Statistical Network Analysis for Analyzing Policy Networks

To analyze social network data using standard statistical approaches is to risk incorrect inference. The dependencies among observations implied in a network conceptualization undermine standard assumptions of the usual general linear models. One of the most quickly expanding areas of social and policy network methodology is the development of statistical modeling approaches that can accommodate such dependent data. In this article, we review three network statistical methods commonly used in the current literature: quadratic assignment procedures, exponential random graph models (ERGMs), and stochastic actor‐oriented models. We focus most attention on ERGMs by providing an illustrative example of a model for a strategic information network within a local government. We draw inferences about the structural role played by individuals recognized as key innovators and conclude that such an approach has much to offer in analyzing the policy process.     

Toward a Theory of Collaborative Policy Networks: Identifying Structural Tendencies

Support for the "democratization of the policy sciences" has led to the development of a number of frameworks and theories to enhance the normative, multidisciplinary approach to policy analysis. However, this approach has been challenged for failing to produce the objective empirical and normative standards implied by its scientific aspirations. One consideration that has been advanced under a variety of rubrics is "participatory policy analysis." This is a methodological proposal that expands the range of actors/stakeholders involved in the making and execution of public policy in a discursive or deliberative mode. While much of the research on policy networks is focused on the management and coordination of such networks (i.e., collaborative management), there is little attention on analysis of networks as a participatory policy analytical approach. We propose a theory of "collaborative policy networks" that examines not only the stakeholder composition of a group or the partnerships between any two stakeholders but also the way these stakeholders are embedded in various degrees of institutionalized structure and the discursive tendencies of exchange among them that leads to policy initiative, implementation, evaluation, and possibly termination. Collaborative policy networks are characterized by discursive properties, specifically reciprocity, representation, equality, participatory decision making, and collaborative leadership. We suggest that the results of such research can identify structural signatures of collaborative policy networks that serve as "stamps" of the common nature of such networks that, if fostered, can inform and improve the attempt of networks of partners to achieve policy goals.     

Policy Theory, Policy Theory Everywhere: Ravings of a Deranged Policy Scholar

The field of policy theory abounds with numerous theories, with each theory having a set of practitioners that are working independently of the others. Resolving conflicts among policy theories as a result is difficult. This essay has a more modest goal of posing some questions and suggesting some avenues for future research. Key points include defining the purpose of policy theory, incorporating management into our theories, making strategic choices about areas of study, addressing the parsimony-comprehensiveness tradeoff, and providing a more nuanced role for institutions.     

Statistical Inferences in Bidimensional Regression Models

This paper proposes formal procedures of significance tests for bidimensional regression models (Tobler 1994): (1) significance tests of estimated parameters, (2) significance tests of bidimensional correlation coefficient, and (3) significance tests for comparison of bidimensional regression models. These tests are demonstrated by reexamination of the cognitive map study in Kanazawa City (Wakabayashi 1994). The empirical results statistically support the systematic distortion in the cognitive map, enlargement and rotation, indicated by the Euclidean model in the previous study, and discern the affine model as a more proper model that can identify more components of systematic cognitive distortion.     

Policy Networks as Collective Action

An important contribution to the policy sciences, and to interorganizational research in particular, has been the introduction of the so-called policy network approach. Despite the fact that this approach has produced a multitude of concepts, it still lacks a theoretical scaffold. In this article it is argued that simply to refer to something called "network theory" is an unsatisfactory solution. It is suggested that one way of advancing the policy network approach is to apply collective action theory and explicitly regard different empirical appearances of network concepts as expressions of collective action. Six tentative building blocks of such a theory are suggested. It is further argued that the policy network approach would benefit from incorporation into a broader analytical framework such as the Institutional Analysis and Development framework. Finally, it is concluded that such an incorporation would advance our ability to understand the processes of policymaking and thus to fulfill one of the old commitments of policy analysis, namely to contribute to the refinement of policymaking processes in society.     

Global Public Policy,Transnational Policy Communities,and Their Networks

Public policy has been a prisoner of the word “state.” Yet, the state is reconfigured by globalization. Through “global public–private partnerships” and “transnational executive networks,” new forms of authority are emerging through global and regional policy processes that coexist alongside nation‐state policy processes. Accordingly, this article asks what is “global public policy”? The first part of the article identifies new public spaces where global policies occur. These spaces are multiple in character and variety and will be collectively referred to as the “global agora.” The second section adapts the conventional policy cycle heuristic by conceptually stretching it to the global and regional levels to reveal the higher degree of pluralization of actors and multiple‐authority structures than is the case at national levels. The third section asks: who is involved in the delivery of global public policy? The focus is on transnational policy communities. The global agora is a public space of policymaking and administration, although it is one where authority is more diffuse, decision making is dispersed and sovereignty muddled. Trapped by methodological nationalism and an intellectual agoraphobia of globalization, public policy scholars have yet to examine fully global policy processes and new managerial modes of transnational public administration.     

Interfacility Interaction in Models of Hub and Spoke Networks

Providers of transportation services may reduce their average unit costs by bundling flows and channeling them between hubs (also known as concentrators or routers). The resulting facility locations are interdependent because of the flows between them. This paper analyzes mathematical models of hub systems in an effort to enhance understanding of the optimal location of interactive facilities. The paper examines the behavior of solutions to several alternative models that require the location of a hub at either of two similar locations. A model employing a concave cost function favors the assembly of flows, penalizes fractional facility locations, and produces local minima that have integer facilities.     

Advancing Policy Theory with Cultural Theory: An Introduction to the Special Issue

Cultural Theory (CT) is a constructivist theory, developed by Mary Douglas, Aaron Wildavsky, and others, that seeks to participate in the positivist project of discovering, explaining, and predicting regularities in human behavior. Special Issue contributions and this introduction suggest some ways in which this theory can help advance policy studies. One way CT can help is by further specifying other approaches to policy theory. Thus, Hank Jenkins‐Smith and his collaborators argue (and with respect to belief systems demonstrate) that the theory can be used to specify belief systems, coalitions, and causes of policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF); Rob Robinson uses CT to specify further both sources of resistance to policy change and sources of dramatic policy change in Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET); and Christopher Weare, Paul Lichterman, and Nicole Esparza use the theory to specify sources of collaboration in policy networks as well as sources of network dissolution. Other contributors argue and/or demonstrate that CT can help specify the culturally pluralized conditions for successful policy deliberation, the cultural sources of policy narratives, and how cultural biases are likely to interact with policy frames. This Special Issue invites policy scholars to consider how the theory might help advance their research interests and the field.     

Models of Policy Discourse: insights versus Prediction

Policy researchers traditionally have adhered to the quantitative: (or positivist) approach. Recently, some policy analysts have emphasized a more qualitative (or postpositivist) approach. Little, if any, of the latter has been considered by proponents of the former as serious policy (i.e., "objective") analysis. This tension has produced some conflicts as to which camp is more attuned to a policy version of "truth."
This essay attempts to demonstrate the strong and weak points of both paradigms, and argues that either by itself has serious debilitations. For instance, positivists deny the subjective nature of values that denigrate the putatively "objective" orientations of their analyses, perhaps even rendering it "undemocratic." On the other hand, postpositivists have a difficult time operationalizing their preferred research methodologies with the necessary rigor.
The essay concludes that the research problem—rather than a favorite methodology—should determine the research approach, and that both the quantitative and qualitative aspects can be used in a consonant manner.     

Statistical Tests and Process Generators For Random Field Models

Two alternative specifications for random fields are reviewed and models from both specifications identified. The paper then deals with statistical tests for discriminating between randomness and some of the models of dependence. These various tests are compared and criteria established for their use. Additional testing procedures are identified for the more difficult problem of distinguishing between models of dependence. The paper then looks at different process generators for certain random field models and concludes with a discussion of the importance of the theory for handling diffusion processes. The value of these results for both model specification and “form-process” studies is emphasized.     

The Intersection of Narrative Policy Analysis and Policy Change Theory

Narrative policy analysis and policy change theory rarely intersect in the literature. This research proposes an integration of these approaches through an empirical analysis of the narrative political strategies of two interest groups involved in policy debate and change over an eight‐year period in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Three research questions are explored: (i) Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly disparate approaches? (ii) Do policy narrative strategies explain how interest groups expand or contain policy issues despite divergent core policy beliefs? (3) How does this new method of analysis add to the literature? One hundred and five documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy narrative strategies: identification of winners and losers, diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, and use of condensation symbols, policy surrogates, and science. Five of seven hypotheses were confirmed while controlling for presidential administration and technical expertise. The results indicate that interest groups do use distinctive narrative strategies in the turbulent policy environment.     

Micro‐Level Interpretation of Exponential Random Graph Models with Application to Estuary Networks

The exponential random graph model (ERGM) is an increasingly popular method for the statistical analysis of networks that can be used to flexibly analyze the processes by which policy actors organize into a network. Often times, interpretation of ERGM results is conducted at the network level, such that effects are related to overall frequencies of network structures (e.g., the number of closed triangles in a network). This limits the utility of the ERGM because there is often interest, particularly in political and policy sciences, in network dynamics at the actor or relationship levels. Micro‐level interpretation of the ERGM has been employed in varied applications in sociology and statistics. We present a comprehensive framework for interpretation of the ERGM at all levels of analysis, which casts network formation as block‐wise updating of a network. These blocks can represent, for example, each potential link, each dyad, the out‐ or in‐going ties of each actor, or the entire network. We contrast this interpretive framework with the stochastic actor‐based model (SABM) of network dynamics. We present the theoretical differences between the ERGM and the SABM and introduce an approach to comparing the models when theory is not sufficiently strong to make the selection a priori. The alternative models we discuss and the interpretation methods we propose are illustrated on previously published data on estuary policy and governance networks.     

Comparing Policy Networks: Marine Protected Areas in California

While most of the network literature focuses on information and advice networks, there is increasing interest—particularly among Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) scholars—on ally networks and coordination networks. This article asks two basic questions: First, do information, ally, and coordination networks overlap with each other? Second, and drawing from the ACF, do policy core beliefs structure the interactions in ally, coordination, and advice/information networks? We pursue these research questions in the context of the California Marine Life Protection Act process. We find that ally and coordination networks overlap slightly more than information/advice networks and that policy core beliefs do a better job of predicting ally and coordination networks than advice/information networks. Thus, we show that ally networks can provide a useful proxy for coordination networks to identify advocacy coalitions.     

Ideology,Power, and the Structure of Policy Networks

This article investigates the role of power and ideology in the endogenous formation of policy networks. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), shared ideology (conceptualized as a system of policy‐relevant beliefs and values) is the primary driver of collaboration within policy subsystems. On the other hand, Resource Dependency Theory suggests that power‐seeking is an important rationale behind network structure, and that collaborative ties are formed primarily on the basis of perceived influence. Hypotheses are tested using a new method of egocentric network correlation, based on survey data of policy networks in five regional planning subsystems in California (N = 506). Results suggest that ideology is an important force behind network cohesion: Not only do policy elites systematically avoid networking with ideologically dissimilar actors but collaborative ties are also systematically formed among actors with shared beliefs. Power‐seeking does not operate on a network‐wide scale but may drive network formation among coalitions of ideologically similar agents.