Capable of Influencing the Policy Process? Significant Aspects of Party Policy Advisory Systems of Czech Political Parties
Abstract
Political parties are somehow omitted institutional elements in literature on policy process. However, they play an important role in governance of democracies due to their dominance in appointing public officials as well as linking civil society with the state.
Regarding this privileged position it can be asked about their capacity to influence policy process because it has been recently challenged not only by economic crisis but also by fierce proposals to depoliticize policy-making by expertisation (regardless to the politicization of expertise). Policy work literature considers policy capacity as determined and indicated by a policy advisory system.
Thus, this paper focuses on policy advisory systems of main Czech political parties in comparative perspective because their configuration should indicate parties' ability to respond to these challenges. Especially discussed will be organisational specificities of their settings, particularities of their intra- and extra-party arrangements of policy advisory systems, and their use for party's purposes.