Who needs experts?!

The tension between policymaking and sector-specific expertise

[The second in a series of articles about policy and the creative economy. The first article What is policy, anyway?. Terms bolded in this article are discussed and defined in the first article.]

The function of politics and the ‘upper’ (more political, not just technocratic) end of policy development is to balance the interests of many publics and other groups of stakeholders - including the competing interests of different sectors, parts of society, places and disciplines. It is surely in human nature that we always want to do more than we have the resources to achieve - so part of this balancing is allocating finite resources and attention to these competing needs.

The challenge for policymakers of working with experts - particularly experts from a specific sector, such as culture or the wider creative industries - is that they work in their sector because they like it, they believe in it, their sense of self through professional and personal relationships is tied up with its destiny. Their ability to act as advisors may therefore be compromised as they are natural and sometimes unwitting advocates for those things they most value and have organised their lives around. It may in many cases also be a formal part of their roles or projects to advocate for their sector or discipline.

Whilst sector-specific experts have very deep knowledge of their sector they may have less knowledge of other sectors. This can be a barrier to the creation of innovative policy responses which span multiple sectors or use policy blueprints uncommon in their sector. (More about such blueprints or patterns in the next article.)

All sectors have their shared culture, beliefs and behaviours which enable them to be coherent and collaborate at speed in changing and complex contexts across a range of actors without everything having to negotiate everything from first principles each time. However, this can result in a kind of ‘groupthink’ where these assumptions may not be challenged even when changed circumstances mean that they may not longer apply. The permacrisis – of the string of financial, pandemic, armed conflict, energy and climate crises over the last 15 years – have provided plenty of such circumstances.  

A sector's groupthink can be exacerbated by the revolving door in staffing between policymakers, funders and regulators on the one hand and organisations and representative bodies in a sector.

The downsides and upsides of the revolving doors have long been flagged in the energy and financial services sectors. It may be less discussed in the cultural and creative sectors because it hasn't resulted in any major scandals or global meltdowns, yet.

On the other hand, sector experts bring knowledge and insights to the policy design process that the results of research alone will not. They also will tend to have - in comparison to others involved - more:

• sophisticated understanding of the problem trying to be solved;

• experienced views of appropriateness and achievability of the goals set; and

• informed opinions on the nitty gritty changes to processes and practices in their sector (so called ‘policy implementation’) that a policy intervention requires or is designed to create. 

A challenge for such experts – whatever sector they are from, be it creative/cultural, social care, transport etc – is to translate their evidence and advice into language and framings that generalists and experts from other sectors and disciplines can understand and believe. 

The handling of COVID-19 by public administrations provided a worldwide experiment for how science and medical experts interacted with generalist policymakers and their advisors around the world. They reveal an important distinction:

• Policy for science – or ‘science policy’

• Science for policy – or scientists as advisors to policy development (in any area).

They also reveal that however well the experts do in communicating and reframing their advice, the generalist policymakers and advisors may need to understand certain sectors and specialisms better. How can the culture and creative sectors compete with the rush – driven most recently by the AI 'crisis' and technological innovation as a principal strand of climate policy – to get policymakers to understand science and technology better?

More generally, if science and technology are getting up there with economists as the most influential advisors and framers of policy development and decision-making (per previous article in this series)... How can culture and the creative experts compete with this STEM influence which is so naturally technocratically framed?

‘Special’ benefits and dimensions of value

However well they translate their arguments, evidence and advice, sector experts may try to claim a unique kind of benefit for their sector which is not an ‘extrinsic’ public benefit. Depending on who is listening this can seem like a kind of special pleading - which most other sectors will also be attempting.

The dominance of economic framing means that “when policymakers require cost-benefit analysis of new regulation,… unquantifiable effects may get lost in the debate” (my emphasis) The influence of economists on public policy (2015)

Claiming a ‘special’ benefit which doesn't fit into the social, economic or environmental model of benefits is also problematic because it:

• Doesn't fit into decision-making processes that are not specific to a sector; 

• Relies an argument which isn't comparable to those made for policy in other areas;

• Relies on ‘evidence’ not recognised as evidence by people outside a specific sector; and

• Therefore risks being understood (or, often, believed) neither by generalist decision-makers nor the publics that give them democratic legitimacy.

Even more fundamentally, before designing and justifying a particular policy, its goals may tend to be expressed in terms of what is easiest to measure rather than what is of greatest value to us as a society, eg GDP, rather than happiness or creativity which some of us may intuitively feel matter more to us than money. It is instructive to note that calls to rethink the influence of economics and finance over the governance of policy, our societies and businesses come from business and finance not just from social, environmental and cultural activists - albeit that they tend to still be within the Stakeholder Capitalism or Capitalism 2.0 frame.

“Sociopolitical determination of value needs re-defining and financial value needs separating from social, cultural and environmental values… We’ve forgotten that ‘finance is a utility, a means to an end with the ends determined by society’”. The Good Governance Institute’s digested read of former bank of England governor Mark Carney’s book on Values (the economists’ economist if ever there were one!)

Making arguments for Good Things

Good Things like 'our country continues as an coherent, recognised entity' - economically, socially and culturally - are difficult to create rational arguments for. You either agree with the goal or you don't. This is why such very high-level goals are included in political manifestos, because the ultimate justification for a policy in a democracy is that the majority of people will it.

Nevertheless, however persuasive at the political level a Good Thing may be, the technocracy of democratically, legally and constitutionally controlled public administrations (usually) has to create a rational argument. Why?

• In the end someone has to decide how much to spend. (On defence, for example. How much is too much or too little? Does expressing its benefits in terms of economics mask or overstate its true value?)

• Because the use of public funds and other resources has to be justified before and defended after - oftentimes to be legal, and at least to not be subject to challenge or censure.

• To avoid the specific accusations of favouritism, bribing voters with public funds and fraudulently giving money to their friends.

• To win the argument against other policy areas which are always competing for attention and resources in an arms race of ever better evidence and arguments (recognising that the scarcity argument is itself a framing from a particular political point of view).

The whole area of climate change and biodiversity lives this dual technocratic and popular political existence. 'Some future human generation will be wiped out' sounds like a pretty compelling goal at a top level, but just doesn't cut it for policymakers who have to respond to what people want now – and in the timeframe that they consider and make decisions on. So to win the arguments for actions now a whole host of economic and social arguments have to be made backwards from positive environmental impacts which are steps along the way to us not being annihilated as a race.

The framing of the US's mega green investment programme corresponds to its common metanarratives that technological innovation can save more or less anything – in this case the world – and American businesses should as a matter of right grow and be ahead of the competition.)

Similarly the creative economy zigzags between the rational arguments - of better health and wellbeing, better quality and remunerated work, happier more integrated communities, more skilled and productive workers etc - and arguments along the lines of "life just wouldn't be worth living unless…" or "we wouldn't be who we are now and that's not ok…". As said, the extent to which you can have rational discussions about the second kind of argument is limited because it involves a large degree of will and personal choice and preference.

The more political the topic and less evidence and technocratic arguments there are for it, the greater the risk of the policy approach to that area flip-flopping as governments change (because their and their supporters preferences are different to the previous lot's). This potentially creates enormous 'switching' costs as the ship of state and whole sectors move between fundamentally different approaches.

The continued existence of 'minority' languages and associated cultures is a useful example which has been ever present in the national and international digital policy for the 25 years in which I have been involved in it. Many global language communities can rightfully feel their language and culture left to the globalised, digital market with no policy interventions could rationally be predicted to cease to exist. It requires hard work and specialists resources - such as fully representing arabic script in digital documents or creating archives of Cornish life, language and culture. What is that worth? Why should we care?

Which prompts the thought: arguments for ‘Good Things’ can be made in terms of human rights. We potentially have - depending on our country’s attitude to human rights - the right to take part in our community’s cultural life, have our authorship of creative works to be recognised and have freedom to express our views. Not being able to express your native language and cultural artefacts in that language would significantly infringe a whole language community's human rights of this kind. (Interestingly, together these rights are not interpreted commonly as entailing a right to express ourselves creatively or to express our own cultural identity – but maybe they should be, or we need a new right.)

However, having a particular human right doesn’t necessarily mean that public resources will be allocated to its realisation – not least because there will a number of different human rights competing for attention and resources. The example of socio-economic rights in the South African constitution being justiciable were an example which seem like a radical and hopeful innovation but which has disappointed. 

Considering the rights of future generations - using ideas of intergenerational justice – is an interesting development from 'futures thinking', not least because it encourages us to think in terms of longer term goals and the long-term effects of our actions now and involves younger people in policy development that would not normally have a say. The Future Generations Act in Wales would appear to be inspiring legally binding commitments on policymaking and policy implementation framed in this way.

Conclusions?

I know some readers will not out of principle like or accept the way a lot of policy is framed, developed or decisions made about it now - or my characterisation of it. If so, please do comment.

My question is: can we be principled pragmatists – maintain our values and purposes by challenging elements of the status quo whilst accepting their existence? This is the core of the debate between the 'politics is the art of the possible' argument and the capitalism or, for that matter, technological determinism 'has become the invisible framing of our lives' argument – which is beyond what this article can achieve.

I'm going to assume we can. Because what I witness is us all – policymakers, sector leaders, researchers and advisors – moving crabwise from where we are. Which is not to say I, you and others on this journey have no values, principles or overall philosophy – and are not at the same time trying to reframe the terms of different debates. Is this not just the fundamental messiness of democracy in action?

Given this – even if you are journeying doubtfully or unwillingly, in which case please trust me and go a little further – let's consider the different ways that the culture and creativity can intersect with policy:

• How to separate out policy for the cultural and/or creative sectors from cultural and creative advice and influence over the development of policy in other areas, and even how policy generally is developed;

• Creative and cultural responses to the grand societal challenges and opportunities such as digital technological innovation, healthy ageing and the climate and biodiversity crises;

• How culture, creativity, creative industries and creative work concretely support the enjoyment of certain fundamental human rights - now and for future generations;

• Development and implementation of policy that spans multiple sectors and disciplines - including but not limited to culture, creativity, creative industries and creative work;

• Development and implementation of policy that is neutral to the form and governance of the organisations and individuals involved without arbitrary distinctions between non-profit and for-profit, publicly or privately funded.

These point the way to some innovative ways of developing policy. And the kind of evidence that is need to stimulate and justify it.

Next up:

But first, I'm going to consider Whose policy is it anyway – the players on the policy stage.