Influencing policy and decision-making

Advocacy

Advocacy refers to the efforts aimed at influencing policy, especially public policy, legal standards, frameworks, and more widely social issues. This can be done by raising awareness, building public support, and directly engaging with decision-makers. Advocacy is used by individuals or groups to draw attention to and amplify their voices in relation to issues that people feel are being neglected by those in power. It can include a broad range of activities from research to consultations to public campaigns and social media engagement. Its central role is to mobilise public opinion.

Lobbying

Lobbying is a more specific form of advocacy that revolves around direct interaction with policy-makers or decision-makers, in order to influence their processes or decisions. It is often a more strategic and structured process, aimed at persuading those in power to support or not support specific policies, legislation or decisions. Lobbying is heavily professionalised both within the EU and beyond, with regulations around lobbying to ensure, as much as possible, transparency in interactions with decision-makers (for example, through the EU Transparency Register).

Policy shaping

Policy shaping refers to the process in which different stakeholders from various fields (civil society, academia, industry, citizens), are actively participating in developing specific policies. In policy shaping there are the strong elements of collaboration and cooperation with governments or institutions, in order to include diverse perspectives in the policies under development. It can be done through consultations, advisory bodies or other participatory methods that bring together various stakeholders to provide inputs for policy development (for example, EU Youth Dialogue is the main institutionalised youth participation method within the EU).

Open policy making

Open policy making is an approach centred around transparency and citizen engagement, often utilising technology and digital tools, in order to create policies that are more tailored to the needs of the general public. This approach encourages governments and institutions to essentially open up policy processes to citizens. This gives them the opportunity to contribute to policies with their inputs, to have their voices heard, and have the opportunity to interact with policy-makers (for example, the European Citizens’ Initiative).

Even though the EU has taken measures to increase the transparency surrounding these practices (for example, through the EU Transparency Register) and “open the doors” of several policy processes, it is important to acknowledge also the notion of hidden power in policy making. This refers to the influence held by those who control the agenda and who are the duty-bearers. These are the people who have the power to determine which topics and issues are prioritised or put aside. This hidden power can be disrupted or influenced through different social actions, such as protests, boycotts, and solidarity movements, as well as more contemporary tools such as the “cancel culture” and social media campaigns and actions. By utilising the public’s attention, creating accountability, and challenging the status-quo, these movements can, to different extents, “force the hand” of the duty-bearers to recognise and/or even act towards a certain direction.

Influencing policy and decision-making can first appear as quite “untouchable” to the general public. However, one can observe through these examples that it is not as unattainable as some may initially think. Influencing is not and should not be limited to professional campaigners and lobbyists or large organisations and corporations. Historically, voices such as John Dewey, Paulo Freire and Michael W. Apple have expounded on the pedagogic right of educational capacity-building to address the “untouchability” of policymaking. Each of these writers saw this as something necessary to change society for the better, something that could possibly be done through the school system.

Through the examples explored in this article, individual citizens and citizens’ groups can play a meaningful role in shaping policies and their future. However, it should be noted that all these ways of influencing policy and decision-making rely on continuous development and adaptation. This is necessary in order to foster the greater inclusion of citizens and to reflect as much as possible all the diverse voices of society.

The terms used in this article are based on the works of Greenwood, J. (2011), Edwards, M. (2004), European Economic and Social Committee (2010), and the Council of Europe (2016).