European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 137

European Policy Analysis

attention to the non- and extra-rational
dimensions, and the almost inevitable
links between policy as analysis and
policy as politics, communication, and
face-to-face advice-giving in small
groups. Drawing attention to the blurred
demarcation between policy formulation/
adoption and implementation in policy
process practices, Bardach (1977)
pointed out that intimate knowledge
of bureaucratic organizations and the
“jungle” of implementation networks
informed the practice of “fixers”. Policy
workers that “fix” the continuous
translation of policy-as-decision into
policy-as-standard-operating-procedures
must be able to intervene effectively,
know about the what, when, how, and
who of operational routines, and make
sense of the multiple flows of information
about implementation games in one or
more organizations—skills that are surely
not entirely analytical.

In 1983, Kingdon (1984),
harping on the theme of co-evolving
demarcations between agenda setting
(the
“problem
stream”),
policy
formulation (the “solution stream”),
and the policy adoption (the “political
stream”), pointed out the importance of
policy entrepreneurs with the developed
political sensibilities or intuition to “sniff
out” political windows of opportunity
for coupling policy ideas and solutions.
In a later addition, Zahariadis (2003)
stresses that, far from analytic skills,
policy entrepreneurs “have a nose” for
simplification, manipulation, and political
opportunism or sheer serendipity. In the
same line, it has been pointed out that in
practical policymaking, the role of “spin
doctors” and public-relations specialists
in crafting policy frames and images is
frequently more important than those

of policy analysts and their expertise in
crafting policy argumentation.

Thus, Radin’s observation is not at
all new, but somehow we did not openly
include nonanalytic qualities and skills
in the professional body of knowledge.
Conceptually, Radin’s disconnect is
quickly repaired. Focusing on skills,
Mintrom (2003) listed the importance
of people skills for policy analysts, like
networking and communication skills,
team work, courtesy and likeability, and
minimal emotional intelligence. Howlett
and Ramesh (2014) now distinguish
between analytical, managerial, and
political capacities, also at the level of
individual policy analysts. All this actually
raised the issue of whether policy activity
could be adequately conceived as “advice”
followed by “choice”. But, theoretically
more important, Colebatch (2006) coined
the concept of “policy work”. For him,
“work” stood for any skilled, conscious,
and directed activity requiring time
commitment, located in a workplace, and
usually remunerated. Linked to “policy”,
Colebatch performed the pragmatic
turn, previously characteristic for the
social studies of science and technology
(cf. Sismondo 2004; 2011): no longer
philosophy-of-science and epistemologyinspired textbook knowledge of “proper”
methods of policy analysis and ways of
(policy relevant) knowledge certification
like “evidence-based policy” would be
center stage; but observation and study
of the entire spectrum of “what those
professionally engaged in policy actually
do, in other words, how policy is done
and how policy practices evolve” is to
be the core in empirical research and
professional training. “Policy analysis”
is a far too lofty, rationalistic, overintellectualized label for the many kinds

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