Policy professionals – a group of self-centered political influencers or party loyal political influencers?

Abstract: This thesis examines the group of political advisors within the government offices of a right-wing and left-wing government, showing differences between the two in terms of recruitment. The political advisors, among many roles both inside and outside the government offices, fall under the category of policy professionals. The policy professionals are defined as a social group employed without being elected, but perhaps capable of affecting policies. With collected resumes of policy professionals inside the government offices, the backgrounds of the policy professionals are examined showing differences in the qualities valued most in recruitment between the two governments selected for the thesis. The political profiles ‘media-talent’ and ‘party democrat’ show what type of government metamorphosis is present on the basis of Bernard Manin’s theory of the representative democratic form of government. The results showed a majority of policy professionals belong to the party democratic profile representing Bernard Manin’s second metamorphosis. The growing group of media-talent profiles within both governments however show, that the metamorphosis might be in a state of change, moving towards the public democracy.