Evidence and Decision-Making in Public Policies: a qualitative analysis from the perspective of the governing bureaucracy

Abstract How does the federal bureaucracy evaluate the use of evidence in public policy decision-making in Brazil? This work explores what decision-makers understand as evidence for public policies, the role this information has in decision-making, and the main barriers and facilitators to its use in everyday public administration. The empirical analysis is based on 24 in-depth interviews conducted with managers in the federal government to gather decision-makers’ points of view. The results indicate that 1) the use of evidence to identify problems is widespread, but sophisticated impact evaluations are the exception; 2) communication of evidence can be improved by considering management demands; 3) evidence constitutes only a small part of what motivates the decision-making process of public policies, with factors related to resources and capabilities are more determinant for the quality of the policies formulated. The article contributes to the study and use of evidence in Brazil by focusing on the assessment of decision-makers and exploring the complexity of what evidence is and its role in formulating quality public policies in Brazil.