Exploring the real world: researching the impact of judicial review

This chapter draws on existing research to consider the importance of understanding the real-world impacts of administrative law, and explores some basic questions concerning how we understand and assess these impacts. It stresses the importance of pinpointing the exact subject of research. Are we thinking about the impact of rules/principles in general or more specifically the effects of judgments or judicial dicta? And what do we mean by impact? Are our concerns with impact on behaviour of decision makers? Or on policy change? Or broader questions such as effects on public attitudes? Having arrived at our research questions around impact, we then need to think carefully about methods. I draw on a range of research projects to consider different qualitative and quantitative approaches, flagging up some of the key challenges, such as obtaining access and getting information. The chapter concludes by underlining the value of work on impact and the gaps in our current knowledge and ends by suggesting some priority areas for future work.