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Ministerial advisers are the specially appointed individuals working for ministers. As such they are an integral part of political-partisan and governmental elites, although they mostly stay hidden from view. As a distinct category of actors, they do not receive a lot of scholarly attention and there are still many blind spots as to their contributions to policymaking processes. However, in Belgium, it was demonstrated that ministerial advisers were key players in the formulation of policies at the level of governments. In some ways, approaching them is tantamount to focusing on the main venues of policy formulation, where decisive policy work is carried out and where important arbitration between a range of policy options is realized. As much as they are producers of advice destined to their ministers, ministerial advisers are also receivers of policy relevant knowledge. They are notably active in the coordination of internal and external sources of advice. Yet, exposure to policy-relevant information and advisory linkages with a series of actors more or less distant from government, might lead them to adopt a different view about the policies they actively prepare. They might change their appreciations of the various elements constitutive of policies. Such cognitive dynamics, consisting in updating beliefs about policies, are typically referred to as policy learning. This research thus asks the following question: What are the learning patterns of ministerial advisers when engaged in processes of policy formulation and how can differential learning patterns be explained? This study is based on online survey data collected in 2018-2019, from ministerial advisers working for two Belgian governments: the Walloon Region and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Governments (n=107, response rate=64%). Statistical analyses were performed using multiple linear and tobit regression techniques. This research shows that, despite remaining political partisan and thus interested actors, ministerial advisers do learn about policies in preparation. It also uncovers some conditions of their policy learning experiences. First, contrasting attitudes in policy-relevant advisory and informational exchanges seem to elicit divergent learning pathways in them. Second, the various roles of ministerial advisers and their arenas of activity, tend to direct their learning on specific aspects of policies and to affect both the intensity and direction of their puzzling. Third, diverse features of the policy challenges they are confronted with, like varying needs for coordination and levels of mutual agreements over the goals to pursue with policy proposals, further shape their learning experiences. This study not only contributes to research on ministerial advisers through the application of a novel theoretical perspective, but also to policy learning as a lens, because of the specificities of learning patterns that are captured here. ; (POLS - Sciences politiques et sociales) -- UCL, 2021

Ministerial advisers are the specially appointed individuals working for ministers. As such they are an integral part of political-partisan and governmental elites, although they mostly stay hidden from view. As a distinct category of actors, they do not receive a lot of scholarly attention and there are still many blind spots as to their contributions to policymaking processes. However, in Belgium, it was demonstrated that ministerial advisers were key players in the formulation of policies at the level of governments. In some ways, approaching them is tantamount to focusing on the main venues of policy formulation, where decisive policy work is carried out and where important arbitration between a range of policy options is realized. As much as they are producers of advice destined to their ministers, ministerial advisers are also receivers of policy relevant knowledge. They are notably active in the coordination of internal and external sources of advice. Yet, exposure to policy-relevant information and advisory linkages with a series of actors more or less distant from government, might lead them to adopt a different view about the policies they actively prepare. They might change their appreciations of the various elements constitutive of policies. Such cognitive dynamics, consisting in updating beliefs about policies, are typically referred to as policy learning. This research thus asks the following question: What are the learning patterns of ministerial advisers when engaged in processes of policy formulation and how can differential learning patterns be explained? This study is based on online survey data collected in 2018-2019, from ministerial advisers working for two Belgian governments: the Walloon Region and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Governments (n=107, response rate=64%). Statistical analyses were performed using multiple linear and tobit regression techniques. This research shows that, despite remaining political partisan and thus interested actors, ministerial advisers do learn about policies in preparation. It also uncovers some conditions of their policy learning experiences. First, contrasting attitudes in policy-relevant advisory and informational exchanges seem to elicit divergent learning pathways in them. Second, the various roles of ministerial advisers and their arenas of activity, tend to direct their learning on specific aspects of policies and to affect both the intensity and direction of their puzzling. Third, diverse features of the policy challenges they are confronted with, like varying needs for coordination and levels of mutual agreements over the goals to pursue with policy proposals, further shape their learning experiences. This study not only contributes to research on ministerial advisers through the application of a novel theoretical perspective, but also to policy learning as a lens, because of the specificities of learning patterns that are captured here. ; (POLS - Sciences politiques et sociales) -- UCL, 2021

Les cabinets ministériels occupent une place centrale dans le système politicoadministratif belge, puisqu'ils assurent l'essentiel de la formulation des politiques. Toutefois, ils n'opèrent pas de manière isolée et s'appuient sur d'autres acteurs du système de conseil politique pour ce qui est de la fourniture d'informations et de conseils. Ils demandent, reçoivent et utilisent diverses données consultatives. Cet article étudie la manière dont les conseillers ministériels utilisent les conseils politiques lorsqu'ils formulent des politiques. Basé sur une enquête unique ciblant les membres des cabinets ministériels, il montre que l'utilisation des conseils politiques varie en fonction de leur source et de leur position dans le système de conseil politique. L'échantillon est composé de conseillers ministériels issus de 11 cabinets ministériels des gouvernements de deux entités fédérées belges, la Wallonie et la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Les conseillers ministériels utilisent encore majoritairement les conseils émanant de la fonction publique, ce qui souligne l'importance des conseils émanant de sources internes. Toutefois, les conseils d'acteurs extérieurs – tels que les syndicats, la société civile ou les sociétés de conseil – ont eu des répercussions assez importantes sur les activités de formulation des politiques. Les organes consultatifs semblent très actifs dans la fourniture de conseils, mais ces mêmes conseils ne donnent pas lieu à des scores d'utilisation comparativement plus élevés. Remarques à l'intention des praticiens Cette étude se concentre sur l'utilisation des conseils politiques par les membres des cabinets ministériels en Belgique, en particulier lorsqu'ils formulent des politiques. Elle montre que les sources internes restent d'importants fournisseurs de conseils et que leurs contributions consultatives alimentent encore abondamment les travaux politiques menés au niveau du gouvernement. Toutefois, cet article montre que les sources externes peuvent également fournir des conseils qui parviennent directement aux décideurs travaillant dans les cabinets ministériels et qui ont des répercussions considérables à ce niveau également. C'est le cas des conseils émanant des syndicats, de la société civile (organisée) ou des sociétés de conseil, entre autres. Fait important pour les praticiens, nos résultats suggèrent que les conseillers ministériels préfèrent parfois contrôler les échanges consultatifs et mener des consultations séparées avec une seule partie prenante à la fois, plutôt que d'avoir à traiter avec des institutions internes collectives qui représentent des intérêts multiples, comme les organes consultatifs. Nous n'avons pas observé de différences frappantes dans le degré d'utilisation entre les conseils sollicités et non sollicités, ce qui signifie que pour les fonctionnaires ou les parties prenantes, l'envoi de conseils politiques non préalablement sollicités par les cabinets ministériels n'est pas nécessairement une stratégie infructueuse à suivre.

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.

AbstractScholars may be diversely engaged in boundary-crossing work, either staying more confined in academic settings, or reaching out to the policy world. Despite growing theoretical attention, there is little empirical knowledge on the extent to which scholars indeed engage in boundary-crossing activities, and the conditions that foster or jeopardize this. We use original survey data from European political scientists to investigate how frequently they 'travel' to the policy world, what patterns of engagement are visible, and how these are determined. The article introduces a typology capturing different boundary-crossing profiles and shows that political scientists are rather frequent travelers across the border between academia and the policy world. Yet, individual characteristics matter. Having (had) a position outside of academia has an especially strong effect on the likelihood of boundary-crossing. Our results also reveal that not every scholar has the same chance to be involved, depending on gender or seniority.