Academic policy advice in consensus-seeking countries: the cases of Belgium and Germany

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. The politics and administration of institutional chang

Policy analytical practice investigated: exploring patterns in use of policy analytical techniques

This chapter investigates patterns in the application of policy analytical techniques by government officials across different types of policy sectors in three subnational administrations in Belgium. Even when there is general consensus about the importance of policy analytical capacity, government officials’ deployment of policy analytical tools may vary across policy sectors, both in terms of frequency as well as in terms of type. To explain these variations, the chapter examines the role of three explanatory conditions that were originally identified to account for variance in policy analytical practice at the national level of analysis, but may also be relevant for the diffusion of policy analytical praxis across different types of policy sectors. These conditions are the role of social scientists in a particular sector, the degree of government spending per sector, and the receipt of EU subsidies. The analysis draws on recent survey material in Belgium carried out in three different subnational administrations: the Flemish government administration (Flanders), the administration of the Walloon Regional government (Walloon Region), and the administration of the government of the French-speaking community of Belgium (French-speaking Community).The politics and administration of institutional chang

Local state–society relations in Flanders (Belgium)

In the Belgian contribution in this volume, the following networks of local state–society relations are considered: youth councils, municipal commissions on spatial planning, local action groups, local mobility commissions and local housing consultations. These five networks offer a good overview of the broad spectrum of local state–society relations in Belgium. Youth councils and local action groups are seen as collaborative local state–society networks. They have both an advisory and a more collaborative role towards local government. The municipal commissions on spatial planning and the local mobility commissions are seen as delegated types of network, given their more formal role and position, while the local housing consultations are considered as a ceremonial type of network

Advisory bodies and morality policies: does ethical expertise matter?

Governments and parliaments struggle to design biomedical policies: while research and practice make rapid progress, they often trigger value conflicts. One response involves institutionalised ethics expert bodies. Drawing on in-depth empirical research, this article analyses the influence of such expert bodies within the policy advisory system. Specifically, it examines the critical case of the Belgian Advisory Committee on Bioethics (BACB). In spite of an exclusive formal mandate, the BACB’s direct influence on policies is limited. The BACB analysis enables to complement existing theories by highlighting the importance of looking beyond organisational and inter-organisational factors and studying the politico-institutional settings of a particular polity. These settings help better understand patterns of influence and factors affecting the type and level of influence of advisory bodies

Out of the ivory tower: an explanation of the policy advisory roles of political scientists in Europe

The relevance and impact of political scientists’ professional activities outside of universities has become the focus of public attention, partly due to growing expectations that research should help address society’s grand challenges. One type of such activity is policy advising. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding the extent and type of policy advising activities political scientists engage in. This paper addresses this gap by adopting a classification that distinguishes four ideal types of policy advisors representing differing degrees of engagement. We test this classification by calculating a multi-level latent class model to estimate key factors explaining the prevalence of each type based on an original dataset obtained from a survey of political scientists across 39 European countries. Our results challenge the wisdom that political scientists are sitting in an “ivory tower”: the vast majority (80%) of political scientists in Europe are active policy advisers, with most of them providing not only expert guidance but also normative assessments