The Home Office and Random Allocation Experiments

Abstract

By examining the history of the random experiment in the Home Office in the United Kingdom, this article demonstrates that research is not an altogether rational process and that fashion, personality, and politics are at least as important as science and evidence when setting research and policy programs and determining methodologies. The article also shows that even in 1970, the research world was a village and that issues and fashions on one side of it could determine the outcome of decisions on the other side, even though they had no direct relevance. On a more optimistic note, the article shows how the fashions go in cycles so that if you could not get the research funded in the last cycle, just wait 20 years for the cycle to come around and try again.