On policy and politics

Today’s op-ed is by Luis Cabral, Academic Director of the Public Policy Institute. The original in Portuguese was published on June 25th, 2026 in Expresso.

In English, the words “politics” and “policy”, though similar, have different meanings. “Politics” refers to the political process (elections, parties, ideologies, etc.). “Policy”, in turn, refers to the set of actions adopted to achieve an objective (monetary policy, competition policy, health policy, etc.).

Although the Portuguese language is very rich, it has the problem of using the term “política” for both “politics” and “policy”, which leads to unnecessary confusion. Related to this, a particularly interesting article (forthcoming in the American Economic Review) describes the following experiment: several Spanish municipalities received a recommendation to create or improve their locality’s Wikipedia page. The empirical evidence (included along with the recommendation) shows that a good Wikipedia page has a positive and significant influence on local tourism.

The authors of the experiment randomly varied the ideological identity of the sender (i.e., the entity that is conveying the recommendation). The result: the probability of adopting the policy was substantially higher when the sender was ideologically aligned with the political decision-maker — this despite the content of the recommendation being, I repeat, identical and based on data, not opinions.

One of the most negative consequences of the ongoing polarization is that we pay more attention to ideologies than to ideas, doing more politics than policy. The interpretation and adoption of the policy “improve the municipality’s Wikipedia page” should not result from ideological considerations, yet these are clearly present in Spanish politics and policymaking.

Agreeing to disagree is already a major step toward a strong democracy. In many cases we find that we are more in agreement than in disagreement.

The Public Policy Institute at Nova SBE (of which I am Academic Director) seeks precisely to bring more policy into the Portuguese and European world of politics. We recently organized a Public Policy Leadership program, which was, I believe, the first initiative of its kind in Portugal: leaders of the youth wings of all parties represented in the Portuguese Parliament were invited. Over four intensive days, leaders from the youth wings of BE, IL, Livre, PAN, PCP, PS and PSD (in alphabetical order) devoted themselves to studying various public policies: health, education, energy, etc. They shared the same room, the same cases, the same working groups, “separated just enough to keep disagreeing and together enough to realize it’s worth doing so” (Líder magazine).

The feedback was uniformly positive. One participant thanked his colleagues, “with whom, not always in agreement, I share the conviction that a stronger democracy is built through informed debate, pluralism, and respect.” Another participant acknowledged that “criticizing without knowing the other side is terrible.” A third participant, when asked whether he had ever interacted with people from other parties in a similar setting, said he had not and that he “didn’t think it would even be possible.”

Civilized debate between people with perspectives as different as the left, the center and the right helps us understand the nature of disagreement. Agreeing to disagree is already a major step toward a strong democracy.

Moreover, in many cases we find that, after all, we are more in agreement than in disagreement, both regarding objectives and regarding means. Consider a concrete case: early childhood policy. The scientific evidence — from neuroscience to economics, pediatrics, psychology, and much more — shows that the first three years of life (and the gestational period) have an enormous influence on the rest of a person’s life. Here we have an excellent basis for finding concrete public policy measures, going beyond petty politics. One of our institute’s upcoming events will focus precisely on this topic (Rethinking Early Childhood, July 9th, free registration required).

Here’s to moving toward more and better public policies — and less petty politics…