What makes for good policy advice?

Not everyone’s ideas count equally when it comes to influencing and informing policy choices. Policy advice arises from many different actors interacting with each other including public servants, political advisors, think tanks, academic institutions, NGOs and private sector consultants. An article in Policy & Politics examines how these actors operate within an existing set of political and economic institutions and governing norms, as well as the different interests, ideas and resources the different actors bring. 

Policy composition and policy advice

Two interrelated elements underpin public policies: policy goals and policy means. In this sense, policy goals represent governments’ basic aims and expectations when deciding to pursue (or not) a course of action while policy means are how to achieve those goals. A broad and varied set of actors operate in both domains, some decide or execute policy, while others provide advice into its formation. 

Government decision makers occupy the centre of a complex system of policy advisors including both traditional political advisors working around them in government and also non-governmental ones operating outside the corridors of power. Not everyone’s ideas equally influence and inform government policy design and implementation choices. Who is influential, and how the nature of advice changes and evolves, remain outstanding questions. 

Policy advisory systems

As policy makers do not possess full knowledge of all areas of policy making, they typically rely on internal and external sources of advice when engaging in policy design. This has led to the development of the broader concept of a policy advisory system which recognises that advice can come from many different sources.  Policy actors can be arrayed in an advisory system depending on whether their location is inside or outside government and the extent to which government was able to control these actors’ activities as depicted in Table 1. 

Assessing the quality of policy advisory systems

The article applies a rubric to: 

• assess the behaviour of policy advisors 
• how they are likely to act when their advice is ignored and the impact this has on them  
• how their subsequent reactions affect the overall nature of the advice provided by a policy advisory system. 

The rubric has three dimensions based on the work of Albert Hirschman: 

• exit: leave the organisation physically or psychologically 
• voice: express opinion  
• loyalty: align self with organisation and leaders 

Policy actors can exercise an exit option and leave an organisation or system, but they can also remain in place and disengage from their work and devote little effort to it. They can also engage in principled dissent or voice as well stop providing policy-relevant information by selecting silence or engaging in morale-destroying cynicism. With loyalty, they can choose to stay in an organisation and subordinate their opinions to the organisational mission or they can engage in this option in a more opportunistic way by currying favour with leaders and managers. 

This model and more complete set of behaviours is set out in Table 2.  

Implications of the model for managing policy advisory systems

A healthy policy advisory system is one with only limited voluntary or involuntary exit. This represents the classical ideal of the Westminster model where public servants are enabled to exercise voice over loyalty and the system is expected to feature only very low levels of principled exit.  

Failure to maintain an autonomous policy advisory system can still result in a vicious cycle of policy advice where the repression of policy advice can lead to poor advice and negative policy results. This is a common problematic situation when the loyalty dimension slips into sycophancy and the system does not provide the correct type of feedback to decision makers.  

The bottom line

A policy advisory system should be structured and managed with large numbers of organisations and individuals practising active voice and principled loyalty and not excessive exit or disengagement, silence or sycophancy. In these circumstances the quality of advice may generally be thought of as well-rounded and multi-faceted, hence unlikely to succumb to faults such as cynicism, groupthink or opportunism.  

A theory of policy advisory system quality: Hirschman 2.0 or what makes for good policy advice? – Andrea Migone , Michael Howlett and Simon Fraser, Policy & Politics, May 2024 

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