Clumsy Conclusions: How to Do Policy and Research in a Complex World

Abstract

John Maynard Keynes, who was not renowned for his politeness, once wrote on a Treasury paper that had been passed to him for comment: ‘I would be in full agreement with this if the word “not” was inserted in every sentence.’¹ Much the same, we feel, holds for orthodox policy analysis. Indeed, as we have argued for some time now,² much progress can be made simply by slipping the words ‘not’ or ‘never’ into the precepts that have long been drummed into the heads of those who aspire to be policy analysts:

• A single, agreed definition of the problem is the first essential.

• Always clearly distinguish between facts and values.

• Establish a simple metric — dollars, quality adjusted life years, expected utility, etc — so as to be able to compare and assess policy options.

• Optimize.

Turning all these ‘dos’ into ‘do nots’, we might expect, would be mightily resisted, both by those who analyse policy, and by those who make or implement it. Indeed it was, when these heretical shibboleth-inversions were first proposed, twenty or so years ago. Back in the 1980s, for example, when John Adams first spelt out the implications of the risk compensation hypothesis for Britain’s road safety policy (recounted in Chapter 6 of this book), enraged cabinet ministers demanded that he be dismissed from his university position.