The Politics of Evidence (2017)

There has been an enormous increase in interest in the use of evidence for public policymaking, but the vast majority of work on the subject has failed to engage with the political nature of decision making and how this influences the ways in which evidence will be used (or misused) within political areas. This book provides new insights into the nature of political bias with regards to evidence and critically considers what an ‘improved’ use of evidence would look like from a policymaking perspective.

• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Part I: Evidence-based policymaking – opportunities and challenges
• Chapter 1. Introduction
• Chapter 2. Evidence-based policymaking – an important first step, and the need to take the next
• Part II: The politics of evidence
• Chapter 3. Bias and the politics of evidence
• Chapter 4. The overt politics of evidence – bias and the pursuit of political interests
• Chapter 5. The subtle politics of evidence - the cognitive-political origins of bias
• Part III: Towards the good governance of evidence
• Chapter 6. What is ‘good evidence for policy’? From hierarchies to appropriate evidence.
• Chapter 7. What is the ‘good use of evidence’ for policy?
• Chapter 8. From evidence-based policy to the good governance of evidence
• Index

The Open Access version of this book, available here.

*It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license.