Whom Do Bureaucrats Believe? A Randomized Controlled Experiment Testing Perceptions of Credibility of Policy Research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6328119 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carey Doberstein (0000-0001-5106-8484, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 384-405 |
| Publication date | 2017-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Policy Studies Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0190-292X • E-ISSN: 1541-0072 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/psj.12166 |
| OpenAlex | W2413909210 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 29 |
| References cited | 51 |
More than ever before, analysts in government have access to policy‐relevant research and advocacy, which they consume and apply in their role in the policy process. Academics have historically occupied a privileged position of authority and legitimacy, but some argue this is changing with the rapid growth of think tanks and research‐based advocacy organizations. This article documents the findings from a randomized controlled survey experiment using policy analysts from the British Columbia provincial government in Canada to systematically test the source effects of policy research in two subject areas: minimum wage and income‐splitting tax policy. Subjects were asked to read research summaries of these topics and then assess the credibility of each article, but for half of the survey respondents the affiliation/authorship of the content was randomly reassigned. The experimental findings lend evidence to the hypothesis that academic research is perceived to be substantially more credible than think tank or advocacy organization research, regardless of its content. That increasingly externalized policy advice systems are not a pluralistic arena of policy research and advice, but instead subject to powerful heuristics that bureaucrats use to sift through policy‐relevant information and advice, demands added nuance to both location and content‐based policy advisory system models
Content analysis · Credibility · Economics · Government (linguistics · Heuristics · Legitimacy · Perception · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Subject (documents · Test (biology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Policy Transfer and Learning · Psychology · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research
Shadows of Integrity in Public Administration
Education faculty as knowledge brokers
Enhancing Policy Capacity in South Korea
Advising under constraint
Advocacy, activism, and lobbying
The effects of EU conditionality on patterns of policy engagement of civil society organizations in candidate countries
Negativity trumps source
Les portes tournantes entre les think tanks, l’administration publique et les partis politiques
Grounding the political spectrum
How perceptions of voter control affect politicians’ evaluations of expertise in the news
What do advocates want from policy research? Evidence from elite surveys
Knowledge brokering organisations
Mind the Gap? Comparing De Facto and De Jure Expert Authority of International Public Administrations in Financial and Agricultural Policy
Birds of a feather? The determinants of impartiality perceptions of the IMF and the World Bank
The Credibility Chasm in Policy Research from Academics, Think Tanks, and Advocacy Organizations
The heart of bureaucratic power
Ministerial advisers in executive government
Bureaucratic biases in trust of expert policy advice
Policy advice utilization in Belgian ministerial cabinets
An emerging experimental approach to public administration research in Canada
Understanding evidence and behavioral responses
The knowledge behind Brexit. A bibliographic analysis of ex-ante policy appraisals on Brexit in the United Kingdom and the European Union
The future might be female
Why National Ministries Consider the Policy Advice of International Bureaucracies
Network dynamics in public health advisory systems
Conceptualising the policy engagement of interest groups
Behavioural Insights and Public Policy in Canada
Do Citizens Judge Health Experts Through a Partisan Lens? Evidence from a Factorial Survey Experiment
Policy advisory systems and public policy making
Scientific expertise and political accountability
How to Make More Published Research True
Who's Afraid of Peer Review?
Manufactured Scientific Controversy
Policy Advice and the Public Service
Policy Analysis in Canada
Introduction to Political Psychology
Great Transformations
Expert‐Based Information and Policy Subsystems
Bounded rationality in social science
Public Managers as the Missing Variable in Policy Studies
Rethinking the relationship between technical and local knowledge
Constructing sustainability in EU fisheries
Technical knowledge, discursive spaces and politics at the science–policy interface
Are policy-makers interested in social research? Exploring the sources and uses of valued information among public servants in Australia
The dual dynamics of policy advisory systems
British Think Tanks
Think Tanks in the U.S. Media
Think Tanks and the Web
A New Era for Think Tanks in Public Policy? International Trends, Australian Realities
Ministerial Advisers and the Politics of Policy‐Making
The Information-Seeking Behavior of Local Government Officials
Credibility Logic and Policy Analysis
Performing fleas
The Many Meanings of Research Utilization
Prescriptions for Regional Economic Dilemmas
Recycling Bins, Garbage Cans or Think Tanks? Three Myths Regarding Policy Analysis Institutes
The Order of Questions in a Survey on Citizen Satisfaction With Public Services
Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise
The political use of knowledge in the policy process
Think tanks and strategic policy-making
Think tanks or clubs? Assessing the influence and roles of Canadian policy institutes
What Works'? British Think Tanks and the 'End of Ideology
The Real but Limited Influence of Expert Ideas
From the margins of politics
Does Morality Policy Exist? Testing a Basic Assumption
Policy Knowledge, Policy Formulation, and Change
Public Perceptions of Expert Credibility on Policy Issues
The Cognitive Revolution and the Political Psychology of Elite Decision Making
Policy formulation, governance shifts and policy influence
Conceptualising Advisers' Policy Work
Demanding Information
Policy Paradigms, Social Learning, and the State
The organisation of denial
Measuring the Influence of Think Tanks
| Unique citing works | 29 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,22 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2026 (10) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 29 |