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The growing body of literature on digital governance, and policy advisory systems, often neglects the perspective of elected decision makers. What types of policy advice do ministers need in the digital governance era? Is digitization of government and policymaking reshaping supply and demand dynamics, the content of policy advice, or how advice is used within the policy process? This article borrows existing theoretical frames on digital governance to examine these and other questions from the perspective of ministers. The digital governance era will undoubtedly introduce novel disruptions and dilemmas, but it will also intensify longstanding tensions inherent in advisory work linked to questions of influence, capacity, and how well advisory systems adapt to serve ministers. We use information processing dynamics, policy entrepreneurship, and control and coordination to ground analysis of ministers' advisory demand in the digital governance era. We highlight unique considerations that apply to ministers as well as reflection on their place within the broader context of advisory work. We employ vignettes from the perspective of ministers throughout the article as a useful way to personalize the digital era disruptions and dilemmas particular to ministers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the opportunities, challenges and expectations that the digital context of design and new digital era policy instruments, such as open data, big data, robotics and crowdsourcing, present to policy designers operating in today's governments. Adopting an instruments perspective, the article identifies four characteristics of digital era policy design before detailing three issues that must be addressed to ascertain the promise and pitfalls of digital era policy design. First, we argue that scholars and practitioners alike must investigate how traditional constraints on the ideal of rational, evidence-driven policy design-long acknowledged in the 'analogue design' literature-will fade or be exacerbated in the digital age. The article next confronts the reality that new digital designs and instruments will rarely emerge in a policy vacuum, but rather will be layered onto existing policy designs and complex policy mixes with sticky legacies that will be more or less amenable to digital design approaches. Finally, the article argues that while scholars and practitioners have been quick to presume that the digital age will foster a more collaborative model of state-to-non-state cooperation, digital era policy design may ultimately marginalize or eliminate citizens altogether from the design process, raising important questions about the as of yet little understood democratic implications of digital era policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Policy advisory systems' have been central to moving beyond individual actor considerations to assessments of the interactive effects of multiple interlocking sets of suppliers, in specific jurisdictions, that provide policy advice to policymakers. This article argues, while useful, the advisory system concept should be revised given that previous approaches animated by the location of supply and government control over it have been weakened. We argue for a 'second wave' of advisory system studies that: (1) reorients the unit of analysis from the public service to advisory systems themselves, (2) better contextualizes advisory system operation and dynamics based on the subsystems within which they operate, and (3) focuses on questions of why advisory system components combine in particular policy instances and with what effect. Using access and compatibility, we posit a typology of policy advisory networks and develop four archetypes of policy ideational compatibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Appointed political staffs were featured in the initial elaboration of the 'policy advisory systems' (PAS) model yet have received considerably less attention than other components. This article revisits the PAS model and argues that political staffs engage in important procedural advisory activities masked by the PAS focus on location and control. The principle contention being that political staffs influence within advisory systems may also be a product of their procedural brokerage of other sources of policy advice. The article advances a conceptual framework to understand political staffs brokerage as 'bridging'. Setting out 'positive' and 'negative' forms that can be arrayed along 'administrative-technical' and 'partisan-political' types. A Canadian sub-national case study is examined using the framework revealing variance in the type and nature of bridging based on institutional location of political staffs and the specific brokerage tasks they undertake. First minister's office bridging is found to be considerably more limited than that undertaken by minister's office political staffs, particularly in relation to the bridging of exogenous sources of policy advice. The framework and empirical findings enrich the policy advisory systems literature by demonstrating the importance of coupling spatial considerations with attention to the actual tasks of advisory system members. Additionally, highlighting the importance of procedural policy advisory brokerage as a source of influence within advisory systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "policy advisory systems" was introduced by Halligan in 1995 as a way to characterize and analyze the multiple sources of policy advice utilized by governments in policy-making processes. The concept has proved useful and has influenced thinking about both the nature of policy work in different advisory venues, as well as how these systems work and change over time. This article sets out existing models of policy advisory systems based on Halligan's original thinking on the subject which emphasize the significance of location or proximity to authoritative decision-makers as a key facet of advisory system influence. It assesses how advisory systems have changed as a result of the dual effects of the increased use of external consultants and others sources of advice - 'externalization' - and the increased use of partisan-political advice inside government itself- 'politicization'. It is argued that these twin dynamics have blurred traditionally sharp distinctions between both the content of inside and outside sources of advice and between the technical and political dimensions of policy formulation, ultimately affecting where influence in advisory systems lies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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