The Co-Creative Approach to Policy Analysis: an Alternative Strong Enough?

With post-factual politics, marked by populisms and polarization, policy analysis seems to approach its pain barrier. Critical voices suggest that once advisory processes became accessible for various conflicting forms of knowledge and arguments (clashing against experts’ claims without much of inferiority complex), the Pandora’s box has been opened. It is not the goal of this article to polemicize with such opinions nor to suggest that “the box” can or should be closed. Instead – against the narrative of nihilism of the post-truth age – the text points at co-creation as a promising alternative mode of generating policy advice. Conceptually, the paper builds on the hexagon model of policy analysis (developed by Mayer, van Daalen and Bots) and argues that – under post-factual politics – “mediating”, “democratizing” and “clarifying values and arguments” become increasingly prominent forms of policy analysis. Discussing examples from the policy-making landscapes of several EU member states, it diagnoses a growing importance of such process-oriented policy-making expertise (and thus the shift from “what” to “how”). Rather than offering “hard evidence”, process-experts promise to design procedures that enable co-creation of legitimate and valid policy options with various relevant actors (that is: moving beyond pure conflict, dialogue or deliberation). In addition to analyzing the methodological repertoire of co-creative approach and its possible influence on the practice of policy analysis and policy-making, the paper points to some vulnerabilities of such a process-oriented expertise and suggests directions for further research.