Often inertia is rooted in the conceptions and prejudices held by decision makers, even when their own material interest is not at risk. In Malawi, researchers found that ideas about ‘the poor’—the ‘deserving’ vs. the ‘undeserving’ poor—had a significant impact on individuals’ readiness to support cash transfers to people living in poverty. The elites interviewed—which included civil society, religious leaders, and academics as well as politicians, bureaucrats, and private sector leaders—all believed that redistributive policies make the poor lazy (or lazier). The overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of cash transfers made no difference; neither did the fact that the elites stand to lose little from such reforms (and could even gain electorally, in the case of politicians).
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he informed us that, while he was happy to discuss UK trade policy, we should first agree that there were certain ‘universal truths’, namely that trade liberalization leads to more trade; more trade leads to less poverty. Both claims were highly debatable, but no-one was going to change the mandarin’s habit of regurgitating what he had learned at university some decades back... Not much room for evidence-based policy making there.
It is always possible, of course, that madmen in authority can be persuaded to change their minds, but it is uphill work: a steady drip-drip of contrary evidence, public criticism, pressure from their peers, and exposure to failures and crises all help. In the end, I fear that really deep-rooted ideas only change with generational turnover
~~ Duncan Green, "How Change Happens"
