A post-truth world is challenging to policy making. There is disagreement on how to address this post-truth problem. Some propose increasing the public’s capacity for fact-checking, others focus on repairing the ruptured social fabric. An article in Critical Policy Studies examines how to facilitate communication between actors with competing truth claims. Three strategies are identified: recognising identities and emotions; agreeing on facts; and establishing a legitimate process.
About post-truth
The current political climate is often described in terms of post-truth. The concept of post-truth signifies circumstances in which people respond more to feelings and beliefs than to facts. The usefulness of this concept is debated. Some endorse the concept as it draws attention to how a widespread disregard for the truth troubles policy making.
Others argue that post-truth is nothing new and might even be a misleading label since all politics is, and has always been, about struggles over meaning. In this view, politics always involves actors, ranging from politicians to lobbyists, interest groups and others, who frame or even manipulate information for their benefit while making emotional appeals to their allies or followers.
Whatever the usefulness of the post-truth concept, the current political situation poses serious challenges to policy making. In today’s fragmented societies policy processes involve many actors who communicate across boundaries of sectors, professions and walks of life. Constructive communication across these boundaries requires that policy actors have trust in each other and in the fairness and impartiality of public. They also must be willing to listen to arguments from opponents and engage in self-reflection on the validity of their own assumptions.
Facilitators of policy processes
The facilitator is an increasingly influential policy practitioner. The research finds these street-level workers of democracy enable communication between actors involved in policy making. They work from positions in the public sector, academia, and consultancies. Their task is to structure communication between actors with divergent interests and worldviews.
There are four areas of facilitation expertise:
- Orchestrating: commissioning, sponsoring and guiding participatory arrangements
- Practicing: designing, facilitating, reporting on dialogue processes
- Coordinating: networking, capacity-building, and professionalising
- Researching: theorising, evaluating, and reflecting.
Facilitators of policy processes encounter post-truth situations in their everyday practices. Today, facilitators face orchestrated influence campaigns as well as less sinister, and more mundane situations. This is when actors do not accept each other’s truth claims and do not trust the public institutions that are to mediate disputes.
Three facilitation strategies
The research involved interviews with 18 facilitators and two framing questions:
- What is the problem with post-truth according to the facilitators?
- How do the facilitators think that facilitation can address the problem of post-truth?
Several problems were identified with the post-truth climate:
- Social groups have drifted apart and formed their identities in opposition to each other. This problem is made worse by the fact that some groups feel excluded from political life and there is no space for constructive expression of their emotions in the public conversation.
- Lack of agreement on facts and conflicts between groups that lead to destructive fact disputes.
- Lack of agreement on what a legitimate process for preparing, making and implementing common decisions entails.
In turn, three facilitation strategies were identified to address the above:
1. Recognising identities and emotions
The solution in this strategy is to listen to peoples’ concerns, encouraging them to express their feelings and acknowledging their right to be heard. The emphasis is on how to include those who feel left out and make sure that their value is recognised. The idea is that those who feel that they are left out can regain their sense of value and become willing to participate more constructively in public conversations.
2. Agreeing on facts
The solution in this strategy is to create conditions for a joint process of fact finding. The facilitator draws attention to how disagreements might be resolved through a joint process of developing knowledge between actors with alternative truth/fact claims.
3. Establishing a legitimate process
The solution in this strategy is to establish a process that is considered as legitimate by the actors. In this strategy, the facilitator is a process guardian. This role includes ensuring a shared understanding of what a legitimate process is and to remind and redirect participants to the process if they do not adhere to its principles.
The bottom line
The post-truth concept can be practically useful. Not as an absolute label to characterise a situation but much more as a tool for thinking – an ordering device for policy practice. Such an ordering device can help draw attention to disentangle and assess features of a policy-making process which include post-truth characteristics such as destructive expressions of emotions and fact controversies.
Want to read more?
- Grappling with post-truth politics – facilitation strategies for policy-making in troubled times – Martin Westin, Sofie Joosse, Amelia Mutter and Miron Moraitopoulos Arljung, Critical Policy Studies, May 2025
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- Published Date: 2 July 2025