A Philosophical Inquiry into the Democratic Foundations of Evidence-based Policy

Name of applicant

Tine Hindkjær Madsen

Title

Postdoctoral Fellow

Institution

University of Oxford

Amount

DKK 1,460,000

Year

2023

Type of grant

Reintegration Fellowships

What?

The project is a philosophical investigation into how evidence-based policy could be conducted in a democratically legitimate way. The first part of the project investigates whether and how evidence-based policy can contribute to the realization of the core democratic value of political equality. The second part of the project develops a novel institutional design for scientific advisory systems.

Why?

The use of reliable evidence can improve the effectiveness of public policies, but critics argue that evidence-based policy is in conflict with democratic legitimacy, for example because it confers political authority to unelected experts. However, the democratic legitimacy of evidence-based policy remains undertheorized from the point of view of democratic political philosophy.

How?

The project employs the method of wide reflective equilibrium: working back and forth between (a) democratic theory (b) background evidence from the philosophy of science on the role of values in science and (c) considered judgments about particular cases of expert involvement in public policy, aiming for an equilibrium in the form of a coherent set of principles.

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