The Politics and Practice of Truth: Critical and Interpretive Perspectives on the Relationship Between Evidence and Policy in Post-Truth Times

Debates over the role of evidence in policy-making are shaped by two opposing developments. On the one hand, there is a persistent technocratic push to rely more and more on data and scientific evidence. On the other hand, it is said we live in ‘post-truth’ times, where the authority of scientific evidence and knowledge-producing institutions erodes. Seeking to address this tension, the aim of the section is to develop new theoretical and empirical perspectives that go beyond standard evidence-based policy making (EBPM) narratives as a framework for understanding evidence use by governments. Critical and interpretive perspectives are particularly well-suited to develop these new perspectives, as they examine the power-knowledge nexus that underpins contemporary government practice. EBPM assumes, in its most basic form, that evidence should play a central role in policy decision-making (Head, 2015). It has been studied in multiple areas of political science scholarship, including: policy evaluation, policy learning, epistemic communities, agenda setting, policy ideas and policy and paradigm diffusion. At the same time, the popular idea that policy should or even can be “based” on evidence has been challenged both empirically and normatively. Empirically, studies consistently show that if we use a strict definition of ‘evidence’, policies are predominantly not based on evidence (Smith 2013), and that heavy reliance on specific types of evidence can escalate policy conflict to levels beyond repair (Dorren & Wolf, 2023). Normatively, decision-making in democratic societies has to account for a broader range of considerations (Andersen & Smith, 2021), problematizing EBPM as an idea and an ideal. Studies have long been pointing out how evidence use is often not just a search for truths, but involves actors selecting evidence that serves vested interests and reinforces existing power dynamics (Stevens, 2007). Tensions around EBPM as a concept have intensified further with the rise of ‘epistemic populism’ (Nawrocki, 2024) and its focus on ‘common sense’, counter-knowledge and conspiracy theories, which challenge existing knowledge hierarchies based on a rejection of elites and their institutions (Ylla-Antilla, 2018; Collins & Evans, 2019) but at the same time seem to echo EBPM ideals (Graham, 2002). Furthermore, the increasing digitalisation of public management and the rise of new AI evidence tools reconfigure the way we relate to evidence. Capable of real-time data analysis and evidence synthesis, AI promises to reshape the epistemic infrastructures of governments. It also significantly increases the influence of non-human actors on traditionally human-centred policy processes. Paradoxically, what EBPM typically sees as evidence is both more available and less influential than ever before. It seems, then, that standard narratives around EBPM have lost their explanatory power to capture the relationship between knowledge and politics because many of the tenets they are built on no longer capture what happens in politics and policy practice. This section will create a space for new theoretical debates over evidence use in times of epistemic disorientation and new concepts and theoretical language that can be mobilised to explore what comes after EBPM. This section will consist of 8 panels. Panel 1: How does generative AI impact the relationship between knowledge and politics? Chair: Justyna Bandola-Gill. This panel aims to understand how advances in generative AI impact the ways in which governments consume and produce evidence, and the effect these changes have on decision-making processes. Panel 2: Beyond knowledge hierarchies: rethinking the relationship between different kinds of evidence and policy practice. Chair: Lars Dorren. This panel invites contributions that seek to describe and explain the ways in which we appreciate different types of evidence in policy making, as well as deconstruct and understand the drivers behind these appreciations. Panel 3: Evidence, populism and policy conflict: understanding policy conflict in post-truth times. Chair: Eva Wolf. When the authority of institutions is increasingly questioned by people existing in their own filter bubbles, this has an impact on the way policy conflict envelops. This panel seeks contributions on navigating policy conflicts in post-truth times. Panel 4: Post-truth and the university: reflecting on the role of academic institutions in a changing political landscape. Chair: TBC. This panel aims to understand the impact of post-truth dynamics on the way in which universities relate to the world around them. How do critical and interpretive research, in which deconstructing power relations is such an important tenet, relate to the dwindling authority of universities? Panel 5: Democratic professionals and policy-relevant knowledge. Chair: Imrat Verhoeven. Scholars emphasise the crucial role that frontline professionals play in turning often vague or inchoate policy into action. Yet the authority of professional expertise is under increasing threat, disrupting traditional hierarchies of power and knowledge. This panel aims to understand their interpretation of evidence-in-practice and its implications in post-truth times. How and with what effect do democratic professionals seek to justify their actions against in post-truth times? Panel 6: Evidence and emotions. Chair TBC. Political scientists and sociologists have recently problematized the rise of ‘feeling’ and its apparently trumping of reason and fact. Yet there is a long tradition in critical policy studies that has celebrated the value of emotions and problematized the legal-rational model of policymaking that obscures or elides how people feel. This panel will critically explore the relationship between the rational and the emotional in policymaking. Panel 7: Knowledges, context and policy capacity. Chair TBC. Blithe assertions about the value of certain forms of knowledge in public policy ignore fundamental differences in context and capacity, where new debates about ‘post-truth’ carry a different legacy and salience. This panel will explore the overlap between literatures on evidence/knowledge, administrative cultures and policy capacity. Panel 8: Interpretation and ‘alternative facts’. Panel Chair TBC. The notion that different constellations of actors operate with ‘alternative facts’ is not an inflammatory or even controversial statement for interpretive and critical policy scholars. Yet the good-faith intentions and nuanced implications associated with this interpretive/critical position risk becoming lost in wider academic and public debate. This panel therefore invites reflections on the role of critical theory and interpretive analysis in post-truth times.