Drug Policy Modelling Program, NDARC, UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands.
Addiction. 2018 Aug;113(8):1539-1547. doi: 10.1111/add.14197. Epub 2018 Apr 17.
The prevailing 'evidence-based policy' paradigm emphasizes a technical-rational relationship between alcohol and drug research evidence and subsequent policy action. However, policy process theories do not start with this premise, and hence provide an opportunity to consider anew the ways in which evidence, research and other types of knowledge impact upon policy. This paper presents a case study, the police deployment of drug detection dogs, to highlight how two prominent policy theories [the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Multiple Streams (MS) approach] explicate the relationship between evidence and policy.
The two theories were interrogated with reference to their descriptions and framings of evidence, research and other types of knowledge. The case study methodology was employed to extract data concerned with evidence and other types of knowledge from a previous detailed historical account and analysis of drug detection dogs in one Australian state (New South Wales). Different types of knowledge employed across the case study were identified and coded, and then analysed with reference to each theory. A detailed analysis of one key 'evidence event' within the case study was also undertaken.
Five types of knowledge were apparent in the case study: quantitative program data; practitioner knowledge; legal knowledge; academic research; and lay knowledge. The ACF highlights how these various types of knowledge are only influential inasmuch as they provide the opportunity to alter the beliefs of decision-makers. The MS highlights how multiple types of knowledge may or may not form part of the strategy of policy entrepreneurs to forge the confluence of problems, solutions and politics.
Neither the Advocacy Coalition Framework nor the Multiple Streams approach presents an uncomplicated linear relationship between evidence and policy action, nor do they preference any one type of knowledge. The implications for research and practice include the contestation of evidence through beliefs (Advocacy Coalition Framework), the importance of venues for debate (Advocacy Coalition Framework), the way in which data and indicators are transformed into problem specification (Multiple Streams) and the importance of the policy ('alternatives') stream (Multiple Streams).
流行的“循证政策”范式强调了酒精和毒品研究证据与随后的政策行动之间的技术理性关系。然而，政策过程理论并非从这一前提出发，因此为重新审视证据、研究和其他类型的知识对政策的影响提供了机会。本文通过一个案例研究，即警察部署缉毒犬，来强调两种著名的政策理论[倡导联盟框架（ACF）和多源流（MS）方法]如何解释证据与政策之间的关系。
参照这两种理论对证据、研究和其他类型知识的描述和框架，对其进行了探讨。案例研究方法被用来从之前对澳大利亚一个州（新南威尔士州）缉毒犬的详细历史描述和分析中提取与证据和其他类型知识相关的数据。对案例研究中使用的不同类型的知识进行了识别和编码，然后参照每种理论进行了分析。还对案例研究中的一个关键“证据事件”进行了详细分析。
案例研究中出现了五种类型的知识：定量项目数据；实践知识；法律知识；学术研究；和常识。ACF 强调了这些不同类型的知识只有在有机会改变决策者的信念时才具有影响力。MS 强调了多种类型的知识可能会或可能不会成为政策企业家制定策略的一部分，以形成问题、解决方案和政治的汇合。
倡导联盟框架和多源流方法都没有在证据和政策行动之间呈现出简单的线性关系，也没有偏好任何一种类型的知识。这对研究和实践的影响包括通过信念（倡导联盟框架）来质疑证据，辩论场所的重要性（倡导联盟框架），数据和指标如何转化为问题规范（多源流）以及政策（“替代方案”）流的重要性（多源流）。
