ABSTRACT
The linear model of applied research utilization common to much of anthropology inadequately describes the realities of the knowledge to policy process. The concept of providing in detail the everyday context and constraints of decision is familiar in more traditional anthropological studies of local-level politics, and is easily translated to the bureaucratic context. An initial assessment of the resources available at the Kabul University Research Center, designated to be a national level information producer, revealed that there was a tremendous gap between the capability of local professionals to produce development-relevant research and the actual utilization of such professional expertise by Afghan ministries and donor agencies. Because social science deals with human behavior and experience, which are also part of the working experience of policy-makers, it is often hard to convince a policy-maker that his or her experience is not as valid as the results of research, especially without controlled experiments.
