Applying Theory to Policy and Practice

Issues for Critical Reflection

Steven R. Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317180067
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Anthropologie

The analysis of social and public policy and professional practice has become increasingly theoretical in recent years. This volume draws together experienced practitioners and academics in social work, probation and counselling, as well as from other forms of legal and social practice, to better understand the relationship between theory, policy and practice. The contributors argue that the use of theory in studying policy and practice is overall a positive and necessary development. However, they also highlight and explore a number of methodological problems and philosophical issues for critical reflection: ¢ The often inaccessible nature of abstract theoretical argument ¢ Perceived problems of relevance and applicability to practice given the structure and purpose of theoretical modelling; ¢ Philosophical difficulties and questions when applying theoretical generalization to policy and practice. The authors address these problems in a style fully accessible to non-theorists, offering a unique multi-disciplinary resource for students, academics, policy analysts and practitioners.

Chapter 1
Applying Theory to Policy and Practice: Methodological Problems and Issues1

Steven R. Smith

Introduction

This collection is unusual in that it is borne both from the rigours of theoretical and philosophical reflections and from addressing the many difficulties of applying these reflections to the detail of policy and practice. The shared premise of all the contributors is that too often the business of theoretical and philosophical rigour and issues of detailed application are kept apart to the profound detriment of both pursuits. Particular attention is paid to the methodological problems of moving from theoretical generalisation (including normative and ethical arguments) to specific policy and practice-based issues.

We anticipate that interested readers will comprise a number of audiences including, practitioners in the legal profession, probation, counselling, social work, and social and public policy analysts and political campaigners, as well as political and ethical philosophers and theorists concerned with policy and practice-based issues. Although the collection is clearly not targeted to one audience we believe that specific audiences will nevertheless be interested in the whole of the collection for two main reasons. First, we have deliberately focused on issues that overlap between different disciplines and practices in order to draw out general lessons regarding the application of theory to policy and practice. Second, we expect that the collection will provide various interesting case studies concerning the difficulties of moving from theoretical generality to specific policy and practice-based concerns.

Given the above, the contributors have been chosen to reflect a wide range of academic backgrounds including from social policy, political philosophy, political theory, legal theory, social philosophy, and applied ethics, as well as reflecting a diverse range of practice-based backgrounds, in legal practice, probation, counselling, social work, and political campaigning most notably relating to ‘race’ and disability issues. This combination we believe provides especially fertile ground for exploring the above methodological problems.

With the risk of over-simplification, these problems can be summarised under three broad headings providing a basic organising principle for the collection:

1. problems of accessibility for policy analysts and practitioners concerning the theoretical language used and the abstract nature of theoretical argument;

2. problems of relevance and applicability to policy and practice given the structure and purpose of theoretical modelling and the ‘environmental constraints’2 of theory and its application to policy/practice; and

3. problems of how philosophical moves can be made from theoretical generalisation to policy and practice given specific recommendations for implementation are often not axiomatically reflected in generalised abstract principles.

Therefore, the first aim of this collection is to ensure chapters are written in a style that would allow non-philosophers and theorists to follow and engage with the arguments presented. The second aim is to also make clear throughout how theory might be seen as both relevant and applicable to policy and practice, despite the above environmental constraints. The third aim is to directly engage with more abstract philosophical issues concerning the application of theory to policy and practice and the structure of abstract thinking and argument.

We need though, as a preface to the above, to address two more fundamental questions which apply to all areas of policy and practice-based issues. Why is it important to apply theory and ethical argument to policy and practice? And, can this application add anything to our existing knowledge and understanding?

By way of introducing this collection, what therefore follows is an attempt to address these questions in order to affirm, not only the importance, but also the necessity of applying theory and ethical argument to policy and practice. As well as sketching out personal views concerning the way normative generalisations relate to policy and practice, in the process, I give a brief outline of how the other contributors have applied and explored theory in respect to their own areas, given the basic assumption shared by us all. Namely, that engaging in this application will help equip practitioners and policy recommenders and analysts with what might be termed ‘critical tools to think with’, which then will hopefully better inform the purpose and direction of both policy and practice.

Applying Theory to Policy and Practice

It is the case that academic analysts over the last two or three decades have made significant advances in the application of theory to the study of policy and practice (see Pierson and Castles, 2000, 1–113; Blakemore, 2003, 1–16). At times commentators have regretted these applications, but for most the use of theory has made very positive contributions to understanding both policy and practice.

For example, in the past, academic social policy analysts, skilled in empirical data collection and often motivated by Fabian political perspectives, would only on occasion make explicit applications of theory to social policy studies, usually derived from sociology. Consequently, analysis was frequently based on descriptive accounts of the ‘outputs’ and ‘outcomes’ of policy and practice. Roughly, outputs refer to the specific intentions of policy-makers and how effective policy and practice has been in implementing these intentions. Whereas outcomes mainly concern the affect that policy and practice implementation has on particular groups and individuals. However, whilst these accounts have provided very important and useful data, the highly descriptive approach failed to properly address disputes over why and how policy and practice is implemented and justified. It is at this point that theory is able to contribute to the analysis of policy and practice, providing various explanatory frameworks that directly address these disputes (see Pierson and Castles, 2000, 1–10; Blakemore, 2003, 1–16).

It is important at this point to make a distinction between theoretical explanation (which might be morally neutral in that a moral position is not necessarily explicitly promoted); and normative justification of policy (which involves a defence and/ or critique of moral and ethical positions in relation to policy). Both assume that empirical data collection is insufficient for analysing policy and practice. To this extent normative or ethical analysis can be seen as a particular branch of theory, given the premise that an interpretation of facts is required when analysing policy and practice. However, this in turn involves theoretical analysis that might (or might not be) philosophical and normative in character.

The central problem to be addressed here though is that, in any event, there is no straightforward delineation between generalised theory and values committed to and specific policy and practice responses. Many complications occur when theoretical and philosophical generality is applied to the detail of policy and practice implementation. Indeed, these complications have themselves become the focus of considerable debate. For example, in relation to the application of political philosophy to the detail of social policy, I have argued elsewhere that political positions usually represented as being very different from each other often provide similar normative justifications for social security policy. Nevertheless, even slight variances of philosophical emphasis can result in large differences regarding policy outcomes, whereas at other times the philosophical differences over value commitment may be large between political positions, with the policy outcome effect being relatively minimal (Smith, 1997, 79–97; Smith, 1998, 246–262; Smith, 2002a, 1–40; Also see Goodin, 1988; Freeden, 1994).

Despite these difficulties, maintaining an engagement in normative political philosophy is an essential part of social policy analysis. Policy-makers need to explain and give normative or ethical reasons why a particular social policy or provision of welfare is being promoted. However, for some ‘positivists’ within policy analysis moral debates are insubstantial or even nonsensical. Similarly, certain ‘post-modern’ approaches claim that moral points of view are merely relative to the observer and therefore cannot offer any objective standpoint (despite pretensions to the contrary that such a standpoint can be identified). These issues will be explored in more detail below. Suffice it to say here, various criticisms will be made of these positions but acknowledging the force of some of their arguments.

My main assertion is that without moral analysis, any debates concerning the promotion or justification of welfare and other forms of public provision are likely rendered incoherent. This is because the making of policy and its application in practice is in part legitimated by ethical justifications. For example, politicians appeal to what ought to happen, as well as to what is happening, which then demands moral analysis. Quite how this moral analysis can be applied to policy-making is open to question (and reflects some of the issues outlined above). Despite this, some kind of moral analysis is clearly needed particularly within the field of normative and political philosophy, being centrally concerned with ethical arguments relating to the distribution of economic and political resources.

An additional (perhaps more pragmatic reason) for applying theoretical and ethical questions to social policy analysis is that welfare states (and practitioners) being represented via institutional entities, have become increasingly criticised by commentators from both the left and right, and from within what might be described as ‘New Social Movements’ (see Pierson, 1990; McIntosh, 2000; Pateman, 2000). The welfare state is now no longer viewed as a benign provider of citizens’ needs as was anticipated by its supporters in the aftermath of the Second World War. Policy positions from all sides of the political spectrum exhibit a more complex and ambivalent attitude to state provision.

I will now explore further the general role of normative discussion within policy debate, in an attempt to justify the importance and necessity of applying theoretical and ethical argument to policy and practice.

There are a number of reasons a person could be sceptical about the relevance of applying normative argument to the political realities of policy recommendation and practice implementation. For example, a sceptic might argue that the main motivation of politicians (and policy-makers generally) is often very different from any explicit ethical justifications made in relation to policy proposals. Government and other policy-makers claim that their intentions for implementing X set of policies are to promote a particular value(s) through encouraging Y type of practice. However, their real intentions can be located in less morally bound motivations such as political and/or economic expediency.

Indeed, the above sceptical position can be found within various academic policy-analysis conducted during the 1970s. For example, some policy analysts proposed that the value of equality, relating to the re-distribution of resources from the better-off to the worst-off, had no impact at all on policy-makers and governments (even if the latter were rhetorically highly committed to this value). Wilensky argued that there was no correlation whatsoever between the polemical commitments of particular governments to the value of equality and actual distributive patterns found within their respective countries (Wilensky, 1975; also see Pierson, 1990, 16–18).

However, the lack of correlation between value commitment and the effects of policy implementation does not necessarily mean the value itself is irrelevant to policy and practice debates. First, a particular value may genuinely have a strong resonance within a specific set of proposals for policy-makers and practitioners even though other hidden agendas exist. Motives, in other words, are often mixed. Second, many social, political and economic events are outside the control of the policy-maker and practitioner but will have impacts on policy and practice outcomes whatever the intentions of either, but might then require a moral response. Third, having a commitment to certain values might at least ‘put brakes’ on the various influences which pull the policy-maker and practitioner in opposite directions. For example, it might be conjectured that countries where there are large degrees of inequality (even if their governments are committed to the value of equality) would be even more unequal without this commitment.

In addition, political philosophers make the point that the importance of normative discussion concerning policy is that the articulation of value can be considered in abstraction from other non-normative intentions and factors. Goodin, for example, distinguishes between conventional intentions (that is the institutional norms which are implied within policy and legislation) and the particular intentions of policymakers (that is the motivations or intentions of the political actors who create policy) (Goodin, 1988, 13–14). According to Goodin, specifying the normative characteristics of a welfare state should only refer to conventional and not individual intentions, as the latter are likely to be varied and disconnected from policy and practice (for the reasons identified by the sceptic above). Nevertheless, the former normative characteristics still allow for certain philosophical inferences concerning how policy and practice ought to be shaped and formulated.

Just as we infer the meaning of words from the connotations that speakers conventionally intend by them… so too should we base our classification of policy instruments on the conventional intentions that characteristically lie (or are said to lie) behind them (Goodin, 1988, 14).

Following from the above, a philosophical abstraction process can be engaged in to understand why, on normative grounds, X proposal may be preferred over Y (both understood as ‘conventional intentions’). Therefore, the degree to which particular policy proposals are motivated by, say, political expediency is irrelevant, as what matters is the explicit delineation of values in relation to the policy convention itself rather than the policy-maker’s intentions. Indeed, it is this Goodin type of distinction that I believe is often behind much of the sceptic’s concerns. By seeking to uncover the cynical motivations of governments, the sceptic is not necessarily implying values do not matter, in relation to policy and practice debates. Rather, she could be emphasizing the importance of being explicit about the very mixed motives of a government in order to articulate what ought to be its intentions regarding the promotion of particular sets of value, expressed through certain policies and practices understood as conventions (in Goodin’s sense above).

Another approach or attitude to the normative analysis of policy and practice might also be dismissive of its worth but not because of the cynical political intentions or motivations of policy-makers. As referred to above, a positivist approach to policy analysis can be taken emphasizing the importance of fact collection over normative evaluation. The term ‘positivism’ was first used by the nineteenth-century philosopher Auguste Comte in his Cours de Philosophie Positive (also see West, 1996, 53–59). It encapsulates what Comte claimed as being a more advanced form of knowledge inherited from the natural sciences, replacing religion and speculative philosophy. Perhaps the most unadulterated form of positivist epistemology is the ‘logical positivism’ of the early twentieth century that discredited completely ethical discourse arguing that it is literally nonsensical (also see Smith, 1998, 44–59).

An inheritor of the above approach may therefore assert that theories and normative debate are at best only of secondary importance to the positivist job of implementing ‘what works’ as practice instruments in relation to particular policy goals or aims. Consequently, if theory is to be useful according to the positivist then it is merely to establish testable hypotheses explaining how X policy aim or goal is achieved given certain facts. For example, theoretical models of individual or group behaviour can be constructed, which then are used to predict certain outcomes if and when policy-goal X is aimed for. This type of analysis is prevalent in microeconomic analysis and certain forms of ‘games theory’ which try to predict behaviour based on the premise that individuals act either to fulfil individual preferences and/or act in their self-interest. Philosophical arguments over the ways values and norms affect the legitimatisation and justification of policy and practice, are as a result often sidelined. Policy and practice analysis instead focuses on technical questions concerning the most efficient method of implementing the goals of Government policy recognising the problem of coordinating and adjudicating between conflicting individual preferences and interests.

Chapter Outline

In defence of theoretical and ethical analysis, the response throughout this collection is two-fold. First, philosophically at least, the above what we will call ‘naïve positivist position’ has been almost completely discredited. The position (either explicitly or implicitly) states roughly – ‘facts speak for themselves and therefore we only need theory when we have a ‘gap’ in the facts.’ Or, put another way – ‘theory is used to generate hypotheses that can be tested against the facts but once the right amount of facts are found (via the appropriate research) theory is redundant’. Although this perhaps has overly-caricatured a certain style of policy and practice analysis popular in the first two or three decades after the war (and has since been rejected by most policy academics – see Pierson and, Castles 2000, 1–10; Blakemore, 2003, 1–10) this positivist attitude still informs much contemporary policy-making and practice paradigms to the detriment of those at the receiving end of implementation. For example, in Chapter 2 James Sweeney critically evaluates the relationship between facts and theory in his analysis of decisions made by judges in respect to asylum seekers. Practical problems and issues are derived, he argues, from judges trying to make complex decisions whilst denying their theoretical context. The difficulty being for Sweeney is that judges, as a result, frequently over-rely on their so-called ‘common-sense’, disguising highly subjective and evaluative assumptions when establishing the factual ‘credibility’ of asylum seekers personal accounts of their circumstances, but which then lead to judges jettisoning commitments to the rigour of applying consistently legal theory in specific cases. What is required, according to Sweeney, is a more explicit recognition by judges of the socially constructed nature of fact accumulation and how ‘facts’ are interpreted which will then assist them making consistent and justifiable decisions.

In parallel to this particular criticism of ‘naïve positivism’, my philosophical objection to the above positivist approach, is based on well-trodden ground and so I will not dwell on it in too much detail here. Nevertheless, it is important to first emphasise that the demise of logical positivism ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Applying Theory to Policy and Practice: Methodological Problems and Issues
• 2 The Lure of ‘Facts’ in Asylum Appeals: Critiquing the Practice of Judges
• 3 From Eclecticism to Orthodoxy in Practice: Can Theory and Practice Merge in Probation?
• 4 Scepticism and Belief: Unravelling the Relationship between Theory and Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy
• 5 Applying Theories in Care Management to Practice
• 6 Theory, Practice and ‘Teaching’ Professional Ethics
• 7 Bradford’s Programme for a Peaceful City: An Experiment in Social Theory and Political Practice
• 8 Eurocentricism, the Philosophy of Liberation and the Social Model of Disability: The Practice of a Social Movement within a Latin American Context
• 9 Beyond Practice and Beyond Theory?
• Index