PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY AND EFFECTIVE GOVERNANCE

Public policy advocacy plays a vital role in promoting effective representative government. By providing focused expertise and analysis to help public officials make informed decisions public policy advocates sustain and advance the policy process. The most basic function of the public policy advocate is to educate by providing information, and it is axiomatic that legislators benefit when they can consider information from a broad range of interested parties. The increasing scope and complexity of legislation and regulation at the EU level and globalization has further magnified the importance of public policy advocates’ expertise.

Government has become sufficiently complex that, without the information public policy advocates bring to policymakers and legislators, decision making would be best poorly informed. Of course, Commission officials and/or Members of the European Parliament and staff are not dependent on public policy advocates’ information and often do their own research. However, public policy advocates often have information not available to members and staff, and they perform a critical function by confirming information and even informing lawmakers of unintended consequences of their proposals. Without such feedback, legislators and regulators might fail to achieve their objectives and could even do more harm than good. It is sometimes the case that without input from the erstwhile “beneficiary” of a new law or regulation, the provision would produce unwelcome results.

The truth of the matter is that legislation in Brussels is extraordinarily complex and the staff available to Commission officials and Members of the European Parliament is very limited. And the only way that they can really get to the bottom of a lot of complex issues is to rely on public policy advocates. And of course public policy advocates have conflicting views. They’re the industry public policy advocates and those who are opposing the industry. And they can gather this information. The volume and speed of policy and process powered by modern information technology, and subject to 24/7 news in an ever shortening cycle, creates a new role for public policy advocates . They can assist by sifting information and noise, putting information into a coherent framework, and by challenging or checking facts on impossibly short time deadlines. For largely these reasons, EU public officials and staff members and especially senior staff members recognize the importance of professional public policy advocacy. Most view public policy advocates as either necessary to the process, as collaborators, or as educators.

Public policy advocates also play an important role in advancing the policy process beyond beyond partisan division. Public Policy advocates  are uniquely able to bridge the gap of divided government. In some cases public policy advocates are the only ones who can overcome the impasse by shaping and building consensus on positions that accommodate competing interests. They can play a significant role in bringing together factions of the parties or the Executive Branch. From another vantage, public policy advocacy is also essential to the ability of individuals, interest groups, and businesses to successfully petition and monitor their government.

Public policy advocates play a critical “intermediating role” by enabling people and businesses to understand how government works and what government is working on, and then helping these people and businesses identify and communicate their interests to the government in an effective manner. Again, as the scope of government increases, a larger and larger number of individuals and businesses are touched by government regulations.  One of the biggest challenges for people when they’re faced with a public policy issue is defining what the issue is from the perspective of people in government. The main thing a client should be looking for in a public policy advocate or or government relations consultant is for help to think the way people in government have to think when they’re looking at an issue. It’s the only way you’re going to win the day on an issue.

There isn’t enough understanding by business of the constraints facing government. What government needs is a kind of real political advice that is based not just on what business wants, but what government can deliver, and what everyone can settle for. There still isn’t enough analysis of why government takes a particular stand on policy, and depending on the source of that stand, whether it can be adjusted or not.

These sentiments illustrate how the increasing complexity of government further supports the need for skilled policy advocates to enable the public to effectively monitor, comprehend, and petition the government.

For these reasons, public policy advocacy has become an increasingly ubiquitous activity, and the advocacy environment has become correspondingly more diverse. There are  expanding numbers of interest groups generally involved in public policy advocacy including public interest organizations. Indeed, growing numbers of interests are represented in Brussels.

Although the set of organized political interests continues to be organized principally around economic matters, there is little question that pluralism has taken hold among those organized to petition the government, and that pluralism is a healthy safeguard for representative government.