by Denitsa Marchevska
In her article, author Denitsa Marchevska examines how non-governmental organisations can achieve policy advisory success in settings where such influence would typically be considered unlikely. The article addresses a central puzzle: while non-governmental organisations are often seen as disadvantaged within policy advisory systems, they are nevertheless able, in some cases, to play a substantive role in policy formulation.
The article situates this puzzle within scholarship on policy advisory systems, interest group influence, and collaborative governance. Across these literatures, non-governmental organisations are commonly understood to face structural constraints, including more limited access to decision-makers, fewer resources, and weaker institutional positioning. These constraints are expected to be particularly pronounced in more closed or less participatory policy-making environments.
To explain instances of policy advisory success under such conditions, the article adopts an approach that brings together multiple explanatory dimensions. It draws on the Structure, Institution and Agency (SIA) framework to examine how structural conditions, institutional arrangements, and the actions of individual actors combine to enable influence. Rather than privileging a single explanatory factor, the analysis focuses on how these elements interact.
The empirical analysis centres on Bulgaria’s social service delivery reform, presented as an extreme case combining a relatively closed policy-making environment with a high level of non-governmental organisation involvement in policy formulation. This case allows the article to explore how policy advisory success can emerge despite unfavourable conditions.
The findings highlight the importance of agency, particularly the role of individuals in opening up space for non-governmental organisations within the policy advisory process. At the same time, institutional arrangements and broader contextual conditions shape when and how such agency can be exercised. Policy advisory success is not the result of any single factor; rather, it depends on the alignment of structural, institutional, and agentic elements. The analysis also shows that the factors enabling policy advisory success vary across stages of the policy formulation process and across different arenas of advisory activity.
The article’s contribution lies in demonstrating the value of an analytic approach that captures this complexity. By showing how structure, institutions, and agency combine in specific ways across different stages and arenas, it challenges accounts that rely on single explanatory factors and advances understanding of how policy advisory success is achieved in constrained settings. In doing so, it contributes to scholarship on policy advisory systems by offering a more differentiated account of influence and by highlighting the conditions under which non-governmental organisations can play a substantive role in policy formulation.
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Marchevska, D. (2026). Explaining the policy advisory success of non-governmental organisations in unlikely settings: a complexity-oriented approach. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2026) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2026D000000094
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Christensen, J., Hesstvedt, S., Pronin, K., Holst, C., Christiansen, P. M., & Holli, A. M. (2026). Experts in governance: a comparative analysis of the Nordic countries. Policy & Politics, 54(1), 163-187 [Open Access] from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2025D000000079
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