The influence of advisory commissions on policy debates

Government relies on a broad range of permanent and temporary expert bodies for advice on a broad range of policy issues. But what determines whether the reports of these bodies influence policy debates or end up at the bottom of a drawer? The paper goes beyond existing research on policy advisory bodies by systematically measuring and explaining variation in the influence of expert groups on policy debates. More specifically, it investigates how the influence of advisory commissions depends on the degree of academic participation on commissions. Using the number of citations to commission reports as a measure of influence, it analyzes citation patterns among nearly 1600 Norwegian official advisory commissions in the period 1972-2017. The paper finds that the more academics on a commission, the greater its impact on policy debates. This finding contributes to research on policy advice and also has important normative implications.