Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
‘evidence-based policy’ movement in the 1990s and early 2000s. 38 The movement
grew out of the UK and was also taken up in Australian policy circles, supported
primarily on the basis that it provides a foundation for improved public policy
decision making grounded in objective ‘truth’ rather than ideology, and can also
improve efficiencies and outcomes. 39 However, what this commitment means in
practice remains somewhat murky. For instance, evidence-based policy raises
questions about which types of evidence should be relied upon, how well they
approximate‘truth’,howtheyshouldbeused,andtowhatextenttheycanorshould
influence policy outcomes. 40
There is a great deal of contestability regarding the value of various types of
evidence for policy development. For instance, there continues to be much debate
regarding the utility of ‘evidence hierarchies’, which generally place greater value
on evidence produced through experimental and quasi-experimental quantitative
studies 41 over evidence produced through qualitative inquiry. 42 This preference for
particular research methods over others, however, shapes and moulds the types of
knowledge that are able to be produced, often favouring positivist ontologies (that
is, those that perceive the world as objectively ‘knowable’ and ‘measurable’, typically
through rational scientific means). As Marston and Watts argued:
If knowledge operates hierarchically, we begin to see that far from being a neutral
concept, evidence-based policy is a powerful metaphor in shaping what forms of
knowledge are considered closest to the ‘truth’ in decision-making processes and
policy argument. 43
There are many arguments for the inclusion of richer forms of knowledge in social
policy inquiry and design: forms of knowledge that do not necessarily appear at
the top of evidence hierarchies. This is particularly the case in the social sciences,
because despite common assumptions that particular policies or programs can
directly produce certain anticipated outcomes, trajectories of change are rarely
simple or linear when dealing with humans’ lived experiences. 44 Any change in an
individual’slifeismorelikelytobetheresultoftheintricateinterplayofpersonal
and environmental factors rather than any policy or program alone. 45 Thick
qualitative description can be particularly useful in teasing out these complexities
38 Nutley, Davis and Walter 2002.
39 Head 2009.
40 Marston and Watts 2003.
41 That is, studies that use either randomly or non-randomly sampled/allocated control groups to
isolate the effects of the variable(s) being studied.
42 For example, detailed qualitative case studies; see also, the Maryland Scientific Methods Scale in
What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth 2018.
43 Marston and Watts 2003, 145.
44 Woolcock 2013.
45 Lowe and Wilson 2015.
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