Credibility in Policy Expertise
The Function of Boundaries Between Research and Policy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6328780 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kate Williams (0000-0002-2882-1068, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-66 |
| Publication date | 2021-02-01 |
| 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.12342 |
| OpenAlex | W2935015230 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 8 |
| References cited | 40 |
As science becomes an increasingly crucial resource for addressing complex challenges in society, extensive demands are placed upon the researchers who produce it. Creating valuable expert knowledge that intervenes in policy or practice requires knowledge brokers to facilitate interactions at the boundary between research and policy. Yet, existing research lacks a compelling account of the ways in which brokerage is performed to gain credibility. Drawing on mixed‐method analysis of 12 policy research settings, I outline a novel set of strategies for attaining symbolic power, whereby policy experts position themselves and others via conceptual distances drawn between the “world of ideas” and the “world of policy and practice.” Disciplinary distance works to situate research as either disciplinary or undisciplinary, epistemic distance creates a boundary between complex specialist research and direct digestible outputs, temporal distance represents the separation of slow rigorous research and agile responsive analysis, and economic distance situates research as either pure and intrinsic or marketable and fundable. I develop a theoretical account that unpacks the boundaries between research communities and shows how these boundaries permit policy research actors to achieve various strategic aims
Agile software development · Business · Credibility · Discipline · Economics · Epistemology · Knowledge management · Management science · Political science · Public relations · Research Policy · Science policy · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Mathematics · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Administration · Public Policy and Administration Research · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
Understanding knowledge brokerage and its transformative potential
Knowledge brokering organisations
The legitimacy of experts in policy
Legitimising policy knowledge in autocratising contexts
Assessing dynamics of EU democracy projection through expert communities in the Mediterranean region
The two‐community model in the New Zealand housing policy community – A bottom‐up perspective
Nordic truth commissions and the Sámi
Strategic positioning
Science in action
Think Tanks in America
Structural Holes
Beyond Evidence-Based Policy in Public Health
Theorizing Change
Rethinking validity and reliability in content analysis
The field of cultural production
Bureaucrats, Brokers, and the Entrepreneurial University
The Disenchantment of the Orient
The Honest Broker
Bridging
Knowledge mobilisation in education across Canada
Document Analysis as a Qualitative Research Method
Social scientists as technicians, advisors and meaning producers
The Role of Applied Social Science in the Formation of Policy
Three strategies for attaining legitimacy in policy knowledge
Theorizing Boundary Work as Representation and Identity
Themes and Variations
Statistical Network Analysis for Analyzing Policy Networks
Scientific Credibility, Disagreement, and Error Costs in 17 Biotechnology Policy Subsystems
"Shielding" the Knowledge Transfer Process in Human Service Research
Handbook of Ethnography
Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science
Democratizing Science
Public Policy is Like Having a Vaudeville Act
Disciplining an Unruly Field
Critical and descriptive goals in discourse analysis
Situated Learning
The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences
Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency
On mediators
| Unique citing works | 8 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,33 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |