Due to the pressures of time, resources, value priorities, and also based on the events that occur during their time in office, every government will choose to prioritize and work on certain policy issues and devote little or no attention to others. When a government decides to include an issue on their agenda, the urgency to have your analysis ready and join the discussion increases, as these decisions will be completed within a budgetary or parliamentary cycle. When advocates talk about getting the timing right, this refers to the pressure to have the research, analysis, and writing up-to-date and ready to go, if not already part of the policy discussion when the actual decision-making process starts.
Also, the type of discussion around an issue tends to change once it becomes part of the agenda of the government. Discussion and debates about policy issues before they are on a government agenda tend to be more focused on whether the proposals being put forward are useful, innovative, and applicable to the current problem and less focused on the potential redistributive effects of the changes on particular stakeholders. Once the issue gets on the agenda, this balance shifts: stakeholders from all areas who could be affected by the proposed changes become more involved, push to promote their own interests, and so the discussion changes and centers on the winners and losers who will result from the choice of options. We develop more on each stage in the next two points.
The nature of policy debates change before and after the issue is put on the government agenda.
The “softening up” process: the more problem-focused debate stage
In governance circles, there are many small groups of experts (for example, academics, researchers from think tanks and research institutes, government advisors) and professionals (for example, civil servants, NGO representatives, journalists, members of parliament) whose job it is to be continually involved in the discussion of how best to solve the policy challenges relating to a particular issue like local government financing, agricultural development, fiscal policy, or minority rights protection. Within these communities, research and analysis within the policy field is continually introduced, discussed, and debated and this sets the “specialized agenda” for such communities.1
As discussed, policy research is generally commissioned by governmental agencies or NGOs seeking to change a current government program that they feel is not working well. The research is mostly conducted by experts from within these specialist communities and/or international consultants with similar backgrounds, both client and researcher sharing the same goal of influencing the specialist agenda. Generally, the researcher’s advocacy goal is to convince the community of the implications of the new research until it becomes the “new conventional wisdom” of the professional community or at least a part of it through the publication of detailed research-driven policy papers, reports, conference presentations, and discussion.2 Such a process among a naturally skeptical expert audience usually takes time, requires a comprehensive argument with supporting evidence, engagement in discussion and debate, and rarely results in the 100-percent adoption of research findings into the newly held positions of the community.3 Some believe that fundamental policy shifts can take years of persuasion and multiple layers and sources of evidence before the core shift will take place.4
Thus “softening up”5 implies an approach that is slow and deliberate. Softening up cannot be underestimated, as once the target issue becomes part of a government agenda (or a policy window opens), it is members of this specialist community who will emerge as key players in shaping the discussion towards the final decision. However, this is not to say that the softening up process stops once an issue gets on the agenda. In fact, it will probably continue in earnest but be balanced with a bargaining process.
The “softening up” process is a slow, deliberate process of persuasion.
It may not only be experts who are involved in shaping the conventional wisdom of the field, for members of the broader policy network can and do exert influence. However, under normal circumstances, experts will have a considerable influence in at least shaping the policy options that are on the table.
Interest or value-based bargaining: the more outcome-focused debate
Often overlapping with these specialist or expert communities are many external individuals and organizations with a large stake in the outcomes of particular policy decisions. Examples of people who could be included in this group are government officials, NGO representatives, the media, political parties, and citizens’ groups. Such people continuously work and comment on particular policy issues in multiple fora, but they do not normally get involved in academic or expert discussions or do research on a particular issue. They are the consumers of research and their interests lie more in the potential outcomes of public policy proposals and decisionmaking and its impact on a particular constituency or value set they are defending.
Such nonexpert communities tend to be much more vocal once a policy issue becomes part of the decision-making agenda of a government as the urgency to represent or defend their positions becomes greater. Through the consultation process, the nature of the debate becomes more a balancing act between the policy proposals on the table and winners and losers of any proposed changes. The practicalities of the decision-making process take over, as a decision will be made within a certain parliamentary cycle. Different sides will seek to build support through coalitions and eventually strike a bargain that is a suitable compromise for the more powerful actors involved.6:
Interest or value-based bargaining is a negotiated settlement.
This movement from academic or expert debate to the bargaining period close to the actual decision is key to understanding how to get involved in any type of policy advocacy initiative, especially one based on research or expert analysis. Unsurprisingly, policy research has a more natural audience in the expert-oriented softening up process and discussion. Once the debate reaches the bargaining phase, the basis for negotiation is normally the choice of policy solutions reflecting the conventional wisdom of the experts.
Introducing new research at this stage of the process would be difficult, unless it was striking enough in its findings to slow down or derail the process. Untangling how such debates develop during the policymaking process gives advocates an important insight into the nature of the challenge of influencing decisionmaking with new research in often heated discussions.