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Knowing the Game: Motivations and Skills Among Partisan Policy Professionals
"Knowing the Game: Motivations and Skills Among Partisan Policy Professionals", Journal of professions and organizations, Advance Access published September 21, 2016, doi: 10.1093/jpo/jow008 Abstract This
Politics for hire. The world and work of policy professionals
Edward Elgar Publishing This ground-breaking book investigates the work of policy professionals. They consist of political actors who, although not elected to office, are nonetheless employed to affect
Knowing the game: motivation and skills among policy professionals
Working Paper 2016 no.1(Published in Journal of Professions and Organization, Vol 4 (1):55-69 (2017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jpo/jow008) This paper focuses on “policy professionals”, i.e. people whinfluence the course of affairs, while their working-life satisfaction comes from getting their message into the media without becoming personally exposed. The key resource of policy professionals is context-dependent politically useful knowledge, in three main forms: “Problem formulation” involves highlighting and framing social problems and their possible solutions. “Process expertise” consists of understandingthe “where, how and why” of the political and policy-making processes. “Information access” is the skill to be very fast in finding reliable and relevant information. These motivations and skills underpin a particular professionalism based in an “entrepreneurial ethos”, which differs from both the ethos of elected politicians, and that of civil servants, and which has some potentially problematic implications for democratic governance.
