Comparing Beyond (Just) the State? Examining Patterns of Policy Advice Externalization Across Policy Domains

ABSTRACT The range of actors providing input in policy making has grown, leading some to argue advice provision is increasingly externalized beyond the state. This represents a key pillar of advice scholarship, yet has rarely been problematized. Little attention has been paid to the nature and scope of externalization or to the question of the balance of power within an externalized advisory system. Whether externalization claims are relevant outside Western democracies, where the phenomenon is typically studied, as well as whether the process has unfolded uniformly across domains, if at all, also remains unclear. To remedy this, the article elaborates an analytical framework for studying externalization, drawing on insights from network governance, policy advice, and policy networks. The framework is applied to the comparative analysis of two advisory systems in Bulgaria, a flawed democracy largely absent from policy scholarship. Using a mixed‐method design combining network analysis and 50 semi‐structured interviews, the study finds clear evidence of externalization. However, it also suggests such dynamics remain predominantly structural and often fail to translate into more substantive externalization. Importantly, the analysis shows externalization trends vary, sometimes substantially, across policy fields, suggesting domain‐level approaches may be better suited to the empirical analysis of such dynamics.