Transcript What Future for Evidence-Based Policy? A Critical Analysis of the

Modernisation, Marketisation and
Housing Reform: The Use of Evidence
Based Policy as a Rationality Discourse
Keith Jacobs
University of Tasmania
Tony Manzi
University of Westminster
‘In everyday life ideology is at work,
especially in the apparently innocent
reference to pure utility’
(Zizek, 2011: 248)
What is Evidence-Based Policy (EBP)?
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Comprehensive Analysis
Systematic Review
Framework for Evaluation
Justification for Reform
What Claims are Made for EBP?
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‘Robust’ framework
Effective use of Research
Rationale for Intervention
Objective and scientific basis for change
EBP
• Distinction between:
• ‘high ground wherein practitioners make
effective use of research-based theory and
technique’
• ‘swampy lowland where situations are
confusing messes incapable of technical
solution’ (Schon (1983, pp.43-43)
The Research Context
• The Utilitarian Turn (Solesbury, 2001)
• Instrumentalism
– Academic rent-seeking?
• Contract research and commodification
EBP as Rationality Discourse
• Pragmatic, anti-ideological politics
• ‘Concrete factual realism’ and ‘unvarnished
verisimilitude’ (Hood and Jackson, 1991)
• ‘Retreat from priesthood’ (Pawson, 2006)
• Technology as ‘vital currency’ for public policy
Role of deliberative policy making (Sullivan,
2011)
• Post hoc rationalities
Modernisation – the Stock Transfer
Programme
• Evidence to win bids – e.g. deprivation etc
• Extensive evaluation – ex post, ex ante
• Depoliticisation - combination of managerial
common sense and community governance
(Pawson and Mullins, 2010)
• Long-term migration towards the private
sector
Marketisation: Housing Market
Renewal
• ‘Pathfinder’ programme
– Primacy of markets
– Demolition
• Research and consistent lobbying
• Importance of timing
• Comprehensive evidence base but neglected
community impact
Housing Reform: Localism Act, 2011
• Pragmatic politics of power – reducing risk of
failure
• Stigmatisation of social housing and shaping
behaviour
• Discourse of financial crisis
• Importance of argument rather than evidence
Instead of reaching solutions that can be judged by
standards of rationality, policy making reaches
settlements, reconciliations, adjustments and
agreements that one can evaluate only
inconclusively by such standards as fairness,
acceptability, openness to reconsideration and
responsiveness to a variety of interests. And analysis
in large part is transformed from an evaluative
technique into a method of exerting influence,
control and power which we call partisan analysis
(Lindblom, 1980: 122)
Conclusions
• The interdependence of power and
knowledge
• Combination of managerialism, modernisation
and ideology
• Implications for academia
– Redefining relationship between academics and
policy makers
– Reluctance to criticise policy
References
• Communities and Local Government (2010) Local Decisions: a Fairer
Future for Social Housing – Consultation. London: CLG.
• Hood, C. and Jackson, M. (1991) Administrative Argument. Aldershot:
Dartmouth Publishing Company.
• Lindblom, C. (1980) (2nd ed) The Policy Making Process Englewood Cliifs:
Prentice Hall
• Pawson, H. and Mullins, D. (2010) After Council Housing: Britain’s New
Social Landlords. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Schon, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner. New York: Basic Books.
• Solesbury, W. (2001) Evidence Based Policy: Whence it Came and Where its
Going, Working Paper 1. London: ESRC UK Centre for Evidence-Based
Policy and Practice.
• Sullivan, H. (2011) Truth junkies: using evaluation in UK public policy.
Policy and Politics, 39, 4, 499-512.
• Zizek, S. (2011) Living in the End Times. London: Verso.