Papers by Holger Strassheim
Ethical moments and institutional expertise in UK Government COVID-19 pandemic policy responses: where, when and how is ethical advice sought?
Evidence & Policy
Background:The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid acceleration of p... more Background:The emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic has required a rapid acceleration of policy decision making, and raised a wide range of ethical issues worldwide, ranging from vaccine prioritisation, welfare and public health ‘trade-offs’, inequalities in policy impacts, and the legitimacy of scientific expertise. Aims and objectives:This paper explores the legacy of the pandemic for future science-advice-policy relationships by investigating how the UK government’s engagement with ethical advice is organised institutionally. We provide an analysis of some key ethical moments in the UK Government response to the pandemic, and institutions and national frameworks which exist to provide ethical advice on policy strategies. Methods:We draw on literature review, documentary analysis of scientific advisory group reports, and a stakeholder workshop with government ethics advisors and researchers in England. Findings:We identify how particular types of ethical advice and expertis...
Schlüsselwerke der sozialwissenschaftlichen Klimaforschung
Political Expertise and Policy Change: the discursive and institutional embeddedness of epistemic authority
Straßheim H. Political Expertise and Policy Change. The discursive and institutional embeddedness... more Straßheim H. Political Expertise and Policy Change. The discursive and institutional embeddedness of epistemic authority. Presented at the 7th ECPR General Conference, Science Po, Bordeaux
Who are behavioural public policy experts and how are they organised globally?
Policy & Politics, 2021
Behavioural public policy has spread internationally over recent years. Worldwide, expert units a... more Behavioural public policy has spread internationally over recent years. Worldwide, expert units are translating insights from behavioural sciences into policy interventions. Yet, behavioural expert networks are a puzzling case. They seem to oscillate between two modes of collective action: as an epistemic community, they are based on the consensual belief that biases in behaviour pose a problem for policymaking. As an instrument constituency, they bring together a diversity of actors, unified not by consensual beliefs about problems but by practices of promoting behavioural instruments as solutions. Drawing on a review of literature, this article provides a systematic analysis of the relation between epistemic communities and instrument constituencies. It argues that there has been an ‘agency shift’ from one mode to the other. The implications are that experts should be aware of the fact that the instruments they are proposing might develop a political life of their own.
International Review of Public Policy, 2020
Some argue that the global rise of behavioral approaches challenges the rationalist tradition in ... more Some argue that the global rise of behavioral approaches challenges the rationalist tradition in public policy. Others fear that it could undermine deliberation and public reasoning. This paper focuses on the worldwide rise and spread of behavioral expertise and behavioral public policy. It provides a general insight in terms of the role of expertise, the science-policy nexus and the distribution of epistemic competences in public policy. Based on an extensive literature review, the emergence and consequences of behavioral-expert networks are assessed. It will be suggested that it is necessary to break free from the microfocus proposed by behavioral public policy and to pay more attention to the institutional and cultural constellations of knowledgeand decision-making in democracies.
De-biasing democracy. Behavioural public policy and the post-democratic turn
Democratization, 2020
ABSTRACT This article focuses on the political implications of behavioural public policy for demo... more ABSTRACT This article focuses on the political implications of behavioural public policy for democratic governance and participation. It is being argued that it is an influential case illuminating the way post-democratic practices gain global authority and redefine democracy and citizenship. The article is based on two assumptions: First, the rise and spread of behavioural public policy can only be understood as the result of global interactions. Second, behavioural experts manage to combine both political and epistemic authority. Based on randomized controlled trials as seemingly unquestionable evidence, behavioural insights are already feeding into the debate on the reasoning failures of citizens and the replacement of democracy by an epistocracy, i.e. a government of experts. While the behavioural discourse has informed critical reflections on deliberative democracy, proponents should be well aware of the post-democratic biases it has mobilized.
Who Are the Policymakers and What Are Their Interests?
Behavioural Policies for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, 2018
Political actors and their interests are significant to policymaking. The chapter gives an overvi... more Political actors and their interests are significant to policymaking. The chapter gives an overview of the most relevant political actors in public health. But the context of policymaking goes beyond visible political actors. Hence, in a second step the chapter shows which role scientific expertise plays and in what manner it plays this role. The way in which scientific expertise is produced and applied to policymaking by different actors is extremely important in order to understand agenda-setting, the hierarchy of specific policies in public health and ways of implementing those policies in different contexts. This chapter highlights and explains the high degree of complexity that characterises the relationship between policymakers and epistemic authority.
der moderne staat – Zeitschrift für Public Policy, Recht und Management, 2019
In the past decade, interventions informed by behavioural economics and psychology have spread ac... more In the past decade, interventions informed by behavioural economics and psychology have spread across jurisdictions and policy areas. Worldwide, more than one hundred organizations and networks are developing and implementing nudges and other behavioural tools. After an initial phase of curiosity, attention is now shifting to the varieties of behavioural public policy, its institutional and cultural embeddedness, its impact and limitations. In his most recent book, Peter John explores some of the crucial questions related to this next phase of nudge. He discusses the role of nudge units, the limitations of behavioural approaches and the ethics of nudge. Most importantly, John proposes a deliberative and reflective version of nudging, nudge plus. Readers might miss an in-depth discussion of pressing problems such as the globalizing influence of behavioural expertise, the imperialism of evidence hierarchies and the political repercussions of nudging. Despite these deficits, the book w...
Critical Policy Studies, 2019
Some of Lasswell's work is highly compatible with the recent trend of behavioural and psychologic... more Some of Lasswell's work is highly compatible with the recent trend of behavioural and psychological approaches in public policy. His suggestions to apply psychotherapeutic techniques in policymaking could be directly taken out of the toolkit of modern nudgers. In this paper, however, it is being argued that Lasswell provides a critical perspective. His multi-methodological approach, his contextual orientation and his analysis of science and policy could be highly instructive in both identifying and preventing some of the problems and pitfalls of behavioural public policy.
Critical Policy Studies, 2017
In his article, Newman aims at overcoming the binary rift between rationalists and constructivist... more In his article, Newman aims at overcoming the binary rift between rationalists and constructivists, between supporters and opponents of evidence-based policy. Both positions, he argues, are not as incompatible as it seems. They could coexist by understanding that rationalists seek to reduce the influence of ideology on policy and that constructivists can show the difficulties of this task. The argumentative steps leading to his 'deconstruction' of the debate, however, do not reflect well the complexity of the subject. The response therefore aims at reconstructing the debate over evidence-based policy by focusing on three main points: first, the deficits of the distinction between rationalists and constructivists; second, the political dimension of evidence and the relationship between knowing and governing; third, the different uses of evidence in political and cultural contexts. Under the conditions of the postnational constellation, ignoring the political dimension of evidence and the cultural contexts in which expertise operates may even intensify the controversies. There are, however, also promising attempts to critically redefine the principles and modes of evidence-based policy beyond simple dichotomies.
Trends towards evidence-based policy formulation
Handbook of Policy Formulation
European Policy Analysis, 2016
Berlin 1 Forced to stay on the island by unfavorably winds, Odysseus' men slaughter the cattle an... more Berlin 1 Forced to stay on the island by unfavorably winds, Odysseus' men slaughter the cattle and are subsequently all killed by a thunderstorm sent by Zeus. Odysseus himself is punished when Calypso on Ogygia keeps him from returning to Ithaca for seven more years. The article gives a comparative and critical overview on theories of time in policy analysis. It is based on two central assumptions: First, the various ways time is conceptualized in policy analysis are closely related to underlying understandings of politics and political action. Theories of time are also always political theories. Debating time is thus not only of analytic value. It also has large implications on how power, rationality, and collectivity are related to each other. Secondly, theories of time as political theories can be highly influential in practice. When they find their way into policymaking, they may realign the time horizons and temporal orders of political action.
This paper presents empirical and theoretical findings about the endogenous dynamics of interorga... more This paper presents empirical and theoretical findings about the endogenous dynamics of interorganisational knowledge networks. Based on a qualitative study of intercommunal knowledge networks in local employment policy a model of knowledge network life cycles is outlined, empirically illustrated, and theoretically explained. It is argued, that the interdependence of knowledge, power and trust plays a central role for the internal dynamics of networks. The paper also aims to show why network innovation and creativity is often closely linked to internal conflicts. The results have consequences for a dynamical concept of network governance. Zusammenfassung Im Mittelpunkt des Papiers stehen empirische und theoretische Befunde zu den endogenen Dynamiken interorganisatorischer Wissensnetzwerke. Die Analyse basiert auf einer qualitativen Studie interkommunaler Wissensnetzwerke der lokalen Beschäftigungspolitik. Dabei wird ein Lebenszyklusmodell interorganisatorischer Wissensnetzwerke skizziert, empirisch illustriert und theoretisch erklärt. In dieser dynamischen Perspektive zeigt sich, dass die Interaktion von Wissen, Macht und Vertrauen für die Entwicklung und Koordination von Wissensnetzwerken eine zentrale Rolle spielt. Zudem wird deutlich, warum Netzwerkinnovationen häufig in Verbindung mit Konfliktereignissen stehen. Die Ergebnisse leisten einen Beitrag zu einem dynamischen Konzept von Netzwerkgovernance.
Politics and policy expertise: towards a political epistemology
Handbook of Critical Policy Studies
When does evidence-based policy turn into policy-based evidence? Configurations, contexts and mechanisms
Evidence & Policy, 2014
Many studies on evidence-based policy are still clinging to a linear model. Instead, we propose t... more Many studies on evidence-based policy are still clinging to a linear model. Instead, we propose to understand expertise and evidence as ‘socially embedded’ in authority relations and cultural contexts. Policy-relevant facts are the result of an intensive and complex struggle for political and epistemic authority. This is especially true where science and policy are difficult to distinguish and the guidelines for validating knowledge are highly contested. To understand the mechanisms leading to policy-based evidence and the long-term consequences of these transformations more comparative research on the cultural and institutional ‘embeddedness’ of epistemic and political authority is needed.
Interkommunale Bündnisse und Wissensnetzwerke spielen in der lokalen Beschäftigungspolitik eine z... more Interkommunale Bündnisse und Wissensnetzwerke spielen in der lokalen Beschäftigungspolitik eine zunehmend wichtige Rolle. An diesen Allianzen der administrativen Wissensschöpfung lassen sich spezifische Prozesse und Strukturen, Potentiale und Probleme beobachten, die sowohl für die wissenschaftliche Analyse als auch für die Gestaltung des organisierten Wissenstransfers im öffentlichen Sektor von Interesse sind. Der Beitrag verbindet empirische Befunde aus dem Politikfeld mit aktuellen Ansätzen der Wissensgenerierung und des Wissenstransfers. Im Zentrum steht die These, dass Prozesse der Konversion expliziten und impliziten Wissens von zentraler Bedeutung für das Verständnis interorganisatorischer Netzwerke sind: Netzwerke bilden eine Metaebene der Wissenskonversion und erweitern auf diese Weise die Konversionsprozesse der Bezugsorganisationen. Es werden empirische und theoretische Gründe für die Entstehung und den Wandel von Wissensnetzwerken abgeleitet sowie Transferformen untersch...
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Papers by Holger Strassheim