ABSTRACT
T he metaphorical link between making policy and making sausage endures because it taps into an elemental truth. When faced with the roles that money, ideology, and influence play, knowledge producers often react with dismay and shy away from the political fray. Naively, they assume that if the research product is good, no special knowledge of policymaking, no Herculean effort is needed, because research will automatically be incorporated into the mix of ingredients that produce policy decisions. This line of reasoning goes something like this: For an input as sacred as research, surely its influence will rise above politics and partisanship and be espoused with the same reverence in the state house as in the ivory tower.
