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In the last 10 years, policy networks have become a popular concept to analyze policy making in multi-actor settings. This article argues that, although stimulating and interesting, the research that has been done in this field can be improved in three ways. The first way to improve the usefulness of the concept network is to pay more attention to the dynamics of policy making. In this article, the concept game is used to conceptualize this dynamic character of policy processes. Second, the concept network stresses the context of policy making, but a coherent theoretical framework on how this context is formed and changed is lacking. This article attempts to make some steps toward such a theoretical framework. Central in this framework is the idea of the duality of structure proposed by Giddens and the notion of rules. Finally, the literature on networks could gain relevance by directing more systematic attention on how complex policy processes in these networks can be managed Building on earlier work, especially in interorganization theory, some management strategies are discussed
The notion that policy making is the result of an interaction process between many actors, of whom only some are governmental agencies, has become common wisdom among policy scientists. The search for adequate concepts and theories to analyze complex policy decision making, however, has not yet resulted in a common ground.
The concept that has gained the most ardent supporters is the concept of network, or policy network. This concept has its roots in earlier theories: the literature on interorganizational relations and the literature on subsystems and policy communities. The first kind of literature is firmly embedded in the organizational sociology of the 1960s and 1970s. The second kind of literature belongs primarily to political science and was developed as a consequence of the power discussions between elitists and pluralists in the 1950s and 1960s.1
This article focuses on the question, What insights has the debate around the concept network provided on the way policy processes in multi-actor settings are being structured and managed, and how can these insights be improved? This article will argue that these insights can be improved if more attention is paid to the dynamics of policy processes, on institutionalization processes in networks, and on ways...