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American government policy doesn’t emerge from a vacuum. Behind every law, regulation, and program lies a fundamental choice about how decisions should be made.
Should policies be driven by cold, hard data about what actually works? Or should they reflect our deepest beliefs about right and wrong?
These questions shape everything from healthcare and criminal justice to environmental protection and education funding. Two distinct approaches dominate modern policymaking: Evidence-Based Policy, which prioritizes proven results, and Value-Based Policy, which emphasizes moral principles and societal ideals.
Most Americans encounter these approaches without recognizing them. When a politician promises to “follow the science” or calls for policies that “reflect our values,” they’re invoking these competing philosophies. Understanding both helps you decode political rhetoric, evaluate government decisions, and participate more effectively in our democracy.
Evidence-Based Policy: Let the Data Drive
What Evidence-Based Policy Actually Means
Evidence-Based Policymaking means developing public policies by consulting facts and credible research rather than relying on political opinion, theory, or tradition. The approach has two main goals: using existing research to inform current decisions and building new knowledge through ongoing evaluation to guide future choices.
The fundamental reason for adopting this approach is simple: getting better outcomes while spending taxpayer dollars more wisely. When government decisions rest on verifiable facts rather than assumptions, effectiveness and accountability improve dramatically.
Traditional policymaking often relied on political convenience, untested ideas, or “that’s how we’ve always done it” thinking. Evidence-based policy represents a shift toward objective decision-making with demonstrably better results.
The core principles include building rigorous evidence about what works, monitoring program delivery to measure actual effectiveness, using strong evidence to improve programs and redirect funds from consistently ineffective ones, and encouraging innovation to test new approaches.
What Counts as Evidence
Not all information carries equal weight in evidence-based policy. There’s a clear hierarchy based on research quality and reliability.
Randomized Controlled Trials sit at the top. Often called the “gold standard,” these studies randomly assign participants to either receive a policy intervention or serve as a control group. By comparing outcomes between groups, researchers can confidently determine the policy’s effects. Low-cost versions use existing administrative data like test scores or employment records instead of collecting new information.
Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses systematically search for all available research on specific policy questions that meet predetermined standards. Meta-analyses use statistical techniques to combine results from multiple studies for more precise effect estimates.
Well-designed quasi-experimental studies attempt to mimic experimental conditions when random assignment isn’t feasible, using statistical techniques to control for differences between groups.
To make this research accessible, “What Works” Clearinghouses compile and describe programs, evaluation methodologies, and their effects. Examples include the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development. The Pew-MacArthur Results First Clearinghouse Database aggregates information from multiple research clearinghouses.
How Evidence Gets Used
Once gathered and assessed, evidence serves several purposes:
Cost-Benefit Analysis measures monetary costs per outcome achieved and calculates monetary values for benefits produced. This allows policymakers to compare return on investment across different programs, even those with different goals.
Program Improvement and Scaling uses evaluation findings to refine strategies, improve results, and expand effective programs to larger populations or different contexts.
Redirecting Funds moves money away from consistently ineffective, inefficient, or harmful programs toward more effective alternatives or innovative new approaches.
Knowledge Brokers help bridge the gap between researchers and policymakers by providing relevant information for specific decisions through briefings, testimony, evidence summaries, and research translations.
Evidence-Based Policy in the U.S. Government
The federal government has taken significant bipartisan steps to formalize evidence-based approaches across all levels of government.
The Evidence Act of 2018
The Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018 represents landmark legislation mandating how the federal government manages and uses collected information. The law emphasizes strong agency coordination for strategic data use.
Key requirements for federal agencies include developing evidence-building plans as part of multi-year strategic plans, creating annual evaluation plans describing significant evaluation activities, appointing Chief Data Officers, Evaluation Officers, and Statistical Officials, and making government data “open by default” while protecting privacy.
The U.S. Department of Education provides detailed public information on implementing the Evidence Act, including evaluation policies, learning agendas, capacity assessments, and annual evaluation plans.
Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking
The Evidence Act built on work by the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, established through bipartisan legislation jointly sponsored by Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Patty Murray and signed by President Obama.
In September 2017, the Commission issued its final report, “The Promise of Evidence-Based Policymaking,” including 22 unanimous recommendations to improve data access, strengthen privacy protections, and enhance government capacity for evidence building.
State and Local Efforts
The Results First initiative, supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, developed a framework helping state and county leaders implement evidence-based policy through five components: program assessment, budget development, implementation oversight, outcome monitoring, and targeted evaluation.
Numerous states and counties have adopted framework elements. Utah townships inventory programs to ensure youth needs are met. Washington State developed a data warehouse for comprehensive program evaluations. Iowa uses research to identify effective corrections programs. Florida applies delinquency intervention research to reduce youth recidivism. Pennsylvania utilizes evidence-based approaches for youth justice system outcomes.
Federal Programs Using Evidence
Programs like Head Start and Medicaid incorporate extensive evaluation requirements. The Massachusetts health reform plan under Governor Romney used Urban Institute analysis with microsimulation models and insurance data to estimate coverage option impacts.
Pay for Success programs gather resources through private investors covering upfront costs, with repayment contingent on achieving pre-agreed, measurable outcomes.
The U.S. Courts system incorporates evidence-based practices in probation and pretrial services, applying social science research to reduce recidivism through Risk, Need, and Responsivity principles using tools like Pretrial Risk Assessment and Post Conviction Risk Assessment.
Value-Based Policy: Principles Over Data
Defining Value-Based Policy
Value-Based Policy develops and implements public policies explicitly guided by society’s deeply ingrained principles, ethical commitments, moral judgments, and collective aspirations. It’s about making decisions based on what communities believe is fundamentally “right.”
The purpose is ensuring government actions and laws reflect the fundamental moral compass and enduring beliefs of citizens. This alignment aims to enhance policy legitimacy, build public trust, and achieve outcomes deemed desirable based on shared principles.
While Evidence-Based Policy primarily asks “what works?” based on data, Value-Based Policy fundamentally asks “what is the right thing to do?” based on principles, ethics, and societal beliefs.
Public policy should reflect society’s moral and ethical landscape, not merely serve as a technical problem-solving exercise. When policies resonate with the populace’s moral compass, public trust and policy legitimacy strengthen.
However, defining and prioritizing which values should guide policy is inherently political and subject to ongoing public discourse. Values encompass a wide range of ideals, and different groups within society may hold diverse or conflicting values.
What Values Actually Are
Values are enduring beliefs guiding individual and collective behavior, representing what society deems significant. They can be categorized several ways:
Core Human Values are abstract, trans-situational beliefs about desirable end states like freedom, equality, security, and happiness, and modes of conduct like honesty, responsibility, and courage. These values are rank-ordered by importance and guide decisions across various life aspects.
Core Political Values are abstract beliefs specifically concerning government, citizenship, and public affairs, including normative principles about social justice, social change, and proper government roles.
American Societal Values commonly include individualism, equality, informality, freedom, diversity, cooperation, security, justice, self-reliance, community, stability, and democracy.
Ethics and Morals in Policymaking involve systematic reflection on right and wrong in public official conduct and policy development. Ethical public administration upholds democratic principles like equality, justice, transparency, and accountability. Morals are beliefs about right and wrong conduct, often deeply held.
Identifying and Prioritizing Values
The process of determining which values should guide policy and their prioritization is complex:
Public Opinion polling serves as a vital tool for elected leaders to understand what issues people care about, desired outcomes, and policy impacts on their lives. This provides a counterweight to powerful special interest influence.
Stakeholder Engagement involves identifying all parties affected by or interested in policy, engaging in deliberation, and working to reconcile conflicting values to embed shared principles into policy design.
Tracking Societal Values through resources like the World Values Survey provides data on enduring beliefs and values across different societies, offering insights into cultural shifts over time.
Translation into Policy moves from abstract values to concrete policy through a challenging process often involving reformulating policy problems and proposed solutions to align with specific value interpretations within given cultural and political contexts.
Ethical Frameworks Guiding Policy
Several key ethical frameworks are relevant to public policy:
Utilitarianism posits that decisions are morally right if they produce the greatest good for the greatest number, maximizing overall happiness or welfare. This principle often underpins public health initiatives aiming for broad population benefit. Cost-benefit analysis, guided by OMB Circular A-4, often seeks to maximize net social benefits, reflecting a utilitarian approach.
Deontology asserts that some actions are intrinsically right or wrong, irrespective of consequences, emphasizing adherence to moral rules, duties, and rights. Constitutional safeguards protecting individual rights like privacy and due process are deontological in nature. Anti-discrimination laws reflect a duty to treat all individuals equally.
Virtue Ethics focuses on moral character of actors rather than rules or consequences, emphasizing virtues like honesty, courage, justice, and compassion. Codes of conduct for government officials found at the Office of Government Ethics and federal judiciary aim to instill integrity. Education, community development, and public service policies align with virtue ethics by fostering a virtuous citizenry.
Rawlsian Justice emphasizes fairness and equality, arguing that social and economic inequalities are permissible only if they benefit the least advantaged members of society and ensure fair equality of opportunity. Social safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF support vulnerable populations. Progressive taxation systems align with this framework. President Biden’s Executive Orders on Advancing Racial Equity demonstrate commitment to addressing systemic inequalities.
Libertarianism emphasizes individual liberty, minimal government intervention, and free markets, prioritizing negative rights and skepticism toward government actions restricting individual choice or redistributing wealth. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was framed as reducing government’s economic role and promoting freedom.
| Framework | Core Principle | Policy Connection Example |
|---|---|---|
| Utilitarianism | Greatest good for greatest number | Public health spending decisions; regulatory impact analyses |
| Deontology | Actions intrinsically right/wrong based on moral rules | Constitutional protections; Civil Rights Act |
| Virtue Ethics | Focus on moral character and human flourishing | Government ethics codes; education investments |
| Rawlsian Justice | Fairness and equality; benefit least advantaged | Progressive taxation; social welfare programs |
| Libertarianism | Individual liberty and minimal government | Tax cuts; deregulation efforts |
Value-Based Policy in Action
Morality Policy
Government uses its power to impose or legitimize one set of fundamental values over others, often regulating social relationships or interpersonal conduct. These policies typically involve clashes of deeply held core beliefs and generate significant public engagement and political conflict.
Examples include abortion rights and restrictions, gun control and Second Amendment rights, LGBTQ+ rights including marriage equality and non-discrimination protections, capital punishment, and religion’s role in public life.
Civil Rights and Social Justice
The Civil Rights Movement was profoundly driven by ethical principles and moral outcry against unjust laws and systemic discrimination, leading to landmark reforms like the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
President Biden’s Executive Orders on Advancing Racial Equity direct agencies to identify and address systemic barriers faced by underserved communities in economic justice, educational equity, environmental justice, health equity, and criminal justice.
Healthcare Policy
The Affordable Care Act was significantly shaped by value-based drivers including improving fairness, quality, and affordability in health insurance and expanding access to coverage. Provisions prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage or charging higher premiums based on preexisting conditions reflect values of equity and protection for vulnerable individuals.
The ACA incorporates “value-based programs” within Medicare on the CMS website, shifting payments from volume of services to quality of care, patient experience, and improved health outcomes.
Environmental Policy
Environmental policymaking is inherently value-laden, frequently weighing competing values like economic development against environmental protection, or current generation needs against future generation well-being. Debates surrounding climate change, conservation, and pollution control involve ethical considerations about stewardship, intergenerational equity, public health, nature’s intrinsic value, and environmental justice.
When Evidence and Values Collide
Evidence-Based Policy and Value-Based Policy represent distinct starting points for government action. While EBP prioritizes empirical validation and measurable outcomes, VBP emphasizes alignment with moral, ethical, and societal principles.
Core Distinctions
Problem Identification
EBP identifies problems through data analysis, research findings, and measurable discrepancies from desired outcomes. The guiding question is: “What does the data tell us is going wrong?”
VBP identifies problems based on misalignment with deeply held societal values, ethical principles, or public outcry about perceived injustice. The guiding question is: “What is not right, just, or fair according to our shared principles?”
Solution Development
EBP develops solutions by searching for interventions proven effective through rigorous evaluation methods like randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses. The focus is on “what works.”
VBP develops solutions by aiming to embody or advance specific values or ethical principles. The “best” solution most effectively reflects prioritized values, even if empirical effectiveness is initially uncertain. The focus is on “what is the right course of action.”
Decision-Making Criteria
EBP bases decisions on evidence strength and quality, policy impact magnitude, cost-effectiveness, and statistical significance.
VBP bases decisions on alignment with core societal values, ethical justifiability, public acceptability reflecting moral consensus, and adherence to fundamental principles like fairness, equity, human dignity, or liberty.
| Feature | Evidence-Based Policy | Value-Based Policy |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Goal | Measurable, effective, efficient outcomes | Align actions with societal values and ethics |
| Basis of Decisions | Empirical findings, data, rigorous research | Core values, ethical justifiability, moral consensus |
| Key Question | “What works best to achieve measurable outcomes?” | “What is the right/just/ethical thing to do?” |
| Problem Identification | Data analysis, research findings, measurable gaps | Misalignment with values, ethical principles, injustice |
| Solution Development | Proven effective interventions with track records | Embody/advance specific values regardless of initial evidence |
| Decision Criteria | Evidence strength, impact size, cost-effectiveness | Ethical consistency, fairness, public acceptability |
| Examples of Inputs | Statistics, evaluations, scientific studies, cost-benefit analyses | Norms, ethical codes, public opinion, constitutional principles |
| Potential Strengths | Improved outcomes, efficiency, accountability, innovation | Policy legitimacy, public trust, addresses equity issues |
| Potential Weaknesses | Data limitations, politicization, complexity, value neglect | Subjectivity, value conflicts, potential inefficiency |
Conflict and Synergy
When They Clash
Conflicts arise when strong evidence suggests a policy is effective but clashes with deeply held societal values or political interests. Public health measures proven cost-effective in reducing disease transmission might face opposition if perceived to infringe significantly on individual liberties.
Conversely, policies strongly aligned with popular values may lack empirical evidence of effectiveness or be shown through evaluation to be ineffective or harmful.
When They Work Together
Despite potential conflict, EBP and VBP can be highly complementary. In healthcare, Evidence-Based Practice determines the most effective medical treatments based on research, while Values-Based Practice guides how treatments are applied in individual cases, respecting patient values, preferences, and goals.
Societal values can define ultimate policy goals, while EBP identifies the most effective strategies to achieve those value-driven goals. Evidence can assess whether value-based policies actually achieve their intended ethical outcomes, creating a feedback loop for improvement.
Policy-Based Evidence: The Dark Side
A significant challenge is “policy-based evidence” – when policymakers decide on a course of action based on ideology or political expediency, then selectively seek evidence to support that predetermined policy.
Characteristics include selective use of evidence (“cherry-picking”), distortion of research findings, and “sham EBP” using evidence-based language to provide a veneer of objectivity to decisions driven by other agendas.
Policy-based evidence undermines genuine EBP integrity, can lead to ineffective or harmful policies, wastes taxpayer money, and erodes public trust when citizens perceive evidence is being used disingenuously.
Real-World Policy: Where Evidence Meets Values
The Affordable Care Act
The ACA provides a clear example of evidence and values interacting:
Evidence-Based Components: The ACA’s design was informed by substantial evidence regarding the U.S. healthcare system, including data on high uninsured rates, research on health insurance market dynamics informing health insurance exchanges, and the establishment of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to test and scale evidence-based payment and delivery models.
Value-Based Drivers: The ACA was profoundly driven by societal values. Core values included expanding healthcare access, framed as equity or even a right, leading to Medicaid expansion and Marketplace subsidies. Consumer protection and fairness resulted in rules prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions.
Interplay and Conflict: The individual mandate was an evidence-based mechanism to ensure stable insurance markets by preventing adverse selection. However, it faced significant value-based opposition centered on individual liberty and government overreach concerns. The penalty was ultimately reduced to $0, illustrating how value-based political considerations can alter evidence-based policy components.
Criminal Justice Reform
Evidence-Based Components: Growing movement to incorporate evidence-based practices in sentencing, corrections, and policing includes risk assessment tools like PTRA and PCRA used in federal probation and pretrial services. Research on recidivism reduction program effectiveness informs design and funding. The Risk-Need-Responsivity model is a widely recognized framework guiding offender interventions.
Value-Based Drivers: Reform is propelled by values including fairness and equity concerns, particularly regarding racial and socioeconomic disparities. Debates about balancing punishment and rehabilitation as primary justice system goals involve values related to public safety, humane treatment, potential for redemption, and human dignity.
Interplay and Conflict: Using actuarial risk assessment tools in sentencing sparks value-based debates about whether tools perpetuate biases and adequately account for individual circumstances or change potential. Value-driven desires to reduce incarceration can be supported by evidence showing community-based programs are more effective at reducing recidivism and less costly than imprisonment.
Environmental Policy
Evidence-Based Components: Scientific data forms the bedrock of environmental policy, including climate change research, pollution levels and health impacts, and ecosystem status. Economic modeling estimates costs and benefits of proposed regulations. Environmental Impact Assessments systematically evaluate potential environmental consequences.
Value-Based Drivers: Environmental policy is heavily influenced by societal values including stewardship principles, intergenerational equity, public health protection, nature’s intrinsic value, and environmental justice ensuring all communities receive equal protection from environmental harms.
Interplay and Conflict: Scientific evidence of human-caused climate change provides strong policy action impetus. However, specific policies to address it are intensely debated based on competing economic values, differing fairness views, and political feasibility. Value-based endangered species protection might restrict land development despite significant economic costs. Evidence of severe air pollution health impacts can strengthen value-based arguments for stricter emissions standards.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Evidence-Based Policy
Strengths
Improved outcomes and efficiency through focusing on proven interventions and wiser taxpayer money use. Increased transparency and accountability by clearly defining goals and measuring results. Potential for bipartisan collaboration by shifting debate from ideology to effectiveness. Encourages innovation and continuous learning through testing, evaluating, and refining programs.
Weaknesses
Data availability and quality issues when high-quality, relevant data isn’t available or existing data is unreliable or biased. Politicization of evidence through “cherry-picking,” distortion, or manipulation to support pre-existing agendas. Complexity of policymaking involving numerous interacting factors where evidence is just one input. Timeliness issues when rigorous evidence generation is slow but policymakers face pressure for quick decisions.
“Sham EBP” misuse involving distorting evidence, “terminal experimentation” using pilots to delay action, or “ratcheting” using limited negative findings to justify defunding entire policy areas. Ethical concerns in evidence generation regarding informed consent, potential harm, and participant dignity. Applicability to diverse populations when much research is conducted on majority populations under specific conditions.
Value-Based Policy
Strengths
Moral alignment and legitimacy by aligning policy with public morality and deeply held societal values, enhancing perceived government legitimacy and fostering public trust. Addresses non-quantifiable issues allowing consideration of fairness, equity, human rights, and dignity difficult to capture through purely data-driven approaches. Embodies core societal principles serving as a vehicle for upholding fundamental values. Provides guidance when robust evidence is lacking, new, or difficult to obtain.
Weaknesses
Subjectivity and disagreement since values are inherently subjective and vary widely across individuals and groups, making consensus difficult and leading to intense political conflict. Risk of populism and emotionalism where policies might be driven by transient popular sentiment, emotional appeals, or charismatic leader agendas rather than careful consideration of long-term consequences.
Potential for inefficiency or harm when policies based on strongly held values but lacking sound evidence bases prove ineffective, waste resources, or have unintended negative consequences. Difficulty in measurement and accountability since objectively measuring whether policy aligns with particular values or assessing value-based policy impacts in quantitative terms can be challenging.
Government Institutions: Balancing Evidence and Values
Legislative Branch
Evidence-Based Role: Congress passes foundational laws like the Evidence Act and appropriates funds for federal agencies to generate evidence and conduct evaluations. Congressional committees conduct oversight hearings where program performance evidence is presented and scrutinized. The Congressional Research Service provides non-partisan research and analysis to members and committees. Congressional advisory commissions conduct in-depth research on specific issues and provide recommendations.
Value-Based Role: Legislators are elected representatives who bring constituents’ values, beliefs, and ideologies into policymaking. Legislative debates frequently center on competing values and societal visions. Laws passed by Congress often codify broadly held societal values like those in civil rights legislation or Bill of Rights principles.
Executive Branch
Evidence-Based Role: The executive branch primarily implements the Evidence Act. Federal agencies develop learning agendas, annual evaluation plans, and open data policies. The Office of Management and Budget plays a central coordinating role in EBP efforts. OMB Circular A-4 provides detailed guidance on conducting regulatory impact analyses. The Government Accountability Office audits federal programs and promotes evidence use best practices.
Value-Based Role: Federal agencies interpret and implement laws inherently reflecting societal values. The rulemaking process includes public comment periods allowing citizens to express values regarding proposed regulations through Regulations.gov. OMB Circular A-4 was updated in 2023 to provide explicit guidance on considering non-monetized values like equity, human dignity, fairness, and environmental justice in regulatory analyses.
Judicial Branch
Evidence-Based Role: The judicial system operates under formal Federal Rules of Evidence governing evidence admissibility and use in trials. Courts increasingly incorporate evidence-based practices in probation and pretrial services using validated risk assessment tools to make informed supervision decisions.
Value-Based Role: The judiciary’s core function involves interpreting the Constitution and laws, which are codifications of fundamental societal values. Judicial philosophy reflects varying beliefs about court roles and legal text interpretation. Court decisions can uphold, challenge, or reshape policies based on value-laden interpretations of constitutional rights.
State and Local Governments
Evidence-Based Role: Many state and local governments actively pursue EBP, implementing frameworks like Results First to integrate evidence into budgeting and program management. States increasingly define clear evidence standards, use evidence in budget decisions, and enhance data capacity and analytical capabilities.
Value-Based Role: State and local governments often lead in addressing community-specific values related to education, public safety, economic development, and quality of life. Local governments typically prioritize values like openness, transparency, and democratic accountability. “Morality policy” debates are often particularly intense at state and local levels.
The Influence Game: Who Shapes Policy
Public Opinion
Public opinion, measured through polling, serves as critical input for policymakers, informing them about public sentiment, citizen priorities, and policy impacts on lives. In a democratic system, public opinion can counterweight narrow special interests, helping ensure everyday people’s concerns are considered.
Journalism and social media play crucial roles in amplifying public opinion, disseminating information, and holding leaders accountable for decisions.
Think Tanks
Think tanks conduct research and analysis on policy issues, aiming to influence policy through generating ideas, data, and recommendations. Contributions can be primarily evidence-driven, focusing on empirical research and rigorous policy option analysis, or more explicitly interest-driven or values-driven, aligning with particular ideologies.
Think tank funding sources – including corporations, private foundations, individual donors, and governments – raise questions about independence and potential for self-censorship to align with donor interests. Lack of transparency in funding can impact perceived objectivity and credibility.
Advocacy Groups
Advocacy groups represent specific causes, communities, or agendas, actively working to influence policymakers. They often bridge community needs, evidence-based solutions, and policy decisions.
Some advocacy groups focus specifically on promoting evidence use in policymaking, like the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy (now part of Arnold Ventures). Others are primarily values-driven, focusing on civil rights, social justice, environmental protection, or economic equity.
Research Institutions
Universities and independent research institutions are primary generators of scientific evidence underpinning EBP. Academic researchers conduct studies defining societal problem scope and nature, analyzing potential policy option effectiveness and consequences, and estimating intervention costs and benefits.
Research institutions inform value-based policy debates by analyzing broader social costs and benefits, long-run outcomes beyond direct program effects, and distributional impacts on different population segments.
The funding and inherent perspectives of these influencing organizations significantly shape the type of evidence or value framing that ultimately reaches policymakers. This creates a complex “marketplace of ideas” where information is often curated, packaged, and advocated by groups with specific interests or viewpoints.
Why This Matters for You
Enhanced Policy Literacy
Understanding Evidence-Based Policy helps you ask critical questions: Is this policy likely to be effective? Is it an efficient use of taxpayer money? What does research say about potential impacts?
Understanding Value-Based Policy enables you to assess whether policies align with broader societal ethics, morals, and principles of fairness and justice.
This knowledge helps you decode political discourse, recognizing when politicians, media commentators, or advocacy groups genuinely use evidence-based arguments, appeal to specific values, or misuse evidence to support predetermined agendas.
If citizens understand that policymaking often involves difficult balancing between complex evidence and competing societal values, they may develop more nuanced perspectives than assuming decisions are arbitrary, corrupt, or based on single factors.
Effective Democratic Participation
Knowledge of EBP and VBP empowers more meaningful and effective participation in democratic life, from community discussions and advocacy efforts to making informed ballot box choices.
Armed with understanding of these policy approaches, you can ask more precise and critical questions of policymakers and candidates:
- “What evidence supports this policy’s likely effectiveness?”
- “What core societal values does this policy uphold, and are there values it might conflict with?”
- “How were competing values balanced in making this decision?”
- “Who are the primary beneficiaries, and who will bear the most significant costs? Is this distribution fair?”
This ability transforms citizens from passive policy recipients into active interrogators and participants in the policy process.
Government Accountability
Understanding EBP and VBP empowers the public to hold government accountable for decisions and actions, ensuring policies genuinely serve the public good.
Demanding Transparency: If a policy is presented as “evidence-based,” citizens can ask about specific evidence, research quality, and community applicability. If a policy is primarily “value-based,” citizens can ask which values are prioritized, why these over others, and whether there’s broad societal consensus.
Evaluating Outcomes: An informed citizenry can better assess whether policies achieve stated goals and uphold cherished societal values.
When seeking accountability information, citizens might search for “government transparency,” “policy impact assessment,” “program evaluation,” “government performance reports,” “ethical governance,” “public trust initiatives,” or “social justice audit.” Reports from the Government Accountability Office on program effectiveness and guidance from the Office of Management and Budget on evidence and evaluation provide valuable resources.
A public understanding the nuances of how evidence should be used and values considered is less likely to be swayed by simplistic or misleading policy justifications. Instead, they’re more likely to demand sophisticated accounting of how decisions balance effectiveness, cost, ethics, and diverse societal values, creating pressure for more thoughtful, transparent, and ultimately legitimate governance serving all Americans’ interests.
Our articles make government information more accessible. Please consult a qualified professional for financial, legal, or health advice specific to your circumstances.
