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• College of Social Sciences and International Studies

Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3228: From the Shadows into the Light: Political Advisers and Policy Making

This module descriptor refers to the 2020/1 academic year.

Module Aims

The main aim of this module is to provide you with the full conceptual skills to critically engage with the research scholarship on the policy roles of political advisers across countries, as well as across political and administrative traditions: a) Westminster (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK); b) Napoleonic (Belgium, France, Italy, Greece), c) European continental and Nordic (Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands); d) the USA; e) Supranational institutions (European Commission and European Parliament). In so doing the module also aims to provide you with the skills to critically reflect upon stereotypes and images of political advisers, created by the media and advisers’ own accounts. Although political advisers enjoy a share as central players in the policy making process, their advent in the central political stage has come along with important challenges. Concerns are being raised due to advisers’ growing numbers, their lack of accountability, the way they operate (spin-doctoring), their policy influence, as well as the opacity of their status. The fundamental question the module will address is whether political advisers are pillars of responsive and good governance, or incompetent and non-accountable dark princes. Moreover, is there convergence, or divergence in the use and roles of political advisers across systems and why? In addressing such issues, a complementary aim of the module is to make you aware of the professional and ethical values pertaining to the job of political adviser.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

PART I: Advisers and their institutional habitat

• Who is a political adviser? Delimiting the subject of study. The concept of political adviser 
• Where do political advisers work? The institutional habitat of advisers - Administrative traditions in comparison
• What is the profile of political advisers? Educational and socio-demographic background of the adviser elite.
• Why are advisers employed? Politicization and policy capacity

PART II:  Advisers and policy making

• What do political advisers do? A classification of advisers’ substantive policy roles
• What is the dimension of advisers’ work? Working with civil servants, other advisers and stakeholders.
• What is the content of political advisers work? Content of policy advice, policy analytical tools and use of knowledge by advisers

PART III: Advisers and their relationship with civil servants and politicians

• How do political advisers interfere with the civil servants? From the traditional binary political-administrative relationship to a “menage a trois”.
• How do advisers interact with politicians and how much influence do they have? Advisers and the circles of trust surrounding politicians. 

PART IV: Advisers and accountability

•  From the shadows into the light, are political advisers accountable and to whom?

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

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