Public attitudes, media coverage and House of Commons debates on salient policy issues: immigration, defence and environment, 1994-2014

Quantitative data collected on salient policy issues related to immigration, defence and environment, for the period 1994-2014. The data were collected in 2014 from (1) public opinion polls on policy issue salience, (2) media coverage of policy issues in three British newspapers: Daily Mail, Telegraph and Guardian, and (3) from House of Commons debates on policy issues.

<p>Monitoring is central to the policy process: policy makers need to gather information in order to chart the nature and scale of policy problems, and to assess the impact of their policies. Since the 1980s, the UK has seen a huge expansion of quantitative, performance-based measures across policy areas – a trend which has more recently been criticized by the 2010 government. So what explains the appeal of targets and indicators since the 1980s, and how have they been implemented across sectors? How has the emphasis on delivery and the ‘target culture’ affected policy outcomes and political debate? And how feasible is it to roll back performance-based monitoring practices once in place?
The Politics of Monitoring addresses these questions through analysing monitoring in three policy areas - climate change, immigration control, and defence procurement – over a 20 year period (1994-2014). The research will be based on interviews with around 90 officials and professionals engaged in monitoring in the three sectors; and analysis of key policy documents, press releases, media coverage and parliamentary debate on monitoring practices and their effects.</p>

本数据集收录了1994年至2014年间与移民、国防及环境相关的凸显政策议题的量化数据。该数据集于2014年通过三类渠道采集：(1) 针对政策议题凸显度开展的公众舆论调查；(2) 英国三份报纸——《每日邮报》(Daily Mail)、《每日电讯报》(Telegraph)与《卫报》(Guardian)——对相关政策议题的媒体报道；(3) 英国下议院就政策议题开展的议会辩论记录。

政策监测是政策制定流程的核心环节：政策制定者需通过采集信息，厘清政策问题的本质与规模，并评估自身政策的实施效果。自20世纪80年代以来，英国各政策领域的量化、基于绩效的评估手段大幅扩张——这一趋势在近期遭到2010年上台的英国政府批评。那么，为何自20世纪80年代起，政策目标与指标愈发受到青睐？它们在各政策领域是如何落地实施的？强调政策落实与“目标文化”对政策结果与政治辩论产生了何种影响？一旦建立起基于绩效的监测机制，撤销此类机制的可行性又如何？

《政策监测的政治学》(The Politics of Monitoring) 以1994年至2014年这20年间的三个政策领域——气候变化、移民管控与国防采购——的监测实践为分析对象，解答上述问题。本研究将基于对三个领域内约90名从事监测工作的官员与专业人士的访谈，以及对关键政策文件、新闻稿、媒体报道及议会辩论中有关监测实践及其影响的内容分析。