Qualitative research and policy-making in Northern Ireland: barriers arising from the lack of consensus, capacity and conceptualization

Abstract

This article examines the formal policy-making process in Northern Ireland and the use of qualitative research. The multi-level nature of governance is explained with the division between devolved and non-devolved powers and the respective roles of the Northern Ireland Government and the UK Government as well as the different levels of policy-making within the Northern Ireland system of governance. Institutions for policy-making set up in 1999, following the Good Friday Agreement are based on a form of consociationalism or power sharing, which produces a coalition government involving all the main parties. The nature of government strategy statements, consultation papers, legislative proposals, Assembly committee reports and policy documentation is examined in terms of their use of qualitative analysis and evidence. It is argued that the limited use of qualitative research and evidence reflects three main factors: a lack of political consensus, a deficiency in policy capacity and an absence of conceptual analysis. These barriers to the use of qualitative evidence and the promotion of qualitative research are also put in a wider context of a range of constraints in the form of political, ideological, communal and vested interests.