Policy process theories
Petr Ocelík
ESSn4007/ MEBn4001
Outline
• Public policy and policy process
• Overview of the policy process theories
• A network perspective on policy process
Public policy and policy process
The “political”
• Activities through which people make,
preserve, and change the general rules
under which they live (Heywood 2012: 2)
• → produce collectively biding outcomes
(policies) that bring unequal distribution
of costs and benefits
• This involves both collaborative (seeking
for resources and allies) and conflictual
(interfering with opponents) interactions
Polity, politics, policy
• Polity: institutional framework of the
political system
• Politics: focus on interactions of the
actors, e.g.: voting patterns within the
polity
• Policy: focus on formation of particular
domains, e.g.: social or energy, within the
polity through collectively biding decisions
What is public policy?
• Public policy: a government policy that (1) guides and
regulates actions in a specific (2) issue area and within a (3)
particular jurisdiction
• More inclusive definition: the sum of direct and indirect topically
bounded government activities with social impacts (see
Cairney 2012)
• In democratic regimes, public policies are enacted through
complex legislative processes
How is policy made?
• The policy-making process can be captured by
policy cycle model (Lasswell 1956)
Cairney 2019
How is policy made?
• But, what about?
1. Actors not directly participating in the legislative process?
2. More generally, context of the legislative process?
• Thus, policy process is much more complex than policy cycle
suggests...
Policy process theories
Policy process
• Policy process: a process through which the public policy (or its
components) is produced, terminated, or revised
• Policy process is shaped by:
1. interactions of diverse actors influenced by institutional
structures (Ostrom 2014; Sabatier 1988)
2. policy discourses and frames (Shanahan et al. 2011)
• (number of more general structures and events)
• Different policy process theories tend to emphasize different
dimensions of the policy process
Advocacy Coalition Framework
• Policy process involves (1) diversity of actors and their groups
and occurs (2) mostly at the level of a policy subsystem –
subset of political system defined by issue area
• Actors perceive policy problems through a system of policy
beliefs and struggle to translate their beliefs into policies
• Advocacy coalitions (1) share policy beliefs and (2) coordinate
their efforts
→ Patterns of actors’ (coalitions’) interactions and subsystem
configurations facilitate or constrain policy change
Punctuated Equilibrium Theory
• Punctuated equilibrium: social systems exhibit
prolonged periods of stability punctuated by sudden
changes
• PET (Baumgartener & Jones 1993): policy process
consists of large amount of small policy changes
(incrementalism) and a very few large policy changes
(punctuations)
• Periods of equilibria disrupted by conflict expansions
mobilizing policy actors on particular issue.
• They use policy images to frame the policy issues in way that suits their
interests and participate in various policy venues.
→ strategic interactions involving policy images and venues explain development
of policy subsystems.
NCCHPP 2018
Narrative Policy Framework
• Diverse actors and their coalitions use narratives to influence
policy process (Jones et al. 2014)
• A narrative includes:
1. Setting: contextual factors (e.g., socioeconomic)
2. Characters: heroes, villains, victims, and beneficiaries
3. Plot: situates the characters, e.g., “decline plot”
4. Moral: a take-home lessons containing the solution to the
policy problem
→ Specific narrative strategies aim at particular audience(s) to
facilitate or constrain policy change
NPF: Nuclear energy debate in India
• Two coalitions with competing narratives (Gupta et al. 2014)
→ The pro-nuclear coalition succeeded in establishing a “winning
tale” emphasizing diffusion of benefits and scientific certainty
A network perspective on policy process
Policy process as a network
• Policy process can be captured as a network:
1. of diverse, both state and non-state, actors who are
2. centered around a specific issue and who interact at
3. the subsystem level and
4. within geographically and juridically defined boundaries
Policy process as a network
• Policy process can be captured as a network:
1. of diverse, both state and non-state, actors who are
→ companies, NGOs, social movements, interest groups, academia, etc.
2. centered around a specific issue and who interact at
→ taxation, healthcare, migration, energy, security, etc.
3. the subsystem level and
→ a subset of political system: government, parliament, courts, advisory bodies, etc.
4. within geographically and juridically defined boundaries
→ typically, state boundaries and exclusive national competence
Policy process as a network
• The characteristics of the actors (typically organizations) and
their interactions can be defined by:
1. Nodal (individual) attributes: organization type, budget, policy
preferences, etc.
1. Ties: cooperation, exchange of resources, information flows,
membership in umbrella organizations, etc.
• In practice, actors are embedded within multiple types of
relationships (multiplexity)
De Domenico et al. 2014
Policy process as a network
• The current governance systems are complex and often non-
hierarchical
• Structure matters: different forms of organization (polycentric
vs. core-periphery) might influence policy outcomes
• Importantly, policy processes are different for different
policy issues (e.g., taxation vs. climate change)
• Government is not the only player in the game → we need
to take into account more actors
Policy process as a network
Crebs and Holley 2004 Maslov and Sneppen 2002
Normann 2017
Influence in climate policy networks
• Wagner et al. 2021. Network ties, institutional roles and advocacy
tactics: Exploring explanations for perceptions of influence in climate
change policy networks. Social networks, online first.
• What drives (perceived) influence in climate policy network?
→ Influential actors shape policies more than others.
• Hypotheses:
1. Institutional roles (e.g. decision-making authority)
2. Network position (e.g. brokers)
3. Advocacy tactics: insider (lobbying) and outsider (media
campaigns) tactics
• Data collected for 6 EU countries: CZ, FIN, GER, IRE, PG, SW
Influence in climate policy networks: results
• Advocacy tactics: limited evidence that insider tactics are
associated with influence, outsider tactics not weapons of the weak
• Institutional roles: gov departments recognized as influential in all 6
countries
• Network position: collaboration partners and brokers recognized as
influential in all 6 countries
→ Actors ought to reflect on their network position
→ Influence primarily linked with structural factors – institutional roles &
network position – incumbents likely in advantage against the
new entrants → less ambitious climate policies
Conclusions
• Public polices are topically bounded sets of governmental
(in)actions with societal impacts
• They result from policy processes that involve diverse actors and
their coalitions
• Policy actors interact in complex environments including
institutional and discursive structures as well as more general trends
and events
• Policy process theories emphasize various dimensions of the policy
process → room for theoretical elaboration and integration