Gastvortrag Prof. Dr. Gaby Umbach: Evidence-Based Policy-Making: From Data To Decision-Making

Over the past years, we witnessed the emergence of post-factual argumentation and interest-driven political reasoning. These trends prepare the ground for contested politics in which trust in policy-making critically depends on transparent, legitimate, and accountable political decisions. The transparent and accountable production and use of factual evidence are essential for successful policy interventions. In informing policy design, statistics and data assume multiple functions in policy-making. These functions make numbers perform qualitatively and serve tactical, symbolic, and political interests of actors, such as in advocacy and agenda-setting. As a consequence, the use of statistics and data in policy-making requires actors to master several types of data-related skills and literacies. These skills go beyond a sound knowledge of statistics, their use, information content and limitations.