McFadgen Belinda, Huitema Dave
1Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2Deputy Department Head Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Policy Sci. 2018;51(2):161-187. doi: 10.1007/s11077-017-9276-2. Epub 2017 Jan 28.
For decades now, scholars have grappled with questions about how knowledge producers can enhance the influence of their knowledge on users and improve policy making. However, little attention has been paid to how policy experiments, a flexible and ex ante method of policy appraisal, obtain influence over political decision-making. To address this gap, an exploratory framework has been developed that facilitates systematic analysis of multiple experiments, allowing hypotheses to be tested regarding how an experiment's institutional design can influence the views of political decision-makers. Cash's categories of effectiveness are used to describe an experiment's conceptual influence; being how credible, salient, and legitimate decision-makers perceive an experiment to be. The hypotheses are tested using 14 experiment cases found relevant to climate adaptation in the Netherlands, with complete survey responses from over 70 respondents. The results show that although, in general, the experiments had medium to high influence on decision-makers, institutional design does have a noticeable impact. Organisers should make choices carefully when designing an experiment, particularly in order to maintain relevance during an experiment's implementation and to build community acceptance. Suggestions for future research include a comparison of experiment effects with the effects of non-experimental forms of appraisal, such as piloting or ex ante impact assessment.
几十年来，学者们一直在努力解决有关知识生产者如何提高其知识对用户的影响力以及改善政策制定的问题。然而，对于政策实验这一灵活的事前政策评估方法如何对政治决策产生影响，却很少有人关注。为了填补这一空白，已开发出一个探索性框架，该框架有助于对多个实验进行系统分析，从而能够就实验的制度设计如何影响政治决策者的观点进行假设检验。卡什的有效性类别用于描述实验的概念性影响，即决策者认为实验具有多大的可信度、显著性和合法性。使用在荷兰发现的14个与气候适应相关的实验案例对这些假设进行检验，共有70多名受访者提供了完整的调查回复。结果表明，尽管总体而言，这些实验对决策者有中等至高的影响力，但制度设计确实有显著影响。组织者在设计实验时应谨慎做出选择，特别是为了在实验实施过程中保持相关性并建立社区接受度。对未来研究的建议包括将实验效果与非实验性评估形式（如试点或事前影响评估）的效果进行比较。
