Urbanization can help reduce income inequality

The global community has been confronted with rising income inequality, in particular, for those least developed countries (LDCs), since the same level of inequality as in advanced countries would push many LDCs into abject poverty. This paper focuses on income inequality in developing countries, particularly LDCs. First, we demonstrate the infeasibility of fiscal measures in resolving income inequality even in developed countries. Second, we show that inequality in LDCs can be largely explained by urban-rural gap. Third, we uncover the benign impacts of urbanization on urban-rural gap. This leads us to propose an out-of-box strategy—containing income inequality by promoting well-managed urbanization. Fourth, we reveal a misperception that may have contributed to the neglect of urban-rural gap in constituting national inequality. This has possibly caused anti-urbanization mentalities and practices, with adverse distributional consequences. Finally, we provide evidence-based policy suggestions aimed at reducing income inequality and poverty—two major goals of SDGs.

Anti-Racist and Intersectional Approaches in Social Science and Community-Based Research

Data are not objective, despite the reliance on data for “evidence-based” policy and practice. In this chapter, the authors offer a critical examination of the historical and present day context of racism and oppressive practices in research methods. The authors highlight how racism and oppression manifest at every stage of the research process: from initial conception of the research question to how data is collected, analyzed, and shared. This chapter offers concrete recommendations and solutions for researchers seeking to integrate anti-racist and intersectional approaches into their social science and community-based research.

Prewencja zachowań samobójczych jako zadanie polityki zdrowia publicznego. Doświadczenia Finlandii, inspiracja dla Polski?

Złożoność i niejednoznaczność zjawiska samobójstwa to główne czynniki utrudniające planowanie i wdrażanie działań zapobiegających zachowaniom suicydalnym. Zidentyfikowane w badaniach i opisane w literaturze przedmiotu czynniki ryzyka przybliżają jednak do tworzenia skutecznych strategii prewencyjnych, co wydaje się niezbędne, szczególnie w krajach o wysokich wskaźnikach samobójstw. Strategie te są wielowymiarowe i obejmują działania na różnych poziomach, a kierowane są zarówno do specyficznych grup docelowych (osób zagrożonych samobójstwem oraz grup zawodowych, które mogą wspierać takie osoby), jak i do społeczności lokalnych czy całego społeczeństwa (by uświadamiać zbiorowość na temat zdrowia psychicznego i zachowań samobójczych). W celu skutecznego opracowania strategii, dostosowanej do specyficznych warunków środowiskowych, niezbędne jest przeprowadzenie szczegółowej eksploracji zjawiska zachowań samobójczych, co następnie pozwala wdrażać rozwiązania oparte na dowodach naukowych (evidence-based policy). Niniejszy artykuł omawia proces badań, opracowania i wdrażania strategii zapobiegania samobójstwom w Finlandii oraz jej funkcjonowania od lat 90. XX w., a także roli w polityce publicznej. W tym kontekście omówiony został znaczny spadek wskaźnika samobójstw w Finlandii w tym okresie, a fiński przypadek potraktowany został jako potencjalna inspiracja dla profilaktyki zachowań samobójczych w Polsce.

Resetting Benefits: Benchmarks for adequate minimum incomes

New Zealand’s successful management of the Covid-19 pandemic has emphasised the value of evidence-based policy. Government policy on income support payments is also changing significantly in response to the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s 2019 report. This article examines the report’s recommendations in the context of international and local research, considers whether benefit increases in the 2021 Budget deliver on those recommendations, and discusses the impact of high housing costs on welfare reform options.

Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts: The Value of Q Methodology

<p>Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and hence necessitate analysts' having the capability to address them. Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work. Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion - and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind. The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology. Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind. It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the power to create substantial policy-analytic change. To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce's pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined, which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van Eeten's work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context, and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall epistemological choices made in policy analysis. Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice described as "reading complexity" in a real-world policy application possible.</p>

Reading Complexity in Social Policy Contexts: The Value of Q Methodology

<p>Many social policy problems are recognised as complex and intractable, and hence necessitate analysts' having the capability to address them. Epistemological influences embedded in approaches to policy can impose constraints on the natural capacity and capability that people have to make sense out of particular experiences of complexity in the course of policy analysis work. Within the dominant policy approach adopted by policy analysts under the rubric of evidence-based policy, such complexity capability eschews any explicit role for opinion. However, the application of Q methodology by Michel van Eeten among others in a specific case of policy deliberation in the Netherlands, which had proven resistant to the standard, evidence-based policy analysis, shows that there could be a role for what is otherwise overlooked. Accordingly, this thesis examines the proposition that opinion indeed may play an important role in policymaking in complex and intractable situations. Q methodology is an established research methodology for acquiring and developing knowledge from a subjective standpoint. It has a growing record of successful application to public policy controversies, where solutions were made possible because opinion - and its everyday experiential rationality - were made available. Q methodology is also seen, however, as a marginal methodology. There has been insufficient explanation of why the application of Q methodology could make a positive difference to policy problems of a complex and intractable kind. The two research questions focus on the efficacy of Q methodology. Q methodology could make a difference in an adjunctive sense. It meets a policy need, namely to make opinion available as a complement to other evidence knowledge and thus adds to understanding of problems and solutions while remaining firmly within the prevailing evidence-based policy epistemology. Alternatively, Q methodology could make a difference of a transformative kind. It opens up a new epistemological space for doing policy analysis work with the power to create substantial policy-analytic change. To address these questions, the thesis develops an argument that establishes the linkages between pragmatism, complexity thinking and Q methodology and, in so doing, provides a path for understanding the role and place of opinion in policy making contexts. It proceeds through several stages which together make an epistemological argument for the efficacy of Q methodology. First, the nature of the policy problem is explicated as one of the separation of opinion from knowledge. Secondly, the thesis turns to a counter argument drawing on Peirce's pragmatism and his attention to abduction. In the next stage, dominant practice ideas about the capability needed to address complexity are critically examined, which shows that opinion is not valued in that practice. The success of van Eeten's work leads to a detailed examination of complexity in the policy context, and the claim that opinion is less problematical than are the overall epistemological choices made in policy analysis. Focusing on those epistemological choices, the argument draws together, in a fresh look, the thinking entailed in Q methodology in respect of its abductive logic and its theory of knowledge. Q methodology is shown to be a kind of science that allows objective fact to be approached from a subjective standpoint under experimental conditions. Finally, therefore, Q methodology is shown to open up an epistemological space quite unlike others. This makes the practice described as "reading complexity" in a real-world policy application possible.</p>

“Evidence-based Policy” and “Policy of Evidence”: The Dilemma of Post-Soviet Societies

External and internalchallenges, risks and crisis phenomena operatingin the world and national states requirethe ruling regimes to flexibly restructurethe configuration of relations betweenpower and society. One of the toolsof such communication is the methods of“evidence-based policy”, which involve addressingthe population on the basis of expertand scientific recommendations whendeveloping goals that allow people not onlyto judge their legality, but also to challengeand correct their content. At the same time,in a number of transitional and authoritarianstates, preference is given to the “policy ofevidence” that demonstrates the priorities ofpolitically expedient actions of the authoritiesaimed not at partnership with society, but at mobilizing the support of the populationfor the implementation of the goalsof government policy. In this context, thearticle shows the objective and subjectivelimitations of the use of scientific andexpert data in the public sphere by a numberof post-Soviet states, the peculiarities ofthe correlation of “evidence-based policy”and “policy of evidence” in the activities ofthe ruling regimes, and assesses their prospectsin the short term in modern Russiansociety.

Politics of public health

The aim of public health is to improve and protect individuals and their communities, as well as promote evidence-based policy to drive decision-making across the larger health system. Researchers in academic institutions, government agencies, and the private sector provide the science to help policymakers make evidence-based health policy decisions, such as interventions to increase smoking cessation, or policies to improve access to preventive care services. In an ideal world, science (or evidence) drives policy, with politics playing a minimal or enabling role. However, this formula recognizes that public health policy is not only decided based on science (or evidence), but science itself is increasingly vulnerable to the political process, and to attacks by a wide array of players (e.g. politicians, industry leaders, and interest groups) that have vested interests to undermine scientific evidence in order to thwart the actions that would credibly follow that knowledge. Put differently, politics are key—and can be systematically analysed—in advancing or thwarting evidence-based policy.