European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 158

Knowing the Future: Theories of Time in Policy Analysis

policies—and the conduct of modern
life in general—even more problematic
(Adam 2003; Nowotny 1994; Rosa 2015).

Research on the multiple times of
policymaking thus shows that political
action, torn between contingent and
potentially colliding orders of time, is
strongly influenced by science-based
temporal discourses in order to frame
certain trajectories as fixed and inevitable.
An alternative way, however, would
be to “question the taken-for-granted
assumptions about time and to consider
ways of addressing the temporal issue of
contemporary societies” (Felt et al. 2014,
17).

2009). Analyzing the past and forecasting
the future is done by specific “chronotechnologies” (Nowotny 1994) such as
benchmarking, experiments, and scenario
techniques. Based on selected studies on
the role of evidence in policymaking, it
can be shown that these instruments
change the collective experience of
time by (a) synchronizing the past, (b)
extending the present, and (c) colonizing
the future. Based on very specific theories
of time, science, and expertise help to
both establish and affirm seemingly
unquestionable temporal orders.
A. Synchronizing the past

6. Theorizing Time in Practice: In the last two decades,
benchmarking, rankings, scorecards,
Past, Present, and Future

E

specially the last two groups of
theories point to the possibility
that communicating the future has
actually the potential to alter it. Theorizing
time might change the time horizons
of policymakers and have long-term
consequences by providing justifications
and imposing relevances. So far, one of
the most influential theories of time in
political practice has been the policy cycle
(Howard 2005). It basically promises
that policymaking as a rational process
of problem solving will be improved if
information is inserted at the right time
and the policy cycle comes to its full loop.
Evidence-based policymaking has been
the most prominent expression of this
theory (Nutley and Webb 2000; Office
1999; Straßheim and Kettunen 2014).
Proponents have suggested strengthening
the “policy analytic capacities” by
adopting certain informational solutions
at every stage of the process (Howlett

and monitoring devices have become
standard tools of policymaking (Hood
2007; Papaioannou, Rush, and Bessant
2006). Based on comparisons of selected
performance indicators, these instruments
transform the sequentiality of individual
trial-and-error into the synchronicity
of standardized observations. They
are already common practice on the
local, national, and transnational level.
Evidence-based comparisons establish
and reproduce “classification situations”,
that is, counting, ranking, measuring,
and scoring “on various metrics of
varying degrees of sophistication,
automation, and opacity” (Fourcade
and Healy 2013). Benchmarking tends
to obscure the specific contexts and
conditions that influence decisions in
the present in order to find new ways
of optimization in the future. “Thus this
technique […] may in practice become
a way of absorbing or assuming away
critical contextual differences which are
crucial to understanding why a parti