Change is inevitable, quality is optional, and context matters: dynamics influencing the development of an optimal policy advisory system

The concept of a policy advisory system (PAS) enables the exploration of the location, function, capacities, and timing of advisory actors and bodies influencing advisory content in diverse national contexts, and across multiple levels of governance (Howlett et al, 2024). It presents a cross-cutting approach to the traditional stages in the policy cycle by focusing on the demand, supply, and utilization of policy advice. Over the past decade, a burgeoning literature has developed from conceptual discussions framing a first-generation phase of the scholarship (Halligan, 1995). This is represented in studies considering the contribution of specific actors and structures (Galanti & Lippi, 2023; Howlett & Migone, 2014; Pattyn et al., 2022), national systems (Craft & Halligan, 2017, 2020), processes and influence (Craft & Howlett, 2012; Craft & Wilder, 2017; Veit et al., 2017). Central to second-generation PAS research is attention to politicization and externalization, as both sustained features of national advisory systems and as dynamics shaping change amid shifting patterns of governance (Craft & Howlett, 2013).