by Denitsa Marchevska & Trui Steen
Policy advisory systems research has provided important insights into the networks of individuals and organizations that support decision makers during the policy process. Much of this research has, however, focused on Western (liberal) democracies. Less is known about how those findings apply (or don’t) in weak democratic or even authoritarian settings.
To address this gap, we turn our attention to policy advisory systems in “hybrid regimes” – that is, political systems that exhibit both democratic and authoritarian features. For example, a hybrid regime might hold competitive elections, which are mostly free but not necessarily fair due to abuse of administrative resources by incumbents. Similarly, they may feature key institutions associated with democratic governance but their functioning may be impaired by the presence of rampant corruption.
To illustrate our point, we use Ukraine and Moldova as case studies. Between June and October 2021, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 45 individuals across both countries (21 from Moldova, 24 from Ukraine) who were involved in the policy process in some capacity, including civil servants, consultants, representatives of donor organizations, and others. The interviewees hailed from four main policy domains: economy, environment, health, and rule of law.
The interviews sought to explore the different reasons why decision makers choose to accept or ignore policy advice. The analysis focused on four broad types of explanatory factors in line with the framework proposed by Manwaring (2019). Namely, the analysis looked for factors associated with demand (the reasons why policymakers seek advice), supply (explanations focused on the source of the advice), content (the substance of the advice provided), and context (the larger ecosystem within which advice is given and received). The aim of the analysis was to explore how the manifestations of those dimensions varies (or not) within the hybrid regime setting and how this compares to what we know about advisory dynamics in established democracies.
Our findings nuanced Manwaring’s framework in several ways. For one, while Manwaring presents the four above factors as discrete units, in practice it was challenging to sort motivations into these categories neatly. For example, the line between context and demand-side considerations proved especially porous. It was almost impossible to separate contextual factors like societal salience from demand considerations linked to political survival in the analysis.
We also found a clear hierarchy in the importance of the four factors, which the framework did not necessarily acknowledge. In particular, demand-side and contextual considerations appeared far more important in determining whether policy advice is accepted than supply-side and content-related ones. The demand for advice arguably emerged as the most salient determinant of advisory success. The policy and advisory process appeared to be highly reflective of the wants and needs of those in power, something which is only exacerbated by the relative weakness of political institutions as well as commitments to the rule of law in these hybrid regimes.
Related to this, we observed that the advisory dynamics in Moldova and Ukraine tend to be much more personalized (i.e., the individual preferences of government officials were decisive) and politicized (e.g., strongly impacted by political considerations) than is typically assumed within Western democracies. Current thinking about policy advisory systems tend to adopt biased assumptions about depoliticized, rational bureaucracies contributing to a preoccupation with expertise and institutional explanations for advisory influence. Considering both personalization and politicization within policy advisory systems models will make them more useful for studying hybrid regimes.
Lastly, our analysis highlights that international actors (e.g., donor organizations), as well as the international context more broadly, exert significant influence on the policy advisory systems of both Moldova and Ukraine. While this international dimension is rarely examined in the context of affluent Western democracies, it appears highly salient in countries like Ukraine and Moldova, given their greater reliance on international financial support and expertise to help shore up weak political and economic institutions.
Though existing conceptualisations of the advisory process have much to offer, we show that they require some retooling to capture the nuances of policy advisory systems outside of the democratic context. Scholarship on policy advice should pursue greater empirical diversity in order to untangle such commonalities and differences as well as to advance a more robust comparative understanding on policy advisory dynamics.
You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at
Marchevska, Denitsa and Trui, Steen. 2022. “Understanding Policy Influence in Hybrid Regimes: Insights from a Qualitative Study of Policy Advice in Ukraine and Moldova.” Policy Studies Journal, 50(4): 735–755. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12477
About the Authors
Denitsa Marchevska is a PhD Researcher at KU Leuven’s Public Governance Institute and a Doctoral Fellow of Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Belgium. Her research focuses on policy advice provision, advisory systems and public policy formulation in flawed democracies and hybrid regimes with a particular focus on Eastern Europe. She also carries out research on (comparative) politico-administrative relations and bureaucratic politicization in the region.
Trui Steen is Full Professor at KU Leuven’s Public Governance Institute. She is interested in the governance of public services and the role therein of different stakeholders, including public sector professionals, civil society and citizens. Her research interests include co-creation and co-production of public services, public sector innovation, and local governance.
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