Issue Networks: Iron Triangles, Subgovernments, Policy Communities, Policy Networks

Abstract

As policy making has increasingly been recognized to involve interest groups, analytical frameworks have been developed of state–interest group relations. Initially, there were limited and simple categories, such as issue networks, iron triangles, and policy communities. However, more complex policy network ‘models’ have been created that offer typologies of state–interest group relations and then seek to explain the forms of such relations. Most recently interorganizational approaches to policy networks have been established that draw on institutional and collective action frameworks that examine policy making by studying how the formation of ties among actors influences network output and the interaction among actors. Network frameworks allow inclusion of public and private actors and represent a move away from seeing policy making as an activity confined to public actors arranged in a simple hierarchy of relations.