Exceptional Proff 530

DISCUSSION AND COMMENTARY

The political use of knowledge in the policy process

Falk Daviter1

Published online: 22 September 2015 � The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com

Abstract The role of knowledge in the policy process remains a central theoretical puzzle in policy analysis and political science. This article argues that an important yet

missing piece of this puzzle is the systematic exploration of the political use of policy

knowledge. While much of the recent debate has focused on the question of how the

substantive use of knowledge can improve the quality of policy choices, our understanding

of the political use of knowledge and its effects in the policy process has remained deficient

in key respects. A revised conceptualization of the political use of knowledge is introduced

that emphasizes how conflicting knowledge can be used to contest given structures of

policy authority. This allows the analysis to differentiate between knowledge creep and

knowledge shifts as two distinct types of knowledge effects in the policy process. While

knowledge creep is associated with incremental policy change within existing policy

structures, knowledge shifts are linked to more fundamental policy change in situations

when the structures of policy authority undergo some level of transformation. The article

concludes by identifying characteristics of the administrative structure of policy systems or

sectors that make knowledge shifts more or less likely.

Keywords Evidence-based policy making � Knowledge creep � Knowledge utilization � Organizational epistemology � Punctuated equilibrium theory

Introduction

The role of knowledge in the policy process has remained a central theoretical puzzle in

policy analysis and political science. Yet studies of knowledge use have profited little from

the parallel debates in both fields of research. As Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith (1988: 123)

& Falk Daviter [email protected]

1 Department of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Potsdam, August-Bebel-Str 89, 14482 Potsdam, Germany

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Policy Sci (2015) 48:491–505 DOI 10.1007/s11077-015-9232-y

pointed out some time ago, ‘one of the most surprising—and distressing—aspects of the

literature on knowledge utilization is that it has developed largely independently of the

literature in political science on the factors affecting the policy process.’ Despite repeated

calls for a better integration of both literatures in the years that followed (e.g., Jones et al.

2014: 166–67; James and Jorgensen 2009: 143; Radaelli 1995: 162; Rich and Oh 1993: 85;

Webber 1992: 414), most of this research continued to develop independently. This has

resulted in a fragmented empirical grasp and unreconciled theoretical understandings of the

role of knowledge in the policy process. The more recent surge in the literature on evi-

dence-based policy making has focused the debate on questions of how knowledge use can

improve the quality of policy choices. These studies largely follow in the tradition of early

knowledge utilization research (Newman and Head 2015: 384; Kay 2011: 236; Weiss et al.

2008: 44). While this literature has made significant progress (see Mead 2015; Newman

and Head 2015 for a recent discussion), it has contributed little to advance our theoretical

understanding of the role of knowledge in the policy process. Instead, most of this debate

appears premised on a preconceived understanding of how knowledge should be used in

the policy process, and to what end. This has steered the debate further away from a

broader consideration of the different functions of policy knowledge. Understanding dif-

ferent types of knowledge use and how they affect the policy process therefore remains a

key concern of current research.

This article argues that an important yet missing piece of this puzzle is the systematic

exploration of the political use of policy knowledge. As the article will show, the

political use of knowledge is given surprisingly short shrift in the standard literature.

Instead, much of the debate remains firmly rooted in the assumption that ‘politics’

constrains the use and counteracts the effects of knowledge in policy making. The article

challenges this notion by elaborating an alternative theoretical perspective. This per-

spective is premised on the view that knowledge is bound by the organizational structure

of policy making and used in the policy process to expand policy authority and exercise

control. A major theoretical implication of this perspective is that certain types of policy

conflicts can become catalysts of knowledge use that affect the policy process in fun-

damental ways. The article therefore argues that the political use of knowledge can be

linked to a much more diverse set of policy dynamics than covered by the standard

literature. This literature identifies the slow, indirect and cumulative effect of ‘knowledge

creep’ (Weiss 1980, 1982, 1986) as the preeminent influence of analytic information in

the policy process. In contrast, this article argues that shifts in the political knowledge

base can interact with structural determinants of policy change to produce fundamental

policy readjustments that are more akin to policy punctuations. This type of knowledge

shift is not caused by policy learning in given decision-making structures, but by

political and administrative contestation over the way issues are categorized and prob-

lematized in the policy process.

The article is structured as follows. The next section provides a brief introduction to

the theoretical debate. The discussion then focuses on existing concepts of the political

use of knowledge in the policy process. This literature is found to be deficient, and a

revised conceptualization of political knowledge use is proposed. The article then

explores the organizational foundations of knowledge use and finally discusses how a

focus on the organizational characteristics of policy system or sectors can help to explain

different types of knowledge effects in the policy process. The conclusion summarizes

the main points and highlights how the analysis contrasts with established positions in

this field of research.

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Knowledge creep and the enlightenment model of knowledge use

Much of the early academic debate in this field was driven by an expanding under-

standing of policy knowledge and its functions in the policy process. Initially, the focus

was limited to concrete or technical knowledge and its role in improving policy choices.

This type of instrumental use of policy information has sometimes been called the

‘engineering model’ (Knorr 1977). Research in this tradition soon faced a major paradox.

While an ever-increasing amount of policy-relevant information was produced and dis-

seminated, studies of knowledge use almost equivocally attest to the fact that little of this

knowledge ever enters the decision-making realm. In light of these disconcerting results,

a competing interpretation of research findings emerged that challenged the conceptual

premises of the debate. The perceived gap between knowledge production and utilization

came to be seen partially as an artifact of the exceedingly narrow understanding of

knowledge use that dominated much of the early studies in this field of research (Caplan

1979: 468; Pelz 1978). The distinction between concrete and conceptual knowledge use

was introduced to underline that early research was struggling with this multifaceted role

of knowledge in the policy process (Weiss 1977a; Rich 1977). This research emphasized

that there are more ways in which knowledge can influence policy choices than by

producing reliable empirical predictions about the relationship between preconceived

means and ends. Weiss (1977b) claimed that knowledge can inform policy making also

by challenging the underlying assumptions and analytical concepts that structure policy

choices. Her enlightenment model highlights how information can enter the policy

process in ways that alter the decision makers’ fundamental understanding of the issues

at stake. Policy knowledge, according to Weiss (1999: 146), supplies decision makers

with the ‘background of ideas, concepts and information that increased their under-

standing of the policy terrain.’ From this perspective, the primary function of information

in the policy process is seen as providing ‘insights into the nature of social problems’

(Weiss 1995: 141). As a result, researchers also began to operate with a much broader

definition of policy knowledge. Weiss’ (1986: 279) use of the term, for example,

encompasses ‘research, analysis, evaluation, data.’ Most of the more recent contributions

have similarly opted for such a broader definition of policy knowledge. Radaelli (1995:

162–63), in one of the classic articles on the issue, acknowledges the role of ‘hard’

policy information defined as scientific knowledge, but argues that this type only con-

stitutes one end of a continuum. At the same time, the enlightenment model also

established a new understanding of the process through which knowledge influences

policy choices. While previous research on instrumental knowledge use was associated

with expectations of direct and immediate effects of available information on policy

choices, the enlightenment model describes policy dynamics that work ‘in the long term’

(Weiss et al. 2005: 14). ‘Perhaps it takes 5 or 10 years or more before decision makers

respond to the accumulation of consistent evidence,’ Weiss (1993: 98) argues. One

reason for this was that conceptual knowledge use was seen as much more diffuse and

indirect. To capture the long-term effects of information on the policy process, Weiss

(1980, 1982, 1986) introduced the term ‘knowledge creep.’ According to Weiss, new

information and ideas ‘seep into people’s consciousness and alter the way that issues are

framed and alternatives designed’ (1999: 471). Knowledge creep therefore describes a

‘slow trickle’ that produces ‘slow results’ (Weiss 1999: 472).

Several decades after its initial formulation, the enlightenment model has established

itself as one of the dominant research perspectives in studies of knowledge use. It has

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been assessed to capture ‘the most important effect that research and evaluation have had

on policy’ (Weiss et al. 2005: 14). At the same time, the model remains insufficiently

theorized in key respects. Weiss (1986: 278) herself notes that the concept of knowledge

creep is a largely descriptive metaphor and that little is known about the mechanisms and

conditions under which information produces enlightenment effects. While students of

knowledge use have grown increasingly impatient with a field of study that is ‘generally

silent on the range of underlying mechanisms’ (Mark and Henry 2004: 37), few suc-

cessful attempts have been made to address these shortcomings (Weiss et al. 2005:

26–27). Arguably the most prominent theoretical elaboration of the enlightenment model

in the context of policy research can be found in the work of Paul Sabatier on policy

learning. Sabatier developed his well-known framework as an attempt to build directly

on the enlightenment model and integrate it into theories of policy learning (Sabatier

1988: 158; 1987: 649; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1988: 124). Yet in terms of its

contribution to knowledge research, Sabatier’s work stands out as conservative. In

contrast to the enlightenment model, Sabatier’s main interest lies with the role of

technical knowledge in the policy process (e.g., Sabatier 1997: 4). Partially as a result of

his more limited focus, he finds that knowledge interventions are most likely to affect

policy choices if decision-making power is delegated to apolitical expert arenas, and

when the issues under consideration allow for straightforward scientific appraisal (Sa-

batier 1997: 4, 1988: 159). Knowledge effects are seen as primarily affecting secondary

aspects of policy formulation, such as instrument choice and implementation strategies.

Changes at the level of the underlying perception of problem structures, on the other

hand, are largely shielded from evidentiary influence. Unsurprisingly, critics have

charged that his theory of policy learning departs substantially from key interests of the

enlightenment model that was its original point of departure (e.g., James and Jorgensen

2009; Fischer 2003; Bennett and Howlett 1992).

With the outlined shift from instrumental to conceptual use, knowledge research has

overcome a rationalist bias that characterized the early work in this field, but it has also

remained limited in several respects. Founded on a largely implicit notion of policy

learning, the use of conceptual knowledge has become closely associated with a single type

of knowledge effect that is described as diffuse, indirect and difficult to observe. Even

more importantly, research in the enlightenment tradition also remains solidly focused on

the substantive dimension of knowledge use. It largely ignores the question of how the

influx of knowledge about the nature and structure of policy problems affects the political

process beyond informing the search for suitable policy solutions. The next section will

argue that conceptual knowledge also has a political function in the policy process that

much of the existing literature fails to address. As a result, central mechanisms of

knowledge transfer and corresponding knowledge effects in the policy process have

remained underexplored.

Reconceptualizing the political use of policy knowledge

The political or strategic use of conceptual knowledge is given surprisingly short shrift in

the standard literature (see Whiteman 1985). While political use is frequently listed

alongside instrumental and conceptual use as a major area of inquiry (e.g., Head 2013),

existing research on the political use of knowledge has adopted a rather limited research

focus. Most studies conceptualize the political use of knowledge as little more than a ‘fig

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leaf of rationality for policy positions adopted on altogether different grounds’ (Weiss and

Gruber 1984: 228). In a still influential contribution, Carol Weiss (1977a: 15) defines

political use as the type of use that is meant ‘to support a predetermined position.’ Sim-

ilarly, Whiteman (1985: 206), in an otherwise critical review of the literature, proposes a

definition of political use as the ‘use of analytic information to advocate and reaffirm

policy positions after they have been determined.’ According to his typological scheme,

the fact that information enters the decision-making process only after policy positions

have been reached is the ‘only significant difference’ (Whiteman 1985: 206) between

political use and other types of knowledge use. The vast majority of research follows in

this tradition. In a recent overview of the literature, Weible (2008: 620) discusses existing

studies of political use in almost identical terms and defines political use as strategies to

‘legitimize previously made policy decisions.’ Owing in large part to the narrow con-

ceptual focus, the political use of knowledge is often described as little more than symbolic

posturing and has been associated with political behavior that uses analytical information

‘selectively and often distortingly’ (Knorr 1977: 171). Critics of this limited understanding

of the phenomenon maintain that the political function of knowledge remains poorly

understood and that by focusing on the use of evidence as a way to conceal predetermined

preferences existing studies have addressed ‘a rather uninteresting tip of the iceberg’

(Weiss and Gruber 1984: 228). Yet the quest to explore more extensively how knowledge

can gain political currency beyond the well-established analysis of substantive and sym-

bolic use has proven difficult.

In an early attempt to expand the focus of this debate, Weiss and Gruber depart from

the more general observation that ‘in a world of complex governance and shared control,

it is not enough to discover the best possible decision’ (Weiss and Gruber 1984: 226).

Instead, the authors argue, policy makers ‘typically value knowledge for its contributions

to the exercise of political control’ (Weiss and Gruber 1984: 225). Their argument

constitutes a fundamental break with standard perspectives in this field of research.

While existing studies acknowledge the fact that some of the more fundamental policy

conflicts are not about policy substance per se, but also about the distribution of policy

authority and political control, these types of conflicts are almost invariably seen as

diminishing both the likelihood of knowledge use and its impact on policy choices. The

notion that conflict over the distribution of policy competences can be a catalyst of

knowledge use and affect the policy process in fundamental ways has remained

uncharted territory. As a result, important research questions have been largely omitted

from the academic debate.

In the broader field of policy research, arguments that inquire into the link between

knowledge use and the distribution of policy authority have played a more prominent role.

Discussing Hall’s (1993) seminal work on policy change, for example, Baumgartner (2013:

240) in a recent review reiterates Hall’s (1993: 280) point that if conflicting knowledge

triggers fundamental policy change, this will likely happen in conjunction with significant

shifts in the distribution of policy authority. Whether or not competing knowledge affects

policy choices, Baumgartner (2013: 253) goes on to argue, often depends on whether

available knowledge can be used to challenge established patterns of influence in the policy

process. On a more general level, Hall’s work also begs the question of whether knowledge

use that hinges on parallel shifts in policy authority can still be usefully categorized as a

type of policy learning (Pierson 1993: 614–615). Instead, Hall’s (1993) argument about

fundamental or paradigmatic policy change draws attention to the fact that policy

knowledge can be understood to inform the choices of a given set of actors or institutions

who are empowered to set policy in a certain area, or it can be understood to inform the

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choices over how the authority to set policy is allocated in the first place. As Jones (1994:

50) points out, policy problems are ‘not just illuminated by information, they are framed by

it.’ Every piece of information that enters the policy process highlights certain aspects

about the scope and nature of a policy problem and ignores others. Competing expertise is

therefore central to claims concerning the contours and classification of policy problems.

This has direct implications for the way policy systems address problems and how they

allocate authority over policy choices. Yet research on knowledge use provides no con-

ceptual category to study these effects. For the most part, even more recent theoretical

discussions of knowledge utilization conflate conceptual and enlightenment use (e.g.,

Newman and Head 2015: 388; Mark and Henry 2004: 36), and they overlook that con-

ceptual knowledge can have both substantive and political effects on policy. It is therefore

paramount that knowledge research expands its understanding of the political use of

knowledge in the policy process. This argument follows Whiteman’s (1985) two-dimen-

sional perspective on knowledge use. The ‘key to developing a two-dimensional per-

spective,’ Whiteman (1985: 205) argues, ‘is recognizing that strategic use is not distinct

from concrete and conceptual use. Instead, like substantive use, strategic use can be either

concrete or conceptual.’ At the same time, this article differs from Whiteman (1985) on the

level of the typological distinctions. Any definition of the political use of knowledge that

points exclusively to the use of knowledge as post hoc rationalization of predetermined

policy positions as the defining characteristic reduces the scope of analysis to such an

extent as to prevent any meaningful investigation of the phenomenon.

Dimensions of knowledge use

Substantive Strategic

Concrete Instrumental Symbolic

Conceptual Enlightenment Political

A more reflective conceptualization of the political use of knowledge would encompass

the use of analytic information to establish or contest authority and control over policy

choices. This conceptualization points to rather different conditions and mechanisms of

knowledge use and different effects on the policy process than those described by the

literature discussed above. For example, the enlightenment model theorizes that substan-

tive use of conceptual knowledge is most likely to play a role in the policy process if it

‘disturbs few social arrangements and institutional interests’ (Weiss 1976: 225). The

reverse logic applies in the case of the political use of conceptual knowledge. Here

knowledge enters the decision-making process because policy authority is contested and

competing organizations draw on knowledge to shape problem perceptions and substan-

tiate claims of competence in their attempts to gain issue control. This view highlights that

the organizational level of analysis is central to arguments of political knowledge use.

While organizational structures limit knowledge use and transfer in important ways, they

also affect the way in which conflicting knowledge enters the policy process. The next

section will address the role of the organizational level of analysis in explanations of

knowledge use in more detail. At the same time, the effects of political knowledge use on

the policy process are expected to differ substantially from the effects of knowledge use in

the enlightenment model. The notion of knowledge creep assumes that information slowly

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alters the way decision makers address substantial policy problems as knowledge accu-

mulates and diffuses over time. The political use of knowledge highlights the transfor-

mative effects of competing knowledge when policy authority and the delineation of

responsibilities become contested. This part of the argument will be addressed in the

section after next.

Organizational epistemologies and the limits of learning

As discussed above, the vast majority of the more recent research on knowledge use is

premised on the notion that knowledge is most relevant when it contributes conceptual

insights into the nature and structure of policy problems. Studies of conceptual knowl-

edge use therefore inquire how policy knowledge affects the way policy issues are

framed for decision making (Weiss 1999: 471; Radaelli 1995: 164). Both the prevailing

analytical understanding of the policy problem and the possibilities for competing

information to affect the way issues are framed in the policy process are influenced by

the organizational setting. Schön and Rein (1994: 31), for example, discuss the fact that

policy frames do not exist in an institutional vacuum, and their research shows that

frames are often embedded in administrative decision-making structures (e.g., Rein and

Schön 1996: 95; Schön and Rein 1994: 28). But an early emphasis in this line of research

on the level of secondary institutional organization as a ‘decision matrix’ (Rein and

White 1977: 265) that structures policy development was not rigorously explored. The

fact that much of this literature ignores the structural level of analysis has repeatedly

drawn criticism (e.g., Feldman 1989: 145ff.; Huberman 1987: 589). The need to gain a

more systematic understanding of how the organizational characteristics of policy-mak-

ing systems influence the processing of information has therefore been highlighted

repeatedly (e.g., Rich and Oh 2000; Oh 1997a, b; Rich 1991).

Theoretical attention to the role of the organizational channels of information pro-

cessing becomes even more relevant if one recognizes that policy choices are commonly

made in highly information-rich environments (Simon 1973a: 270; Knott and Wildavsky

1980; Wildavsky 1983: 29; Weiss 1995: 149; Weiss 1999: 478; James and Jorgensen 2009:

148). While earlier studies of knowledge use frequently treated the supply and dissemi-

nation of information as problematic, more recent studies have argued that policy making

takes place in an environment routinely saturated with information. Under conditions of

information overload, theoretical interest shifts from the production and dissemination to

the ‘filtering’ and ‘mobilization’ of policy knowledge (James and Jorgensen 2009: 156). In

the policy process, this is largely accomplished through organizational structures and

hierarchies (Jones 2001). At the most basic level, every department or policy unit can be

analyzed as the organizational expression of a partial representation of complex policy

problems. Jurisdictional boundaries and departmental specialization delineate the relevant

knowledge bases, guide information search and preselect evaluative criteria used in the

analysis of available expertise. In short, organizations exist to suppress information

(Wildavsky 1983: 29).

Interest in knowledge use as organizational behavior leads Dery (1983, 1986, 1990)

to propose that studies of the policy process should focus more squarely on the role of

organizational epistemologies. Following Holzner and Fischer (1979), he stresses that a

core organizational function in the policy process is to provide perceptual filters and

direct attention toward selective aspects of the task environment (Dery 1990: 31, 1986:

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20). How political and administrative actors search for policy information and how they

interpret them depend foremost on the organizational context. Policy knowledge, Dery

(1990: 132) therefore argues, is the ‘product of political and bureaucratic processing.’

Since bureaucratic and political organizations acquire, interpreted and evaluated infor-

mation based on preexisting ‘conventions of knowing’ (Dery 1986: 19), information

that conflicts with the organizational premises is typically suppressed or rejected (Dery

1990: 128). An important consequence of the selective organizational processing of

policy knowledge is that issue perceptions and problem definitions are much more

likely to vary across different organizational units or subunits of government at any

given point in time than within a given organizational unit over time. The focus on

organizations as epistemologically closed systems thus contrasts sharply with the naı̈ve

empiricism of theories that uncritically extend notions like experimentation, verifiability

or fallibility to knowledge use by political and administrative agencies and highlights

the limits of organizational learning from experience as a major driver of conceptual

knowledge use in the policy process. Instead, it understands knowledge use as bound by

organizational rules of observation and inference, ‘such rules guide inquiry but cannot

be challenged by it’ (Dery 1990: 25; see also Holzner and Fisher 1979: 231). As a

result, Dery rejects the Kuhnian notion of learning from anomalies that informs major

strands of the literature on policy learning, such as Hall’s (1993) concept of paradig-

matic policy change or Sabatier’s (1986: 667, 1988: 145) understanding of changes in

the policy core of advocacy coalitions, as a plausible explanation of organization

behavior. Instead, Dery (1990: 32) contends that the potential for conflicting knowledge

to enter the decision-making process ‘lies not in experimentation and verification but in

contest.’

While political and administrative organizations are understood as epistemologically

closed systems, they rarely acquire the position of uncontested arbiters of policy

knowledge. Organizational epistemologies built into the policy process work to suppress

the transfer and use of information in their respective decision domains. But the

resulting partial representations of complex policy problems also offer political incen-

tives for the use of conflicting information. Policy research increasingly emphasizes that

many of the most relevant policy problems are ‘complex’ (Simon 1962), ‘ill-structured’

(Simon 1973b), or ‘wicked’ (Rittel and Webber 1973). Ill-structured or complex policy

problems by definition defy easy categorization. They frequently require policy

responses that depend on highly integrated government programs or remain partial at

best (Head and Alford 2015; Weber and Khademian 2008). Conflict over policy

authority and contestation of jurisdictional boundaries are therefore not only common

features of this type of policy making, but also difficult to resolve. While conflicts over

the structure of policy problems cannot be settled by analysis (Lindblom 1968: 14),

competing policy knowledge often gets drawn into the policy process in their wake.

The ‘potential interference of contestants, or contesting frames of reference,’ Dery

(1986: 21) argues, undercuts the ability of government organizations to ignore com-

peting problem perspectives and conflicting information. Conflicting knowledge thus

becomes more critical in the policy process when organizational frames of reference are

contestable. The following section discusses the theoretical and empirical implications

of this perspective in the context of the literature on policy change. The last section

then summarizes the main points and discusses them in the context of the larger

academic debates in this field of research.

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Two types of knowledge effects in the policy process: knowledge creep and knowledge shifts

This article started out from the observation that research on knowledge use and studies of

the policy process have largely developed independently from one another. One important

consequence of the parallel development of these literatures is the limited way in which

knowledge use has been linked theoretically to different types of policy change. The

established view is that consolidated evidence has a cumulative effect on the way policy

makers make sense of the problems they face and transforms policy choices incrementally

over time. This dynamic has become known as knowledge creep. Its formulation was

informed by a revised understanding of the way knowledge influences policy choices that

emphasizes conceptual rather than instrumental knowledge use. While the above analysis

followed previous debates in terms of its focus on conceptual knowledge use, it also

remained dissatisfied with the limited theoretical exploration of the political function of

conceptual knowledge. The reconceptualization of the political use of knowledge devel-

oped in the previous sections sheds new light on the role of knowledge in the policy

process. The baseline assumption is that policy knowledge can be used to contest given

structures of policy authority and that knowledge used to reframe a policy along the lines

of contestable boundaries of policy authority will enter the policy process more forcefully

than other types of knowledge. Understanding organizations as epistemologically closed

systems underscores that under conditions of low contestability even mounting pressure for

adaptation will likely be met by attempts to disregard and dismiss, if not outright discredit,

conflicting knowledge. The notion of contestability therefore implies that the scope and

likelihood of knowledge effects depend foremost on the degree to which conflicting

knowledge can be used by potential contestants to construct knowledge claims that chal-

lenge established patterns of influence. Dery (1990: 128) therefore concludes that

administrative and political competition and dispersed policy responsibilities are the main

features of policy systems that ‘constrain the tendency to suppress, and the inclination to

overlook disconfirming data’ in the policy process.

In her later research, Carol Weiss (1999: 480) appears to adopt a similar point of view

when she argues that knowledge stands a better chance at affecting policy change in

‘competitive political systems’ and under conditions of ‘decentralization’ of policy that

leave government control dispersed across different levels. The existence of ‘multiple

points of access within the policy system,’ Weiss (1999: 480) holds, is a central factor in

explanations of knowledge use in the policy process. While her empirical observations of

the conditions of knowledge use thus largely correspond with the preceding analysis, it

remains unclear whether policy systems with high levels of fragmentation and competition

are expected to facilitate the diffuse and incremental processes of knowledge creep that are

the focus of her research or other types of knowledge effects. In major strands of policy

research, the view that fragmentation and contestability of policy authority are linked to

discontinuous and disproportional knowledge use rather than incremental knowledge creep

is more widely established. These literatures build on the analysis of administrative

structures as mechanisms of compartmentalization in political decision making. Complex

problems are factorized into more manageable tasks that are addressed separately in largely

independent subsystems (Simon 1973a: 270). While the autonomous processing of dif-

ferent aspects of policy in independent subsystems is a rational response to the complex

and information-rich task environments of modern policy-making systems, the ‘design for

informational autonomy’ (Huber 1991: 104) also reduced the possibility for knowledge

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transfer and organizational learning. At the same time, fragmented responsibilities and

overlapping competences generate an influx of incompatible information and create

pressure on existing decision-making structures to accommodate competing knowledge

claims (Workman et al. 2009: 84). Because partial problem perceptions and selective

organizational attention are structurally embedded, the transfer and use of conflicting

knowledge and the resulting policy adaptation are typically seen as episodic and delayed

rather than incremental and continuous. Irregular punctuations of the policy process are

therefore the expected result (Jones and Baumgartner 2005).

Conceptual knowledge that affects policy choices in this way is more accurately

described as knowledge shift rather than knowledge creep. Conflicting information enters

the policy process when policy authority is reassigned to new institutional structures of

decision making. In such cases, the former informational foundation of policy making is

replaced by a new knowledge base and the existing policy regime is replaced. Conflicting

knowledge is therefore not integrated into existing policy structures, but plays a major part

in replacing them. This line of argument places the political use of conceptual knowledge

more firmly in the context of theories of policy punctuation and greatly expands the range

of policy dynamics with which the use of conceptual knowledge in the policy process is

theoretically associated. It also conforms with the widely accepted notion that fundamental

policy change is most likely when policy institutions themselves undergo transformation,

while incremental policy change as described by the literature on knowledge creep is

characteristic of decisions reached within existing policy structures (Howlett and Migone

2011: 57–58). While all policy systems adjust the ways in which they assign policy

authority from time to time (Baumgartner and Jones 1993), some policy systems or sectors

are expected to be more responsive to competing knowledge and more easily adjusted

structurally. This in turn has effects on the scope and likelihood of knowledge effects on

policy change. The central question thus becomes under what conditions knowledge creep

or knowledge shifts are the more likely effects of conflicting information in the policy

process.

Both types of knowledge effects appear more likely that the more open and dispersed

policy authority is organized in a given policy system. This is viewed as a precondition for

conflicting knowledge to even enter the policy process. The preceding analysis therefore

implies that the question of whether knowledge creep or knowledge shifts prevail depends

largely on the way the organization of policy authority renders organizational knowledge

more or less contestable. Contestability is influenced primarily by features of the policy

system at the level of secondary institutional organization, or what Rein and White (1977:

265) have called the ‘decision matrix.’ This places the analytical emphasis on the orga-

nizational characteristics of administrative structures, such as the degree and nature of

administrative specialization, the rigidity of departmental boundaries, and the degree of

overlap and duplication of responsibilities across policy organizations. The degrees of

vertical specialization, for example, offer insights into the extent to which administrative

units are placed hierarchically under direct political control or remain organizationally

independent from political influence. In the case of strong vertical specialization, orga-

nizational epistemologies can be expected to be generally more distinct and pronounced,

oftentimes in form of allegiance to some form of scientific or professional expertise.

Independent central banks, for example, are generally expected to pay special attention to

some select indicators, such as the level of inflation, in assessing conflicting information

concerning overall economic performance. Their organizational epistemologies and

organizational insulation from political influence thus render them generally less suscep-

tible to knowledge shifts. Knowledge creep appears the more likely effect of conceptual

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knowledge use. If we turn the attention to the dimension of horizontal specialization,

contestability will depend largely on the respective logic of departmental organization. If

policy authority in a public health sector is organized in a way that separates responsi-

bilities according to a functional criterion between one branch of the organization that

deals with treatment and another that deals with prevention, for example, research that

points toward prevention as the more effective policy approach would likely cause

extensive political knowledge use and open up the possibility for far-reaching knowledge

shifts. If policy authority was organized by sector, on the other hand, this type of

knowledge effect would appear far less likely. Knowledge creep may still occur, but almost

certainly with less far-reaching results and only after long-term consolidation and con-

vergence of available evidence. Since political knowledge use is more likely to play a role

at the intersection of competing organizational frames of reference, duplication and

overlap of policy responsibilities generally make knowledge shifts more likely. Knowledge

that links the risk of homelessness to mental illness, for example, can affect shifts of policy

authority from social programs aimed at financial assistance to public health programs. If

policy responsibilities in this sector are organized in a single more unitary and vertically

integrated administration, on the other hand, this would shield the organizational knowl-

edge base more effectively from the risk of intrusion. Conflicting information is likely to

be disregarded or dismissed as irrelevant, even undermining knowledge creep. Irrespective

of the specific dimension of analysis, the more general point is that both the scope and the

likelihood of knowledge creep and knowledge shifts can be linked to characteristics at the

level of secondary institutional organization in the respective policy system or sector,

specifically the way in which organizational epistemologies are rendered contestable or

insulated from the intrusion of conflicting knowledge.

Summary and conclusions

This article has inquired into the political use of knowledge in the policy process.

Throughout the analysis, an effort was made to identify insights from dispersed fields of

research that can contribute to a more complete conceptualization of the use of knowledge

in the policy process and advance the aim of integrating knowledge research and studies of

the policy process more closely. In its focus on the conceptual use of knowledge, the article

reflects the overall theoretical reorientation in this field of study over the past decades. This

does not mean that instrumental knowledge use has failed to attract academic attention. As

argued above, much of the recent debate on evidence-based policy making can be read as

an extension of this research tradition. At the same time, the existing literature on con-

ceptual knowledge use was nevertheless seen as highly incomplete. A first serious problem

with the existing literature is that it routinely conflates conceptual and substantive use. The

near exclusive research emphasis is on the question of how knowledge use can inform the

formulation of policy alternatives. The article has argued that conceptual knowledge use

has both a substantive dimension and a political dimension. Existing conceptualizations of

the political use of knowledge, however, have remained so uniformly minimalistic as to

prevent any meaningful investigation of the phenomenon. The article therefore introduced

a broader definition of political knowledge use that emphasized the role of knowledge in

contests over policy authority and the structure of political control. A second problem with

the existing literature on conceptual use was that it remains largely silent on the range of

underlying mechanisms. The concept of knowledge creep, as Weiss argued herself, has

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remained little more than a descriptive metaphor. In this context, the role of organizational

epistemologies was discussed to underscore that the use of conceptual knowledge in the

policy process is bound by organizationally embedded rules of observation and inference

in ways much of this literature has failed to address. As a result, the implicit notion of

policy learning as the main driver of conceptual knowledge use in the enlightenment model

was partially rejected in favor of a logic of administrative and political contestation. This

allowed the analysis to differentiate between knowledge creep and knowledge shifts as two

distinct types of knowledge effects in the policy process. While knowledge creep is

associated with incremental policy change within existing policy structures, knowledge

shifts were linked to more fundamental policy change in situations when policy institutions

themselves undergo some level of transformation. The remainder of the article tentatively

identified conditions under which knowledge creep or knowledge shifts are expected to

become more likely by showing how the structure of policy systems or sectors at the level

of secondary institutional organization can render knowledge in the policy process more or

less contestable.

Along the way, the analysis has taken issue with some widely accepted positions in

knowledge research. In particular, the common contention that conflict invariably con-

strains the use and counteracts the effects of knowledge in the policy process was fun-

damentally called into question. In Weiss’ (1999: 471) analysis, the ‘endemic priority of

politics’ in organizational decision making is seen as the main reason why knowledge does

not play a larger role in policy formulation. The article has contended that this conclusion

is largely the result of the conceptual limitations of important parts of this literature. In a

similar vein, the frequent association of the political use of knowledge with ‘endarken-

ment’ (Weiss 1979) as opposed to ‘enlightenment’ appears largely unfounded. The base-

line assumption of the preceding analysis was that conflicting knowledge can be used to

contest given structures of policy authority. This logic implies that political knowledge use

is reflective of the way policy-making structures process information selectively. The

article has also made it clear, however, that any theory of knowledge use that takes the

effects of organizational epistemologies seriously views the role of knowledge in the

policy process as bound by structural constraints in even the best of circumstances. To

understand the mechanisms through which these boundaries can become contested and

occasionally readjust to reflect evolving problem perceptions in the policy process is

therefore crucial—not only for a better understanding of the disruptive effects of knowl-

edge shifts, but also for assessing the ways in which knowledge can illuminate complex

policy choices.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inter- national License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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