ABSTRACT
This update of community dissonance theory provides a stronger, more substantiated explanation of why research is underutilized in policymaking. The chapter goes more deeply into the points of cultural friction that impede cooperation and understanding across the communities of researchers and policymakers. The term dissonance best captures the various miscommunications and misunderstandings that occur across communities. The chapter details how the inhabitants of communities, who bring diverse professional preparations and operate under different institutional norms, congeal into distinctive community cultures. The institutional differences can best be understood in terms of several domains that cut across all communities: preferred decision-making processes, interactional preferences, favored epistemological frameworks, dominant influence loops, focal interests, and salient stakeholders. The authors lay out each of these domains using the words and lived experiences of policymakers themselves. If researchers and intermediaries had a better understanding of these cultural differences, this could improve communication and trust with policymakers, and increase the use of research in policymaking.
