How to Make Better Policy Predictions, with Child Protection Policy as a Case Study

This seminar will highlight the work developed in the new Cambridge University Press book, Causal Processes and their Warrant: A Practical Guide, by Nancy Cartwright (Durham), Eileen Munro (LSE) and John Pemberton (Durham). The book aims to provide philosophically and theoretically well-grounded guidance of genuine use to practitioners on how better to warrant both ex ante policy predictions and post hoc policy evaluations. It is an opportunity to showcase work by Durham scholars and to introduce the ideas in the book to the wider Durham community. We also plan to advertise it to child protection managers in the northeast whom we hope will find the work interesting and who may be willing to help us produce a far shorter user-friendly manual.