Case Studies
SPARK focuses on three broad policy themes and, within each, identifies and develops specific case studies to analyse knowledge use in our case study parliaments.
Environment
Environmental policy is particularly interesting for two reasons. First, the international nature of many debates allows for meaningful comparisons across Europe (and beyond), meaning a comparative focus is especially enticing. Second, there are a diverse set of knowledge claims around environmental issues from a vibrant and internationalised civil society, allowing analysis of many different types of knowledge in policymaking, complementing the likely complexity of debates around healthcare.
Welfare
While environmental and healthcare debates can be dominated by the natural sciences, welfare issues are more often associated with the social sciences. Furthermore, it also strikes at the heart of what the state aims to achieve, linked often to wider economic questions and debates. It is an emotive area, which has also become a significant area of debate following Covid-19, associated with changing patterns of work-life balance, social security, and productivity. Finally, the welfare states across European governance are very differently organised.
Healthcare
Research on this policy area is well-developed, which is closely linked to the ‘evidence-based medicine’ movement from the 1980s and 1990s, and the subsequent focus across Europe for ‘evidence- based policy’ (Smith, 2013). Furthermore, healthcare has complex relationship around medical knowledge and policy debates, raising interesting questions about the role of democratic decision-making for an issue that often has high levels of priority.