Browsing by Author "Lyytikäinen, Marjo"

The research task of this master’s thesis is to analyse the internal relations of the policy advisory system during the early stages of Covid-19 pandemic. The objective is to recognize tensions in the relationship between scientific policy advice and policy making, that may have arisen in the face of a sudden health crisis, as well as to map out the different types of tensions by comparing the experiences at state level in three countries. To enable this comparison, mapping out the characteristics of organising the policy advisory systems of the case countries regarding responses to the Covid-19 pandemic is needed. This thesis is an integrative review based on a systematic literature search which is based on a systematic literature search conducted for a larger research project. The analysis revealed four types of internal tensions of policy advisory systems of the case countries, the United Kingdom (UK), Italy and Sweden: tensions arising from the role or position of advisors, tensions concerning the level of independence of advisors from external influence, tensions concerning the impact of the advice on policy making and tensions concerning the legitimising function of advice. In Italy and the UK, all four kinds of tensions arose already in the early stages of the crisis. Sweden differed from the other countries in all four aspects. The findings suggest that both a very established policy advisory structure (UK) and a highly improvisatory policy advisory structure (Italy) may produce similar tensions. Despite the differences in the way policy advising was nationally organised, the same kinds of tensions were reported from the UK and Italy. The tensions arising from the role or position of advisors mainly concerned the role of advisory bodies as policy makers, while advisors wanted to emphasise their role of mere knowledge producers instead of knowledge users. The tensions concerning the legitimising function of advice were related to the worries of the advisors about that the policy makers would pass the responsibility of unpopular decisions to the advisors. There was more variation in tensions concerning the level of independence and the impact of the advice than in the other types of tensions. The internal relations of the advisory system is an essential part of the functioning of policy making. Making this relationship and the related tensions visible is necessary for understanding and improving crisis management not only in future health crises, but also in supporting policy making in other kinds of crises.