CHAPTER 18 Academics and Public Policy: Informing Policy-Analysis and Policy Making

Knowledge Users, Generators and Brokers

Individuals and organizations that do not have the power to make policy decisions, but, unlike the academic community, the do 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 1 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).

Academics that have activated themselves to shape policy play important roles in organizations belonging to most of the categories noted above. 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.¹⁴⁴

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 3 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

Others since Lindblom have created models that seek to detail when decision-makers 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 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. 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 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 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. 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 do happen (Gerson 1996, 5-6).

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 that a piece of research caused a 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 (Landry et al. 2003, 193). These schools 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 large measure 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 by decision-makers can help policy-advisors take short cuts in their analyses. More will be said about policy paradigms below. Second, the decision-making process approach does not see knowledge utilization as a single act, but rather a multiple stage process by which ideas are converted into actions.

When Landry et al. (2003) investigated the utilization of university research in Canadian public policy, they employed a modified version of the Knott and Wildavsky multi-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.

One limit to using the evidence from Landry et al.’s study in this chapter is that they do not differentiate between those public officials we have described here as third community 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 actors rather than those that have been described here as public policy decision-makers. On the other hand, their adaptation of Knott and Wildavsky’s multi-stage approach to decision making is instructive to think about in three community terms. It could be argued that as one progresses from the earlier to the later stages of the process interaction shifts from that between the second (or academic) community and the third community (of knowledge 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 and information generated by academic research is put to use in policy analysis and the development 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 research findings 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 most important 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 be next to impossible. This is because such tailoring would require academics to predict the future. Not just future developments in their 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, they must also advocate for their work. They must make an effort to put their work in front of policy-makers in a format that highlights the policy implications, so that when a relevant policy window opens, it is there. This is best done through forging linkages between academia and public policy-makers at a more general level.

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 in order to improve the likelihood that their work will have an impact on public policy. This finding 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 and those who fund research should consider activities of the sort noted above to be part of the ‘ “real” work of research, not a superfluous add-on’ (2002, 146).

Activated Academics in Action: Economic Reform

Keynesianism takes its name from that of the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who was a critic of the economic orthodoxy prevailing during the economic depression of the 1930s (1936).¹⁴⁵ The basic problem identified by Keynesianism was the propensity 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. The paradigm holds that it is a key responsibility of the state to intervene in the economy so as to moderate these extreme variations in business cycle by managing demand (the ability 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 withdraw such 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, pension plans, and price supports for farmers), and ‘make-work schemes’ that provide jobs in poor economic times were all supported by Keynesians as mechanisms for stabilizing the economy. Therefore this policy paradigm is also associated with the development of modern welfare states. In Keynesian terms, debt and deficit levels as well as tax rates are not 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 these techniques 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 Keynesian economists shifted from preventing the sort of mass unemployment seen in the Depression to ensuring full employment (Leeson 1999 and 1997).

It should be noted that for many years there was a strong public consensus in favour of the Keyensian policy paradigm. Moderating the swings of the business cycle benefited not only workers but corporations as well. In fact, in both the United States and Canada, prominent business leaders were at the forefront of the coalitions which pressured government to adopt the Keynesian policy paradigm (Ferguson 1995, 79-98; Finkle 1977, 356-357). However, in the 1970s something unexpected occurred. Canada and the other western industrialized democracies entered a period of severe economic crisis as technological developments, changing trade patterns and rising oil prices hit the global 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 high unemployment and inflation (Tobin 1982, 518). For policy-advisors trained in Keynesian analysis this posed a dilemma, forcing them to choose between stimulating employment, risking more inflation, or fighting inflation, and risking more unemployment (Boothe and Purvis 1997, 210). At the same time as this was occurring; academic economists and a small 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 countries such as Canada had such difficulty in adjusting to changing circumstances? Was it possible that attempts to stabilize the economy, maintain employment in spite of crises and generally protect Canadians from risks and change were in fact compounding the problems faced by the country (see for example Walker 1977; Courchene 1980)?

Two ideas, emerging from academic economics were of particular concern in Canada and other industrialized democracies. These were the natural rate of unemployment and the rational expectation theories. The natural rate of unemployment theory 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 this theory, efforts to force unemployment lower than this structural level in the short-term tend to create inflation (Friedman 1968). Therefore, longer-term measures (such as policies to improve educational levels and promote new investments) that change the structure of the economy are seen as more desirable than the short-term measures favoured by Keynesians to fight unemployment by encouraging demand.

Meanwhile the rational expectations theory argued that Keynesianism might actually raise this natural rate of unemployment in the long-term. Based in the work of Robert E. Lucas and Thomas J. Sargent (see for example 1976), rational expectations theory argues investors are forward looking and base a substantial part of their predictions about the economy on what government does and says today. If investors expect government to allow the inflation rate to increase in the future by stimulating employment today, they will demand a higher interest rate. This will make it more expensive to borrow, dampen demand and cancel out the unemployment-fighting impact of the stimulus, unless the government surprises lenders and stimulates the economy to a greater amount than anticipated. Recognizing their mistake, investors will build a greater inflation risk premium into future transactions. This will tend to raise the natural rate of unemployment. As a result, each time the government tries to stimulate the economy it must spend more money to get the same boost in employment while risking greater debts and inflation. Consequently, rational expectations economists argued that governments could not fight unemployment in the long-term because ordinary investors, in pursuing their own self-interests, would behave in ways that subvert this policy or any other that distorts economic equilibrium (Thurow 1983, 143-144 and 155-159).

In other words, proponents of the natural rate of unemployment and the rational expectations theories claimed that they could settle the debate puzzling policy-advisors as to whether it was better to fight unemployment or inflation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They believed that they could demonstrate that there was nothing that could be done about unemployment in the short-term (or provide any other short-term economic security against changing circumstances) and if governments would only stop trying to fight unemployment, inflation would take care of itself. Furthermore, doing this would solve the flexibility problem, as without government protection, both investors and workers would have to adapt quicker to changing circumstances. While little could be done in the short-term, in the long-term this would lower the natural rate of unemployment in Canada. The identification of this problem of flexibility and the argument that Canada’s lack of flexibility was a product of its previous economic policies formed the central core of a new post-Keynesian economic paradigm sometimes called neoclassicalism or neoliberalism.

Brooks (1990, 89-90) observes that while it is common to argue that neoliberalism is a pro-business economic policy paradigm, business was in fact the late-comer to the party. The ideas that form the core of neoliberlism were in development among academics before business began to seriously advocate for them in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Kelley 1997). This is because, as noted above, business did well for many years under the previous paradigm. Government efforts to mitigate swings in the business cycle had obvious value. However, the events of the 1970s showed business leaders that these efforts could fail spectacularly. An alternative avenue for ensuring profitability was to be as flexible as possible, adapting rapidly to the market rather than expecting government action to adapt the market to the dictates of mass production (Piore and Sabel 1984, 205-220). It was with this in mind that Canada’s business leaders formed the Business Council on National Issues (now renamed the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) to lobby for an economic policy paradigm that emphasized the need for flexibility and a reduced role for the state intervention (Bradford 1998, 106).

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, argue 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, 313-314).’ 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

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 do is 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 always 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 do 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 do 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, they 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 business coalition and its academic allies is instructive. Thy 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 decision-making over the long-term. While few academic researchers have goals that lofty, the general approach is still sound.