Political Parties and Think-tanks
Obviously politicians tend to be members of political parties, and it is important not to overlook the role of the parties in formulating policy:
- Many policies are overtly political rather than administrative, and so the main impetus behind them will have come from within the parties.
- For instance, while in opposition before the last general election, the Labour party was engaged in a whole series of policy reviews which eventually culminated in their election manifesto.
- Parties fight general elections on the basis of their manifestos - essentially a manifesto represents a promise to the electorate that if the party wins office it will implement the ideas in the manifesto.
- This is taken seriously in British politics - to the point where the House of Lords (which is unelected) has a convention that it will not vote against any Bill which was specifically mentioned in the governing party's manifesto at the previous election.
- However, it is true that policymaking is still relatively informal within the parties. They all obviously have teams of researchers whose job it is to come up with good ideas which can be translated into policy commitments. These people are well located in terms of their access to their party's MPs and so should themselves be a focus for social science researchers.
- Each of the parties has established a number of policy groups, which may include politicians, party members and outside experts. While this means that it is relatively easy for academic researchers to gain access to the parties' internal policymaking structures, the reality is that many make little or no effort to do so.
Another opportunity for academic researchers to influence policymakers lies in a group of organisations whose explicit purpose is to interest politicians in ideas - think-tanks. These bodies exist to supply the political parties with broad concepts which can then serve as the foundation for detailed policy thought. Many operate across the spectrum of policy issues, while others tend to focus on a few particular areas. Some are well connected with the Labour party, others are respected by the Conservative party, and others again are generally independent.
What unites them is that they are involved in politics as a battle of ideas. As such, think-tanks are always eager to find new, even radical, thinking about policy issues. This makes them a natural target for social science researchers wishing to influence the policy agenda.