Successful policymaking in the age of polarisation - the role of values and identities

This post is written by Mario Scharfbillig, science policy adviser, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.

• The problem: Polarisation and distrust hurt the ability of democracies to respond to the challenges of our time.

• Why it matters: If we don’t change the way we do policymaking, democracy itself may be at stake.

• The solution: Consciously using values and identities when asking what policy problems are relevant, how to address them and how to communicate the solutions may re-establish trust in democracy.

Societies and governments are under enormous pressure. Having to face climate change and its consequences, dealing with Covid-19 and rebuilding back better from it, and addressing inequality but not stifling economic opportunities are just a few of the highly complex and dynamic issues facing policymakers.

At the same time, the scope for action seems to be narrowing. Societies are polarised to the extent that violence erupts onto the street, once sacred institutions are under attack, online discussions are more hurtful than helpful and mis- and disinformation seems to prevent consensus on even basic facts we thought we might have established. It seems harder than ever to build consensus around the kind of radical policies that are desperately needed.

How can policymakers cope with these challenges? What are successful steps to start to heal the rifts in our societies? This question is at the heart of our new report “Values and Identities – a Policymaker’s Guide”.

The rising importance of values and identities

The report addresses the paradox that even though we have ever more scientific evidence to guide policymaking, we see strong and growing disagreements over policy choices and an increasing dislike of opposing groups. To overcome this seeming contradiction, we need to better understand the role of values and identities, which social and behavioural scientists argue are at the core of what people want, which should be of interest to policymakers.

For most of the 20th century, politics in Europe has been viewed through the lens of the left-right divide relating to socio-economic interests. Today, individual values, attitudes and identities predict political behaviour better than traditional class affiliations. It is no longer about purely who gets what but what is right, according to an individual’s values. On top of that, our own values - or rather the priorities we place on values such as freedom, equality or security - automatically seem to colour our own views of the facts. The priority we give to different values typically varies from citizen to citizen, an empirical finding confirmed no matter which country we look at.

Furthermore, we trust our in-group more than people we do not know or who we see as belonging to an out-group. Therefore both, our values and our identities are not only relevant to what we want, but also influence whether we believe in certain facts. As important as it is to sort out truth from fiction in the fight against misinformation, it also means that disputes about the evidence itself are sometimes simply proxy disputes about the underlying values. We should develop the ability to better understand underlying different convictions and group perspectives to solve these disputes, rather than endlessly debating the facts.

Seeing beyond the divide

Policymakers are not exempt from this ‘myside’ bias – it is independent of intelligence, actively open-minded thinking or political sophistication. In short, the tendency to favour information that confirms one’s preconceptions and convictions is a key challenge to evidence-informed policymaking everywhere.

We emphasise the need to recognise that others may sometimes simply have different value priorities that can legitimately lead both sides to conclude something different from the same evidence. Policies that better reflect citizens' values and identities while being evidence-informed will be more likely to lead to a higher level of impact, compliance and possibly behavioural change. They may also allow policymakers to rebuild trust in democracy and decrease political polarisation.

Reducing political polarisation is a crucial task. The literature shows that polarisation in the EU is on a similar level to the US. Events such as the storming of Capitol Hill should serve as a warning to every policymaker to not ignore polarisation. In its extreme form, polarisation can reduce trust in government, increase intolerance, shrink demand for accountability and threaten democracy.

But how can policymakers take values and identities into account? It is one thing to know that values and group identities matter and another to incorporate them into your thinking. A plethora of papers shows convincingly that they matter, but seldom provide actionable recommendations. In our report, we summarise the science on values and identities, so that policymakers can easily make sense of it. One example is the infographic on values and identities. It provides a way to go through a policy problem step by step and think through how values might come in.

A toolbox for better policymaking

We also propose several tools that might help policymakers to more directly address the relevant values and identities aspects of their policy work. We propose three types of tools: heightened understanding (e.g. fast-track assessments and surveys), co-creation (e.g. Values4Policy workshops or citizen engagement and deliberative democracy tools), and communication (e.g. values text-mining and values framing). The fast-track values assessments for example would help policymakers assess at an early stage the extent to which values are relevant for a new policy measure.

Citizen engagement can help us understand what values citizens connect with key issues and how to best communicate them. It also helps to break down identity barriers, by getting citizens from opposing groups to talk to each other in a constructive way. Text-mining can provide information about values citizens express in relation to policy topics. The work on the tools is not final and other approaches may be needed. We invite the research community, practitioners and policymakers to explore other ways to address these important issues.

Values and identities of citizens matter for policymaking. Not every disagreement we have can be traced back to mis- or disinformation, a lack of education or malign interests. One important way to deal with the polarisation that is threatening our societies is being more conscious of a diversity of values and identities when designing policies.

Understanding and acknowledging that our priorities about values such as equality, freedom and security may vary from citizen to citizen and that belonging to a group is essential to many people, allows for a better understanding when it comes to hot political issues of our time, such as different views how to handle COVID-19, immigration or climate change.

Going a step beyond acknowledging this diversity, we need to find ways to think about it more directly, for example by looking through specific values lenses, proactively doing citizen engagement, using big data text analysis or employing values frames in communication.

More information is available on our project website.

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