Touching Base, Gaining Credibility, Brokering Consensus
The process of assembling evidence has a political as well as a purely analytical purpose. Sometimes it entails touching base with potential critics of your work so that they will not be able to complain that you ignored their perspectives.
By making yourself known to potential supporters of your work, you may also be able to create a cadre of defenders.
A more complex objective, where appropriate, might be to blend policy analysis with the process of improving a policy idea or decision during the course of implementation. This entails obtaining “feedback” from participants, usually in an iterative process, and