Evidence-based Policy Making and Data Analysis: Challenges and Prospects
Wen-Jong Juang*
Abstract
In a democracy, the government makes and implements policy based on many inputs, including societal values, public opinion, and the ideals and visions of the ruling party. However, many policies have been formulated in isolation from available evidence or implemented in the absence of a monitoring and evaluating mechanism that gathers evidence of the impacts and effectiveness of the policy. Without such a mechanism, it may be ineffective in meeting policy objectives and in some cases may even have unknown and unexpected adverse consequences. Accordingly, if policy makers want to make good decisions in developing new policies and in evaluating current policies, they should adopt an evidence-based approach.
Basically, evidence-based policy-making means that policy design should be driven by analysis of all available data, not by subjective judgement or ideology. It can reduce uncertainty in the increasingly complex environments of policy making by using the best available evidence. In this paper, we discuss the following core questions in evidence-based policy making and data analysis: 1. How to move from an opinion-based approach to an evidence-based one in policy making? 2. What kind of evidence may be required at each stage of policy making? 3. How to implement evidence-based data analysis to support decision-making? 4. What are the challenges in developing evidence-based policy making and data analysis? The main purpose of this paper is to help policy makers understand the value of evidence, gain access to evidence and use it appropriately in the policy making process.
Keywords: evidence-based policy making, opinion-based policy making, evidence-based data analysis, domain knowledge, data governance
* Professor and Chair, Department of Public Policy and Management, Shin Hsin University. e-mail: jwj@mail.shu.edu.tw.