Experimental Policy Research Paper: Drawbacks and Mitigation Strategies

Introduction

For this assignment, I will begin by defining experimental policy research. I will then proceed to provide some of the drawbacks in it and provide examples while explaining some of the ways that can be used to mitigate against experimental policy research. Lastly, I will provide my opinion, based on the knowledge from the text, as to whether policy evaluation can be as rigorous as experimentation in other sciences. Experimental studies are rapidly growing both in number and influence as political scientists continue to discover methods that experimental techniques can be used to lighten up political phenomenon.

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Experimental policy research is where policies get experimented to offer the best opportunity to determine their impact on the public (Dye, 1992). The key elements of experimental research include the systematic selection of control and experimental groups, the policy under study should only be applied to the experimental group. The differences between the control and experimental groups should be carefully compared after the policy application. Policy experiments are the initiatives that help government departments and ministries to test new ways that they can use in solving policy problems within a set timeframe and limited scale (Pellini, 2018).

Nevertheless, experimental policy research has some drawbacks to it, just like any other model could. Firstly, it has a bias towards positive results. That is since the government sponsors the research projects, there is a higher likeliness that the results produced will be supportive of poplar reform proposals. For example, social scientists who are liberal and reform-oriented expect liberal reforms to produce positive results, and when they do so, the results are readily accepted and even published. However, unsupportive results are likely to be rejected, and new research redesigned so that the results may fit their expectations. Secondly, another drawback to the model is the hawthorn effect. The effects explain that people tend to behave differently when under watch, and as a result of this effect, a new reform or policy is likely to appear more successful than the old one, and such results are pegged merely on the fact that it is new. The third drawback is the issue of generalizing results to the nation. In policy research, results from small-scale experiments are used as a representation of the entire nation. Yet, the results might have substantially differed if a large-scale nationwide program was used. The last drawback is the ethical and legal issues surrounding the model. There are other problems raised by experimental strategies in policy impact research. One such issues are the government researchers withholding public services from individuals to provide a control group for experimentation. For example, in the medical arena, withholding the services could lead to fatal impacts.

Such drawbacks to experimental policy research can, however, be mitigated using various means. For the hawthorn effect, the issue can be mitigated by ensuring that the control and experimental groups are not informed of the ongoing research. By this, their behaviors will remain unchanged hence helping in achieving accurate results. For example, when conducting policy research on workers in an institution, the control group can be put under different conditions without their knowledge to realize the accurate change between them and the experimental group. Secondly, the issue of generalization of results can be mitigated by using a larger sample in conducting policy researches. For example, the government can have researchers traverse all the states to achieve highly favorable results that are uniform, and that matches the entire country. Another scorching drawback that needs serious mitigation is the ethical and legal issues surrounding the experimental research policy. A case in this drawback is where the government researchers withhold public services at the expense of conducting research, which could result in severe effects, especially when done in sectors such as medical fields and military, among others. To mitigate against such, the government should put in place enough personnel and device the research methods such that its course does not necessarily have to interfere with the ongoing normal activities. Experimental policy research should be able to adapt to the normal routine without interfering with it.

Conclusion

From my understanding of the dynamics surrounding policy evaluation, it can never be as vigorous as experimentation in other sciences. The government involvement in policy evaluation makes it easily manipulated since most governments want policies that can favor their ideologies. However, in other sciences, it is difficult to manipulate the results of an experiment since such results are subject to reviews and critics to ensure that they are so accurate and with no flaws. Policies, on the other hand, are mere theories based on individuals' ideas, and there can be no standard measure of what policy is better than the other. An experiment is an avenue where there is temporary engagement between policy and science in a productive and elaborate interplay, and this means that there is a need to understand the influence of experimentation on politics and how it can be improved to impact the interplay between science and policy.

References

Dye, T. R. (1992). Understanding public policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN: 9780134169972

McFadgen, B., & Huitema, D. (2018). Experimentation at the interface of science and policy: a multi-case analysis of how policy experiments influence political decision-makers. Policy sciences, 51(2), 161-187. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11077-017-9276-2

Pellini A. (2018). A conversation about policy experiments. Think Tank Initiative. http://www.thinktankinitiative.org/blog/conversation-about-policy-experiments