2.4.6. Imbalance of supply and demand for policy research

Another implication from this domination of power over knowledge within the decision-making bodies and public administration is a lack of appreciation for and understanding of the role of policy research in the decision-making process. Post-Soviet public administrations are portrayed as struggling to incorporate the broader, strategic perspectives of public policy within institutions and a decision-making culture dominated by vertical structures in which civil servants do the bidding of their superiors in an ad-hoc and clientelistic manner.¹ In many countries, large public administrations often exist as a way to provide jobs to citizens and help ensure the political future of those in power. However, all is not so bleak as many transition countries have sought to place the policy perspective as a central focus of their public administration reform process, usually with support and pressure from transnational networks, international organizations, conventions, and agreements (for example, European Union, World Bank, International Monetary Fund).² We can see these institutions gaining even more influence since the financial crisis that began in 2008.

Nevertheless, one outcome of the current stage of the reform process is an imbalance between the supply and demand for policy research. To be more precise at the moment, there tends to be more supply of such research from outside of government than demand from within.³ With policy reform at the top of the agenda for many international organizations and donors, it is unsurprising that substantial resources have been spent on developing the capacity to deliver such expertise and analysis both in the governmental and NGO sectors. Due to the flexibility of the organizations and their close relationship to donors, NGOs have strongly responded to this call resulting in a booming number of think tanks in the region through the late 1990s.⁴ However, it is clear that the reform of public administration is a much slower process and so there is a mismatch between the suppliers of such policy advice and the body that is their traditional and in many ways their ultimate client: the government.

Correcting this imbalance will ultimately be a long, slow process, but there are positive signs that many government bodies are attempting to build-in such processes as Regulatory Impact Assessment⁵ and are developing their core policy analysis component in ministries, municipalities, agencies, and policy analysis units, as well as establishing special offices to deal with international accession and integration processes (e.g. EU and NATO). Such capacity development will be at the heart of building increased demand for policy research and it is not only within government structures that such learning needs to happen: The NGO community has a responsibility to become a supplier of quality advice that stakeholders will be unable to ignore.

An additional factor evident from our experience and extensively developed in the literature is the positive influence of the “revolving door” of experts from NGO to government and back again.⁶ The classic description of this situation is of a newly elected government inviting an expert from a think tank to join the administration. This means that you have an individual whose entire approach is centered on evidence-based decisionmaking who will advocate in this direction. Usually such experts lose their positions if their party loses power. At this point, they tend to return to their NGOs or think thanks.

Sometimes this imbalance of supply and demand is portrayed as an illustration of why NGOs have so much more capacity and innovation than governments, but such perceptions reduce the complexity and seem to be more borne out of frustration at the slow pace of change rather than a reality informed of the challenges. As one Canadian source tells us: “Policymakers are people, too,”⁷ and the target must be a healthy competition of ideas that supports evidence-based decisionmaking where intelligent providers and intelligent consumers interact to support such a process.⁸