TY  - JOUR
A1  - Daviter, Falk
T1  - Policy analysis in the face of complexity
BT  - What kind of knowledge to tackle wicked problems?
JF  - Public policy and administration
N2  - An ever-increasing number of policy problems have come to be interpreted as representing a particular type of intractable, ill-structured or wicked policy problem. Much of this debate is concerned with the challenges wicked problems pose for program management rather than policy analysis. This article, in contrast, argues that the key challenge in addressing this type of policy problems is in fact analytical. Wicked policy problems are difficult to identify and interpret. The knowledge base for analysing wicked policy problem is typically fragmented and contested. Available evidence is incomplete, inconclusive and incommensurable. In this situation, the evidentiary and the interpretative elements of policy analysis become increasingly indistinguishable and inseparably intertwined. The article reveals the problems this poses for policy analysis and explores the extent to which the consolidation, consensualization and contestation of evidence in policy analysis offer alternative procedural paths to resolve these problems.
KW  - Evidence-based policy making
KW  - expertise
KW  - knowledge
KW  - policy analysis
KW  - wicked problems
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/0952076717733325
SN  - 0952-0767
SN  - 1749-4192
VL  - 34
IS  - 1
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - INPR
A1  - Daviter, Falk
T1  - The political use of knowledge in the policy process
T2  - Policy sciences : integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity
N2  - The role of knowledge in the policy process remains a central theoretical puzzle in policy analysis and political science. This article argues that an important yet missing piece of this puzzle is the systematic exploration of the political use of policy knowledge. While much of the recent debate has focused on the question of how the substantive use of knowledge can improve the quality of policy choices, our understanding of the political use of knowledge and its effects in the policy process has remained deficient in key respects. A revised conceptualization of the political use of knowledge is introduced that emphasizes how conflicting knowledge can be used to contest given structures of policy authority. This allows the analysis to differentiate between knowledge creep and knowledge shifts as two distinct types of knowledge effects in the policy process. While knowledge creep is associated with incremental policy change within existing policy structures, knowledge shifts are linked to more fundamental policy change in situations when the structures of policy authority undergo some level of transformation. The article concludes by identifying characteristics of the administrative structure of policy systems or sectors that make knowledge shifts more or less likely.
KW  - Evidence-based policy making
KW  - Knowledge creep
KW  - Knowledge utilization
KW  - Organizational epistemology
KW  - Punctuated equilibrium theory
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-015-9232-y
SN  - 0032-2687
SN  - 1573-0891
VL  - 48
IS  - 4
SP  - 491
EP  - 505
PB  - Springer
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -