How can we get more involved in policy? There’s some historically contingent reasons that we haven’t done so before. 1 - policy impact is hard to measure, 2 - policy can make people irrational.
But it’s also fun to read—at SSC, in the news, and in general. Open Philanthropy Project is doing some policy research, as is GPP, and as is CSER. But how can we do it better? Probably we need better engagement with existing policy researchers. So should we host policymaking workshops? Should EAs practice getting involved by writing letters to our local members? Should we commission Scott Alexander to write extra policy essays about things we care about? Should we fund Niel B and others to do direct lobbying? How should this all play out?
I don’t think the other comments have really nailed the most challenging parts of working in policy.
It is all about the voters. 99% of what politicians care about is reelection, and therefore the will of the majority often wins. Voters are stupid, especially when it comes to the majority. They don’t want to see their policymakers spend time (much less money!) on things that don’t matter to them. This is why letter-writing (although at much greater scale than the EA community could currently support) is actually somewhat effective.
Lobbying is all about relationships. Lobbying does not get done with an appointment set up with a representative. It happens over very long periods of getting to know a number of politicians involved, including frank discussions and the support of a powerful group.
Politicians rely on those they’ve selected as experts. There’s no chance they’re going to listen to EA at this point… they’re going to listen to the head of the World Bank and USAID. They’ll pay a little attention to Gates, Amnesty and ONE, but those organizations struggle mightily to influence policy themselves.
OK, now that I was a jerk who discussed huge barriers, here’s what I see as opportunities:
One thing organizations such as J-PAL have clearly demonstrated is that the details of interventions matter greatly. Luckily, the details are often the things policymakers care the least about. There are opportunities to make what would be considered minute changes in policy, as long as we pay close attention and then work hard to make them happen.
Because policymakers represent a single geography, if you can gain scale within a single geography, you can get the attention of that policymaker. A concentrated EA population in Oxford and/or SF for example, can have an outside shot of getting the attention of their representative. If they happen to have a good one, he could help get the ball rolling a bit.
Organizations like ONE and Gates have spent many years doing a lot of this work for us. What that means is if we can influence them, or even partner with them, there’s the potential to piggy-back those relationships and be heard.
It’s definitely a very difficult road, and scaling EA while gaining influence and political contacts is key. Of course, it does open up the potential for enormous long-term opportunity.
I worked for a US Congressman and a US Congress Committee on policy, so let me know if there’s questions regarding those experiences that I could help answer.
West Oxford’s MP, Nicola Blackwood, is actually pretty promising from this point of view!
In late 2010, Blackwood was elected to serve on the Home Affairs Select Committee and is secretary of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Overseas Development.[5] Before her election to parliament, Blackwood worked as a volunteer on human rights and aid projects in the Middle East, Mozambique, Rwanda and Bangladesh, and has also worked as a volunteer among the disadvantaged in Birmingham and Blackpool. Prior to running for office, Blackwood worked with the Conservative Party Human Rights Group which was set up to find ways for the UK to combat human rights abuses in places like Burma and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and as an adviser to the then Shadow International Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell. She is a member of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission,[6] as well as holding a position on the Council of Advisors for ZANE, a charity which seeks to support pensioners in Zimbabwe.[7]
I recall her being a lovely person, back when I was trudging around handing out leaflets in the rain for her.
Good question. Policy is an important area that the EA movement will need to address.
I will add another reason which may have limited policy engagement: policy is hard! Finding policies that would definitely be good and wouldn’t face significant opposition requires substantial work. It is also possible to be overconfident about policy ideas: most of our ideas have looked better at a first glance than on closer inspection. This means we shouldn’t be too hasty to fix on policies we choose to push.
It’s possible to do this work, and GPP is experimenting with fleshing out policies at the moment, but it’s not necessarily easy.
Another option is to lobby for “obvious” policies, like increasing foreign aid. But this is hardly a neglected area.
I know for a fact that there are intelligent and thoughtful people who argue that foreign aid spending has not been effective, and in some cases has actually been harmful. And there are other people who are convinced that we need to increase it. So, so much for ‘obvious’. : )
If it’s difficult but tractable, then liasing with existing policymakers is good, as is getting practice in lobbying and policymaking.
I also feel like science and tech lobbying is a bit neglected, and could be popular with the public and with great scientists, while giving us an opportunity to talk to relevant policymakers about risk-mitigating interventions.
Yes, although engaging with existing policymakers too soon is a good way to lose credibility. There is definitely more room to talk to friendly policy experts though!
I’m not sure that doing lobbying ‘just for practice’ is a good idea. It would be fairly easy to accidentally lobby for something bad, and equally the reputational consequences of lobbying can be complicated if you don’t know an area.
What do you mean by science/tech lobbying? Lobbying for what?
Genetal science stuff like research funding, improved research infrastructure, better research regulation, better patent law, better education, all the while promoting public understanding of science. All of this could be a good platform to build on even if some of these areas are somewhat crowded, reducing immediate impact.
I think it’s not so much that it’s crowded as that it’s often unclear what the actual thing you’d lobby for is: is more research funding better research funding? Maybe. What exactly would better patent law be? Better education? These are all things where it is easy to come to views, and even to be quite confident about them, but where the realities are often much more complicated than they seem.
I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way—I’m currently working on building a much more informed view of safe biological research funding in order to lobby for a specific policy—it’s just that there’s quite a lot of work to be done to be sure something is good before you advocate for it.
How can we get more involved in policy? There’s some historically contingent reasons that we haven’t done so before. 1 - policy impact is hard to measure, 2 - policy can make people irrational.
But it’s also fun to read—at SSC, in the news, and in general. Open Philanthropy Project is doing some policy research, as is GPP, and as is CSER. But how can we do it better? Probably we need better engagement with existing policy researchers. So should we host policymaking workshops? Should EAs practice getting involved by writing letters to our local members? Should we commission Scott Alexander to write extra policy essays about things we care about? Should we fund Niel B and others to do direct lobbying? How should this all play out?
I don’t think the other comments have really nailed the most challenging parts of working in policy.
It is all about the voters. 99% of what politicians care about is reelection, and therefore the will of the majority often wins. Voters are stupid, especially when it comes to the majority. They don’t want to see their policymakers spend time (much less money!) on things that don’t matter to them. This is why letter-writing (although at much greater scale than the EA community could currently support) is actually somewhat effective.
Lobbying is all about relationships. Lobbying does not get done with an appointment set up with a representative. It happens over very long periods of getting to know a number of politicians involved, including frank discussions and the support of a powerful group.
Politicians rely on those they’ve selected as experts. There’s no chance they’re going to listen to EA at this point… they’re going to listen to the head of the World Bank and USAID. They’ll pay a little attention to Gates, Amnesty and ONE, but those organizations struggle mightily to influence policy themselves.
OK, now that I was a jerk who discussed huge barriers, here’s what I see as opportunities:
One thing organizations such as J-PAL have clearly demonstrated is that the details of interventions matter greatly. Luckily, the details are often the things policymakers care the least about. There are opportunities to make what would be considered minute changes in policy, as long as we pay close attention and then work hard to make them happen.
Because policymakers represent a single geography, if you can gain scale within a single geography, you can get the attention of that policymaker. A concentrated EA population in Oxford and/or SF for example, can have an outside shot of getting the attention of their representative. If they happen to have a good one, he could help get the ball rolling a bit.
Organizations like ONE and Gates have spent many years doing a lot of this work for us. What that means is if we can influence them, or even partner with them, there’s the potential to piggy-back those relationships and be heard.
It’s definitely a very difficult road, and scaling EA while gaining influence and political contacts is key. Of course, it does open up the potential for enormous long-term opportunity.
I worked for a US Congressman and a US Congress Committee on policy, so let me know if there’s questions regarding those experiences that I could help answer.
West Oxford’s MP, Nicola Blackwood, is actually pretty promising from this point of view!
I recall her being a lovely person, back when I was trudging around handing out leaflets in the rain for her.
Good question. Policy is an important area that the EA movement will need to address.
I will add another reason which may have limited policy engagement: policy is hard! Finding policies that would definitely be good and wouldn’t face significant opposition requires substantial work. It is also possible to be overconfident about policy ideas: most of our ideas have looked better at a first glance than on closer inspection. This means we shouldn’t be too hasty to fix on policies we choose to push.
It’s possible to do this work, and GPP is experimenting with fleshing out policies at the moment, but it’s not necessarily easy.
Another option is to lobby for “obvious” policies, like increasing foreign aid. But this is hardly a neglected area.
I know for a fact that there are intelligent and thoughtful people who argue that foreign aid spending has not been effective, and in some cases has actually been harmful. And there are other people who are convinced that we need to increase it. So, so much for ‘obvious’. : )
If it’s difficult but tractable, then liasing with existing policymakers is good, as is getting practice in lobbying and policymaking.
I also feel like science and tech lobbying is a bit neglected, and could be popular with the public and with great scientists, while giving us an opportunity to talk to relevant policymakers about risk-mitigating interventions.
Yes, although engaging with existing policymakers too soon is a good way to lose credibility. There is definitely more room to talk to friendly policy experts though!
I’m not sure that doing lobbying ‘just for practice’ is a good idea. It would be fairly easy to accidentally lobby for something bad, and equally the reputational consequences of lobbying can be complicated if you don’t know an area.
What do you mean by science/tech lobbying? Lobbying for what?
Genetal science stuff like research funding, improved research infrastructure, better research regulation, better patent law, better education, all the while promoting public understanding of science. All of this could be a good platform to build on even if some of these areas are somewhat crowded, reducing immediate impact.
I think it’s not so much that it’s crowded as that it’s often unclear what the actual thing you’d lobby for is: is more research funding better research funding? Maybe. What exactly would better patent law be? Better education? These are all things where it is easy to come to views, and even to be quite confident about them, but where the realities are often much more complicated than they seem.
I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way—I’m currently working on building a much more informed view of safe biological research funding in order to lobby for a specific policy—it’s just that there’s quite a lot of work to be done to be sure something is good before you advocate for it.