Search

'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]

In light of recent interest in the theoretical foundations of policy paradigms, this paper aims to specify the qualities that differentiate paradigmatic from non-paradigmatic policy ideas. While the incommensurability thesis that underlies the concept of paradigms has been the target of much criticism, there is something intuitively appealing about the incommensurability of policy alternatives that is not yet fully understood. Hesitant to abandon completely the notion of incommensurability, this paper emphasizes the relative nature of ideational commensurability and provides an account of how the exclusivity of a paradigm may wither in relation to competing perspectives. The empirical section demonstrates this pattern of paradigmatic policy-making by examining solutions advanced to alleviate problems in Canadian trade-industrial policy between 1975 and 1995. Contrary to the popular perception that paradigmatic ideas yield policy stability, the findings suggest that even in areas where clearly articulated paradigms initially exist, strictly paradigmatic thinking is often fleeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]