Expertise in Government. To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in the power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

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Expertise in Government

To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in the power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

MASTER THESIS

The Institute of Public Administration Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

Leiden University, the Netherlands 13 March 2019

Ariunaa Davaadorj (s1950878) Supervisor: Dr. Johan Christensen

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ABSTRACT

The 2008 Financial crisis resulted in the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression of 1929. Most prominent European countries faced GDP decline, rising unemployment, increasing fiscal deficit and debt in their national economies. As the degree of uncertainty increased, national governments and policymakers were required to respond with emergency fiscal policies to regain their fiscal balance and stabilize the crisis impacts. In modern society, policymakers are often required to make decisions in areas where they have limited knowledge, thus, they routinely seek experts for their professional knowledge and technical understanding of the issues. The purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of an uncertain event such as the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 and the variations of knowledge regime types on the perceived change in the power of within-government expertise in the European countries. The study intends to use multivariate regression and data distribution analysis to statistically investigate the relationship between the dependent variable and two main independent variables: the fiscal crisis impacts and knowledge regime types. The current study finds that although the fiscal crisis clearly did affect the policymaking pattern, the results show that it did not necessarily imply a definite increase in the perceived change in power of within-government experts based on this research analysis. However, the research did produce insightful theoretical and empirical observations that can be useful for future analysis through qualitative research, country case studies and other supplementary research methods.

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Acknowledgment

I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS) for providing me with the wonderful opportunity to study at Leiden University and to thank my thesis supervisor Dr. Johan Christensen, who has always provided me with understanding, patience and guidance throughout my thesis process. His research on expertise role in policymaking and his vast knowledge on the subject helped steer this paper in the right direction and I am thankful for all his help and guidance for my thesis. I would also like express my gratitude towards my life-long friends Jemila, Emma, Miga, Joey, Thomas, Walid, Christof, Ryan and especially Loïc for their unrelenting love and support throughout the years. Your love and friendship have given me the strength to keep going when the times were hard and without your support, I would not be where I am.

Finally, I am forever grateful to my family for their incredible love and support in my life. Without my loving mother, caring father and my two beloved brothers, I would not be the person I am today. I dedicate my Leiden University Master's Thesis to my mother who is the most hard-working, caring, intelligent, and loving mother anyone could ever ask for in this world. I owe it all to you.

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Following the financial crisis in the United States in mid-2007, the world economy entered its biggest economic recession since the Great Depression of 1929. The crisis came as a surprise to many governments, economic agencies, policymakers, banks, investors, and economic experts (Verick and Islam, 2010, p. 3). Even the most prominent European countries, beginning in 2008, faced GDP growth decline, rising unemployment, budget constraints, and widening public finance imbalances in their national economies. Citizens and businesses across the countries were rapidly losing their trust in the capability of policymakers and decision-makers to solve the problems and respond to the crisis.

As the degree of uncertainty increased, the national governments were required to respond with emergency response policies to regain their economic growth and reverse the crisis impacts. In response to the crisis, some governments released fiscal stimulus packages that saved the financial systems from total collapse. They also introduced other discretionary measures to support aggregate demand, while other governments relied more on automatic stabilizers to mitigate the more severe impacts of the crisis. However, this pushed most government budgets to fiscal deficit and government debt increased as a result (Chwieroth, 2011; Verick and Islam, 2010; Armingeon, 2012; Raess and Pontusson, 2015).

In order to develop response policies to complex issues, policymakers are required to make decisions in areas where they have limited knowledge and understanding. The issues often involve significant public risks and with increasing globalization, the risks can be transboundary. While the concept of involving experts in the decision-making process is not new, the necessity for policymakers to seek informed advice has increased dramatically over the past century. Politicians and bureaucrats are routinely required to propose and formulate policy responses to complex issues and evaluate and monitor the effectiveness of policy programs. The frequency of such complex decisions combined with the need to reduce various uncertainty can explain the exponential increase in the demand for expert knowledge in policymaking.

One of the key questions in the studies of public administration and policymaking is the identification of who has the power to influence decision-making process and how this power plays a role in deciding the "what, when, and how" in policymaking. To understand the

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frequently focused on the producers of knowledge - epistemic communities - as a unit of analysis (Dunlop, 2017). According to Haas, an epistemic community is a 'network of professionals with recognized expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue-area' (Haas, 1992a, p. 3). Cross (2014) further proposes that epistemic communities have an 'authoritative claim' to expert knowledge that can have an impact on policy outcomes (Cross, 2014, p. 5).

On the other hand, other scholars have focused on the various uses of expert knowledge (Boswell, 2008); ideas (Campbell, 2002); scientific experts (Rimkutê, 2015) and knowledge regimes (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014) in order to understand the role of expert knowledge in the policymaking process. In gaining the power to push policies and credibility in decision-making, expert knowledge plays a crucial role in any given area of policymaking. In this context, researchers argue that policymakers use expert knowledge in various ways to push their policy preferences and legitimize their power (Weiss, 1979; Boswell, 2008; Van Nispen and Scholten, 2017).

Hence, the interest of this study is investigating when, how and to what extent are experts involved in the process of policymaking. Answering this question in the broader perspective is tightly connected with the concepts of expert knowledge role and expert governance. Moreover, there is a shared understanding among scholars that knowledgeable expertise seems to be especially critical in uncertain situations such as natural disasters, environmental crises, political disputes, international conflicts, or economic crises among many others. The theoretical expectation derived from these studies tends to suggest that uncertainty is a central factor in policymaking in terms of an increase in power of the role of experts. Considering the high uncertainty in times of economic recession and the fiscal crisis, one might expect that each country used highly informed expert knowledge in formulating the response policies.

There is a general assumption that the 2008 Financial crisis perhaps changed the patterns of policymaking in most European countries in regards to the power relationships among policymaking actors. However, there is a lack of research in terms of how national governments used experts differently during and after the crisis and whether the power of experts increased as a result of the crisis. Moreover, the focus on experts within state bureaucracies have been less discussed with the exception of Christensen (2017). Christensen (2017) argued that the "highly trained experts often occupy strategic position within government bureaucracies from which they pursue professionally defined policy agendas and

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they possess knowledge resources that they can leverage vis-à-vis elected politicians" (Christensen, 2017, p. 3). This is the central theoretical argument for the current study.

The main aim of this study is to analyze the impact of an uncertain event such as the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 on the perceived change in power of within-government expertise in the European countries by focusing on how different types of policymaking patterns have affected this perceived change in power. The current study is similar to the study by Christensen (2017) in terms of its focus on economic experts within government but distinctive in terms of using nationally specific knowledge regime types as an explanatory factor to investigate the cross-country differences in the European countries.

Consequently, this study assumes the perceived change in power of within-government expertise varied across different political economies in response to the fiscal crisis. The challenges from the fiscal crisis, when taking into account its high uncertainty level and urgency for better economic policies could have prompted changes in within-government expertise power differently in countries. The main logic is that although the crisis is global in nature, each country implemented different response policies depending on their distinct policymaking regimes. Therefore, this study seeks to develop public administration literature by focusing on the perceived change in power of within-government expertise and explain the differences through fiscal crisis impacts and variations in knowledge regimes. Hence, the research question is as follows:

To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

The study intends to answer this research question by developing testable hypotheses based on the theoretical concepts by reviewing relevant literature on the role of expert knowledge in the policymaking process, uncertainty/crisis impact on the role of expert knowledge, and the variations across the knowledge regimes in the second section. The third section explains the research method including the dataset used, conceptual model and operationalization of the concepts. The fourth section presents the descriptive statistics, the frequency of observations, and correlations among the variables. The fifth section discusses the results of the research analysis and the final sixth section discusses the limitations of research, theoretical explanation, policy implications and concludes the research findings.

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1.2. Relevance

The financial crisis of 2008-2010 led to various academic studies on the causes and effects of the crisis in national governments across the world. Public policy researchers have also focused their attention on the crisis impact on public administrative reforms. Most studies (Kickert and Randma-Liiv, 2017; Peters, Pierre, and Randma-Liiv, 2011) have examined the crisis effects on public administrative reforms by investigating the effects of the fiscal consolidation and cutback measurements that occurred in the European countries. These studies have regarded crisis as both dependent and independent variable in explaining the public administration reform trends as well as changes in the patterns of public management during the retrenchment and the immediate years following the cutbacks.

Similarly, Campbell and Pedersen (2015) highlight the importance of expert knowledge as a sense-making apparatus in clarifying and solving complex problems of crisis. However, there is a lack of relevant studies on explaining how the governments utilized expertise differently during and after the fiscal crisis and whether there was an increase or decrease in the perceived change in power of experts working in state bureaucracies and government institutions. Hence, this study aims to fill an existing gap and contribute to current academic research in public administration and policymaking by investigating whether national governments have used government expertise differently during times of crisis and whether it led to significant changes in the perceived change in power of experts within state bureaucratic institutions.

This study relies on the theoretical expectations regarding the increased use of experts in times of crisis and uncertainty (e.g. Hall, 1989; Haas, 1992, Cross, 2013) and the theoretical expectation on the increased power of experts that has been linked to the centralization of decision-making (Randma-Liiv and Kickert, 2017). Furthermore, the study follows the argument that the policy influence of economists depend crucially on their position within state bureaucracies as they are more likely to have more direct influence in the process of policymaking than their peers in independent policy research organizations (Christensen, 2017).

The societal and academic relevance of this study is straightforward as it highlights the general concepts in policymaking: power struggles and centrality in decision-making in uncertain times. This study finds that by understanding these concepts and empirically testing the theoretical assumptions can be contributed to understanding the variations across

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countries, and diminishing the constantly increasing social, economic costs attached to policy failures. This, in turn, is connected to the increasing complexity of modern society to overcome not only economic but many public policy issues.

1.3. Contextual focus

While the financial and economic crisis of 2008-2010 was global in nature, European countries had its own special brand of the crisis due to its common market and a common currency. The crisis had real asymmetric monetary shocks through the countries in the Eurozone and the resulting pressures from the shocks entered the labor market and unemployment. This caused many countries to alleviate the economic aftershocks with "fiscal slippage" (Blundell-Wignall, 2012, p.2). The resulting fiscal deficit resulted in indebtedness and sovereign debt of larger EU countries such as Spain and Italy.

Within the context of this study, the focus is on European countries due to its unique institutional arrangements such as the EU and its institutions, the European Commission (EC), the European Parliament (EP), and the Council of the European Union that heavily influence the decision-making process of national governments. The European Union provides an ideal group of nations for this comparison as it can help control for large cultural or national differences that might arise from comparison across other continents.

The study focuses on 18 European countries in times of the financial and economic crisis of 2008-2010: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Great Britain. With the exceptions of Iceland and Norway, the remaining 16 countries are member states of the European Union (EU). Although Iceland and Norway are not part of the EU, these countries are included in the analysis as they are intrinsically connected to the EU countries through the membership in European Economic Area (EEA) and have comparable platforms.

To clarify, the study does not focus on the different crisis response measures that have undertaken by the countries but solely focuses on the extent to which policy or political priorities of European governments changed their policymaking pattern and the resulting shifts in the perceived change in power of experts within state bureaucracies. The focus is not on explaining the crisis per se but on providing insights about the effects that the crisis has brought on policymaking power shifts. The design of this research relies on analysis of

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European countries, and the application of statistical methods in explaining the variations on the dependent variable through the main explanatory independent variables: the fiscal crisis impacts and knowledge regime types.

2. THEORY

The theory chapter is divided into three sections. The first section reviews the previous works of literatures on the overall role of expert knowledge and the role of economic experts in policymaking. The second section seeks to develop hypotheses based on the insights from the literature review focusing on the financial-economic factors of the fiscal crisis. The third section seeks to formulate a hypothesis based on the knowledge regime theoretical framework. Accordingly, the focus of the theoretical chapter is to develop testable hypotheses for the main research analysis and to identify relevant works of literatures on providing insights about the possible effects of crisis/uncertainty on the role of expert knowledge in policymaking.

2.1. Literature review

Radaelli (1995) emphasized that reliable information and expert knowledge is an integral part of formulating and implementing public policies. According to Stone (2002), expert knowledge is defined as the product of research: 'a codified scholarly and professional mode of knowledge production that has its prime institutional loci in universities, policy analysis of units of government departments or international organizations and private research institutes and produced by academics, think tank experts and policy professionals' (as cited in Boswell, 2008, p. 486).

Expert knowledge can be utilized in a multitude of ways to influence the process of policymaking. A number of earlier studies in public policy, public administration and political science have focused on the interaction between expert-consensual knowledge and distinguished experts from regular bureaucratic groups as professionally distinct communities. Within the policy literature, the common focus is on the producers of knowledge such as the epistemic communities (Haas, 1992; Cross, 2013) and how the knowledge produced is used in various ways (Weiss, 1979; Boswell, 2008).

In terms of knowledge utilization research, Carol Weiss did the first attempt by the research on 'knowledge creep' (1979), which drew the attention to an earlier study by Heclo (1974) (Van Nispen and Scholten, 2017, p. 83). According to Boswell (2008), "expert

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knowledge is thus valued in an instrumental sense, helping the organization to deliver its goals. But the Weberian account also implies a second, more symbolic function of expert knowledge: the use of knowledge as a means of legitimizing particular decisions, or legitimizing bureaucratic domination, per se" (Boswell, 2008, p. 471). Following this argument, the utilization of expert knowledge is mainly divided into instrumental use and political or symbolic use.

The instrumental use of knowledge covers both the functions of problem-solving model (direct) and enlightenment function (indirect) as noted by Weiss (1979). On the other hand, organizations can also use knowledge symbolically for political use and this is further divided into either substantiating or legitimating functions. Substantiating function refers to how organizations use expert knowledge to support their preferred or pre-determined policy preferences. Whereas, the legitimating function can serve as an 'ammunition' either to challenge the opposition's position in a political arena or to boost the organization's authority, reputation, and credibility (Boswell, 2008). The literature on knowledge utilization provides two insights on how expert knowledge is used; firstly, an organization can use expert knowledge to either expand their organization power or to adjust their policy output and secondly, organizations can legitimize their decisions to push their policy preferences.

While there are varying levels of expertise in a wide range of different policy areas such as economic, environmental, scientific, healthcare, however, this study is primarily concerned with the expertise of economists. More specifically, this study is concerned with economists within the state/bureaucratic institutions, and how they are able to influence the process of policymaking. Theoretically, the organization of expert governance can occur in various ways such as within state (Christensen, 2012); within advocacy groups (Radaelli, 1999); and by epistemic communities (Haas, 1992a).

The research on the government role and subsequently the power of bureaucrats in policymaking has consistently dominated the discussion in the public policy domain over the last few decades. "Whereas in good times the hand of state is hidden, in hard times it re-emerged" (Hemerijck et al., 2009, p. 36). In line with this observation, most scholars agree that although the financial crisis may not have led to paradigm shifts (e.g. Armingeon, 2012), it has strengthened the notion that without the state, market economies would not be able to thrive (Hemerijck et al., 2009, p. 16). The re-emergence of state power in times of crisis imply that financial crisis and economic aftershocks can play an important role and provide an

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Similarly, Peter M. Haas argues that the difference between epistemic communities and bureaucratic bodies is in their beliefs and goals. Bureaucratic institutions aim to preserve their respective assignments and budgets while epistemic communities aim is to apply their shared beliefs and their causal knowledge in policy enterprise (Haas, 1992a, p. 19-20). With this distinction in mind, it should be noted that although epistemic communities do have the knowledge in certain policy areas, bureaucratic organizations may be better at formulating public policies than epistemic communities as they understand the protocol, rules, languages, and technicalities necessary for policy documents (Cross, 2013).

Economics is often described as the most politically influential social science. According to the arguments of Christensen (2017) "Economists gained legitimacy by linking their specific expertise to goals seen as essential for the prosperity of the nation. Based on this, modern polities "increasingly acknowledged the special place of economic institution and expertise within government structures and administrations (Fourcade 2009:2)" (Christensen, 2017, p. 16). Therefore, the main theoretical argument for this study draws upon the arguments of Johan Christensen's book "The Power of Economists within the State" and the main research question is motivated by how economic experts use these sources of power to influence the policymaking process.

The key difference between Christensen and other scholars who have focused their attention on determinants such as political parties, political institutions or production regimes, is the focus on the role of economists within the government bureaucracies. He argues that "Highly trained experts often occupy strategic positions within the government bureaucracies from which they may pursue professionally defined policy agendas, and they possess knowledge resources that they can leverage vis-à-vis elected politicians" (Christensen, 2017, p. 3). The influence of experts, in this case, economists, is dependent upon the manner in which experts are embedded within the state. This provides the insight that experts in state bureaucracies are often in a position to dominate policy debates, frame and formulate new policies or implement and evaluate existing policies.

Overall, the literature review attempts to critically summarize how expert knowledge and experts can influence the process of policymaking. These concepts have been gaining significant amounts of focus among policymakers and scholars in recent decades and more so when the policy issues of modern society are global and complex in nature. While that is so, the main research question of this study focuses on the influence of a most uncertain and complex event such as the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 on the perceived change in power of

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within government experts in the European countries. Hence, the second section seeks to provide the theoretical framework on the influence of crisis on the role of expert knowledge and the third section focuses on the variations of knowledge regimes to answer the main research question.

2.2. The influence of crisis on the role of expert knowledge in policymaking

The financial and economic crisis of 2008-2010 had various economic, social, and political effects in the countries. To recover their economies, decision-makers across the countries introduced various measures in their monetary and fiscal policies. The initial bailouts of the failing banks and institutions, rising unemployment, pension crisis elevated the public debt-to-GDP ratios. Government debt increased with budget deficits, which required rigorous fiscal consolidation measures in national governments. The resulting fiscal control, cuts in public sector pay and services, reduced pensions and social benefits brought governments under fierce attack from the citizens and increased the pressure on the elected politicians. Various scholars have argued that the crisis had exposed the underlying institutional problems (Armingeon, 2012; Hemerijck et al., 2009). "Deep economic crises are moments of political truth. They expose both the strengths and weaknesses of existing policy repertoires and institutional structures" (Hemerijck, et al., 2009, p. 20).

The existing scholarly researches have provided some insights about the impacts and implications of the 2008 Financial crisis on public administration management and policymaking. For example, Peters et al. (2011) suggest assumptions about the effects of the crisis on possible centralization and politicization of policymaking. Lodge and Hood (2012) have also hypothesized about the power shifts in government due to the crisis in terms of competencies required from public servants (as cited in Kickert & Randma-Liiv, 2015b, p.16). Kickert and Randma-Liiv (2015) argue that the fiscal crisis is likely to change the customary patterns of decision-making, and the conventional roles and functions of politicians, civil servants, experts and other stakeholders (Kickert and Randma-Liiv, 2015b, p. 67).

In line with these arguments, Hemerijck et al. (2009) also analyze the various consequences of the global economic crisis of 2008-2009 by comparisons across time, between episodes of economic crisis and across regions and countries. The authors observed that in the aftermath of economic crises such as the Great Depression of the 1930s and the stagflation crisis of the 1970s brought fundamental changes in the economic and social policy

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regimes across the world (Hemerijck et al. 2009). Similarly, the recent financial crisis of 2008 had inevitably triggered the resurgence of state interventions in the market economy. The re-emerging powerful state implies that the financial crisis and its effects play a theoretical role in investigating the perceived power shifts in within-government expertise.

The mainstream theoretical expectations suggest that uncertainty of crisis leads towards the changing pattern in the decision-making process. Blyth (2002) argues that uncertainty means policymakers are unsure about which alternatives to choose hence the increase in demand for experts with the required technical knowledge. In some perceptions, this leads to the centralization of policymaking and increase of power of experts in policy arena during crisis times. P. Haas defines the importance of concept for uncertainty in policymaking, argues that in the wake of crisis decision makers have varieties of motivations, and causes for experts’ advice to identify their policy choice (Haas, 1992).

On the other hand, the argument that the policy influence of economists depends crucially on their position within state bureaucracies (Christensen, 2017) means experts in top bureaucratic positions are likely to have a more direct influence on policymaking than external experts in independent policy research organizations. The top bureaucratic positions of within-government experts allow them to be involved in the actual drafting of policies and provide them with unhindered access to the politicians. The ‘crisis centralization’ hypothesis could predict the decision-making in small groups involving the top executives and it also remarks on the influence of crisis/uncertainty on the increasing role of expert knowledge in policymaking.

Directed by the main research question, the focus is on the fiscal crisis phase of the global financial crisis and investigating its effect on the decision-making process. However, this study will only consider the effects of the crisis in the analytical framework of certain factors influencing the shifts in public management namely the perceived change in power of within-government expertise. The hypothesis is developed on the logic that the fiscal crisis led to an increase in the perceived change in power of within-government experts due to re-emergence of powerful state interventions, ongoing budget deficit and government debt issues, and centralization of decision-making.

In order to develop the research hypotheses, the study relies on the theoretical perspective that the fiscal crisis was a forceful facilitator for power shifts in policy

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decision-making in terms of within-government expertise and the increased reliance of policymakers on expert knowledge during times of the crisis. Therefore, the first hypothesis is stated as:

H1: The fiscal crisis had a positive effect on the perceived change in power of within-government experts.

Furthermore, the severity of the fiscal crisis is another factor to consider in this research. For example, some scholars (Armingeon, 2012; Raess and Pontusson, 2015) argue that the relationship between the depth of the crisis and responses across countries is weak. On the contrary, some researchers (e.g. Kickert, Raandma-Liiv and Savi, 2013) argue that the decision-making processes were definitely influenced by the severity of the fiscal crisis and distinguished the European countries in five different clusters. In one extreme of the continuum includes countries that were severely hit by the crisis while most European countries fall within the middle of the continuum (Kickert, Randma-Liiv, and Savi, 2013; OECD, 2011). Based on this argument, the second hypothesis is stated as:

H2: The positive effect of the fiscal crisis on the perceived change in power of within-government experts was strong, the more severe the crisis.

2.3. The variations across knowledge regimes

To determine when expert knowledge and experts are likely to have the most influence, Radaelli argued that it is important to find "conditions of radical uncertainty and political visibility" (Radaelli, 1999, p. 763). Hence, the key observation is that the influence of expert knowledge comes strongly in the wake of a crisis or a triggering event. Subsequently, a considerable amount of studies have argued that times of high uncertainty and complexity of issues have led to increased use of scientific expert knowledge in policymaking (Weiss, 1979; Hall, 1989; Haas, 1992a; Ikenberry, 1992; Radaelli, 1995; Blyth, 2002; Boswell, 2008).For example, according to Haas, (1992) in politically motivated cases, decision makers consult with experts to gain insight into the issue, make sense of the cause-and-effect relationships, define self-interests and policy positions and receive help in formulating policies (Haas, 1992, p.15). In some cases, if problems arise from the misrepresentation and policy advice, decision-makers can blame shift to the responsible experts.

While that is so, scholars have also asserted that in times of high uncertainty and complexity of issues, it is expected that expert knowledge is used instrumentally (Weiss,

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1979; Haas, 1992a; Radaelli, 1995; Dunlop, 2009; Cross, 2013; Boswell, 2008; Rimkutė & Haverland, 2014). The expert knowledge supplied to the policymakers can be diverse such as facts, quantitative data or relatively abstract models and theories to provide the knowledge receivers necessary information on the issue and to fill the knowledge gap. Carol Weiss asserts that "whatever the nature of the empirical evidence that social science research supplies, the expectation is that it clarifies the situation and reduces uncertainty, and therefore, it influences the decision that policymakers make" (Weiss, 1979, p. 427).

Similarly, Ikenberry (1992) argues if decision-makers have little knowledge and no strong defined view about the issue, they are more likely to use expert knowledge. He asserts that economic issues were particularly complex and economists were able to provide policymakers with scientific and technical knowledge that provided policymakers with the necessary knowledge to articulate their policy preferences in political debate (Ikenberry, 1992, p. 293). According to Cross (2013), Haas, Radaelli, and Hall all argue that uncertainty arises from a crisis or a particular issue that is surrounded by continuous uncertainty. She also argues that the central avenue for epistemic community influence is generally understood to be post-crisis conditions of uncertainty for decision-makers. In Haas' words, "New ideas will be solicited and selected only after crises, for crises will alert politicians to the need for action and will seek to gather information about their interests and option" (as cited in Cross, 2013, p. 14).

While it is generally accepted that uncertainty is a central factor of policymaking in times of crisis then ideas that influence policies are equally important in the decision-making process. Therefore, another important perspective of analyzing the process of policymaking is researching where these ideas come from and how they are produced and disseminated to influence policymaking. Campbell and Pedersen (2008) have noticed this blind spot in the comparative political economy literature on how this knowledge is produced and disseminated. Although since the 1970s, production regimes in varieties of capitalism (e.g. Hall & Soskice, 2001) and policy-making regimes (e.g. Katzenstein, 1978) have been dominating the comparative political economy literature, the concept of knowledge regimes was mostly absent from the discussion (Campbell & Pedersen, 2008, p. 3).

Knowledge regimes are defined as "sets of actors, organizations, and institutions that produce and disseminate policy ideas that affect how policy-making and production regimes are organized and operate in the first place" and knowledge regimes are relevant because "they contribute data, research, theories, policy recommendations, and other ideas that

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influence public policy, thus, national economic competitiveness" (Campbell & Pedersen, 2008a, p.3). They include policy research organizations, think tanks, government research units, advocacy groups, political party foundations, etc. and the institutions that govern them are considered as knowledge regimes (Campbell & Pedersen, 2014b).

In order to distinguish different types of knowledge regimes Campbell and Pedersen, (2008) first looked at the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) framework, in particular, different types of production regimes and policy-making regimes. Hall and Soskice, (2001) identified two distinct forms of capitalism operating in the advanced capitalist countries 'liberal market economies' (LMEs) and 'coordinated market economies' (CMEs). (LMEs) characteristics are its free-market competition, flexible labor markets, high levels of income inequality, and minimal state intervention in the economy. On the other hand, (CMEs) are based on 'deliberative institutions' and provide more opportunities for corporations, labor unions, banks and state that collectively negotiated. Characteristics of (CMEs) are its highly regulated labor markets, powerful banking systems with ties to the industry, lower levels of income inequality, and moderate state involvement in the economy.

In regards to policy-making regimes, Campbell and Pedersen (2008) considered the work of Katzenstein (1978) as their theoretical foundation on two institutional types of states, namely, centralized and closed states and decentralized and open states. In centralized and closed states, the authority for policymaking revolves around the national government, effectively insulating external influences of civil society. Furthermore, these types of states often have extensive, permanent professional bureaucratic services that protect them from possible removal after political elections. Alternatively, in decentralized and open states, policymaking authority is often shared or delegated to lower levels of government (such as federalist systems). External civil societies are more likely to influence the policymaking process and the permanent civil service is less extensive in these states.

Campbell and Pedersen (2008) identify four different types of knowledge regimes. One of their key argument is "institutional configuration of a country's knowledge regime reflects and is largely determined by its surrounding political-economic institutions" (Campbell and Pedersen, 2008, p. 6). Their methodological approach focuses on different types of research organizations across countries such as scholarly research units, advocacy research units, party research units, and state research units.

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In their typology, they differentiated between the United States, France, and Germany and they argue that these countries are typically good examples of liberal, statist, corporatist types of advanced capitalism. Accordingly, "their policymaking and production regimes are sufficiently different from one another to facilitate interesting cross-national comparisons about their relationships to national knowledge regimes" (Campbell and Pedersen, 2014, p. 31). Although in their 2008 article, Campbell and Pedersen identify United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France as different types, their 2014 book focuses on USA, Germany, France and Denmark as their country focus. Based on these identifications of knowledge regime types, Table 1 presents the following knowledge regimes typology:

Table 1: Typology of Knowledge Regimes

Liberal Market Economy Coordinated Market Economy

Decentralized, Open

Market-oriented knowledge regime

Large, privately funded research unit sector in civil society. Scholarly and advocacy research units dominate. Highly adversarial, partisan, and competitive knowledge production process.

Consensus-oriented

knowledge regime

Moderate, publicly funded research unit sector in civil society. Scholarly, party, and state research units are evenly balanced. Consensus-oriented, relatively non-partisan

knowledge production process.

Centralized, Closed

Politically-tempered knowledge regime

Small, publicly and privately funded research unit sector in civil society. Scholarly, advocacy, and state research units evenly balanced. Moderately adversarial, partisan, and competitive knowledge production process.

Statist-technocratic

knowledge regime

Large, publicly funded research unit sector in civil society. Scholarly and state research units dominate. Technocratic, non-partisan knowledge production process. Source: Campbell and Pederson (2008)

Campbell and Pedersen focused on economic policy ideas and how each country's knowledge regimes are shaped by their nationally specific policymaking and production

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regimes and they observe that during periods of crisis, knowledge regimes may change. As Campbell and Pedersen (2015) explain "… policymakers need the information produced by knowledge regimes to make sense of the policy problems they confront, especially during periods of crisis because problems are unfamiliar and conventional policy prescriptions may no longer work. During periods of crisis, sensemaking may involve changing knowledge regimes" (Campbell & Pedersen, 2015, p. 2).

Christensen (2017) points out that Campbell and Pedersen's argument on how knowledge regimes affect the changes in economic policy ideas is an important ideational approach, however, their focus is mostly on other research organization units such as scholarly, advocacy, party research organizations while the importance of ministerial bureaucracies is less discussed. According to Christensen (2017), the focus on government experts is relevant because "experts in top bureaucratic positions are likely to have a more direct influence on policymaking than experts in independent research organizations. Not only do bureaucrats have privileged access to politicians, they are also intimately involved in the actual drafting of policy" (Christensen, 2017, p. 10).

Consequently, in the times of crisis and post-crisis recovery period, it is relevant to consider the changes in power relations in decision-making within the framework of varieties of capitalism and different knowledge regimes already established in the countries. According to David Soskice (2009), the varieties of capitalism approach is a framework for understanding the similarities and differences among developed economies and he argues that "each variety of capitalism will need to determine a unique path to recovery in the wake of the crisis" (Hemerijck et al., 2009, p.135). Soskice further argues that both LMEs and CMEs need to introduce significant reforms in the post-crisis period that differ according to the problems each respective economic systems have developed.

However, this study aims to investigate whether there was a positive change in the perceived change in the power of within-government expertise in the wake of the fiscal crisis. It is also interested in how different types of knowledge regimes affected the perceived change in power of government experts, and this is the gap in the existing literature, which this study aims to address. Therefore, this research intends to take knowledge regimes as the main independent variable to explain the variations in the perceived change in power of within-government expertise when the European countries experienced the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010.

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The main argument is that economic success is dependent, not simply on the national political-economic factors of different types of VoC, but on the nation-specific knowledge regime infrastructure of the country. More specifically, the study aims to investigate the differences in the perceived change in power of government experts through the causal relationship between nationally unique knowledge regimes in various CMEs, LMEs and the fiscal crisis impact on the European countries.

According to the analysis by Campbell and Pederson (2008), there are significant differences in policy research and decision making in different types of capitalism. Hence, this research intends to classify the European countries into four knowledge regime types as stated below and develop the next hypothesis:

1. Statist-technocratic knowledge regime (CME, centralized, closed) 2. Consensus-oriented knowledge regime (CME, decentralized, open) 3. Politically-tempered knowledge regime (LME, centralized, closed) 4. Hybrid

H3: The positive effect of crisis on the perceived change in power of experts/MoF was strong in CMEs (centralized, closed) with statist-technocratic knowledge regime, moderate in CMEs (decentralized, open) with consensus-oriented knowledge regime, less than moderate in LMEs (centralized, closed) with politically tempered knowledge regime, and weak in hybrid knowledge regimes.

In statist-technocratic regimes in CMEs countries with centralized and closed states, the policymaking authority is concentrated in the national government. The state has an enormous capacity to influence the economy. The state research units as well as scholarly research units that are closely tied with the state conduct policy researches (Campbell and Pederson, 2008). As a result, the research expects countries with statist-technocratic regimes to experience the most positive effect on the perceived power of within-government experts.

Next, CMEs countries with consensus-oriented knowledge regimes have set of research units in civil society, dominated primarily by scholarly research units. This type of knowledge regime is consistent with the surrounding corporatist institutions and system of proportional representation in electoral politics and characterized as consensus building and moderation in policymaking (Campbell and Pederson, 2008). Hence, expects this type of

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knowledge regime to have a moderate effect on the perceived power of within-government experts.

In contrast to aforementioned knowledge regimes, the politically tempered knowledge regime in LMEs with a centralized, closed state is more adversarial competitive, partisan, and but more balanced than the market-oriented knowledge regimes of LMEs with decentralized, open states. The state research units play significant roles within the well-established civil service (Campbell and Pederson, 2008). Due to its more competitive nature, the research expects less than moderate effect of the crisis on the perception of within government expertise in this type of knowledge regime.

Lastly, the authors (Campbell and Pederson, 2008) and other scholars suggest that it is most likely to have more types than the knowledge regimes typology presented above and depending on various institutional configurations, there can be more hybrid types of knowledge regimes. However, the research expects these hybrid types of knowledge regimes to have the least effect on the perceived power of within-government experts.

Hypotheses

To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

The theoretical framework in the second chapter led to the development of the following hypotheses related to the research question:

Table 2: Hypotheses

Hypotheses Related theories

H1

The fiscal crisis had a positive effect on the perceived change in power of within-government experts

Hall, 1989; Haas, 1992; Radaelli, 1999; Campbell and Pedersen 2002, 2004; Hemerijck et al., 2009; Blyth, 2002; Christensen, 2017

H2

The positive effect of the fiscal crisis on the perceived change in power of

within-government experts was strong the more severe the crisis

Kickert, Randma-Liiv, and Savi, 2013; OECD, 2012; Christensen, 2017

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H3

The positive effect of the crisis on the perceived change in power of within-government experts was strong in statist-technocratic knowledge regime types, moderate in consensus-oriented, less than moderate in politically-tempered and weak in hybrid knowledge regimes

Campbell and Pederson, 2008; Christensen, 2017

3. RESEARCH DESIGN

This chapter explains how the concepts from the theoretical framework is used to shape the research design of this study. Firstly, it describes the research type and method and the research data that is used in the empirical study. Secondly, it provides the operationalization of the variables selected for the conceptual model. Lastly, an explanation is given about the conceptual model derived from the theoretical framework and selected variables.

3.1. Research data and method

This study follows a deductive positive structure of theory testing: "starting with abstract propositions and putting them to the test of empirical reality; the ones that are not disconfirmed survive, and ones that do not match the patterns in the real world gets discarded" (Toshkov, 2016, p. 39). The main aim is to test how the fiscal crisis' impact and knowledge regime types have affected the shift in the perceived change in power of within-government experts and investigate the variations across different European countries.

The study intends to use multivariate regression analysis to statistically investigate the relationship between the dependent variable and two main independent variables. Multiple regression analysis is used to predict or explain the relationships between two or more independent variables and the dependent variable (Angrist and Pischke, 2015). In explanatory research, the main emphasis is to understand the phenomena and in this case, whether the factors correlated with the fiscal crisis impacts and knowledge regime types have affected the different variations in the perceived change in power of within-government experts. Additionally, due to certain data limitations, the study intends to investigate the proposed hypotheses by analyzing the data distribution of the dependent variable.

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The data source used in this study relies on the COCOPS (Coordinating for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future) survey on 4780 senior public sector executives carried out in the COCOPS Third Work Package from 2012-2015 (Hammerschmid, 2013). The COCOPS project comparatively and quantitatively assessed the impact of New Public Management-style reforms in European countries and it is the largest comparative public management research projects in Europe. The cornerstone of the project was the Executive Survey on Public Sector Reform in Europe, an original survey of public sector senior executives in the European countries.

The survey was sent to more than 30,000 senior public sector executives in twenty-one European countries and targeted top-level decision makers and civil servants in the central governments. Most of the questions asked for personal experiences and opinions from the top-level decision makers and civil servants that indicated their agreement and disagreement with the question statements based on a seven-point Likert scale. The survey provides quantitative data on perceptions, opinions, and experiences of actors strongly involved in public administration reforms.

Although the survey mainly focused on the implementation of public sector reforms, the Part III of the survey focused on the views and experiences on the administrative reforms in the different European countries but also interestingly focuses on how the recent financial crisis affected the administration which justifies the use of this survey data for this research. Part III has 7 questions with questions 16 to 19 focusing on the overall five year differences in the public sector reform and questions 20 to 22 focusing on the fiscal crisis impacts on cutback measures, savings in policy area and perceived change in power of the Ministry of Finance and centralization in decision-making. The current study specifically focuses on question 22, which is shown as the following:

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Figure 1. COCOPS survey question

Source: COCOPS Executive Survey on Public Sector Reform in Europe – Views and Experiences from Senior Executives (2015)

The research focuses on the first statement of the question 22, as follows:

Question 22.1: As a result of the fiscal crisis, the power of the Ministry of Finance increased"?

The response includes a seven-point Likert scale that indicates 1 as 'Strongly disagree' to the statement to 7 as 'Strongly agree'.

This research selects 18 countries out of the twenty-one surveyed because of data limitations in some countries. The selected countries in this research are: Austria (AT); Belgium (BE); Denmark (DK); Estonia (EE); Finland (FI); France (FR); Germany (DE); Hungary (HU); Iceland (IS); Ireland (IE); Italy (IT); Lithuania (LT); Netherlands (NL); Norway (NO); Portugal (PT); Spain (ES); Sweden (SE); and United Kingdom (GB). The focus is on the responses and perceptions from top-level executives on the perceived change in the power of the Ministry of Finance.

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3.2. Variables and operationalization

The main goal of this research is to test to what extent did the fiscal crisis and knowledge regime types influenced the perceived change in power of within-government experts in order to compare the variations in different European countries. This section explains the dependent variable, main independent variables, control variable and the consequent operationalization of the variables that are made suitable for the regression analysis. All variables are measured at the country level to analyze the variations across different European countries.

Dependent variable

The dependent variable in the analysis is the perceived change in power of within-government expertise to measure the varying role of expert knowledge in policymaking in the different countries affected by the crisis. This is further operationalized through the COCOPS survey question 22.1: As a result of the fiscal crisis, the power of the Ministry of Finance increased"?

The question uses a seven-point Likert scale (ranging from 1 'strongly disagree' to 7 'strongly agree'). This means that lower the average of the responses, the less change was perceived in the power of within-government experts, in this case, the power of the Ministry of Finance.

This specific question was selected from the COCOPS survey data to solely focus on the changes in the administrative institutional power, especially the Ministry of Finance with its economic experts. The Ministry of Finance oversees the spending of government resources, proposes rules and regulations to ensure financial stability, manage government assets, but most importantly it is involved in steering the financial-economic policies of the country. The study is based on the argument of Christensen (2017) that highly trained experts in bureaucratic positions are heavily involved in defining policy agendas, drafting and implementing of public policies. Hence, this research identifies and operationalizes power of the Ministry of Finance as the dependent variable: perceived change in the power of within-government expertise. Furthermore, the individual responses from the survey question are aggregated to the country level.

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Independent variables

An independent variable is a variable that the research selects to determine what effect this variable has on the dependent variable (Angrist and Pischke, 2015). The main independent variables are the fiscal crisis impacts and knowledge regime types. The independent variables of this research reflect the extent to which variations in the perceived change in power of within-government experts happened across the countries.

The fiscal crisis impacts

Kickert, Randma-Liiv, and Savi (2013) argue that economic factors are important in explaining cross-country variation. In line with this observation, this study focuses on the fiscal crisis phase of the financial crisis of 2008-2010, and it selects real GDP growth rate and government fiscal deficit as indicators for the concept of severity of the fiscal crisis. The fiscal crisis is described as "a period of heightened budgetary distress, resulting in the sovereign taking exceptional measures" (Allen et al., 2015). European countries were required to implement fiscal consolidation measures due to exceeding the EU ceiling of three percent of GDP in government budget deficits in 2010.

Thus, the government fiscal deficit is operationalized using the data from OECD Economic Outlook database on government fiscal deficits in the year 2010 to capture the fiscal crisis effects in the aftermath of the economic and financial crisis. The GDP growth rate is operationalized using data on real GDP annual growth in the year 2009 from OECD National Accounts to capture the trend of national economic recovery during the crisis. In most countries after the 2008-banking crisis, which accelerated the economic decline, GDP growth reached a low point in 2009, when all studied countries faced negative growth. Theoretically, macro-economic indicators should characterize the depth of the crisis. Combined, these two variables are not only indicators for the degree of severity of crisis but also the country's results in the management of the fiscal crisis (Kickert, Randma-Liiv, Savi, 2013).

Knowledge regime types

Based on the knowledge regime framework, the selected 18 European countries are classified in accordance with their different knowledge regimes. In order to distinguish different types of knowledge regimes, Campbell and Pedersen (2008) combined the frameworks of Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) and policy-making regimes. Similarly, this

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study also classified countries based on the indexes constructed by Peter A. Hall & Daniel Gingerich (See Appendix 1) in the "Varieties of Capitalism and Institutional Complementaries in the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Analysis" (Hall and Gingerich, 2004).

The index included factor scores based on the relevant principal component for each nation, standardized to vary between 0 and 1, with higher values indicating towards strategic coordination (Coordinated market economies) and lower values indicating towards market coordination (Liberal market economies). This index was chosen to classify the research countries into LMEs or CMEs. This study classifies the selected countries in accordance with typology developed by Campbell & Pederson (2008), as stated below and coded subsequently:

1. Statist-Technocratic Knowledge Regime (CMEs), Centralized, closed state: France (FR), Spain (ES): Code 1

2. Consensus-Oriented Knowledge Regime (CMEs), Decentralized, open state: Germany (DE), Belgium (BE), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Sweden (SE), Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Norway (NO), Italy (IT), Estonia (EE): Code 2

3. Politically Tempered Knowledge Regime (LMEs), Centralized, closed state: Great Britain (GB), Ireland (IE): Code 3

4. Hybrid Knowledge Regime, Mixed market economies (MMEs): Portugal (PT), Iceland (IS), Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT): Code 4

Control variable

Additionally, some countries received financial assistance from the Troika of the IMF, the ECB, and the EU and they had to comply with the strict fiscal conditions and cutbacks. This could have affected the decision-making process from these governments hence there is a need to control for this external aid variable (Kickert, Randma-Liiv, Savi, 2013). This variable is operationalized as a dummy variable with 1 being financial aid recipient and 0 being financial aid non-recipient countries. The overall operationalization of the variables is summarized in Table 3 below:

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Table 3. Operationalization of the variables

3.3. Conceptual model

RQ: To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

From the theoretical framework and operationalization of the variables above, this research builds the conceptual model as follows:

Perceived change in power of within-govt. expertise = 𝛽0+ 𝛽1 Knowledge regime + 𝛽2 Fiscal

deficit + 𝛽3 Real GDP growth rate + 𝛽4 External influence + 𝜀𝑖

Variables Operationalization Scale/Unit of measure Code Dependent variable: Perceived change in the power of within-government experts Perceived change in the power of Ministry of Finance (MoF) COCOPS survey responses on question 22.1: Scale 1-7 As a result of fiscal crisis, the power of Ministry of Finance has increased ? 1= Strongly disagree 7= Strongly agree Independent and controlling variables

Knowledge regime Types of Knowledge regimes Dummy: if 1, others 0 1= Statist-technocratic 2=Consensus-oriented 3= Politically-tempered 4 = Hybrid Financial-economic Government fiscal deficit; Real GDP annual growth rate %

Percentage Numerical: OECD

data

External aid Countries with IMF/ECB/EU programs

Dummy: if 1, other 0 If aid = 1; No aid = 0

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In order to explain the effect of the main independent variables on the dependent variable, the study constructed a multivariate model. This model allows one to calculate the partial effects by keeping all other explanatory variables constant (Angrist and Pischke, 2015).

4. DATA ANALYSIS

As the variables are identified and the conceptual model is operationalized for the regression analysis, this section provides an explanation on the descriptive statistics, the frequency of observations and the correlations between the variables.

4.1. Descriptive statistics

Descriptive statistics help summarize and organize the data so it can be easily understood and interpreted. Although descriptive statistics do not go beyond generalizing the data, it can offer an insight into the general tendency of the variables involved in the study.

Table 4: Descriptive statistics

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

VARIABLES N mean sd min max

(1) MoFpower 18 5.316 0.600 4.170 6.640 (2) kr1 18 0.111 0.3234 0 1 (3) kr2 18 0.556 0.511 0 1 (4) kr3 18 0.111 0.3234 0 1 (5) kr4 18 0.222 0.4278 0 1 (6) Realgdpgrowth 18 -5.678 3.695 -14.81 -1.690 (7) Fiscal deficit 18 -5.885 8.191 -32.03 10.99 (8) Extinfluence 18 0.444 0.511 0 1

Table 4. shows the descriptive statistics of the research dataset. The first row represents the dependent variable of this research, the perceived change in the power of the Ministry of Finance (MoFpower). The descriptive statistics shows the number of observations, mean, standard deviation, min and max inputs of data. The mean for the MoFpower is 5.316 and the standard deviation is 0.6 indicating the data is closer to the mean.

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In the operationalization, this variable is coded from 1 to 4 depending on the knowledge regime types. The countries with statist-technocratic knowledge regimes are coded as 1, consensus-oriented knowledge regimes as 2, politically-tempered as 3 and hybrid as 4.

The mean for statist-technocratic knowledge regime types (kr1) is 0.111 and the standard deviation is 0.3234. The mean for consensus-oriented knowledge regime types (kr2) is 0.556 and the standard deviation is 0.511. The mean for politically-tempered knowledge regime types (kr3) is 0.111 and the standard deviation is 0.3234. The mean for hybrid knowledge regime types (kr4) is 0.222 and the standard deviation is 0.4278. The knowledge regimes types variable is a categorical variable and from this, it can be interpreted that kr2 (consensus-oriented) knowledge regime types have more countries represented, next is kr4 (hybrid) types and kr1 (statist-technocratic) and kr3 (politically-tempered) are similar in their representation.

Row 6 and 7 represents the financial-economic variables in the research. The overall mean for the real GDP growth rate is 5.678 while the mean for government fiscal deficit is -5.885. However, within the research countries, some were affected severely by the fiscal crisis hence some of the fiscal deficits such as -32.03% and real GDP growth rate -14.81% have heavily affected the weight of the average. The last row 8 represents the countries who received financial aid from the Troika of IMF/ECB/EU and it is a dummy variable (1 = aid; 0 = no aid). Mean of 0.444 shows over half of the research countries did not receive financial aid.

4.2. Frequency of observations

The survey used a seven-point Likert scale to assess the perception of change in the power of Ministry of Finance as a result of the fiscal crisis ranging from 1 as 'Strongly disagree' to 7 as 'Strongly agree'. It was observed that not all countries responded the same, and some countries had more responses while others had much fewer responses. The frequency of observations can show the number of responses from the selected countries as well as the central tendency, variability, and shape of the distribution.

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Figure 2. Responses across countries

Figure 2 shows the different response rates from each selected countries. The total number of responses is 4,628. There are a few key observations that can be made from Figure 2. Firstly, the response rates for each country significantly differ from each other. For example, out of the total of 4,628 responses, the country with the most response rate was Finland with 627 responses (13.55%) while Belgium and UK had the least response rates with 57 responses (1.23%) and 50 responses (1.08%) respectively. In some cases, when there is a low response rate from the survey, it can result in non-response bias, an error resulting from distinct differences between those who responded and those who did not respond. Subsequently, the country differences in the response rates mean countries are not properly represented, for example, with a population of 66 million people, the UK only has 50 responses while Finland with a population of 5.5 million has 627 responses.

385 57 126 268 627 478 381 182 184 315 143 299 172 150 241 240 330 50 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

AT BE DK EE FI FR DE HU IS IE IT LT NL NO PT ES SE GB

Expertise in Government. To what extent has the fiscal crisis of 2008-2010 influenced the perceived change in the power of within-government experts in the political-administrative system of the European countries?

Expertise in Government

Table of Contents

Responses across countries