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 What
Political and Institutional Context Issues Matter for Bridging Research
and Policy? A literature review and discussion of data collection
approaches
Existing evidence clearly indicates that political and institutional
context issues are the most important set of factors affecting the
interface between research and policy. These issues usually explain
why research does, or usually does not, lead to policy change. Unfortunately,
we do not yet have a systematic understanding of when, why and how
political context matters for bridging research and policy (BRP)
in developing countries. Is bridging research and policy easier
in democratic countries? Do different issues matter in different
components of policy processes (e.g. agenda setting, formulation
or implementation)? Is using research to inform policy easier in
a context of crisis? What makes bureaucrats more susceptible to
changing practice based on research evidence?
This paper reviews the relevant literature on politics, policy
processes and institutions in order to identify the key issues that
may affect research-policy links. The aim is to generate understanding
about the research-policy nexus in order to provide practical advice
for developing and transition countries. The paper is a joint output
of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Research and Policy
in Development (RAPID) programme and the Global Development Network
(GDN) Bridging Research and Policy project.
The rationale for focusing on political context is threefold. First,
as outlined above, political and institutional context issues are
critical to any discussion of research-policy links. Secondly, there
is a gap in the literature regarding the impact of political and
institutional factors on research uptake in developing countries.
This is important as political and institutional contexts in the
developing world differ greatly from those described in existing
literature on OECD countries - and there is a massive diversity
across developing countries. Thirdly, understanding political contexts
better should enable researchers and other stakeholders to respond
in ways which maximise their chances of policy influence.
The paper has two main sections. The first provides a review of
the theory and existing case study evidence on politics and institutions
to try to outline how they affect research-policy links. We draw
on a range of disciplines, including political science, economics,
sociology, anthropology and psychology. To facilitate a discussion,
the key points are clustered into five areas. For each of these
we identify a preliminary long list of the types of issues that
might matter most to those interested in research-policy links in
developing countries.
The five areas - and some of the key issues within them - are:
- Macro-political context: extent of democracy and political
freedoms; academic and media freedoms; pro-poor commitment of
the elite or government; culture of evidence use; impact of civil
society; volatility of the national political context; and extent
of conflict.
- Specific policy context: stage of the policy process
(agenda setting, policy formulation, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation); extent of policymaker demand; degree of consensus
or resistance; climate of rationality; openness of the policy
processes and importance of the issue to society.
- Implementation: nature of bureaucratic processes (transparency,
accountability, participation, corruption); incentives, capacity
and flexibility of organisations to implement policy or not; degree
of contestation; existence or not of specific mechanisms to draw
in evidence in policy implementation; feasibility and perceived
legitimacy of a specific policy reform.
- Decisive moments in the policy process: character of
policy process on an issue (i.e. extent the issue requires routine
decisions or fundamental changes or whether it is a completely
new policy area); predictability of the policy process; existence
of policy windows; and sense of crisis on an issue.
- The way policymakers think: extent to which policy objectives
and cause-effect relationships are clear; openness to new evidence;
capacity to process information; policymaker motivations; and
types of evidence they find convincing.
The second section outlines the challenges of collecting data on
political and institutional issues and discusses approaches to collecting
systematic data on issues that matter for research uptake. This
is not an area that has received much attention, so there is very
little of direct relevance. Where possible, we outline existing
data on relevant topics - for example, cross-country data on democracy
and governance issues. In general, however, specific projects, studies
or initiatives will need to generate their own data on political
context issues. As a result, we also highlight approaches and specific
tools - including interviews, surveys, focus groups, policy mapping
and stakeholder analysis - which might be valuable in assessing
contexts in terms of their impact on research-policy interactions.
We give information on the different approaches and also provide
examples of how they can be brought together to map a political
context. The key point to ensure credibility is that any initiative
aiming to understand and act on political context should use a range
of methods and triangulate the findings.
A major challenge involves the diversity of contexts, and whether
it is possible to capture some general rules. How can we characterise
different policy contexts - across countries and within countries
over time? What issues are most important in different contexts?
How can we link context issues to measures of the influence research
has on policy? We emphasise that we are not providing answers at
this stage. We provide a menu of issues that have emerged from the
literature and preliminary work (What to look for?). We also provide
a menu of approaches to collecting political context data (How to
assess it?).
The paper is intended to provide a base for initiatives in studying
political context, but also specifically to bring together an empirical
synthesis of the findings of the specific studies in the GDN programme.
Drawing on the preliminary insights here plus a synthesis of the
findings should enable the project to identify what types of approaches
work best in different contexts; to reveal which issues are fundamental;
and to make suggestions on how to maximise the chances of bridging
research and policy. It will not be easy, but generating a more
systematic understanding on the ways political context issues affect
research-policy links will be a substantial contribution to the
literature. It would likely also have significant practical implications
for the ways policymakers, civil society groups, international donors
and, of course, researchers work to inform and improve policy processes
in developing countries.
View generic Political
Context Questionnaire (
41kb)
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