The Plausibility of Policy eBook

The social domain has seen a growing debate on the effectiveness of public measures. The realisation is taking shape that the legitimacy of social policies such as the socialisation of vulnerable groups, anti-radicalisation programs or regeneration projects in deprived neighbourhoods has to go beyond the intuition that they `should work. But unlike methods in spheres such as medicine and healthcare, social programs typically have no sharp demarcation in time, intensity or target group and are implemented in a rich context of unforeseen and unknown variables. This makes it difficult (if not impossible) to assess their impact with research methods that centralise a monocausal effect.