Expanding the Use of Experiments on Civic Behavior: Experiments with Local Government as a Research Partner

Abstract

Despite the acknowledged benefits of experimental methods and growing policy and academic interest in evidence-based policy, few researchers have attempted to undertake experiments at a local level in cooperation with policymakers and public service providers. This paper discusses the challenges of implementing and delivering experiments in these contexts, drawing on four successfully completed experiments and two current experiments and referring to four proposed experiments that did not take place. The completed and ongoing experiments investigated canvassing to increase household recycling, Internet deliberation to change civic attitudes, education to change children’s environmental attitudes, community support to improve quality of life for drug users, citizen pledging to donate to charity, and letter writing to influence the response of councilors to citizen interest groups. The paper concludes by assessing the benefits of co-produced field experiments against the challenges and argues that, overall, co-production has the potential to expand the scope, range, and depth of possible experiments; improve access to citizens and to data; and lead to research that is more credible to policymakers.