Abstract

In recent years, interest has grown in promoting and employing “evidence-based policymaking.” This has been accompanied by an increase in available information about the performance of public policies. While existing research concludes that evidence about “what works” rarely prevails in democratic politics, it is inconclusive about which conditions affect the relevance of such evidence in decision-making processes. This article aims first to clarify these conditions, and second, to present empirical findings from two case studies of road safety policy revision. The findings show how the creation and diffusion, as well as the political context, affect the role evidence plays in legislative policy revision in Switzerland.