Management of Participation Practice: Reconstruction of Lithuania's Formal Policy Networks by Means of Social Network Analysis

The goal of this paper is to investigate policy networks in Migori, a small county in the Western part of Kenya, near the border with Tanzania and Victoria Lake. In this study we build a unique network database and we use Social Network Analysis techniques to detect the structural relations among different stakeholders (e.g. institutions and civil society actors) within this county and we focus on different topics (i.e. overall interactions, training and cooperation, and for specific decision making on health and nutrition, and agricultural issues). The main results show the importance to distinguish, in policy networks, the rationale of interactions and their intensity, i.e. weak or strong ties. Institutions and civil society organizations are differently connected according to the functions and intensity of networks in which they operate. For example, for health and nutrition the Ministry is the core actor; the opposite occurs in agriculture, where local communities are the core players; and finally in training and coordination we have an intermediate layout, if compared to the two previous ones.

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Cooperation and polarization in a Presidential Congress: Policy networks in the Chilean Lower House 2006–2017

Politics ◽

10.1177/0263395719862478 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 40 (2) ◽

pp. 227-244

Author(s):

Carmen Le Foulon Morán

Keyword(s):

Social Network ◽

Social Network Analysis ◽

Network Analysis ◽

Agenda Setting ◽

Policy Networks ◽

Degree Of Polarization ◽

Roll Call ◽

Party Discipline ◽

Lower House

The joint initiation of legislation is one of the most important forms of collaboration within Congress, and the nature of such relations may affect its responsiveness. Through social network analysis, this article analyses the evolution of cohesion and polarization of policy networks for the Chilean Lower House from 2006 until 2017, comparing those derived from all bills from those that emerge when considering only successful ones. Although scholars consider that initiation of legislation is mostly free of party discipline or policy gatekeeping, networks recovered from all bills despite being highly cohesive replicate the roll-call divisions during all years under analysis. Among networks derived from successful bills – those able to overcome policy gatekeeping, collaboration crosses the ideological divide. These results imply that agenda setting plays a different role on policy collaboration than on voting and emphasize the relevance of the partisan dimension in agenda setting influence presented by Tsebelis and Aleman. Whereas the institutional prerogatives in the Lower House did not change after 2006, the partisan configuration did, which might explain the different degree of polarization among networks of successful bills found before 2006 by other studies.

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Power, brokers, and agendas: New directions for the use of social network analysis in education policy

Education Policy Analysis Archives ◽

10.14507/epaa.28.5874 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 28 ◽

pp. 117

Author(s):

Emily Hodge ◽

Joshua Childs ◽

Wayne Au

Keyword(s):

Social Network ◽

Social Network Analysis ◽

Network Analysis ◽

Education Policy ◽

Large Scale ◽

Policy Networks ◽

Academic Disciplines ◽

Sociological Approaches ◽

Advance Theory ◽

Every Student Succeeds Act

In this special issue, Researching 21st Century Education Policy Through Social Network Analysis, authors use social network analysis (SNA) to explore policy networks, broaden the current literature of sociological approaches to SNA, and/or incorporate new lenses for interpreting policy networks from political science or other academic disciplines. This editorial introduction first provides an overview of policy networks and their relevance in education. Then, the editors describe existing work applying the tools of SNA to education policy and highlight understudied areas before describing the articles included in this issue. These articles apply SNA to a variety of education policy issues, including large scale policies such as the Every Student Succeeds Act and the Common Core State Standards, charter schools, and the relationship between system and non-system actors. Articles highlight multiple applications of SNA, including how SNA can be used to advance theory, as well as describe and predict policy networks.

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