CEA is getting good at policy now. They have some experience with advising, and some contacts in the major parties, and can cause some changes in where major amounts of funds go. Obviously there are massive amounts of moveable funds in the public sector, and it’s hardly a matter of lobbying in direct opposition to major established interests, but about choosing important issues like aid effectiveness or risky tech that political ideology is more neutral on. And you can certainly advise on such topics while remaining above the political fray. Whether to be drawn into ideological arguments in exchange for additional hort term policy gains is a somewhat separate question.
So it doesn’t make sense at all that you’d be sceptical about political intervention by CEA.
CEA is getting good at policy now. They have some experience with advising, and some contacts in the major parties, and can cause some changes in where major amounts of funds go. Obviously there are massive amounts of moveable funds in the public sector, and it’s hardly a matter of lobbying in direct opposition to major established interests, but about choosing important issues like aid effectiveness or risky tech that political ideology is more neutral on. And you can certainly advise on such topics while remaining above the political fray. Whether to be drawn into ideological arguments in exchange for additional hort term policy gains is a somewhat separate question.
So it doesn’t make sense at all that you’d be sceptical about political intervention by CEA.