A popular explanation for governments’ persistent enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) is its expected capacity to solve policy conflict. However, research is divided on whether or... Show moreA popular explanation for governments’ persistent enthusiasm for evidence-based policymaking (EBPM) is its expected capacity to solve policy conflict. However, research is divided on whether or not EBPM actually has a positive impact on conflict. On the one hand, EBPM is said to introduce a set of principles that helps overcome political differences. Simultaneously, EBPM has been criticised for narrowing the space for democratic debate, fuelling the very conflict it is trying to prevent. This article explores how EBPM structures policy conflict by studying the example of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) in policy processes through reconstructive interviews and ethnographic observations. It argues that, although EBPM channels conflict in a way that prompts engagement from stakeholders, it also escalates conflict by misrepresenting the nature of policy processes. As such, the findings suggest that managing process participants’ expectations about what evidence is and can do is key in fostering productive policy conflict. Show less
Modernism is the belief in a world that can be understood in objectiveterms and controlled as such. Even though it is commonly understoodto be a naïve worldview, public administration theorists... Show moreModernism is the belief in a world that can be understood in objectiveterms and controlled as such. Even though it is commonly understoodto be a naïve worldview, public administration theorists believe it to still aptly describe the modus operandi of modern states—albeit in more subtle forms. This raises the question whether that makes civil servants naïve modernists, or whether theories of the modernist state are over-simplifying government practice. This study explores this question by means of interviews with civil servants involved in decision-making processes on infrastructure investments. It finds that modernist norms do not describe an actual practice, but reflect the language used to legitimize apractice in which policy makers are driven by a desire to act rather than objective knowledge about the world. Consequently, the study argues that the question we should be asking ourselves is not why states still operate according to modernist principles, but why civil servants legitimize their practice with a set of norms that does not seem to describe it. Show less
