to address the limitations and contradictions of currently dominant theories and practices in development, and move towards the creation of a socially just and egalitarian world.

If knowledge is power, then John Hird has opened the doors for anyone interested in public policymaking and policy analysis on the state level. A beginning question might be: does politics put gasoline or sugar in the tank? More specifically, in a highly partisan political environment, is nonpartisan expertise useful to policymaking? Do policy analysts play a meaningful role in decision making? Does policy expertise promote democratic decision making? Does it vest power in an unelected and unaccountable elite, or does it become co-opted by political actors and circumstances? Is it used to make substantive changes or just for window-dressing? In a unique comparative focus on state policy, Power, Knowledge, and Politics dissects the nature of the policy institutions that policymakers establish and analyzes the connection between policy research and how it is actually used in decision making. Hird probes the effects of politics and political institutions—parties, state political culture and dynamics, legislative and gubernatorial staffing, partisan think tanks, interest groups—on the nature and conduct of nonpartisan policy analysis. Through a comparative examination of institutions and testing theories of the use of policy analysis, Hird draws conclusions that are more useful than those derived from single cases. Hird examines nonpartisan policy research organizations established by and operating in U.S. state legislatures—one of the most intense of political environments—to determine whether and how nonpartisan policy research can survive in that harsh climate. By first detailing how nonpartisan policy analysis organizations came to be and what they do, and then determining what state legislators want from them, he presents a rigorous statistical analysis of those agencies in all 50 states and from a survey of 800 state legislators. This thoroughly comprehensive look at policymaking at the state level concludes that nonpartisan policy analysis institutions can play an important role—as long as they remain scrupulously nonpartisan.

Diane Stone addresses the network alliances or partnerships of international organisations with knowledge organisations and networks. Moving beyond more common studies of industrial public-private partnerships, she addresses how, and why, international organisations and global policy actors need to incorporate ideas, expertise and scientific opinion into their 'global programmes'. Rather than assuming that the encouragement for 'evidence-informed policy' in global and regional institutions of governance is an indisputable public good, she queries the influence of expert actors in the growing number of part-private or semi-public policy networks.

This is a book about relations between knowledge and policy, focusing on the role of expert advice. From a diverse and extensive literature, it distils four models of knowledge-policy interactions, and shows how advisors are variously represented as rational analysts, political symbols, agents of learning, or skilful users of 'boundary work'. It takes as its empirical subject one of Britain's longest-standing advisory bodies - the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution - created in 1970 and abolished in 2011.