How civic organizations influence policy: The effect of functional roles Eran Zaidise How civil society organizations influence the outputs of government should be a crucial interest for social scientists. However, it seems that influence, as an independent research agenda in the study of civil society, is a matter of much scholarly despair. One leading scholar has gone as far saying that the more we study this phenomena, the less we seem to know about it (Scott, 1992), and another pictorially portrayed the problem as such: "The search for influence is like a blind man searching for a black cat in the coal bin at midnight" (Loomis, 1983: 184). In the recent decade or so, conceptual and methodological problems related to the study of influence have led many scholars to focus their attention elsewhere (Dur & De Beivre, 2007). With the question of influence put aside, much attention has been given to organizational aspects, strategically and tactical choices of operation, mobilization, and lately, comparison to the for-profit sector and global/international development. These topics are undoubtedly interesting, as they are important. Yet, for political scientists, the question of influence will always remain an important piece of the puzzle (Au, 1996: 1; Baumgartner and Leech, 1998: 36; Goodman, Pennings and Associates, 1977: 2; Dur & de-Beivre, 2007; Kanter, and Summers, 1987; Whitely, and Winyard, 1987: 110-111). 1