Comparing policy advisory systems beyond the OECD: models, dynamics and the second-generation research agenda

ABSTRACT

The concept of “policy advisory systems” was introduced by Halligan in 1995 as a way to characterize and analyze the multiple sources of policy advice utilized by governments in policy-making processes. The concept has proved useful and has influenced thinking about both the nature of policy work in different advisory venues as well as how these systems change over time. However, to date this work has examined mainly cases of developed countries and its application to developing and transitional countries is less certain. This paper sets out existing models of policy advisory systems based on Halligan’s original thinking on the subject and assesses the findings of many existing studies into OECD countries that advisory systems have been changing as a result of the dual effects of increased use of external consultants and others sources of advice – “externalization” – and the increased use of partisan advice inside government itself – “politicization”. Determining whether or not such changes have also characterized the situations found in developing and transitional countries and at the international-domestic and state-sub-state levels is the subject of the papers in this Special Issue.

KEYWORDS:

• Policy advice
• policy advisory systems
• policy formulation
• policy actors
• policy advice supply

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Michael Howlett is Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University. He specializes in public policy analysis, political economy, and resource and environmental policy. His most recent books are Designing Public Policies (2019), The Policy Design Primer (2019), Making Policies Work (2019), Routledge Handbook of Policy Design (2019), and Policy Styles and Policy Making (2019).

Notes

1 The critique of locational models is both historical and definitional. On the one hand, while older models relied on a kind of “vertical” policy advice landscape in which inside advisors had more influence than outside ones, the emergence of a more pluralized “horizontal” advice-giving landscape than existed in earlier periods (Weller and Rhodes 2001; Radin 2000; Page 2007, 2010) has challenged any traditional monopoly of policy advice once held by such prominent inside actors as the public service. Halligan”s “control” dimension can be seen as an attempt to get at this second dimension of influence—modelled as congruent or less congruent with government aims—but is not specific enough about the nature of the content itself.

2 In the contemporary era, studies of the behaviour of specific advisory system actors such as appointed partisan political advisers, for example, have highlighted the irrelevance of these older political vs. administrative distinctions. Even in the “speaking truth to power” era, Walter (1986) confirmed that policy advisors often extended advice on political options and “paid attention” to the policy agenda, often acting as policy “mobilisers” in the face of policy vacuum or playing a “catalyst” role in activating a policy process (Walter 1986, 152–154) and later scholars such as Dunn (1997, 78–93) found that “political” advisors played a role in shaping policy through overseeing the policy development process, providing direction, evaluating policy proposals and monitoring implementation.