ABSTRACT
Indicators that are influential in resolving policy controversy, according to the research, are theoretically sound and meshed with publicly understood concepts. They are developed and overseen by people representing a variety of interests and knowledge. A process is carefully constructed to require public exposure of the indicators and policy attention to them. The indicators themselves are institutionalized and protected from tampering. To achieve all this takes effective institutional design, communication, and negotiation as well as time, energy, and a major public commitment to addressing a policy problem. The model of the linkages between knowledge and policy is grounded in an interpretive or phenomenological view of knowledge, rather than in the positivist perspective. It is more contextual, more evolutionary, and more complex than the scientific model. It regards formal, identifiable decisions as only a small part of all that leads to public action.
