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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.

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. Related Articles Selling, Niels, and Stefan Svallfors. 2019. “The Lure of Power: Career Paths and Considerations among Policy Professionals in Sweden.” Politics & Policy 47(5): 984–1012. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12325. Svallfors, Stefan. 2016. “Out of the Golden Cage: PR and the Career Opportunities of Policy Professionals.” Politics & Policy 44(1): 56–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12149. Svallfors, Stefan, Erica Falkenström, Corrie Hammar, and Anna T. Höglund. 2022. “Networked Reports: Commissioning and Production of Expert Reports on Swedish Health Care Governance.” Politics & Policy 50(3): 580–97. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12462.

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.