Migone, Andrea (Toronto Metropolitan University) , Howlett, Michael (Simon Fraser University)
Not everyone’s ideas count equally in terms of influencing and informing policy design and instrument choices. As the literature on policy advice has shown, policy advice arises from many different actors interacting with each other often over relatively long timeframes. Actors within these ‘policy advisory systems’ interact within the confines of a set of political and economic institutions and governing norms and each brings with it different interests, ideas and resources. Studying who these actors are, how they act and how this affects the overall nature of the advice system is a critical aspect of current public policy research but not all of these elements have been equally well conceptualized or studied, especially concerns around the quality of policy advice emerging from these systems. In this article, the general nature of policy advisory systems is set out, their major components described and a model of individual and organizational behavior within them outlined based on a modification of the Exit, Voice, Loyalty rubric of Albert Hirschman. The article shows how aggregated individual organizational behaviour along the lines suggested by Hirschman can over time result in very different kinds of advice being provided by an advisory system, with predictable consequences for its nature and quality.