CPL Lunchtime seminar: 'Randomised Policy Analysis in the UK'

Speaker: Edward C Page, Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science (e.c.page@lse.ac.uk)

This brief paper sets out work in progress on analysing a sample of policies in the UK. The sample is larger than most used in policy studies and is selected by criteria closer to random than is usual. The purpose, conduct and early thoughts on the emerging results of the research are discussed here.

What is “randomised policy” about?

The idea is quite simple: policy studies in Britain and probably everywhere else have tended, where they have looked at specific policies, to select on the dependent variable. When looking for case studies of, say, agenda setting, the influence of groups or business on policy making, or problematic implementation, scholars tend to select “juicy” cases that best illustrate the theoretical propositions they want to test or develop. This research is following the suspicion that the world of policy making in Britain looks different if one stops selecting on the dependent variable and instead explores the processes surrounding policy making for the less juicy humdrum policies. The idea is to take a largeish-number random set of policies and see how far our popular theories of policy making really help us to understand them.

The Centre for Public Law will host a series of 'current developments' and 'research in progress' seminars in Lent term. The seminars will be organised on a hybrid basis, both in-person in the Moot Court Room and online.

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