American Think Tanks: Policy Elites and the Politicization of Expertise

This article examines policy expertise and the role of think tanks in the context of shifting political alignments in American government. The article first considers the radical and neoconservative critiques of the liberal use of an elite group — or "new class"— of policy experts to formulate and legitimate political reform agendas, a strategy said to represent a technocratic threat to the future of representative government. The discussion then focuses in particular on the neoconservative critique and its promotion of a counter strategy designed to politicize policy expertise through the development of a conservative "counterintelligensia" and the funding of partisan think tanks. The political outcome is seen to be a significant variation in the relationships linking expertise, think tanks, and the setting of national policy agendas. Elite think tanks, conceptualized as policy "discourse coalitions," are analyzed as institutional mechanisms for coordinating the advice of leading policy experts with the interests of economic and political elites. Although the experts' role in these policy-planning organizations falls short of the threat envisioned by the technocratic critique, the political implications of the emergent elite relationship between expertise and policy formation is nonetheless seen to pose troubling questions for both the theory and parctice of representative governance.     

Kooperative Politikberatung. Ein neues Beziehungsgeflecht zwischen Politik und Politikberatung?

The institutional and societal framework of policy-advice-giving is changing and so are the worlds of political consultants and policy experts in Germany and other advanced democracies. While there are several new developments which are challenging established forms of policy-advice and political consulting, the present article focuses its attention on the impact of new governance structures on policy advice and political consulting. The main argument of the article is that when government becomes governance and the number of actors and venues involved in the decision-making process increase, a new cooperative and discursive mode of policy-advice giving complements or sometimes even replaces more established forms of policy-advice-giving. We review the evolution of the debate about the role of policy-advice-giving from different perspectives, and particularly explore possible consequences of the changing nature of the state as well as of newly emerging modes of cooperative policy-advice and political consulting — both for empirical as well as conceptual research in the field. Through this, we attempt to generate a debate on the future direction of different modes of policy-advice and political consulting within a changing framework of governance structures in advanced democracies.     

An Evaluation Crucible: Evaluating Policy Advice in Australian Central Agencies

Policy advice is a core function of government that until quite recently remained outside the formal processes of performance evaluation. Evaluation, by its very nature, is designed to question both the effectiveness and relevance of government activities; applying it to policy advice opens up a traditionally confidential and politically sensitive arena. This paper reports on an evaluation experiment in Australian government — policy management reviews (PMRs) — that sought to evaluate the quality of central agency policy advice. It traces the development of the PMR model around interdepartmental committee processes, the bureaucratic politics that diluted the focus on policy outcomes, and examines how central agencies steered evaluation away from questions of public accountability towards arrangements for achieving more effective control of the processes underpinning production of advice. By targeting the process rather than outcomes of policy advising, PMRs sought unsuccessfully to adhere to the divide between management and policy and, in doing so, marked out the limits to performance evaluation.     

公众参与科技决策的过程组织与方法效能

长久以来,科技决策一直是个专家统治的领域,不具备专门知识的公众,被认为无法了解科学的技术复杂性而被排除在政策参与过程之外。然而随着大科学时代的到来,科学技术发展所带来的效应直接进入社会生活领域“,科技民主”的理念打破了“专家”与“普通大众”之间的界限,认为,专家的意见只是社会总体决策的参考,公众应当具有参与科技决策的权力;公众参与技术评价方法被认为是针对现代社会中不确定、不平等问题的一种新的互动式解决途径;公众参与技术评价与决策在很多国家已经成为一种趋势;公众参与式技术评价被看作是在对现代技术风险管理过程中重新构建信任的一种方式。对公众参与科技决策的特征、方法与过程进行了研究。     

The Sincerest Form of Flattery: Nationalist Emulation during the COVID-19 Pandemic

As COVID-19 rapidly spread across the globe, every government in the world has been forced to enact policies to slow the spread of the virus. While leaders often claim responses are based on the best available advice from scientists and public health experts, recent policy diffusion research suggests that countries are emulating the COVID-19 policies of their neighbors instead of responding to domestic conditions. Political and geographic considerations play a role in determining which countries imitate one another, but even among countries that are politically or geographically distant, nationalist regimes seem to favor certain approaches towards the pandemic. We investigate why this is the case by examining whether countries that embrace a nationalist ideology are more likely to emulate the COVID-19 policies of similarly nationalist regimes. We demonstrate that, even after controlling for domestic circumstances and linguistic, trade, geographic, and political connections, nationalist countries are emulating each other’s responses. These results are robust and shed light not only on new mechanisms of policy diffusion but also on the growing international cooperation of nationalist regimes and leaders.

     

ADVISING THE GOVERNMENT: THE FAMILY LAW COUNCIL

Abstract: The Family Law Council was established in November 1976 with the responsibility of advising the Attorney-General on the operation of the Family Law Act 1975. This paper examines the role, membership and operation of the Family Law Council and its performance as a body providing policy advice to government. Statistical data is included on a number of matters. Although the paper draws mainly on the experience of the Family Law Council, some of the comments and suggestions made are possibly appropriate, in varying degrees, to other advisory bodies of a similar type. The paper suggests that such bodies are capable of offering inexpensive and representative advice to government and, if certain disadvantages can be overcome, more use of some existing advisory bodies may be desirable and this may even result in economies. It also suggests that there is a need to examine the whole advisory body field and that it is also desirable that the need for some ground rules for the creation and the operation of advisory bodies should be looked into.     

Science vs. government: A reconsideration

A content analysis is made of arms control arguments made in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and its Subcommittee on Disarmament by five groups: government scientists, academic scientists, politicians, military persons and citizens.It is found that government scientists are closer in their argumentation to other government persons than to their fellow scientists. It is argued that access rather than professionalism is the important independent variable to consider in predicting policy-related behavior.The author wishes to thank Professor Davis Bobrow for his advice throughout the course of this study.     

西方国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能变革分析

20世纪80年代以来,在英、美等西方国家兴起了以治道变革为特征的新公共管理运动,其目标是为了应付一系列政府管理中出现的问题。发达国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能的变革是新公共管理运动的一项重要内容。水公共产品作为一种以政府为主导提供的特殊公共产品,在以新公共管理理论为指导的政府改车过程中,水利的社会管理与公共服务职能的作用日益重要起来。本文通过对西方国家水利的社会管理与公共服务职能变革的背景、理论和实践的考察,提出对中国水利的社会管理与公共服务的借鉴意义。     

Consultants and the Public Service

Governments, as well as the community at large, need disinterested analysis and advice. It is important that governments are advised on the options for and against intervention in what some perceive as wrongs, and the potential and likely costs as well as the benefits to the whole community of such interventions. When the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration (RCAGA) was set up, most of this advice came from 'official sources': principally the Commonwealth Public Service, supplemented by official bodies such as the Tariff Board and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. RCAGA was concerned about the narrowness of Australian policy discourse (especially in relation to economic policy), and explored several avenues for widening it. Ironically, these possibilities did not include what has turned out to be a very significant alternative to official sources: the use of outside consultants. This paper reviews the growing use of consultants in government, starting from the concerns of RCAGA, and exploring the institutionalisation of 'outside' advice, and the impact of this on the capacity of the public service to advise.     

Engineers versus managers: experts,market-making and state-building in Putin's Russia

Abstract

Market-making and state-building are mutually reinforcing processes. This paper documents the role played in these processes by two groups of experts in Russia's electricity sector: technical experts and managerially trained experts. I develop two arguments: (1) a shift in the relative power positions of these two groups was a constitutive element of the marketization and liberalization of the electricity sector. The victory of the managerial experts made assets legible and therefore ‘value-able’. (2) the paper demonstrates that the promotion of managerial experts at the expense of technical experts was a deeply political transformation, as it involved the replacement of a well-established, well-connected group of incumbent political actors. More specifically, I show how the promotion of managerial experts at the expense of technical experts helped the federal government of President Putin eliminate one of the main challengers to its ability to regulate economic activity from the centre – regional governors.     

Dynamics of change in internal policy advisory systems: the hybridization of advisory capacities in Germany

Recent scholarship on advisory systems has focussed on the externalization of advisory capacities and sectoral dynamics of change, whereas changes of internal policy advisory systems have not yet been approached systematically. This article proposes an analytical concept for exploring change dynamics in internal policy advisory systems by means of three logics for assessing policy advice (political salience, credibility and representativeness). The approach is illustrated by analysing changes within the internal policy advisory system of the German federal government (1990–2015). The analysis relies on three original datasets on ministerial departments, research agencies and governmental advisory bodies. We find that the internal advisory system of the German federal government is characterized by a differentiated hybridization of advisory logics, which has changed the nature of policy advice.     

Evaluating City Financial Management Using Fuzzy Rule—Based Systems

Financial management is one of the most important management tasks of government. The complexity of financial management systems has discouraged overall evaluations of financial management. The objective of this article is to develop a method for evaluating government financial management that can handle this complexity. A fuzzy rule–based system (FRBS) is a methodology that can use many different types of data, produce robust input measures and can capture the complex contextual judgment of experts. Using data collected as part of the Government Performance Project survey of large cities, we develop an FRBS for city financial management.     

Public Administration, Science, and Risk Assessment: A Case Study of the U.K. Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Crisis

The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) outbreak in the United Kingdom is regarded as one of the worst public policy crises the British government has experienced during the postwar era. In material terms, it has led to the slaughter of 3.3 million cattle and estimated economic losses of £3.7 billion. In administrative terms, the crisis brought about the dissolution of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. This article examines the istitutional context in which decisions about the scientific evidence on BSE were made. The authors argue that a centralized system in which government agencies control science for government is inherently vulnerable to alliances of experts and interest groups that undermine the credible assessment of public health and safety risks. Specific societal conditions may encourage risk-opportunistic behavior among policy makers that is conducive to delays and inaction until such time as the evidence of a health risk becomes overwhelming.     

State,democracy, socialism: introduction

This paper argues that comtemporary developments in democratic politics mark the emergence of a new type of representative government. Current trends such as the weakening of party identification, the decline of political platforms or the increasing role of an élite of media experts may be regarded as undermining the principle of popular government. The paper demonstrates, however, that representative government was not invented as an indirect form of government by the people, but as a wholly original political system resting on principles different from those which organize democracy. Moreover, a number of institutional arrangements were established at the origins of representative government which have been virtually unquestioned since. Political representation has changed much less than is generally assumed. It is true, on the other hand, that the constant principles of representative government have had different consequences depending on the circumstance in which they were implemented. Such differences have generated various forms of political representation. The paper constructs three ideal-types of representative government. It shows that the current situation is best conceived as the rise of a new type of representation.     

科学民主化:食品安全规制中的公众参与

如何提升政府应对风险、保障公众健康的能力成为学界与政策实务界的讨论热点。在食品、环境与健康领域的风险规制中,充分保障公共利益似乎尤为困难。因为多种情况之下,风险规制的依据是专家的科学知识,结果仍然会引起公众对于行政政策以及专家的不信任。对此,在行政决策中平衡科学与公众参与两种力量日益重要,即"科学"民主化的问题,既强调专家的作用,又要使之与公众交流沟通。科学民主化事实上是公众参与的制度化,关于这一问题的研究对中国行政法的发展意义重大。     

Building Ethical Capital: Perceptions of Ethical Climate in the Public Sector

This article examines influences on public servant perceptions of ethical climate in the public sector. The array of beneficial outcomes produced by perceptions of a positive ethical climate, the existence of government programs aimed at improving ethical climate, and implications for government accountability and trustworthiness all argue for a better understanding of the sources of these perceptions. Empirical analyses of survey responses from employees of the U.S. federal executive branch show that individuals in leadership positions perceive the ethical climate more positively. Conversely, work tenure tends to worsen perceived ethical climate, although supervisory status attenuates this negative effect. Ethics training, interaction with ethics officials, and perceived knowledge about ethics topics consistently influence perceptions of ethical climate and advice‐seeking behavior in a positive way. A set of results related to advice‐seeking behavior serves to reinforce the important role of ethics officials.     

The U.K. overseas development administration and non-departmental public bodies in the field of educational aid

The educational aid programme sponsored by the U.K. Overseas Development Administration has been conducted using organizations in which substantial changes have been made in the last ten years. This article analyses the changes in the structure of non-departmental agencies and in the relations between the Overseas Development Administration and the agencies, and considers the rationale for these. It draws attention to the contrast between the formal independence of these non-departmental bodies and continuing departmental control, and to the limitations of non-departmental bodies as a means of securing advice and co-operation. The article points to the difficulties in organizational terms of marrying the aim of providing a framework for co-operating with the recipients of aid, and for securing advice, co-operation and support in its administration from bodies outside central government in the U.K., while preserving ministerial responsibility.     

“乡政村治”治理架构的优化探析

新时期中国“乡政村治”体制是国家在市场经济背景下封农民个人权利承认和保护的制度性承诺,是一种基于市场、民主和法制理念的新的行政管理结构和乡村治理方式,它标志着国家行政权与乡村自治权的相对分离、国家与社会的边界的重新确定,对国家民主建设意义也特别重大。但从实践层面上看,“乡政村治”运行中也暴露了不少矛盾与问题,调整和完善农村治理架构显得刻不容缓。因此,本文着重分析“乡政村治”治理架构下的体制缺憾与运行中存在的偏差,并提出制度完善与体制优化的建议。     

Purchasing Policy Advice: The Limits to Contracting Out

Throughout the OECD, governments have been contracting out an increasing range of goods and services. Against this background, this article outlines the case for, and assesses the merits of, placing the purchase of governmental policy advice on a more competitive basis. Two options are given particular attention: first, the creation of an internal market for policy advice within the public sector under which departments and other government agencies would tender to supply specific policy outputs; and second, a more radical option under which public and private sector organizations would compete for the contracts to supply governmental policy advice. Drawing on the insights of the new institutional economics, it is argued that neither option is likely to enhance the efficiency or effectiveness with which policy advice is produced, whether under conditions of short-term or long-term contracting. This is due to the likelihood of: only partial contestability (due, among other things, to asset specificity in the form of transaction-specific expertise and trust); a greater risk of opportunistic behavior by the suppliers of advice (and also, under some conditions, by the purchasers); higher agency costs and transaction costs; and greater problems with respect to horizontal and vertical policy coordination. Such considerations suggest that the widespread reliance of governments on relatively permanent advisory institutions and in-house expertise can be explained and justified on the same theoretical grounds that have prompted the contracting out of other publicly-funded goods and services.     

Investigating the Institutional Norms and Values of the Productivity Commission: The 2011 and 2015 Childcare Inquiries

The Productivity Commission (PC) has a mandate to provide independent advice to government that promotes community wellbeing. Whilst it plays a significant role in social and economic reform, the underlying institutional values and norms of the PC that shape its advice have not been examined. This paper examines policy problematisations (Bacchi 2009, 2012) across two PC ‘inquiries’ into childcare (2011, 2015) between Labor and Coalition governments, and the advice provided by the PC. In doing so, this research demonstrates that PC recommendations are imbued with economic values that are highly institutionalised. These values give preference to targeted social welfare and traditional gender norms, despite current evidence suggesting alternative approaches would have better social and long‐term economic outcomes. Our findings raise questions over the conflict between the traditional economic values of the PC and providing social policy advice that reflects best practice, indicating that further investigation into the PC is urgently needed.