Policy Experts and Policy Design in Regulatory Agencies

The purpose of this article is to examine the circumstances that determine the degree of involvement by policy experts in the design of public policies. Building on the work of Pielke, The honest broker: Making sense of science in policy and politics, (2007), a categorical dependent variable is developed that identifies four different roles that policy experts might play in policy design. Then, a list of independent variables that likely influence which role is played in any given policymaking situation is identified. Finally, three cases of policy formulation by the US Federal Communications Commission are examined in an effort to refine the theoretical ideas and develop some hypotheses for future exploration.