Professional expertise in Policy Advisory Systems: How administrators and consultants built Behavioral Insights in Danish public agencies

Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increasingly supplemented by other actors and outside knowledge. However, the vast majority of research has concentrated on the anglophone context. Yet, countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice and merit more scholarly attention. What counts as evidence in these countries is the expert rationality of institutional representatives. The position and role of academic research in consensus-based systems is unclear, and is the focus of this article. Can we observe commonalities across consensus-style countries, or do differences prevail? We investigate two typical consensus-seeking countries: Belgium and Germany. To examine the supply side of policy advice, the article reviews current evidence regarding their policy-advisory systems. For the demand side, we present insights from a survey among federal ministerial officials. We find common trends between the two cases but their nature and extent are idiosyncratic. In Belgium, the supply of and demand for academic policy advice is comparatively lower, while the German case exhibits more change in the advisory landscape and institutionalisation of the supply of and demand for academic research. Points for practitioners • Countries with a consensus-seeking, neo-corporatist tradition provide a special case in terms of policy advice. • The findings suggest that there are common trends but their nature and extent are idiosyncratic. • In Belgium, the supply of and demand for academic advice is comparatively lower. • Germany’s policy-advisory landscape exhibits more change and institutionalisation of the supply of and demand for academic research.

Download Full-text

Czech political parties and policy analysis in the perspective of policy advisory systems

Policy analysis in the Czech Republic ◽

10.2307/j.ctt1t8929b.18 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 217-236

Author(s):

Vilém Novotný ◽

Martin Polášek ◽

Michel Perottino

Keyword(s):

Political Parties ◽

Policy Analysis ◽

Policy Advisory Systems ◽

Advisory Systems

Download Full-text

Polycentric governance and policy advice: lessons from Whitehall policy advisory systems

Policy & Politics ◽

10.1332/030557320x15870482509817 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 48 (4) ◽

pp. 563-581

Author(s):

Patrick Diamond

Keyword(s):

Policy Process ◽

Policy Advice ◽

Diverse Range ◽

Polycentric Governance ◽

Advisory System ◽

Policy Advisory Systems ◽

Government Bureaucracy ◽

Advisory Systems ◽

Policy Advisory System ◽

The Impact

In countries worldwide, the provision of policy advice to central governments has been transformed by the deinstitutionalisation of policymaking, which has engaged a diverse range of actors in the policy process. Scholarship should therefore address the impact of deinstitutionalisation in terms of the scope and scale of policy advisory systems, as well as in terms of the influence of policy advisors. This article addresses this gap, presenting a programme of research on policy advice in Whitehall. Building on Craft and Halligan’s conceptualisation of a ‘policy advisory system’, it argues that in an era of polycentric governance, policy advice is shaped by ‘interlocking actors’ beyond government bureaucracy, and that the pluralisation of advisory bodies marginalises the civil service. The implications of such alterations are considered against the backdrop of governance changes, particularly the hybridisation of institutions, which has made policymaking processes complex, prone to unpredictability and at risk of policy blunders.

Download Full-text

Communicating about Climate Change with Policymakers

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science ◽

10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.416 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Ishani Mukherjee ◽

Michael Howlett

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Policy ◽

Policy Instruments ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Wicked Problem ◽

Change Policy ◽

Policy Advisory Systems ◽

Advisory Systems ◽

Definition Of ◽

Policy Problems

Policy communication and the resulting influence that information has on policy decision-makers is an especially pertinent topic when it comes to problems of climate change. Notorious for its complexity, uncertainty, and divergence of viewpoints, climate change has earned the title of being the major “wicked” or “super-wicked” problem of our times. A proliferation of expertise, interests, and capacities mark the climate change policymaking landscape and this density of players warrants an advanced framework to understand the ways in which the variety of climate-pertinent knowledge is communicated to policymakers. Moving beyond undifferentiated “two-communities” models of knowledge utilization in policymaking which limit the discussion to the bilateral interactions between knowledge experts or “producers” and information “consumers” of the public sector, this article explores the concept of a policy advisory system, which embodies the different sets of influence that various policy actors can have during policy decision-making and how communication between and among actors is a significant aspect of climate change policymaking. The concept of policy advisory systems is an important new development in the policy studies literature and one that is analytically very applicable to climate policy contexts. Suitably generalizable across representative policy settings, policy advisory systems are comprised of distinct groups of actors who are engaged in the definition of policy problems, the articulation of policy solutions, or the matching of policy problems to solutions. We explore how individual members of these separate sets of actors—namely the epistemic community, which is occupied in discourses about policy problems; the instrument constituencies which define policy instruments; and the advocacy coalitions which compete to have their choice of policy alternatives adopted—interact and communicate with policymakers across climate change policy activities.

Download Full-text