Analyzing the Changing Roles of Experts in Hybridised Corporatism

The Finnish policy advisory system has during the last ten years changed from corporatist to a hybridized system, featuring both older forms for policy advice but increasingly also more neoliberal features. Corporatist commissions of inquiry, which include academics and researchers as members, have been the format in which scientific policy advice has typically been organized. Similar corporatist arrangements of broad-based ministerial working groups still constitute the most important policy preparatory institution, although today with a diminished share of academics included. The paper contributes to recent discussions on the role of experts in policy advice by analyzing how the hybridization and neoliberalisation of policy advisory systems affects the role and organization of expertise in policy advice. Drawing from literature on science/politics relations and corporatist exchange, we analyze the changing role and function of researchers in the hybridized system of Finland. How do researchers regard their participation and the inputs they make to policy-making and how do these compare with the viewpoints held by bureaucrats? How do the tendencies to externalize and outsource the production of knowledge shape the role of expertise and use of knowledge in the policy preparatory groups? The empirical data consists of 30 theme interviews with researchers and bureaucrats, participating in policy preparatory working groups in three Finnish ministries. In the framework of interpretative policy analysis, the data is analyzed with qualitative content analysis methods.