Against dialogue

Abstract

This is a response to Woods and Gardner’s (2011) article which argues that geographers’ views on ‘policy research’ have been erroneously reduced to a ‘good’ / ‘bad’ dualism and that this has allowed ‘critical’ geographers to disengage from a dialogue about the potential that it offers for dialogue with policy makers. In this article I suggest that Woods and Gardner have put forward an argument that is based on a hermeneutics of trust which suggests that dialogue breeds ‘mutual understanding’ which, in turn, can provide a consensual basis for social progress. As such it considers the politics of cooperation but not the politics of scepticism and conflict in policy research. I argue that the experience of geographers shows that there are good reasons to be wary of policy research because it too often suppresses dissent and conflict. Thus a stand of hostility towards policy research is entirely legitimate but, more importantly, necessary in the interests of fostering a democratic debate in which conflict is brought out into the open.