Locating and comparing ‘cultures of evidence’ in the UK and German parliaments

How do ‘cultures of evidence use’ manifest in parliaments? While a small and important literature has begun to emerge about ‘legislative science advice’ and the ways that parliaments use information, existing research has only begun to scratch the surface at the wider practices and traditions of evidence use in parliamentary settings. In this paper, I examine the idea of ‘cultures of evidence use’ by comparing parliamentary actors’ beliefs and values about evidence use in two different national parliaments: the UK House of Commons and the German Bundestag. This is based on two projects: first, a 12-month fellowship with the UK House of Commons (2021-22) which includes 50 interviews with UK MPs and officials; second, a 6-month fellowship with the Institute of Parliamentary Research, which aims to collect a further 50 interviews with German MPs and officials in spring 2023. To examine cultures of evidence use, this paper explores structures, beliefs and practices: first, what ‘counts’ as evidence through the processes and frameworks used by officials and MPs to evaluate evidence; second, principles and values on which MPs’ and officials’ evidence use is based; and third, patterns of behaviour in the two national cases. Taken together, these themes inform our understanding of cultures of evidence by identifying and comparing the landscape of evidence-gathering and use; the values that underpin evidence use among different actors; and the patterns of behaviour of evidence use. In doing so, this paper will contribute to debates about whether there are distinct national cultures of evidence use.