Conceptualizing Policy Work as Activity and Field of Research

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Central European Journal of Public Policy

Vol. 7 1 June 2013 pp 2859ISSN 1802-4866 2013 Jan Kohoutek, Martin Nekola and Vilm NovotnLicensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

introduCtion

Researching the work of policy practitioners located in government bureaucra-

cies is a challenging task. Traditionally, research into policy practice has drawnon the concept of policy process as a sequence of stages in informed decision-

making based on expert advice of policy analysts and leading to preferred out-comes (Howard, 2005; Colebatch, 2005, 2006a). This concept of policy practiceas an exercise in instrumental rationality of governing (Colebatch 2007) be-came the mainstream approach to investigations of policy work, not least due

to its proliferation in policy analysis textbooks and courses, particularly withinthe US context (deLeon & Martel, 2006; deLeon, 2006, deLeon & Vogenbeck2007; Vesel, 2009).

No matter how widespread this conceptualisation of policy practitioners

work is, it seems to be fundamentally lawed in three respects. Firstly, episte-mologically, policy is a multifaceted concept, escaping narrow coninement intothe making and execution of the governmental intent (Hill, 2005). Secondly, theincreasing variety of organisational structures, agendas and actors involvedin policy work made such a stagist approach obsolete analytically and inac -curate descriptively, as documented by fuzzy boundaries between policy for-mulation and implementation (Nakamura, 1987; Sabatier, 1992, 1999). Thirdly,empirically, the account of policy work as carrying out an authoritative deci-

sion based on informed advice is at odds with the actual, day-to-day experi-ence of policy practitioners (Adams, 2005; Colebatch, 2006c; Colebatch, Hoppe,& Noordegraaf, 2010b; Howlett & Wellstead, 2011). Overall, this critique pointsto the discrepancy between the oficially stated and experiential accounts of

policy practitioners, and to the necessity of expanding scholarship to relectthe proliferation of participants in the policy analysis ield (Colebatch & Dege -ling, 1986; Radin 1997, 2000).

Reservations about the sacred nature of policy practitioners work seem tohave induced a distinct stream of research in the 2000s. 2 Common to this re-search stream is the acknowledgement that policy work reaches beyond the

2 Preceded by some pioneering accounts of policy bureaucracy in the US written in the 1970s byMeltsner (1972, 1976).

Cz P W A F R

Jan Kohoutek, Martin Nekola and Vilm Novotn1Charles University in Prague

Abstract: The area of policy work and policy workers within government bureau-

cracies encompasses a large ield of activities and research. This article aims to pro-

vide a review of policy work in relating theoretical and empirical accounts of policy

workers, identifying points of convergence and linking them to essential assump-

tions on research in policy work. We conceptualize policy work as activity within

government bureaucracies from three interrelated perspectives: the professional

identity of policy workers based on knowledge, performance, and motivation; em-

pirical evidence of policy work activities in different contexts; and accounts of the

main approaches to policy work research. By this conceptualisation, we hope to

contribute to the consolidation of present-day knowledge on the policy work ield

and possibly outline some promising avenues of research into it. We argue that it

seems to be necessary for further development of policy work research, sooner or

later, to clarify and arrange essential concepts and terms used by policy work schol-

ars as well as to consolidate methodologies and designs underlying the empirical

enquiries. We conclude that without these efforts the ield of policy work research

will not be moving towards theoretical, methodological and empirical maturity.

Keywords: Policy work, policy bureaucrats, policy advice, expert knowledge,

motivation

JAN KOHOUTEK Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, CharlesUniversity in Prague [email protected]

MARTIN NEKOLA Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, CharlesUniversity in Prague [email protected]

Vilm noVotn Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, CharlesUniversity in Prague [email protected]

1 The preparation of this paper has been supported by Czech Science Foundation grant Nr.P404/12/0725, Policy Workers in the Czech Public Administration: Practices, Professional Valuesand Identity. We would like to thank our colleagues and two anonymous reviewers for their valu-

able comments.

Kohoutek,Nekola, Novo-

tn Concep-

tualizing Policy

Work as Activ-

ity

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perspectives are knowledge, performance and motivations that can be con-strued as underlying policy workers professional identities. From this the-oretic/conceptual part, we proceed to give empirical evidence of policy work

activities in different contexts, thus linking theoretical and empirical accountsof policy work. Next we complement the accounts of policy work as activity bypresenting assumptions behind policy work as a subject of scientiic enquiry.Finally, we arrive at some tentative, up-to-date propositions on the theory andpractice of policy work. By doing so, we hope to contribute to the consolidationof present-day knowledge on the policy work ield and possibly outline somepromising avenues of research into it.

WHO ARE POLICY WORKERS? POLICY WORK AS PRACTICE

Conceptual approaches to policy work as activity are dominated by the themeof change. This theme may concern changing human activities in public pol-icy areas from the 1960s till the present time, characterised as policy analysiscoming of age (Radin, 2000). Or it can be associated with the idea of evolu -tionary change of policy advisory systems from elementary authoritative solu-

tions to social structuring, based on interaction and constructivism (Colebatch,2006a). The term policy work encapsulates the efforts to capture the present-day practice of policy analysis characterised by a move from a single textbookrepresentation of policy analysis towards acknowledging the complex andmulti-faceted nature of policy advisory systems in different countries, issue

areas and policies, at different organisational levels and settings. Similarly aswith other relevant terms (such as policy or governance), the term policy workalso deies clear-cut deinition. Hence, as advocates of the term admit, policywork should be seen more as an overarching concept, shaped into more con-crete manifestations by its practitioners, observers and researchers.

There will never be one, deinitive account of policy work because policy is

too ambiguous and contested to be deined in neutral ways, and because pol-icy is an ongoing process, that evolves over time and eschews ixed and static

demarcations.(Colebatch et al. 2010b, p. 243)

4 As Mosey (1985) argues, elements of profession entail a body of knowledge and a domain ofconcern with its practical aspects. The professional identity then seems to evolve from internal

motivations of an individual aecting its work performance (Fagermoen, 1997; Knippenberg,2000).

activities of decision-makers, policy analysts or advisers and application of aset of rigorous analytical techniques (Howlett, 2007, 2009a; Howlett & New-man, 2010). Policy work as practised for some time now also involves politicalleaders, bureaucrats, academics or professional experts located within govern-mental structures or other organisations such as universities, think tanks, in-terest groups, professional bodies or non-proit organisations. These can alsobe termed policy workers and the work of policy therefore entails the inter-

play of different forms of knowledge, organizational frameworks and capacitiesof a broader set of actors than customarily assumed (Colebatch, 2006a). Thekey to studying policy work seems to lie in the shift from explaining public pol -icy to practitioners to constructing shared meanings between those who study

policy and those who do it. Beyond the construction of such shared meaningslies the recognition that policy as a sphere of practice and as a ield of knowl -edge has undergone considerable changes over the last few decades, as hasthe type of work with which policy is associated (Colebatch, Hoppe, & Noorde-graaf, 2010a).

Despite keeping to the foregoing premises evident in a number of inter-

national studies into the nature of policy work, the corresponding stream ofresearch displays two major limitations. First, it has been, to a large extent, de-

void of theory building and utilisation (Colebatch, 2007). Second, the existingempirical accounts of policy work are often partial, fragmented, based on anec-

dotal evidence and lacking in synthesis and generalizable observations (Howl-ett, 2009b, 2009c; Howlett & Newman, 2010). In relection of these limitationsattesting to the early stage of policy work research, our goals are modest. Tak-ing Colebatchs (2006a) What Work Makes Policy as a point of departure, weaim to provide a review of policy work for the CEJPP special issue on pol -icy work. To this end, we review theoretical and empirical accounts of policyworkers (mainly) located in government bureaucracies, identify points of con-vergence and link them to essential assumptions on research into policy work.

Hence, the focus of our review is on policy work done within government bu-reaucracies, though we are aware that policy work is by no means limited to

these bureaucratic settings3 and also gets done outside governmental organi-zations (such as NGOs or private sector consulting irms see Evans and Well -stead, 2013).

In line with the papers goals, we start by analysing policy work as activ-

ity within government bureaucracies from three interrelated perspectives. The

3 There are also intra-governmental but non-bureaucratic actors (such as partisan advisors) in-volved in policy work. However, much of the empirical research on policy workers i s derived from

inquires among bureaucrats, either by quantitative questionnaires or qualitative interviews.

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icy work. Such knowledge can be gained either through formal education in

specialised courses at the faculties of medicine focusing e.g. on health sectoreconomics or health policy (typically France) or through on-the-job trainingprovided by the employer or externally (typically UK). The latter case seemsto make provisions for policy workers specialising in linking up (bridging) thedifferent worlds of science, public policy or public administration. This ten -dency is augmented by increasing differentiation of knowledge and specialisa-

tion of tasks of public administrators.This brief overview suggests that policy work takes on a range of forms

and that policy workers (in public administration) perform a range of taskswhich, one way or another, affect public policies and their outcomes (Radin,2000; Colebatch, 2006a, 2010; Howlett & Wellstead, 2011; Mayer, van Daalen,& Bots, 2004). For policy work, they utilise different sorts of knowledge onan every-day basis, with their professional conduct driven by internal moti-vations. These three interconnected perspectives underlying policy work, i.e.

knowledge, activities and motivations, are theoretically and conceptually dealtwith in the following two sections.

Knowledge and activities of policy workers

The idea of the importance of policy workers in formulation and implementa-tion of public policies is developed in many seminal works (Weber, 1972; Heclo,1974; Meltsner, 1975). The traditional view of policy work links it to providing ad -vice for decision-makers, and considers public policy as anauthoritative choice(Colebatch, 2006a) made by politicians or top-positioned bureaucrats on thegrounds of rational and evidence-based expert advice. By application of researchmethods, the experts produce knowledge on the problem and subsequently usepolicy-analytical tools in order to structure information and opportunity for pol-icy makers to develop alternative choices (Gill & Saunders, 1992, p. 67).

Key activities of rational policy work are therefore scientiic research and,especially, conversion of scientiic knowledge into concrete assumptions on

public policy-making (Mayer at al., 2004). These activities are done by knowl-edge makers producing research reports, articles etc. and by knowledge bro-

kers whose task is to shape the knowledge obtained into the texts of publicpolicy documents (from brieing notes to white and green papers) (see Evans& Wellstead, 2013). Policy workers thus take part in deining social problems,clarifying public policy goals, identifying strategies for goal achievement, mak-

6 Or boundary workers spanning the borderline between science and public policy (Hoppe, 2005;2009).

In this respect, Colebatchs three accounts of policy seem to emerge as themost sophisticated and are developed further in the text. When deining policywork, we concur that the work of policy is concerned with the interplay of dif-

ferent forms of knowledge, different organizational locations and different un-derstandings of the process (Colebatch 2006a, p. 316) that (should) lead on tomaking a public policy decision. Policy work entails such a wide range of activ-ities that it seems to be a combination of several professions, i.e. meta-profes-

sion, rather than a single profession. The overarching concept of policy workthus covers not only policy analysts in the traditional sense but also other pro-

fessions such as lawyers, doctors, architects, etc. that utilise their expertiseone way of another in order to participate in the making of what we call pol-

icy. Therefore, the concept of policy work encompasses an attempt to capturebroadening roles and responsibilities of people involved in public policy anal-ysis (Radin, 2000; 2013) located either in public bureaucracies, academe, NGOsor the private proit sector.

Traditionally, policy work is located within public administration and isthus done by professional public servants (Halligan 1995) or shortly policy bu-reaucrats (Page & Jenkins, 2005). They can be further divide into two basicgroups (Gargan, 2007, p. 1129):

professionals i n public administration possessing either knowledge usablebeyond public administration (i.e. common service professionals such asdoctors, lawyers, economists) or the kind of knowledge speciic to servicesprovided predominantly by government (i.e. public service professionalssuch as soldiers, diplomats, police oficers, foresters and the like). In bothcases, these are professionals with a university degree in a concrete ield ofstudy (economics, law, medicine, architecture etc.);

professionals for public administration involved in administration, man-

agement and supervision of government affairs. Performance of theseactivities does not require specialised education but the application of ana-

lytical skills, reasoning, personal responsibility as well as a large amount ofknowledge of principles, concepts and practices central to public adminis-

tration and/or management.

Medical doctors, lawyers and other professionals in public administration, aswell as professionals for it, utilise a different sort of knowledge for their pol-

5 Given the changes aecting public administration, the boundaries between individual categoriesbecome more diuse, as privatisation of some public services creates ample opportunities forengagement of some public service professionals in the private sector (e.g. in healthcare or pro-

vision of security services).

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representatives of such a role aregeneralists who usually lack formal education

in research and/or policy analysis and rarely solve substantive problems intheir ields of education (Meltsner, 1975; 1976; Feldman, 1989; Page & Jenkins,2005). Given the political nature of their activities, generalists need politicalskills such as negotiation, bargaining, reconciling opposite views or buildingsupport, contacts, networks, etc. This should be done regardless the outwardor inward orientation of the activities (Howlett & Wellstead, 2011). General -ists thus possess knowledge of complex processes leading to the acceptanceof a given public policy, i.e. process experti se (Page, 2009; 2010, p. 259). Theirknowledge combines practical and technical understanding of personal and in-stitutional characteristics (techn, Tenbensel 2006, p. 202), is often implicit innature and is based on individual experience and skills. Another important as-pect of techn knowledge is its universal transferability and applicability in dif-ferent areas of public policy (Page & Jenkins, 2005).

Related to knowledge are values and arguments held by individual ac-tors. Conlicts accompanying the policy process are often underlain by norma -tive and ethical issues. These issues, which cannot be fully resolved by rational

analysis, are part of a social construction of public policy problems (Colebatch,2006). In this respect, policy work accounts for how actors identify and formu -

late problems, which meanings they attribute to different aspects of a problem(e.g. framing) and ultimately how they perceive the outside world. Public pol -icy is thus understood more as looking for a collective action. Acknowledge-ment of values and arguments can help towards improving a policy debate

(through achieving a shared understanding among actors, identifying bias orweak points in argumentation, etc.) and also towards democratising a politicalregime as such (Mayer et al., 2004). Furthermore, policy workers can limit in -equities between representations of certain actor groups by drawing attention

to their attitudes and views, thus increasing their participation in issue solving.This conceptualisation of policy work is closely associated with normative is-

sues related to aspirations of a society or desirability and utility of public pol-icy goals. These issues cannot be resolved merely on the basis of scientiic or

technical scholarship but through the application ofpractical knowledge (phro-nesis, Tenbensel, 2006, p. 202) which enables to identify various deinitions ofa problem and to ind an answer to the question what should be done. Policyworkers dealing with such tasks are termed policy philosophers (Hoppe & J eli-azkova, 2006) or democratic issue advocates/activists (Mayer et al. 2004) whohave knowledge of the problem and are willing to actively engage in it, thus de-

ciding on the course of public policies.The foregoing review suggests two major dimensions that are key to under-

standing who policy workers are, what they do and what their role in public pol-

ing recommendations of the most plausible solutions and possibly evaluating

the effects of such solutions. In searching for optimal problem solutions, theyutilise a toolkit comprising microeconomic analysis (the concepts of supplyand demand, market failure, state failure, 3E etc.), quantitative methods (cost-utility analyses such as CMA, CBA, CEA, CUA etc.) and analysis of organisation. The concept of rational policy work thus sees policy workers as technicianswho possess specialized knowledge (Meltsner, 1975, 1976). In the context of ra -tional policy accounts, scientiic expertise is the most valued (Page, 2009; 2010,p. 259). At the same time, technicians utilise as well as create epistemic knowl -edge (Tenbensel, 2006, p. 202) of causal relationships between social phe-nomena, enabling to identify the causes and effects of public policy problems.

This episteme along with public poli cy expertise (Page, 2009, 2010, p. 259), i.e.knowledge of public policies and instruments (past and present, rejected andaccepted) relevant and functional in a certain public policy area, enables iden -tiication and evaluation of alternative solutions to policy problems.

However, the instrumental account of public policy as a result of authorita-tive government decision-making became untenable vis--vis existing practice

and knowledge of policy process realities. For this reason, public policy theoryand practice became preoccupied with the presence and impact of other pol-

icy actors as bearers of different (conlicting) interests in policy problems andtheir solution. These actors typically engage in structured interactions (Cole-batch, 2006a). Here, the role of policy workers is to identify these different ac -tors categories along with areas of their interests to provide the client (notnecessarily the decision-maker) with strategic advice on how to most effec -tively achieve the deined goal under a given political constellation (Mayer atal., 2004, p. 176). Instead of inding rational solutions to policy problems, pol -icy work is used for getting support for certain ideas and interests, respec-tively (Tao, 2006; Feldman & March, 1981). In this respect, another key activityis making, maintaining a nd coordinating the actors interaction. Policy workers

are expected to be more intensively involved in client consultations, public di-alogue and consensus making, thus becoming mediators who set and control

the rules and sustain actors interactions (Wellstead, Stedman, & Lindquist,2009, p. 37; Mayer at al. 2004, p. 177).

Such varied expectations are associated with different demands on policyworkers as far as their activities and knowledge are concerned. Ideal-typical

7 See classic textbook texts on policy analysis by Patton and Sawicky (1993) or Weimer and Vining(1999).

8 Knowledge of abstract concepts for a given problem, relevant theories and a range of researchand analytical techniques for their application.

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Table 1 Roles of policy workers (selected examples)

Pr oc es s or ien ta ti on P ro bl em o ri ent ati on

Neutral advice (analytical

integrity, objectivity)

process generalist, neo-

Weberian

objective/independent

technician, expert advisor

Client-oriented advice,

activism

client advocate, client

adviser, networker

policy/issue advocate, policy

philosopher, issue activist

Source: own compilation, dimensions modied from Hoppe and Jeliazkova (2006).

Lastly, we wish to deal with the dimension of time. On this dimension,Howlett (2011, p. 258) differentiates between a short-term and long-term hori-zon, each of them requiring policy workers to apply different approaches andmethods. In this regard, one can identify ad-hoc problem solvers/troubleshoot-ers and planners (Wellstead et al., 2007; Howlett, Yew, & Wellstead, 2010). Theactivities of policy workers in these roles are likely to be mostly routine or in-

novative, having a technical or consultative character (Howlett & Wellstead,2011, p. 624). Similarly, Husted (2013) makes a distinction within policy-advi-sory systems between every-day advisors in public administration and long-term outside advisors.

Motivation of policy bureaucrats

Policy workers located in government bureaucracies (policy bureaucrats) areconsidered the main source of expertise as far as policy formulation and im-plementation are concerned. In the previous section, we identiied a two-foldnature of their knowledge, i.e. material related to a factual cause of policyproblems and procedural comprising knowledge of the functioning of pub-lic administration and public policy. Compared to other actors, this two-foldknowledge puts policy bureaucrats into an exclusive position, thus problema-

tising the ideal-typical idea of politico-administrative relations characterisedby impartial bureaucratic advice to politicians and effective execution of po-

litical decisions. Conversely, many theoreticians argue (sometimes from quitedifferent perspectives) for the inherent dificulty of lay political control overexpert-bureaucrats, emphasising aspects of political dependence on expertise,professional dominance as well as technocratic governing subject to instru-

mental rationality. In this respect, theorists of public choice speak of an infor-mation asymmetry as the cause of ineficiency and ineffectiveness of publicadministration (Page, 2009, p. 256). More speciically, they suggest that policybureaucrats follow only their own, short-term interests, motivated by utility

maximisation. This bureaucratic conduct, among other things, is manifest in

icy-making is. The irst dimension relates to the well-known Meltsners (1975;1976) division of policy bureaucrats into technicians and generalists according totheir skills which was further developed especially with regard to the role of pro -cess generalists and public policy outputs (Feldman, 1989; Page & Jenkins, 2005).These professionals can act as administrative/bureaucratic policy entrepreneurs(Howard, 2002; Page, 2009, p. 263) or negotiating bureaucrats (Johanson, 2012)and actively engage in a decision-making process and public policy implementa-

tion. As Howlett states in his study of public administration managers:

Policy managers are not simply administrators and there is no evidence

of a strong politics/policy-administration dichotomy in their ongoing pol-

icy work. the policy roles played by policy managers are signiicant and

in most respects very similar to those played by nonmanagerial policy ana -

lysts. However, it also suggests that managers enjoy some advantages over

nonmanagers in terms of their access to key decision makers and their ability

to deal with longer term issues, and notes a more signiicant role played by

managers in policy formulation and design.(Howlett, 2011, p. 258)

Similarly, Page and Jenkins (2005, p. 168) question the clear-cut division be-

tween technical and process-oriented roles, pointing out that policy workersin lower managerial positions (i.e. relatively young and inexperienced ones)have a signiicant responsibility for the making and maintenance of public pol -icies and programs. They provide their formal superiors with technical advice,

though they do not possess a high level of technical and factual expertise and/or long-term experience with a given topic. As Page and Jenkins (ibid.) reason,this is due to vague instructions they receive for work tasks, missing supervi-sion and work in environment which is, to an extent, not hierarchical.

The technician vs. generalist dichotomy cannot handle the differentiatedroles of policy workers. For this reason, it is complemented by the dimensionof policy workers professional and value orientations. This dimension ac-counts for preferred forms of objective/technical knowledge and advice which

respect their professional identity of researchers/analysts. On the other hand,there may be policy workers who focus more on their client (who may be a

concrete person, a marginalized group or, in the widest sense, a community ora society) and whose advisory activities are determined by activism or politi-cal loyalty. These two ideal-typical roles of policy workers have given rise to atwo-dimensional model that found its use in a good deal of theoretical and em-pirical studies on policy workers roles (e.g. Jenkins-Smith, 1982; Durning & Os -una, 1994; Hoppe & Jeliazkova, 2006 Mayer, et al., 2004). The interplay of policyworkers ideal-typical roles with their orientations is set out in Table 1.

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eficiency and place higher value on immaterial goods such as perceived workimportance, contribution to common good, etc. (Perry, Hondeghem, & Wise,2010). From the viewpoint of policy work, the relation between PSM and policyworkers preference for certain tasks seems to be an attractive and under-re-searched theme; we will deal with it further in some detail below.

The concept of a bureaucratic motivation based on rational utility maximi-sation and self-interest was also criticised by Dunleavy (1991), who proposedthe model of bureaucratic policy advice as preferable to routine provision ofservice. Bureaucrats prefer policy advice because they see it as intellectuallystimulating and having a greater impact on policy outputs. Furthermore, the

motivation for policy advice is, especially during institutional reforms, likelyto lead to the emergence of a bureau-shaping model characterised by a smallnumber of well-paid bureaucrats working in close afinity to the power cen-tre (ibid.). Gains and John (2010) applied Dunleavys model empirically to theUK local administration and identiied a group of bureaucrats with preferencefor tasks related to policy formulation. The second identiied group consistedof bureaucrats preferring policy implementation tasks that were also usuallyfound impacting on the size of an ofice and its budget. The evidence thus ob -tained shows that especially senior bureaucrats are capable of creating a work

environment suitable to their tasks, although a causal link between senior bu-reaucrats ability to shape work conditions and suitability of their work tasks

cannot be proved.

these ive statistical models show support for the idea that the different

dimensions of bureaucratic attitudes are linked to the varying amounts of

time that respondents spend on particular tasks, over and above what we ex-

pect from their role, experience, and the type of council they work in. Bureau-

crats who value the autonomy of the policy-making core seem to be located

in a bureau that is designed to achieve their desired goal.(ibid., p. 460)

The expectation thus is that autonomy like this, to a signiicant extent, re -

lates only to senior bureaucrats that some authors ranks among policy-mak-ers rather than policy workers providing political counselling. The latter can

be especially found in mid-ranking and lower positions within a state admin-istration hierarchy where they mostly cannot inluence the nature of policytasks. The tasks are largely set by the organisational structure (form) the bu -reaucrats are embedded in and by political and administrative culture (nor-mative and value orientation). These factors are not linked to bureaucraticinternal motivation setting bureaucrats position-related expectations and ful-ilment of institutional values above their personal interests (March & Olsen,

efforts into maximisation of ofice budgets (Niskanen, 1971; Tullock, 1987), es -pecially parts thereof directly subject to bureaucratic discretion and directlyusable by bureaucrats themselves (Niskanen, 1991).

Although this may be a signiicant problem in terms of effective pub-lic spending, the question is if, and to what extent, such motivation for util-

ity maximisation is capable of affecting real public policy outputs. As Egeberg(1995) points out, the relationship between private proit of a concrete bu -reaucrat and the public policy (social, health, etc.) he/she is involved in is of-ten quite loose, so one cannot plausibly assume rational utility maximisation.

One can, however, assume a closer relationship of this kind in cases where thebureaucrat decides as a member of some social group (social, ethnic, religious,etc.), acting as a bearer of a group interest. Correspondingly, Downs (1967)presents a more nuanced picture of bureaucrats individual motivations, con-

sidering them as rational, self-interested utility maximisers, though not ulti-mately and not under any circumstances. Hence, he distinguishes among iveideal types of a bureaucrat. These are: 1) climbermotivated by his/her status(power, income) increase; 2) conserverseeking his/her safety and comfort; 3)advocate pushing through interests of his/her ofice; 4) zealotproclaiming loy-alty to concrete sacred policies and 5) statesman advocating collective inter-

ests that may be at odds with his/her ofice preferences (Downs, 1967; Brewer& Maranto, 2000). Whilst the motivation of the irst two types of policy bureau -crats can be considered utilitarian, the other types also exhibit motives relatedto group interests or altruism.

Group or altruistic interests are present in the very nature of public sec-tor organisations. Unlike the private sector, public sector organisations tend

to promote ethical aspects of service and motives associated with civil duties,compassion, self-sacriice and the like (Perry & Wise, 1990). Such public ser -vice motivation (PSM) can thus be understood as altruistic motivation to servethe interests of a community, state or mankind in general (Rainey & Stein-bauer, 1999). PSM as a set of psychological needs fulilled by work in publicservice organisations is composed of the rational (utility maximisation), nor-

mative (fulilment of public interest) and affective (human emotions) ingre -dients (Perry & Wise, 1990). Corresponding empirical research lends supportto a hypothesis that people with higher PSM tend to be employed more fre-quently in public organisations rather than for-proit irms , show higher work

9 Although causality of this relation has not yet been proved unanimously. According to Vandena-beele (2007), it rather concerns mutual inuence between an individual and an organisation inwhich people with higher PSM tend to choose organisations with values close to their own and

are, at the same time, socialised into those values.

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teristics of policy work as practiced in several North American and European

countries, inviting comparison for differences and similarities. The annexed ta-ble summarizes the varying depth and breath of contextual as well as meth-odological speciics by reviewing selectedempirical accounts of policy work inindividual countries.

The accounts of Canadian policy workers practices are the richest andcover all major organisational levels, i.e. federal, provincial and regional (Howl-

ett & Newman, 2010; Howlett et al., 2010; Wellstead & Stedman, 2010). The fed-eral policy work typically constitutes of solving complex problems requiring

horizontal inter-departmental or inter-sectoral coordination as well as somenetworking within or outside Canada. Yet much time is devoted to dealing withunexpected, pressing issues (ire-ighting). Federal policy workers are mostlymales under 50 years of age with a university degree in humanities, sometraining in formal policy analytical techniques and some prior experience ob-tained in the private sector or academia (Howlett & Newman, 2010; Wellstead,Stedman, & Lindquist, 2009; Baskoy, Evans, & Shields, 2011). Unlike their fed-eral counterparts, Canadian provincial/state policy workers are mostly femalesin their 40s50s with 15 years of on-the-job experience and diverse univer -sity education but without formal policy analysis training. The provincial/

territorial policy work entails policy appraisal, implementation, strategic bro-kerage or evaluation, requiring solutions of prevailingly day-to-day or weekly

problems mostly through qualitative and informal methods11 (Howlett, 2009b;Howlett & Wellstead, 2011; Howlett & Newman, 2010; Baskoy et al., 2011). Suchshort-term problem-solving work is, however, hindered by lack of support

by senior staff or the work environment, little demand for high quality work,overload or lack of proper training (Howlett et al., 2010). Somewhat similarly,regional policy work in Canada is done mainly by men over 40 but involvesprincipally rudimentary, non-analytical actions (information gathering) andstreet-level activities including client-oriented service, communication and ne-

gotiation. These activities are short-term and relatively simple but require im-mediate solution. It follows that Canadian regional policy workers are typically

ire-ighters with quite a long experience (over 20 years) and university edu -cation mostly in natural sciences or management (Wellstead et al., 2009; Well -stead & Stedman 2010).

Compared to the Canadian contexts of policy work, the corresponding evi-dence from USA or Europe is somewhat less detailed and sometimes outdated.

10 In political science, business management, economics, public administration or sociology.11 Brainstorming, consultation exercises, checklists, scenario analysis, expert judgements or focus

groups.

1989; Egeberg, 1995). Nonetheless, preferences (motivation) of bureaucrats arestill of importance at these administrative (low- to mid-ranking) positions be-cause they impact on how these bureaucrats carry out their tasks and behavein concrete situations. As Hoppe and Jeliazkova (2006, p. 38) point out, minis -terial bureaucrats cannot refuse a set task and are expected to prefer the inter-

ests of their ministers to their own. However, how they achieve this, i.e. whatwork they really do and to whom they express their loyalty, can differ. In this

respect, there will always be a certain tension between the role of a loyal bu-reaucrat acting in accordance with his/her values and the organizational rules

embedded in codes of practice (logic ofappropriateness) or community inter-ests and the self-interested preference of personal goals (logic of consequences)(March & Olsen, 2008). Within an effective public administration system, thelogic of appropriateness should prevail as real-time policies show a very looserelationship between a concrete set of measures and the personal proit of abureaucrat. This observation, however, may not be true when organisationalissues are at stake (e.g. when deciding on a departmental budget and thus, ineffect, on bureaucrats salaries) or when there are clientelistic networks proit-ing from the measures taken (Egeberg 1995). In all these cases, self-interest orgroup-interest seeking may be preferable to being held accountable to a wider

community (citizenry).

There is probably no reason to believe that the agency-employed engineer

or jurist will share the attitudes of their policy-making-oriented colleagues

on the (lack of) attractiveness of technical and routine matters In other

words, their potential private interests are not understandable without

knowing their organizational and professional afiliations. (Egeberg, 1995,p. 161)

Contexts of policy work empirical research of policy workers

Despite a somewhat short tradition of policy work research, several enquiries

have already been made into the activities of policy workers in different con-texts. These studies are country-speciic, mapping the work of policy workerslocated in different functional levels (federal, state/provincial, regional) contin-gent on the organisational structure of a countrys public administration. Theexisting accounts of policy work come mostly from Canada but also, to a lesserextent, from USA and some European countries, including especially the UnitedKingdom, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands as well as the Czech Republic.Subscribing to the importance of empirical research for clariication of profes-sional work identities (Mosey, 1985), this section presents contextual charac-

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quired by workplace socialisation during fairly long on-the-job experiencerather than by university education (Ribbhagen, 2011). Similarly, policy broker -age aimed at construction of shared meanings seems to be taking root in Dutch

policy workers practices. This tendency, evidenced by some recent case stud-ies (Metze, 2010; de Vries et al., 2010; Loebner, 2010), may point to the grow -ing number of roles related to doing policy work in the Netherlands (cf. Hoppe& Jeliazkova, 2006). Finally, Czech policy practitioners located in government

bureaucracies seem to be caught between post-socialist and West-Europeanadministrative spaces (Scherpereel, 2004), associating themselves primarilywith their departments and showing little tendency to stay on the job for morethan ive years (Drulk, esal, & Hampl, 2002). This may be due to increasedpoliticisation of Czech public administration as well as to organisational dif-iculties related to the adoption ofAcquis communautaire (Drulk, esal, &Hampl, 2003).

The foregoing accounts of contexts in which policy work is practiced al-

low for two general observations. First, in line with the propositions of the pol-icy work stream, the Canadian situation backed up by some European evidencepresent a case for empirically dismissing the traditional notion of policy practi-tioners as masters of technocratic agendas. Second, as the US or German cases

suggest, there is still some room for advocacy of such a textbook approach topolicy work. In this respect, it might further be worthwhile to engage in em-

pirical explorations of variations in attributes of policy work in the federal vs.non-federal systems and in shared-power vs. parliamentary systems (cf. Radin,2013). Hence, evidently, there is a need for more up-to-date, preferably large-Nempirical studies providing fresh insights into different policy work contexts,located especially in European and US settings.

POLICY WORK AS SCIENTIFIC ENqUIRY

In previous sections we approached policy work as activity with implications

for theory and practice. However, we argue that deeper understanding of policywork also requires familiarity with approaches to the enquiry into this phenom-enon, as any scientiic enquiry enables to deine the object of research and waysof approaching it. In the case of policy work, one can hardly speak of a speciic

16 It takes over 20 years to reach the top bureaucratic position (undersecretaries, assistant under-secretaries, director-generals).

17 Examples include inadequate inter-sectoral communication, slow adaptation and resistance tochanges.

As far as US policy work is concerned, it shows heterogeneity of motivations(typically slackers vs. zealots) and rather weak federal bureaucracies, rarelydelivering services to citizenry due to delegation of such tasks to lower admin-istrative levels (states, regions). Analytically, the U.S. bureaucratic motivationsidentiied resemble the two ideal types set by Downs (1967), i.e. those pro -claiming loyalty to sacred policies (zealots) and those more politically neutral,seeking security and comfort of the position (slackers as conservers of a kind).

Furthermore, federal bureaucracies are somewhat more prone to political in -luence compared to the state level, with few federal policy workers having thecorresponding training and experience from state or regional administration(Radin & Boase, 2000; Gailmard & Petty, 2007). Additionally, there is some em -pirical evidence of rising educational attainment12 along with increasing ethnicand gender diversity among US federal bureaucrats who see themselves pre-

dominantly as technicians or legalists13 (Aberbach, 2003). Somewhat similarly,expert problem-solving and implementation of political goals are the roles Ger-man federal bureaucrats most often associate themselves with (Derlien, 2003).It is argued that such role perception largely emphasises the classical Webe-

rian ideal of the neutral expert civil servant as a role taken at federal level pre-vailingly by men with university education in law or economics who spent

little time outside the administrative structures after graduation (ibid.)Contrary to the US or German situation, a recent enquiry into the nature

of policy work in the United Kingdom points to a tendency of governmentalpolicy bureaucrats to act as policy process generalists (Page & Jenkins, 2005).These generalists have little practical experience and technical expertise in

substantive policy areas, exercising their discretionary authority in not overtlyhierarchical settings (ibid). The earlier surveys done at the turn of the 1980sand 1990s (Wilson & Barker, 2003) seem to substantiate some of these charac -teristics of UK practitioners, i.e. university education and a general nature oftasks associated with giving policy advice along with managerial assignments,

but deviate in others such as length of practitioners experience. The chang-ing contexts of policy work towards application of less formal techniques are

corroborated by evidence from Sweden, where top-positioned, predominantlymale government bureaucrats increasingly engage in policy advice and cli-ent-brokerage (Ehn et al., 2003). Expectably, the corresponding skills are ac -

12 93% had reached university education by 1992.13 The corresponding data are more than two decades old, collected between 1971 and 1992.14 The data on which these premises are based refer back to 1987.15 The percentage of Oxbridge-educated practitioners fell by about one-third (from over 70% to

less than 50%) between the early 1990s and the early 2000s (Wilson & Barker, 2003).

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professional training of policy analysts and policy workers, respectively, mustbe clariied (cf. Colebatch & Radin, 2006, p. 225; Howlett, 2009c, p. 167168).

At the present time, it is possible to distinguish two major approaches topolicy work linked by the same object of enquiry, i.e. the work of policy, rather

than by the same research theory or methodology. These are a policy work ap-

proach and a policy analytical capacity approach. Each approach tends to ac-centuate different foci and frames of research. Still, researching policy work

through activities of policy workers is common to both of them. The two ap-proaches are dealt with in some detail in the next two sections.

The policy work approach

The policy work approach gave the entire line of enquiry its name and can

be probably considered as offering an advanced conceptualisation of policywork and policy workers. This approach draws from an integral research pro-gramme formulated especially by Hal Colebatch (Colebatch, 2006a; Colebatch,2006b; Colebatch et al., 2010). It starts with the idea of a shift in the subjectmatter of policy analysis as presented by Radin (2000) in relection of its pre-sent-day dynamics. Putting emphasis on the current policy practice, the policy

work approach is rooted in interpretative policy analysis and discursive anal-ysis, referring to the idea of public policy as a social construction. More gen-

erally, it relates to the argumentative turn in policy studies, i.e. interpretativepolicy analysis (e.g. Hoppe, 1999) and governmentality studies (e.g. Colebatch,2002). In this regard, we could term it as an interpretative approach to thestudy of policy work. Methodologically, it utilises mostly qualitative and con-structivist methods (see Colebatch, 2006b; Colebatch et al., 2010).

The important point here is that rather than extending the term pol-

icy analysis, the policy work approach seems to present a distinct concept.The reasons for this may be associated with the adoption of an argumentativestrategy (Dryzek & Leonard, 1988) legitimising a new research programme inwhich traditional policy analysis gets replaced by the overarching policy work.

The application of content analysis makes it possible to reconstruct a certaintradition of policy work enquiry. However, since the tradition is short, sucha step would signify Jourdins talk in prose, i.e. the traditional strategy of ap -propriating history by re-telling it. This emanates especially from the phrase

going back to the roots i.e., in this case, to the study of the activities of statebureaucracy and policy advice. Here, it might also be worthwhile to point outthat the policy work approach relects a speciic construction of public policymade by the observers as well as their strategy to depart from the present-daypolicy analysis mainstream.

research programme in Lakatoss sense (e.g. Lakatos, 1970). Rather, it seemsthat policy work enquiries are underlain by a stream of different approaches

that might be explained by several characteristics they have in common.The roots of enquiry into policy work can be chronologically traced back to

the IPSA congress held in Durban in 2003 when a research community laggingup the issue of policy work was formed (Colebatch, 2006a). Since then, the pol -icy work community has found its place among public policy scholars through

research activities and major scientiic publication setting the directions forenquiry (see Colebatch, 2006a; 2006b; Howlett, 2009c; Colebatch et al., 2010).Acknowledgment of policy work as the object of scientiic enquiry and thecommunity centred around it can be documented by regular panels on policywork at the conference of Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA), IPSA congress inMadrid in 2012 or the 1 International Conference on Public Policy held in Gre -noble in June 2013.

Despite some (desirable) heterogeneity of policy work enquiries, pol-icy work researchers can be said to unite in three respects. First, as we doc-umented in previous parts of the text, they critically perceive the traditional(American) public policy literature. Second, they question the not-so-recent su-periority of US public policy enquiries. Interestingly, the criticism of traditional

US policy analysis seems to have found highest response on the rim of the An-glo-Saxon world, i.e. in Australia (Colebatch), Canada (Howlett), and, somewhatoverstating the case, also in the Netherlands (Hoppe). Third, the policy workcommunity contests the narrow deinition of policy as a problem-solving activ-ity insofar as it misses out on other policy dimensions such as a ctors social in-teraction or social construction of public policies.

Although negative identiication through three sets of criticism is under -standable in our present-day post-era, policy work as the object of scientiicenquiry also entails some progressive aspects. The most important one seemsto be an interest in enlarging the areas of theory and practice of public policyanalysis as posited in the seminal work of Radin (2000; 2013). Proponents ofdifferent approaches to policy work further agree that empirical research into

policy work must focus on three problem areas relecting the shift in under-standing public policy analysis. Hence, irstly, the essence (seminal character-istics) of policy work in speciic contexts must be identiied. Here, the enquiryis driven primarily by questions on how (and which) policy workers becomeinvolved in the policy-making process, how the discourse is framed and madevalid, as well as how policy work relates to concrete effects of given policies inany stage of its making. Secondly, evidence from policy practitioners must be

sought in sense of what kind of activity they (do not) consider policy work andwhat type of policy work they acknowledge. Thirdly, issues of education and

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vironmental scanning, trends analysis and forecasting. The purpose of such

capacities is not only to estimate public opinion along with the preferences ofinterest groups and other major public policy actors but also to foresee futurepublic policy outcomes. Secondly, PAC entails the ability to manage informationlows, i.e. the capacities of government organisations to pass policy messagesto interested parties and stakeholders as well as the organisational capacities

to articulate mid- and long-term priorities and to phase information into the

public policy making process (Howlett, 2009c, p. 162163)PAC is determined by the policy advisory system that refers to the organ -

isational coniguration of policy research and analytical activities. This con -iguration typically evolves in longer term and, in public policy, entails bothgovernment bureaucracies and non-governmental actors such as think-tanks,media, consultants, employers and trade unions, interest groups and the like.The point is that these actors are, in a given coniguration, usually positionedin market-like arrangements. It means that there is a distribution of work be -

tween those who supply basic data and those who mediate relevant researchto satisfy the demand of public policy makers for facts and information (cf.Howlett & Oliphant, 2010, p. 19). This line of enquiry is further followed in thepresent issue by Husted (2013) in her investigation of policy advice in German

climate policy and by Evans and Wellstead (2013) in their comparison of policyworkers in Canadian public administration and NGOs.

Finally, the crucial point for connecting analytical capacities with policy

work research lies in the tension between the canon of policy analysis text-books (academics) and the real activities of policy analysts (practitioners)bearing on their factual analytical capacities. For policy work researchers, this

tension generates two main empirical questions, i.e. what present-day policyanalysts located in government bureaucracies or non-government organisa-tions really do and, more speciically, whether (and to what extent) educationand professional training of policy analysts meets the requirements of evi-dence-based policy-making (Howlett, 2009c, p. 163164). In focusing on pol -icy analysts actual behaviour and job performance, Howlett and his colleagues

therefore endow policy work research with an emphasis on analytical capaci-ties in the area of public policy, thus presenting sociology of policy analysis.

Such research orientation is not only concerned with present-day policy ana-lysts identities and work performance, i.e. who policy analysts really are and

what they do but also with their pedagogy, i.e. how the analysts are educatedand to what extent their education its their work (cf. Howlett, 2009c, p. 168).

The policy analytical capacity approach

The policy analytical capacity (PAC) approach can be widely understood asa low of empirical research into activities of public policy analysts. Such re -search manifests especially in quantitative investigations of Canadian publicadministration and Canadian bureaucracy on different levels (e.g. Dobuziskis,Howlett, & Laycock, 2007; Wellstead, Stedman, Joshi, & Lindquist, 2007; Howl -

ett, 2009b; Wellstead et al., 2009; Howlett & Wellstead, 2011; Wellstead et al.,2011). With reference to publication achievements, it is possible to state thatthe PAC approach presently gains in importance as far as researching policywork and policy workers is concerned. Central to this approach are the worksof Michael Howlett, and especially his 2009 article formulating the program-matic base of the PAC approach (Howlett, 2009c).

The embeddedness of our enquiry in the work of policy irst directs ourconcern to the PACconceptualisation of policy analysis. To Howlett, policy anal-ysis seems to represent efforts of actors inside and outside formal decision-making processes to improve policy outcomes by the application of systematic

evaluative rationality to public policy problems and concerns. He sees the pri-mary purpose of policy analysis in improving public policy outcomes by apply-

ing systematic analytical methodologies to public policy evaluations (Howlett,2009c, p. 154). This conceptualisation, however, seems to come very close tothe sacred concept of public policies as the process of problem identiicationand solution. For this reason, it can be subject to critique by advocates of policywork enquiry, hence our concern with it here. The reason may be that Howlett

attempts to link this conceptualisation to the study of public policy capacities,evidence-based policy-making and policy design whose closer scrutiny, how-ever, goes beyond the scope of this article. Hence, to repeat, while the policy

work approach draws from governmentality and interpretative policy analysis,the policy analytical capacity approach is above all embedded in the concepts

of policy capacity, evidence-based policy-making and policy design.Second, we deal with the pivotal concept ofpolicy analytical capacity(or

policy research capacity) lying at the heart of the PAC approach (Howlett,2009c; Howlett & Oliphant, 2010, special issue of Canadian Political Science Re -view 2012/1). PAC is deined as the ability of an organization to carry out re -search and analysis of public policies in publicly problematic areas (Howlett &Oliphant, 2010, p. 34) and is determined by two major elements. Firstly, it re -fers to public policy research and the corresponding analytical assumptions.

These lie in the quantity of basic research that government organisations cando or access and in the capacities of government organisations to apply sta-

tistical methods, experimental methods and advanced modelling such as en-

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and Sweden, with other research results generated through qualitative surveys(Netherlands, Hungary, United Kingdom) or signiicantly outdated if based onlarge-N surveys (Germany as well as USA).

As much as we share the prospects of gaining more in-depth knowledgefrom the application of qualitative surveys (PW approach), clearly there is aneed for more large-scale empirical enquiries. It is both attractive and desira-ble to push forward the empirical research on policy workers towards a com-

parative perspective. Such comparison should include not only in-depth (albeitrather isolated) case studies from different sectors/levels/countries, but alsocross-sectional studies based on a common research tool. Here, the policy an-alytical approach can provide a useful lead, though the research methodolo-gies and designs seem to require modiications according to national/regionalpolicy realities. One of the irst major pieces of comparative work in the ieldis the International Library of Policy Analysis (The Policy Press; series edi -tors Iris Geva-May and Michael Howlett) surveying the state of the art of policyanalysis in governmental and non-governmental organizations in several Eng-lish and non-English speaking countries. Regardless the approach chosen, the

present day policy work enquiries seem to lack in clear hypotheses making,e.g. with regards to description, evaluation and empirical testing of the outputs

of policy work (see Wellstead et al., 2011 for an exception). Efforts like thesemay enhance the explanatory capacity of policy work research as such. In thisrespect, we see an untapped potential in utilisation of country- and region-spe-ciic public administration traditions as factors explaining the (output) charac -teristics of policy work.

To add our own experience with preparation of a quantitative survey in

our country, we are aware that comparative research into policy work is quitechallenging and affected by many conceptual and methodological dificulties.Maybe the most evident (from our perspective) is a distinction between USAand many European countries in terms of policy analysis as a profession. Sucha profession is visibly absent throughout Europe. Particularly in post-social-ist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there is no formal training of pol -

icy analysts, with techniques of policy analysis absent from further educationcourses for public administration staff.In this respect, it emerges as dificult to apply policy work questionnaires

used in one country to a country with a different tradition of policy analy-

sis (and thus a different understanding of what policy analysis is and shouldbe). Still, much trickier may be to deine the basic population of policy ana -lysts/workers and thus to select an appropriate sample for a quantitative sur-vey. This is because one cannot simply rely on job titles or descriptions frompublicly available sources (such as in Canada, see Howlett & Wellstead, 2011) in

CONCLUSIONS: BEYOND ECLECTICISMAND TOWARDS MATURATION

Policy work research, as practiced over the last decade, has broadened thescope of enquiry traditionally attributed to policy analysis. By turning atten-

tion to every-day practitioners activities and experience, it has enriched onesunderstanding of policy process realities beyond those offered in (best-sell-

ing) public policy textbooks. In this respect, different conceptualisations of thework of policy, backed up by some empirical evidence, suggest a magnitude ofpolicy workers tasks evolving, to a greater or lesser extent, from their work

positions (professionals in andforpublic administration). Typically, such tasksrange from pure analysis to short-term problem solving of urgent issues, withthe ire-ighting activities often taking precedence over analytical tasks andapplication of quantitative methods (see the Canadian situation).

The variation in policy workers tasks further seems to have induced anumber of typologies of their roles. Although helpful in documenting the vari-ety of policy workers roles, the question remains to what extent they develop

Meltsners work to a point of universal applicability and replication. For now,they seem to provide a different number of possibly interchangeable types

with the linkages, however, being rather unclear and hard to ind (thus gen-erating yet another typology with dimensions set by the research design lim-itations rather than theory review). In this respect, we plead for analyticalparsimony, building on existing theoretical constructs, mostly combining the

dimensions of worker neutrality vs. activism and process vs. problem orien-tation (see Table 1). The (empirical) speciication of the extent to which thesetypes combine the three major attributes of policy work, i.e. epistm, technand phronesis, may provide a fresh challenge for a policy work theory-building.

The generation of different (but essentially similar?) typologies of pol -icy workers that we are faced with has also implications for terminology and

empirical research on policy work. With regard to the terminology, the liter-ature on policy workers shows several relevant terms (policy analyst, pol-

icy bureaucrat, policy practitioner, policy functionary, policy manager), albeitagain applied somewhat (too) loosely. Although terminological purity shouldnot become a straightjacket, some analytical speciication of the breadth of theterm(s) may be conducive to informing others more effectively on what wetalk about when we talk about policy workers and, more particularly, when we

report on our research results. Along with it goes the need for empirically veri-iable frameworks capable of explaining the complexity of organisational formsof policy work. For now, to our knowledge, representative enquiries relectingthe present-day realities of policy work have been conducted only in Canada

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Colebatch, H. K., & Radin B. A. (2006). Mapping the Work of Policy. In Colebatch H. K.(ed.). The Work of Policy: An International Survey. New York: Rowman and Littleeld,pp. 217226.

Colebatch, H.K, Hoppe, R., & Noordegraaf, M. (2010a). Understanding policy work. InH. Colebatch, R. Hoppe & M. Noordegraaf (Eds.), Working for Policy(pp. 1125).Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Colebatch, H., Hoppe, R., & Noordegraaf, M. (2010b). The Lessons for Policy Work. InH. Colebatch, R. Hoppe & M. Noordegraaf (Eds.), Working for Policy(pp. 227245).

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.Colebatch, H. K. (2002). Government and Governmentality: Using Multiple Approaches tothe Analysis of Government. Australian Journal of Political Science. 37 (3), 417435.

Colebatch, H. K. (2005). Policy analysis, policy practice and political science. AustralianJournal of Public Administration, 64(3), 1423.

Colebatch, H. K. (2006a). What work makes policy? Policy Sciences, 39(4), 309321. doi:10.1007/s1107700690254

Colebatch, H. K. (2006b). The Work of Policy: An International Survey. Latham (MD):Lexington Books.

Colebatch, H. K. (2006c). Thinking about policy: Finding the best way. Paper presented atthe GovNet international conference, Australian National University.

Colebatch, H.K. (2007). The work of policy, the work of analysis. Paper presented at thePublic policy network conference, Australia, Adelaide.

DeLeon, P., & Martel, C. R. (2006). The policy sciences: Past, present and future. In B.G.Peters, Pierre J. (Ed.), Handbook of public policy(pp. 3148). London: Sage.

DeLeon, P., & Vogenbeck, D.M. (2007). The policy sciences at the crossroads. In F. Fisher,Miller, G.J., Sidney, M. (Ed.), Handbook of public policy analysis: Theory, politics and

methods (pp. 314). New York: CRC Press.DeLeon, P. (2006). The historical roots of the eld. In M. Moran, Rein, M., Goodin, R.E.

(Ed.), The Oxford handbook of public policy(pp. 3957). Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Derlien, H.U. (2003). Mandarins or managers? The bureaucratic elite in Bonn, 1970 to 1987and beyond. Governance, 16(3), 401428.

Dobuzinskis, L., Howlett, M., & Laycock, D. (eds.). (2007). Policy Analysis in Canada: TheState of the Art. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Downs, A. (1967). Inside Bureaucracy. Boston: Little, Brown.Drulk, P., esal, J., & Hampl, S. (2002). esk administrativa v procesu ppravy na vstup do

EU. Zkrcen verze zprvy z vzkumnho projektu MZV R [Czech Public Administrationin the process of preparation for accession to the EU. Short version of research report].

Praha: stav mezinrodnch vztah.Drulk, P., esal, J., & Hampl, S. (2003). Interactions and identities of Czech civil servants

on their way to the EU.Journal of European Public Policy, 10(4), 637654.Dryzek, J. S., & Leonard, S. T. (1988). History and Discipline in Political Science.American

Political Science Review. 82, 12451260.Dunleavy, P. (1991). Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice: Economic Explanations in

Political Science New York: Prentice Hall.

Egeberg, M. (1995). Bureaucrats as Public Policy-Makers and Their Self-Interests.Journal ofTheoretical Politics, 7(2), 157167. doi: 10.1177/0951692895007002003

countries where the public policy analysis profession is non-existent and thusnot relected in formal job descriptions. In such cases, researchers are facedwith the problem of studying an indistinct phenomenon which only becomesdelineated by the empirical research itself. We see at least two ways of dealingwith this problem. The irst is to carefully screen all relevant organizations (forexample, ministries) and identify policy workers within them. The second isto establish a broader sample for the survey (e.g. all ministerial employees ex-

cluding those responsible for organisational operations/maintenance such aspersonnel, property administration or auditing) and subsequently to identifyworkers who make policy. Both ways are, indeed, resource-demanding but may

provide a more accurate picture of policy work in countries without the tradi-

tion of professional policy analysis.Lastly but not less importantly, we would like to point out three directions

for policy work research we see as promising to the deepening of our knowl-edge of policy work as practice. First, few accounts of policy work seem to ex-

ist outside government bureaucracies or within the private sector (see Evans& Wellstead, 2013). Second, present-day accounts of policy work seem to besomewhat oblivious of policy workers motivations. Integrating motivationalelements into the corresponding research designs is therefore welcome. Third,

present-day policy work enquiries might beneit from explicitly focusing on thesupra-national level (EU) in order to obtain evidence usable not only in inter -national comparative research (see Geuijen & t Hart, 2010; Geuijen, t Hart, &Princen, 2008).

As stated in the beginning, researching policy work is a challenging butworthy task. We hope that following some of the pointers outlined above willhelp policy work research on its way towards maturation.

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CountryandFocus

Authorandsource

Methodology

Majorfndings

CzechRepublic.

Identities,

interactionsofministerial

PWsandEuropeanization

ofstateadministration.

Drulk

,R

.,esal,J.

,Hampl,

S.

2003

.Interactionsand

identitiesofCzechcivil

servantsontheirwayto

theEU.JournalofEuropean

PublicPolicy,

10(4):

637

654

.

Semi-structuredinterviews

N91PWs

Mostlyeconomistsbetween45

59yearswithless

than5-yearon-t

he-job

experience.

Professional

identicationandinteractionmostlywith(in)

thedepartment.TheEUaccessionespecially

benecialformoreee

ctivecommunicationwith

theEU.

Netherlands.Discourse

aspects+properties

ofboundaryspace

betweenscienceand

administration.

Hoppe,

R.

2009

.Scientic

adviceandpublicpolicy.

Poiesis&Praxis,6(3

4):

235

263

.

Q-method(42statements)+

factoranalysis

N22PWs

Sevenkeydiscoursecategoriesofboundary

work:rationalfacilitato

rs,

knowledgebrokers,

megapolicystrategists,rationalpolicyanalysts,

policyadvisors,post-no

rmalanalysts,deliberative

proceduralists.

Sweden.Variationsin

technocraticmentalityof

governmentalPWs.

Ribbhagen,C.

2011

.What

makesatechnocrat?Public

PolicyandAdministration,

26(1):21

44

.

Questionnairesurvey

N=1

,741sen

iorPWs

RR860(49.4%)

Pearsonchi-s

quaredtest

Educationalbackround

doesnotexplainvariations

inbureacraticmentality.Post-socialisationofPWs

attheworkplacedoes.

UK.

Natureofworkof

governmentmiddle-

rankingocials

.

Page,

E.,

Jenkins,B

.2005

.

PolicyBureaucracy.Oxford:

OxfordUniversityPress.

20-m

inuteinterviewswithtwo

initialpre-set

questions

N128PWs

Governmentalmiddle-rankingocialstend

toactaspolicyprocess

generalistsdisplaying

knowledgeofthepolicyprocessesratherthanof

thesubstantivearea(s).

*Duetospacelimitations,only

selectionofempiricalenquiriesintoPW,madein

the2000sandaccessibleinternationallythrough

majorpeer-reviewed

journalsorbooks,ispresentedinthetable.

Hence,noclaimofcompletenessis

made,withtheoverviewservingonlybasicinformativepurposes.Forfull

accounts,thereaderisadvised

toaccessthecorrespondingsources.Enquiriesa

relistedbycountryinthealphabeticalorder.

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Conceptualizing Policy Work as Activity and Field of Research

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