Academic policy advice in consensus-seeking countries: the cases of Belgium and Germany
| Author | Mirjam Pekar-Milicevic,Sonja Blum,Valérie Pattyn,Ellen Fobé,Marleen Brans |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319878780 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Academic policy advice
in consensus-seeking
countries: the cases of
Belgium and Germany
Vale
´rie Pattyn
Leiden University, The Netherlands
Sonja Blum
FernUniversit€
at in Hagen, Germany
Ellen Fobe
´
KU Leuven, Belgium
Mirjam Pekar-Milicevic
iba, University of Cooperative Education Nuremberg,
Germany
Marleen Brans
KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
Research on policy-advisory systems worldwide has shown that historically dominant
sources of advice traditionally located in-house to the government have been increas-
ingly 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.
Corresponding author:
Sonja Blum, FernUniversit€
at in Hagen, Institute of Political Science, Universitaetsstraße 33, 58084 Hagen,
Germany.
Email: sonja.blum@fernuni-hagen.de
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
!The Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/0020852319878780
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
2022, Vol. 88(1) 26–42
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.
Keywords
academic research, advice, Belgium, Germany, knowledge utilisation, policy-advisory
system
Introduction
Recent years have seen increased scholarly attention to policy advice. We know
that policy advisors are located both inside and outside of government, and subject
to more or less government control within the policy-advisory system (PAS) (Craft
and Howlett, 2013; Halligan, 1995). Historically dominant sources of advice tra-
ditionally located in-house to government have been supplemented by other actors
and outside knowledge (Van den Berg, 2016; Ve
´sely, 2013). Despite available com-
parative studies, the policy-advisory literature remains biased, especially in three
regards.
First, while studies on the ‘utilisation of academic research’ in policymaking
have received their fair share of scholarly attention, especially since the seminal
works of Weiss (1980) or Caplan (1979), they have remained largely disconnected
from research on the PAS. The fact that academic research as policy advice is not
included in early models of policy advice (Halligan, 1995, Craft and Howlett, 2012)
is indicative of this. Consequently, there is little evidence about the particular role
of academic advice in a changing advisory landscape.
Second, studies on academic research as policy advice have mainly treated the
supply side of advice production (Howlett, 2019). Even studies that did cover the
27
Pattyn et al.
To continue reading
Request your trial