{"id":858,"date":"2014-08-14T21:08:35","date_gmt":"2014-08-14T21:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/?p=858"},"modified":"2021-07-15T10:33:53","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:33:53","slug":"a-new-political-economy-of-research-uptake-overview-from-studies-in-latin-america-africa-and-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onthinktanks.org\/articles\/a-new-political-economy-of-research-uptake-overview-from-studies-in-latin-america-africa-and-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"A new political economy of research uptake: overview from studies in Latin America, Africa and Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Editor\u2019s note: this post has been updated and has been republished to include new links.]<\/em><\/p>\n

RAPID and Mwananchi published a series of studies by\u00a0Emma Broadbent<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0political economy of research uptake in Africa\u00a0in 2012.<\/p>\n

A bit of background: The\u00a0Evidence-based Policy in Development Network\u00a0(ebpdn) was set up to promote our understanding of the role that evidence plays in policy-making in developing countries and in international development policy. Several studies and events have helped to shed light on the factors that explain the uptake of evidence; factors that the\u00a0Research and Policy in Development\u00a0Programme synthesised, in 2003:\u00a0the political context, the nature and presentation of the evidence, links or networks, and the external environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the ebpdn\u2019s attention shifted in the late 2000s from an effort to understand the complex linkages that exist between research and policy communities to one focused on recording good influencing practices or demonstrating the impact that particular pieces of research had on policy. Research project driven case studies became the rule. This shift, in the view of some, limited the opportunities for learning that RAPID\u2019s original work had offered.<\/p>\n

Partly in response to this development, while I was Head of the RAPID programme, we, in partnership with the ebpdn\u2019s Africa network, launched a series of studies that sought to turn this trend around and pay greater attention to the nuances of the relationship between research and policy.<\/p>\n

In 2009 a group of Latin American researchers worked on a book published by ODI and\u00a0International IDEA<\/a> on the relationships between think tanks and political parties<\/a>\u00a0(also in English – thinking politics<\/a>). The studies recognised that it was not possible to study policy research institutes, or think tanks, without understanding their political contexts. The case studies from Colombia (Partidos pol\u00edticos y think tanks en Colombia), Ecuador (Partidos pol\u00edticos y think tanks en el Ecuador), Peru (Think tanks y partidos pol\u00edticos en el Per\u00fa: precariedad institucional y redes informales), Bolivia (Partidos pol\u00edticos y think tanks en Bolivia), and Chile (Los think tanks y su rol en la arena pol\u00edtica chilena) illustrated the complexity of the relationship between research and policy, as well as between researchers and policymakers. The idea of two separate research and policy communities was discarded, and the importance of their historical co-evolution highlighted.<\/p>\n

A series of background studies for\u00a0Sub-Saharan Africa<\/a>, South Asia, and\u00a0East and Southeast Asia<\/a>\u00a0followed the Latin American studies; and these were followed by a more recent volume of studies that pays particular attention to the\u00a0relationship between media and research centres in Latin America<\/a>, promoted by ebpdn members in the region.<\/p>\n

Inspired by this, Emma Broadbent took on the challenge to describe the relationship between think tanks and their environment in Sub-Sarahan Africa. Instead of focusing on an organisation or a piece of research, she took the policy debate as the unit of analysis.<\/p>\n

Here,\u00a0a policy debate is understood as a contested policy issue<\/strong>\u00a0involving any number of actors<\/strong>\u00a0who contribute to the debate by offering an argument relating to any aspect of the policy, for instance the policy problem, policy options, means of implementation and monitoring and evaluation. A policy debate can take place in a single space as a one-off event (in which case the number of participants is limited), or can occupy a limitless participatory space over a period of time. This paper is concerned with the latter.<\/p>\n

Policy debates are often conducted with reference to political interests and faulty evidence, with each participant in a debate coming to the table with a particular \u2018ask\u2019 and understanding of the policy problem. Debates are thus\u00a0unequal playing fields: they are made up of participants who possess varying objectives, expectations, capacities, understandings, motivations and commitment<\/strong>. Importantly, only some of these may be made explicit, given the potential for some actors not to think and act in a unified manner. For instance, actions may not reflect stated values, or stated intent may not accurately reflect actual intent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Using research-based evidence as a starting point for a case study also hides the unavoidable fact that evidence does not mean the same to everyone. The label is often attached to a great deal of things: facts, opinions, arguments, and observations. Little is said about the perception that different policy players have of these different types of evidence or their source; even if, as we know and as Emma Broadbent\u2019s studies show, this perception plays a significant role in explaining why certain ideas are more rapidly accepted than others.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, the focus on research-into-policy case studies assumes that what matters in policy decisions are the facts and findings emerging from studies rather than the arguments that, by their nature, must draw from a range of sources of knowledge and power: values, tradition, legislation, fears, imaging, etc.\u00a0Arguments and big ideas are what change the world<\/a>. Facts and findings simply provide them with ammunition.<\/p>\n

The studies discussed here focus on policy debates in four of the countries in which the\u00a0Mwananchi programme, which provided support for the study, operates:<\/p>\n