The contested autonomy of policy advisory bodies: The trade-off between autonomy and control of policy advisory bodies in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Sweden

Abstract

Autonomy and control are important dynamics in each advisory system. Autonomy is important because it ensures independent and critical advice and allows advisors to ‘speak truth to power’ (Wildavsky 1989; Pielke 2010). At the same time, government control is also an important aspect (Van Twist et al. 2015; Craft and Halligan 2015; Halligan 1995) to assure that advices are on-topic, on-time, in the right format, and relevant for government decision-making,- and policymaking processes. This paper describes the trade-off the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom make with regard to the level of ‘autonomy’ and ‘control’ of their policy advisory bodies. We make a distinction between legal, economic, and operational means (Künneke 1991) through which autonomy is stimulated or control is exercised on a managerial and policy (primary processes) level of policy advisory bodies.