Policy advisory styles in the francophone Belgian civil service
| Author | Marleen Brans,David Aubin |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852318785025 |
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Policy advisory styles in
the francophone Belgian
civil service
David Aubin
Universite
´catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Marleen Brans
Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium
Abstract
In a context of the rising importance of ministerialadvisers, this article provides empirical
evidenceabout the nature of involvementof civil servants in policy work.Based on a survey
of graduated civil servants in francophone Belgium, it shows that civil servants are much
involved in policy work even in a politico-administrative system characterised by strong
ministerial cabinets. Belgian francophone civil servants are ‘incidental advisors’. They are
less processgeneralists than issue specialistswho mostly deal with policy implementation.
Their policy advisory style oscillates between ‘rational technician’ and ‘client advisor’.
Despite a low institutionalisation of policy advice in the civil service, civil servants signif-
icantly serve the ministers in the policy formulation (for harmonization) phase, supplying
information and analysis and participating to the writing of policy-related texts.
Points for practitioners
The francophone Belgian case shows the importance of policy tasks conducted by civil
servants. It also provides evidence about the importance of in-house policy-analytical
capacity as it shows that civil servants primarily rely on internal information sources
and consultation when involved in policy formulation.
Keywords
policy advisory styles, policy-analytical capacity, policy work, politico-administrative relation
Corresponding author:
David Aubin, Place Montesquieu 1, box L2.08.07, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Email: david.aubin@uclouvain.be
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2020, Vol. 86(3) 463–478
!The Author(s) 2018
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852318785025
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
Introduction
Civil servants perform policy work, an activity shared with many actors inside
and outside governments: the garnering of information, the demarcation of
problem definitions, the design and comparison of policy instruments, and the
evaluation of policies. Policy work is an important matter for Public
Administration. Since its origins, Public Administration has raised the concern
of the separation of administration from politics (McCandless and Guy, 2013).
This politico-administrative dichotomy shows the impossibility to extricate
politics, and consequently policy formulation, from civil servants’ work
(Bourgon, 2010; Svara, 2001).
Policy work has been subject to increasing academic attention, with the aim to
provide knowledge about the everyday practice of policy workers, notably civil
servants (Colebatch and Radin, 2006: 225). Existing research has revealed that
policy workers are mostly policy-process generalists educated in social sciences,
who received very little policy-related training and do not use sophisticated ana-
lytical techniques to process information. Although these findings give a first
insight into the nature of policy work and the profile of policy analysts, empirical
research in more countries is advocated (Newman, 2017).
This article contributes to the general study of actual policy analysis within
government with the case of francophone Belgium. Extending the enquiry to all
graduated civil servants, it shows that Belgian francophone civil servants
are ‘incidental advisors’, whose policy-analytical style oscillates between that
of ‘rational technician’ and that of ‘client advisor’. Policy work is widely
distributed among a large group of issue specialists, whose main policy task
is implementation. This case is illustrative of the Napoleonic system of public
administration, where policy formulation is traditionally monopolised by the
extensive staff of the ministers’ personal offices, traditionally referred to as
ministerial cabinets.
Relying on a survey in francophone Belgium, the article shows that civil
servants are still much involved in policy formulation, even if the politico-
administrative system in which they function is characterised by the central
policy role of ministerial cabinets. The two francophone governments of
Belgium, namely, Wallonia and the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, never
attempted to downsize ministerial cabinets, contrary to the federal government
and Flanders. As such, francophone Belgium is a ‘most likely case’ (Flyvbjerg,
2006) of strong ministerial cabinets’ influence, which allows us to infer that if civil
servants play a role in policy formulation in this system, they would in any other
democratic government.
The next part presents the concept of policy work and reflects upon the activities
of civil servants related to policy work and the techniques used. After the survey
method is specified, the results are presented and discussed. They relate to the
location and tasks of civil servants and the information sources and tools they
use in working for policy.
464 International Review of Administrative Sciences 86(3)
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