Challenging Evidence-Based Policymaking: Democracy as a Knowledge-Generating System

The paper develops an epistemic defence of democracy, and challenges heightened expectations that evidence-based policymaking can deliver reliable, efficient and sustainable solutions grounded in empirical data and expert analysis. In crises, such as climate change, these expectations can even support arguments for limiting democracy to constrain its distractions and 'noises', often seen to be reflecting uninformed and biased views by the population, and replacing it with technocratic forms of governance, even in authoritarian forms if needed. Here, I expose the epistemic pitfalls of evidence-based policymaking that rely on a conception of knowledge and a conception of social change that together fail to account for the complexity and evolving nature of social systems, leading to unintended outcomes. Overreliance on evidence-based policymaking is based on two flawed premises: first an 'ergodic' understanding of the nature of knowledge itself and, second, a linear view of social change through the lens of data-informed cause-and-effect and probability projections. Evidence-based policymaking often assumes that gaining knowledge of some key properties of a system—usually some relevant variables on conditions or actors of a system—and processing this data to identify past patterns can help policymakers reliably make predictions on policy impact and, ultimately, future outcomes in the society they are intervening with. However, such approach is applied to human systems where behaviours and interactions generate evolving dynamics and unintended consequences with unknown 'unknowns'. Consequently, technocratic solutions risk implementing policies that fail to envisage and/or adapt to these complexities, risking to exacerbate the very challenges they seek to solve. In contrast, democracy, with its open channels of participation and deliberation, offers a robust mechanism for generating useful knowledge in view of these dynamics. Through participation and deliberation, democratic systems generate continuous feedback, including unsolicited information about unknown 'unknowns' and about evolving changes in society. This flow and type of information enables policymakers to better envisage, revise, and adapt interventions in real time. Redefining both what constitutes knowledge in policymaking and how social change evolves challenges the core of the technocratic assumption that data as evidence alone is sufficient for effective governance. I revise the notion of policy effectiveness and sustainability. I show why democracy has an epistemic advantage. Based on this redefinition, I explain how democracy’s iterative feedback processes generate diverse insights, reducing unpredictability and enabling more effective and socially sustainable policies. Democratic participation and deliberation, in particular, enhance our ability to understand problems, predict consequences, and adapt policies in ways that technocratic approaches cannot. Hence, democratic participation is an asset for policymaking, as it enhances our ability to address the problem of knowledge. Democratic processes function not merely as mechanisms of legitimacy but as knowledge-generating systems capable of addressing complex, multifaceted challenges. Ultimately, this paper makes the case that democracy should not be defended solely on political or legitimacy grounds but on epistemic grounds as well. Far from being an obstacle to effective governance, democracy is the most reliable system for generating the knowledge needed to address the complex crises of our time.