There has been much discussion of late about whether traditional approaches to policy making are fit for purpose. In Canada and elsewhere even traditional policymaking is seen as needing reform and modernization. A growing number of new and alternative practices have gained attention and are often part of today’s complex policy space. Take this one, from Millie Begovic and UNDP Strategic Innovation, which looks at institutional responses to the illusion of control, versus acceptance of constant change. Or this one, by Sarah Gold, Trust is the New Experience. Stretching even farther afield, Facts Don’t Change Minds Like Friendships Can looks at information sharing and decision-making in a post-truth digital world.
Making sense of all of this can be daunting. Traditional approaches and practices of policymaking dance with a dizzying array of pressure points, as well as behavioral, design, innovation, and participatory approaches. Can policy keep up?
Often, conversations can easily dwell on what is wrong with policymaking and can present a false consensus of what real world policy making involves - or how various people approach it.
We think all of this points to a need. A need for some fresh dialogues and varied perspectives on policy making.
In particular, we think there is value in increasing the number and type of exchanges amongst a diverse set of policy thinkers and doers out there.
What does policymaking look like today? How are people ‘practicing it’ and what is working and why?
There is no grand plan nor are there significant resources behind this initiative. Rather, we are convening, provoking, and creating space for policy professionals to share struggles and wise practices. Our hope is to better connect policy thinkers and doers.
So, this is an invitation for you and others you know that are in the policy space. We use the term policy space to signal that we are not just talking about government and public service. We know that many in the private, non-profit, and public sectors are involved in policymaking today in various ways. We think those insights and perspectives warrant engagement.
We decided to test the waters with an invitation to a small group of policy practitioners from across levels of government, private sector, academia, and civil society ecosystems. We were delighted that just about everyone we invited agreed.
It validated what we suspected - there is an appetite for meaningful discussion about policymaking. Below we share our experience with our first dialogue and the next steps it raised. If you or your team want to try the exercises below our free templates and guiding questions are here
A first of many conversations
Our first session was held in Toronto on March 28, 2024. As people arrived we welcomed them to introduce themselves and mingle. Some knew each other well, others had met in passing, and some were meeting for the first time.
This informal start helped us avoid the protracted and formal introductions that are common to group discussions. We jumped into why we convened this group of people, and our plan for the first discussion and activity.
Our dialogue was guided by three high level questions:
What is policymaking today?
How are the various practices of policy making being used and connected?
What is working in the policy space given the well known constraints and challenges facing policymakers?
Mapping policy & its practices
We started with this image from Brookfield and invited people to react to it individually and take notes and then paired up attendees and asked them to share their perspectives and to redraw the graphic as they saw fit.
The four groups produced four different ways of mapping the policy ecosystem and approaches. This, alone, tells us something about the extent to which there is consensus on what policy making is, and how it is done, today.
There was broad recognition that policymaking occurs within a closed system, relying on experts, stakeholder groups, and internal government expertise.
One group went so far as to remove ‘open policy’ from available approaches when they redrew their map, due to the recognition of the challenges related to defining and practicing this approach in Canada. Maybe you agree that ‘open’ government approaches have fallen off the radar and would remove this from the policymaking map too? Maybe they are still present but only in pockets and could be scaled?
Others situated emerging approaches, like participatory foresights, and design, as opportunities to situate ‘openness’ within policymaking, through a reframe.
What is Changing?
Major changes to the maps included moving some of the approaches closer together, with design centralizing a number of approaches, complemented by strategic foresights and systems-oriented work.
Behavioural insights is also seen to be an accepted form of expertise available to policymaking, which contributes to design.
In one map, design was cast farther away from policy, as something that comes after the application of foresights and systems perspectives.
This pair replaced ‘open’ with ‘participatory’ approaches, and contrasted this with expert inputs.In this model, Service and Policy continue to remain separate from one another.
Another pair redrew the map in its entirety.
Missions or Challenges are placed at the center. Open is contrasted with Data and Specialized forms of expertise, including digital and stakeholder engagement.
Experimental policy overlaps with missions and challenges, and implementation science is added as a new approach required in policymaking.
The group noted that the discussion of practices in the initial model was missing a foundation of enablers. Things like data, governance, stakeholder engagement, digital and other key ingredients were necessary precursors for any policy practice. We wondered if these could be deemed to be essential ingredients, and if they were generalizable or more bespoke.
Another used a scale of impact perspective, inspired by Anyi’s framework for social movements. Their map looked across teams, organizations, and movements. It held identified practices as potential contributors at different points in time and across scales. All practices were deemed to be relevant and applicable in this approach, with no valuation placed on any single practice over any other, at any particular scale or point in time.
Finally, a fourth approach re-mapped policymaking in reference to innovation. It visualized how this worked for policy by creating four new quadrants
Ideas in response to problems
Practice
Delivery
Analysis and decision-making
‘Real consultation’ was positioned under innovation in practice, with a role for academia and advocacy organizations incorporated.
‘Innovation in delivery’ did not have any particular approaches indicated. This may represent a gap in current approaches and ways of thinking about innovation. It may also identify an openness to learning about what this might look like, in practice.
Behavioural insights were placed across delivery and analysis and decision-making. Innovation in this area also included participatory budgeting and developmental evaluation.
A quick ‘policy therapy’ session
To steer the conversation towards what works and avoid the pitfall of commiserating on what is wrong in policy we invited everyone to participate in a “policy therapy session”. We asked the group to quickly list out anything and everything wrong with policymaking today. They obliged and pointed to:
Consistent lack of resources
Closed and elite-driven approaches
Inability to keep pace with change
Ivory tower disconnect from delivery
Identity crisis related to policy’s role as a definer of problems versus taker of problems
Lack of quality data, reliance on legacy data, and odd ways of making use of it
Short-sightedness and overarching sense of lack across the ecosystem
Lack of courage to try new things, particularly at senior levels and among politicians
Lack of quick access to knowledge due to differing practices across the ecosystem
Overall emphasis on silver bullets
Conflation of bold with big as a raison d’être for policy making
Comms driven exercises that manage overall messaging to, and engagement with, the public
Exclusivity within the ranks of who makes and advises on policy
Policy work seen as being something only certain types of public servants do
Lack of openness, overall
What is working: Practices and Strategies
The items on the list above are no surprise. We wanted to get them out there but our focus was on what participants thought was working and where policymaking was proving itself to be resilient.
Recognition of Opportunities to Address ‘Closed’ Nature of Policymaking Through An Emphasis On Relationships
Policy is recognized as having a role in identifying solutions to problems, but the group noted that some teams and stakeholder groups are less practiced in this space
There’s a need for deepened engagement with persons with lived experience to solution well
Care is required to ensure expectations are not raised in early stage policymaking. Trust was understood to be won and lost over follow through
Sustained relationships with people and partners external to government were seen to be contributors to an overall goal of working in new ways. A lot of policy needs to be closed and private. There’s an art and balance to identifying opportunities for greater openness, access to policymaking processes, and new forms of consultation
Participants noted that when relationships are transactional, they can increase the risk of failure. When relationships are centered and maintained, they can work with failure, toward improvements
The group recognized the need to understand and address when and how policy has let people down, caused harm, raised expectations, and not delivered on them
Understanding experiences of policymaking can refine the approach as a whole and provide input into the practice
Relationship building with affected policy communities was also seen to be part of the creation of safe spaces to try again or do something differently, but participants felt that there are limited spaces available for this in policymaking today
Foresight as Effective Practice
Strategic foresight was seen as an effective practice and recognized as a contributor to early stage ideation, long term planning, and identification of overlapping problem spaces
It was also seen to increase responsiveness to emerging challenges in the economy, environment, and communities
It is a policy practice already available in some government quarters but there was discussion of whether it needs greater visibility and more familiarity to political and public service leadership
Unlocking New Professionals Competencies and Space to Practice
Young professionals and recent graduates are joining public service because they are excited to bring new approaches and work toward solutions
They are bringing to public service new competencies and techniques in digital, human-centered design, and iterative delivery but find using them in the public service a challenge. The system is not set up to leverage their new policy practices
Engaging design researchers in early stage policy work, and testing products and services with members of the public, could be seen as opportunities to try out new approaches, outside the confines of formal consultation
We heard that an emphasis on delivery is becoming more pronounced in policy environments
This may be driving quiet forms of smaller scale, situational innovation. There was uncertainty about the degree to which this can address challenges already observed in implementation and if small scale innovation might be a way to engage new professionals in applying the skills gained through studies, to address public problems
So What and What’s Next?
A concluding hypothesis is that we might need to shift from a triangular approach to policymaking where types of participants are siloed into respective domains (political, public service, public), towards an understanding of some of society’s core needs across ecosystems and ways we can improve policymaking together.
How to do so while recognizing the separation of powers among political representatives and public servants proved more than we could address in one conversation.
Through this session, we learned that if you ask ten people to define or draw policymaking, you are likely to get several different takes. When you unpack the drawings and logic it becomes clear that there are many perspectives and questions about how policy works - and what policy thinkers and doers are up to in today’s policy space.
How would you place these practices and what would be your guiding categories? If you or your team wants to try the exercise you can use our templates and guiding questions here
We’ll be meeting again in early June to talk about creativity & policymaking. If you’d like to join us please reach out to us at policymakingtoday@gmail.com
Who we are
Jonathan Craft is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto where he teaches, researches, and writes on public policy & governance. In 2019 he founded Policy Ready, a platform for practitioners and scholars interested in better understanding policy-making & governance in the age of disruption.
Laura Nelson-Hamilton is a hyphenate in name and practice. She has an interest in collaborative approaches to public problem solving and has worked in community-based research, advocacy, operations, policy, service design, and digital service delivery. She’s currently upskilling in systems practice and working on a certificate in service design at the University of Toronto.