Partisan advisers and political policy failure avoidance

Abstract

Empirical examinations of partisan advisers detail significant differences in their policy work, influence, and their patterns of interactions with other policy actors. This raises important implications for their potential contributions to policy failure avoidance. Using recent qualitative data from elite interviews in Canada, this study finds that advisers’ policy work contributes to political policy failure avoidance as policy is developed. The findings help unpack the types and nature of policy‐based resource exchanges that advisers undertake, through advisory and non‐advisory forms of policy work, that strengthen political control and manage policy perceptions by other actors during policy development.