Policy Analysts in the Bureaucracy

Who advises our policy makers in Washington? What brings these advisors to the federal bureaucracy and keeps them there? And how do their clients and the bureaucratic context influence the choices they make in selecting, defining, and working on problems of public policy?

In the late 1960s, professional policy advisors—called policy analysts—began to emerge in the Washington bureaucracy. Their job: to provide information and advice about the consequences of choosing different policies. Arn...