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Data and Policy Change

The Fragility of Data in the Policy Context

  • Book
  • © 1990

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Authors:
  1. David Dery
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Table of contents (9 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. Introduction

    • David Dery
    Pages 1-20

  3. Research Data and Organizational Learning

    • David Dery
    Pages 21-36

  4. Organizations Already Know What They Would Know

    • David Dery
    Pages 37-49

  5. Hostile Data in Performance Systems

    • David Dery
    Pages 51-64

  6. Poverty Data in Politics

    • David Dery
    Pages 65-81

  7. Implementation as Laboratory and as Battlefield

    • David Dery
    Pages 83-98

  8. Evaluation Data as Paper Money

    • David Dery
    Pages 99-115

  9. On the Question of Policy Relevance

    • David Dery
    Pages 117-126

  10. Conclusion

    • David Dery
    Pages 127-136

  11. Back Matter

    Pages 137-159
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Keywords

About this book

This is a work on "hostile" data and the conditions under which they are accepted and rejected. What is the place of data in politics and organization? Why are politicians and administrators so often hostile to research data, or why do they tend to perceive data as hostile to them? How can data become relevant to policy? These questions are the focus of this book. In answer I try to show how political and administrative institutions cope with "hostile" data; how they seek to maintain closedness to disconfirming data, and how they are led, in a free society, to change their policies despite the epistemological bias in favor of the already known and the initial inclination to resist change. At the same time, I demonstrate that data producers must learn that while their research findings may be subjected to science's own standards of verifiability, such data must also meet standards of contestability by the various interests involved in political and administrative decisions. The production and "appropriate" publication of a research report may at best buy one an admission ticket to participate in political and administrative contests, but not the power nor the justification to determine the outcomes of the contest. I begin with two hypotheses: Hypothesis 1: Politicians or administrators reject data that do not coincide with behavior they are unwilling to change. Hypothesis II: Politicians or administrators change behavior that does not coincide with data they are unwilling to reject.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Data and Policy Change

  • Book Subtitle: The Fragility of Data in the Policy Context

  • Authors: David Dery

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2187-0

  • Publisher: Springer Dordrecht

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media New York 1990

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-7923-9057-2Published: 31 December 1989

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-94-010-7480-3Published: 13 November 2013

  • eBook ISBN: 978-94-009-2187-0Published: 11 November 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 160

  • Topics: Political Science, Economic Policy, Assessment, Testing and Evaluation, Sociology, general

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