The article investigates internal strategies and struggles in civil society organizations' (CSOs') policy advocacy work from the vantage point of policy professionals by using the concepts of field, symbolic capital, and logics. A main claim is that mediatization acts as a strategic-tension mechanism within a CSO, putting communicators at the center of policy units, which in turn is consequential for the strategies chosen for the organization's policy work. In this way, mediatization as a process celebrates certain professionals and strategies as particularly relevant, creating frustration among employees not specializing in communication. The study identifies a trend for organizations to put more resources and influence into communication and less into actual policy analysis. This article combines research on organizational logics, policy professionals, and mediatization by drawing on 38 interviews with, and ethnographic work among, policy professionals in Sweden, Latvia, and the Netherlands.

Drawing on 24 interviews with policy professionals in 10 Swedish member-based civil society organizations (CSOs), and observations of policy professionals in three of these, we investigate CSOs from the perspective of their policy teams. This paper theoretically addresses how policy professionals relate to the members in whose name they work. This article extends the literature on civil society professionalization by conceptualizing the conflicts pertaining to policy professionals’ work in CSOs and ways of managing these conflicts. We argue that, ordinarily, CSO policy professionals working to influence public policy respond to conflicting logics and myth-like institutional demands for strong and direct influence of member interests by maintaining face and investing in the myth of member centrality. Based on how policy professionals address these issues, we suggest that organizations respond to conflicting institutional pressures and myths via decoupling strategies, discreetly avoiding member concerns while investing in the membership myth, ultimately fostering organizational hypocrisy. Conceptually, the paper contributes by connecting the literatures of civil society professionalization and new institutional theory to the burgeoning literature on policy professionals.

The professionalization of civil society organizations coupled with an elite-driven policy process has fostered the rise of policy professionals in civil society organizations (CSOs). This dissertation explores the role and functioning of policy professionals in CSOs, describing and analyzing how CSOs’ hiring of such expertise contributes to processes of professionalization within civil society, including what that entails from a normative perspective. It does so by analyzing interviews with and observations of policy professionals in Sweden, Latvia, and the Netherlands. The main research question guiding the thesis concerns how we can conceptualize and understand the group of policy professionals in civil society and the role it plays in the professionalization of civil society. The analysis is based on field theory in combination with new institutional theory.

The study provides new insights into the role of policy professionals and professionalization of CSOs through four empirical studies. First, it conceptualizes the field of policy advocacy in civil society as a struggle to gain influence over internal and public policymaking. In this struggle, policy professionals’ daily activities concern practices of influencing policy application and constructing several types of field-specific capital. Types of capital important for this subfield are, over and above social and academic capital, organizational capital and policy-political capital. While organizational capital restores the organization by fostering legitimacy, trust, and loyalty, policy-political capital, acquired from the political sphere, enhances the political professionalization of the field.

Second, a contribution of this thesis is to conceptualize policy professionals’ different role orientations as policy scholars, policy lobbyists, policy communicators, and policy activists. These role orientations of individual policy professionals are in turn connected to strategies embedded in the logics of and relationships with actors outside civil society.

Third, by identifying how these policy professionals handle the sometimes-clashing logics of membership and influence, gaps between ideals and practices are found in policy professionals’ day-to-day policy work. Policy professionals try to overcome these gaps by the means of decoupling, myth creation, and organizational hypocrisy, creating a discrepancy in that the organizations say one thing but do another.

Lastly, this thesis argues that the mediatization of civil society creates conflicts within organizations, in turn pushing CSOs to advance their work via branding, framing, and strategic communication that elevate the positions of communicators within policy teams.

One of this study’s main contributions is made in relation to the professsionalization of CSOs, demonstrating how their roles are connected to organizational strategies. A second contribution is that of nuancing and extending the literature on and conceptualization of policy professionals by conceptualizing the subfield of policy professionals in civil society. This thesis reveals how the policy professsionalizationof CSOs creates a new political landscape where competence relating to these areas is in demand, fostering the emergence of policy professionals as a cadre in civil society. A significant danger of this policy professionalization of CSOs is that decision making is placed more in the hands of these employees, rather than in the hands of the members the organization is supposed to represent.

En ökad politisk komplexitet, i kombination med ett mer professionaliserat civilsamhälle, främjar framväxten av policyprofessionella inom civilsamhällesorganisationer och aktualiserar frågor kring deras traditionella demokratiskapande roll och förmåga. Avhandlingen studerar civilsamhällets professionalisering genom att analysera observationer och intervjuer med policyprofessionellt anställda – det vill säga anställda med huvuduppgift inom politisk påverkan, kommunikation, sakkunskap och utredning – på civilsamhällesorganisationers huvudkontor i Sverige, Lettland och Nederländerna.

Den huvudfråga som avhandlingen behandlar rör hur vi kan konceptualisera och förstå de policyprofessionella i civilsamhället och den roll de spelar för dess professionalisering. Avhandlingen använder sig av fältteori i kombination med ny institutionell teori för att skapa nya insikter om hur denna grupp av experter påverkar organisationers strategier, produktion av kapital, legitimitet och ytterst deras demokratiska funktion. Avhandlingen består av fyra delstudier som fokuserar på policyprofessionellas roll i medlemsorganisationer.

Den första delstudien rör policyprofessionella som ett fält. Den visar på hur olika grupper av policyprofessionella för med sig och skapar kunskaper och kapital när de rör sig mellan organisationer på arbetsmarknaden. Det policyprofessionella fältet förstås som en kamp för att få inflytande över internt och offentligt beslutsfattande. I kampen om inflytande används och konstrueras fältspecifikt kapital. Kapital som är viktigt för detta område är – förutom nätverk, kontakter och akademisk utbildning – organisatoriskt kapital och policypolitiskt kapital. Medan organisatoriskt kapital skänker organisationen legitimitet, förtroende och lojalitet, bidrar det policypolitiska kapitalet, hämtat från den politiska sfären, till en politisk professionalisering av fältet.

Delstudie två argumenterar för vikten av att skilja mellan olika typer av policyprofessionella. I civilsamhällesorganisationer konceptualiseras policyprofessionellas olika rollinriktningar i fyra grupper: policyforskare, policylobbyister, policykommunikatörer och policyaktivister. Dessa rollinriktningar är i sin tur kopplade till individernas val av strategier, som i sin tur är inbäddade i institutionella logiker och i relationer med aktörer utanför det civila samhället.

Ett exempel på logiker som påverkar fältet är den potentiella konflikten mellan medlemslogiken och inflytandelogiken som studeras i delstudie tre. Civilsamhällesorganisationers specialisering i arbetet med policyprocesser ger dem mer kompetens kring politiska strategier. Det innebär att policyprofessionella får ett kunskapsövertag gentemot medlemmar och valda representanter, vilket i sin tur skapar gap mellan de policyprofessionella och medlemmarna. De policyprofessionella försöker övervinna gapen med hjälp av vad som förstås som frikoppling av policyarbete gentemot medlemmar och skapande av myter kring medlemmarnas centrala roll i organisationer. Strategierna leder till organisatoriskt hyckleri, det vill säga en diskrepans i vad organisationerna säger och vad de gör. Ytterligare extern logik som studeras i delstudie fyra är mediatisering (organisationers anpassning till en medialogik) för att påverka politiska beslut. Studien visar hur mediatisering av det civila samhället driver organisationer att avancera sitt arbete med varumärkesbyggande och strategisk kommunikation, vilket i sin tur höjer kommunikatörernas status inom policyteam och skapar konflikter inom organisationer.

Sammantaget visar avhandlingen på vad som kan beskrivas som en policyprofessionalisering av civilsamhällesorganisationer, vilket skapar och är en konsekvens av mer elitdrivna påverkansprocesser inom civilsamhället. Avhandlingen bidrar dels till studiet av professionaliseringsprocesser inom civilsamhället, dels till att nyansera och utöka litteraturen och förståelsen av policyprofessionella. Den beskrivna policyprofessionaliseringen av civilsamhällesorganisationer skapar ett nytt politiskt landskap där policyprofessionell kompetens efterfrågas inom civilsamhället. En betydande fara med framväxten av policyprofessionella som arbetskår inom civilsamhällesorganisationer är att beslutsfattande i högre grad läggs i händerna på dessa anställda, snarare än i händerna på medlemmarna som organisationen ska representera.

How does hiring of policy professionals, to do the policy work of civil society organizations, impact the organizations that hire them? Policy professionals constitute a growing group of actors who populate many interest groups, working with advocacy and influencing public policy. As a group they comprise various types of professionals, displaying different backgrounds, identities and motivations. By analyzing individual policy professionals, asking questions about their identity and motivation to work with advocacy, and then through ethnographical observations following their work, this article contributes to the understanding of how policy professionals' backgrounds and professional identities are connected to organizational strategies and the process of professionalization. In so doing, it sheds new light on the dynamics of policy production and what professionalization of politics looks like in civil society. The article proposes a categorization of policy professionals' role orientations in civil society as policy scholars, policy lobbyists, policy communicators and policy activists. This conceptualization is of analytical value, because the balance between these categories affects dynamics within organizations and the work they do in relation to advocacy and policy, in tandem with their legitimacy.

This article investigates the field of policy professionals in civil society. The main objective is to gain knowledge on this subgroup of policy professionals, who are exerting vast influence over civil society organizations' policy development. Using field theory when analysing interviews and ethnographic data, the study contributes to our understanding of these civil society policy professionals, adding to the literature on professionalization in civil society by conceptualizing the capital that they construct and bring to the organizations in which they work. The findings provide insights on three main themes: First, organizational capital, based on being active in associations, stands out as specifically important for these professionals. Second, policy political capital - knowledge, skills and contacts derived from the political structure - is important within the field. Third, drawing on Bourdieu's conceptual apparatus, the analysis shows that the specific illusio for the policy professional field is influence. It implies the importance of successfully upholding the image of policy influence and is the return that the players in the field are competing for.

The credibility of think tanks is grounded in their image as independent experts. In order to gain authority to act, think tanks must be seen as independent, but in order to exert influence and gain funding, think tanks are forced to compromise this independent image. We focus on how think tanks handle this independence paradox. How do think tanks use different resources to construct an independent image? The aim of the article is conceptual, as we develop a theoretical model of the independence paradox. This conceptual work is based on empirical analysis of attempts by think tanks in Poland and Sweden to create independence while maintaining influence. The two desirables central for think tanks, independence and influence, force them to make strategic choices about their relations with various actors. We conclude that the processes of keeping distance and arranging proximity are at the core of the independence paradox.

From chatter to organized networks. How think tanks work to enrol others

Think tanks, both inside and outside the Swedish context, appear as something of a conundrum. Definitions and conceptual understandings of what think tanks actually do have not been adequately developed. One of the most urgent and unanswered questions regards how we understand the ability of think tanks to get other actors in the political landscape to use their ideas? Drawing on insights from 13 think thanks in Stockholm, the intention of this paper is to provide an empirically based and theoretically informed answer to this question. The results show that the activities colloquially termed ”networking” and ”agenda setting”, can be understood from an organisational perspective. These activities come across as intangible with uncertain outcomes but cannot be seen as random attempts to bridge think tankers and policy actors, but as decided actions designed to make other actors use their ideas in the future. At the same time, the organized relationships to other actors are ambiguous, as too close relationships may risk the think tank’s appearance of independency.