Since the 1980’s, the growing involvement of private consultancy firms in the public sector worldwide has instigated concerns about the outsourcing of public policy advising to market-driven actors. Although these firms participate in spreading policy ideas, their roles have not received sustained attention, despite being observed by a few scholars. Against this background, the aim of this paper is threefold. First, from established policy concepts relating to policy diffusion, we identify the potential roles that consultancy firms may take on in spreading policy ideas. Second, we use a systematic literature review to collect and distil what is currently known about what different roles consultancy firms fulfil, and what kinds of tensions arise in their interactions with both clients and other actors. Third, we draft an agenda for future research on consultancy firms’ impact in governance processes. To focus our study, our review hones in on environmental governance, more specifically water governance, a significant area of activity for such firms where they play an important in-between role in providing policy ideas. We found indications that consultancy firms possess six types of capabilities (trusted facilitators, reactors to environmental policies, shapers of environmental policies, market drivers, interest navigators, and managers of public participation), and face various dilemmas around biases, decontextualized global practices, market interests, and manipulative practices. We conclude that more attention should be given to empirically refining capabilities involved in shaping policies and markets and to further highlighting how consultancy firms impact the diffusion of governance ideas in and beyond the water and environmental sectors.

自 20 世纪 80 年代以来，私人咨询公司越来越多地参与全球公共部门，引发了人们对将公共政策咨询外包给市场驱动的参与者的担忧。尽管这些公司参与传播政策理念，但它们的作用并未受到持续关注，尽管有一些学者对此进行了观察。在此背景下，本文的目的有三个。首先，根据与政策传播相关的既定政策概念，我们确定了咨询公司在传播政策思想方面可能发挥的潜在作用。其次，我们使用系统的文献综述来收集和提炼目前已知的咨询公司所扮演的不同角色，以及在与客户和其他参与者的互动中会出现什么样的紧张关系。第三，我们起草了一份关于咨询公司对治理流程影响的未来研究议程。为了集中我们的研究，我们的审查重点关注环境治理，更具体地说是水治理，这是此类公司的一个重要活动领域，它们在提供政策想法方面发挥着重要的中间作用。我们发现，有迹象表明，咨询公司拥有六种能力（可信赖的促进者、环境政策的反应者、环境政策的塑造者、市场驱动者、利益引导者和公众参与的管理者），并面临着围绕偏见、脱离语境的全球实践、市场环境的各种困境。利益和操纵行为。我们的结论是，应更多地关注经验性提炼参与制定政策和市场的能力，并进一步强调咨询公司如何影响水和环境部门内外治理理念的传播。