Ministerial cabinets hold a central place in the Belgian politico-administrative system, carrying out the bulk of policy formulation. However, they do not operate in isolation and rely on other actors of the policy advisory system for information supply and advice. They request, receive and use various advisory inputs. This article investigates how ministerial advisers utilize policy advice when they formulate policies. Based on a unique survey targeting ministerial cabinet members, it shows that policy advice utilization varies according to the source and its location in the policy advisory system. The sample consists of ministerial advisers from 11 ministerial cabinets in the two Belgian federated entities’ governments of Wallonia and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. Ministerial advisers still predominantly use advice from the civil service, which points to the continued importance of advice provision from internal, in-house sources. However, advice from external actors – such as trade unions, civil society or consulting firms – have been observed to have rather high repercussions on policy formulation activities too. Advisory bodies appear to be very much active in supplying advice, but this same advice does not yield comparatively higher utilization scores. Points for practitioners This study focuses on policy advice utilization by members of ministerial cabinets in Belgium, especially when they formulate policies. It shows that internal, in-house sources remain important advice-providers and their advisory inputs still abundantly feed into the policy work carried out at the level of government. However, this article provides evidence that external sources might also supply advice that directly finds its way to decision-makers working in ministerial cabinets and that have considerable repercussions at that level too. This is the case for advice from trade unions, (organized) civil society or consulting firms, among others. Quite importantly for practitioners, our results suggest that ministerial advisers sometimes prefer controlling advisory exchanges and running separate consultations with one stakeholder at a time, instead of having to deal with collective, internal institutions that represent multiple interests, like advisory bodies. We did not observe striking differences in the degree of utilization between solicited and unsolicited advice, which means that for civil servants or stakeholders, sending policy advice previously unrequested by ministerial cabinets is not necessarily a fruitless strategy to follow.
Although it has been developing and come through processes of institutionalization since WWII, French political science remains a small and rather marginalized discipline in search for visibility. Several tendencies work against the performance of a decisive advisory role from its part, especially the presence of an already solid and wide-ranging internal, in-house (state) expertise, which is still considered by many as a strong national asset. Consequently, it makes it hard for political scientists, as external academic actors, to exist in the eyes of decision-makers and achieve relevance. Nonetheless, driven by favourable attitudes towards an advisory and public engagement and the presence of facilitating conditions, we show that French political science infrequently manages to move in the policy advisory system. This chapter notably finds that political scientists might individually or collectively benefit from a participatory turn shaping the operation of advisory systems, that some level of boundary work takes place in relation with public administration, and that think tanks and sub-national actors’ reinforcement has opened opportunities for advice-giving and advice circulation. A case study about an important project of reform of the parliament illustrates how involvements from French political scientists in public debates and advisory activities might unfold and translate into practice.
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