Powerful Policy Actors Research Articles

Collaborative Policymaking: a qualitative systematic review of advice for policymakers.

Complex policy problems are not amenable to simple solutions by a few powerful policy actors in one central government. They require collaboration across government and between actors inside and outside of government. However, this requirement for collaboration is no guarantee of collective action. Further, it is difficult to know how to collaborate effectively. We searched the academic and grey literature for advice on how to foster collaborative policymaking. We conducted a qualitative systematic review (2024) of peer reviewed journal articles (Web of Science) and grey literature reports (Policy Commons). Each article or report had to inform advice on collaborative policymaking. We used an immersive and inductive approach to identify key themes and relate the results to well-established insights from policy theories. 86 texts meet the inclusion criteria (49 Web of Science, 37 Policy Commons). Most provide broad definitions of collaborative policymaking, which are similar to definitions of collaborative governance (and connected aims such as policy co-creation). Many assert or assume that greater collaboration, across and inside/outside of government, will improve policymaking and policy. Few individual studies give advice on how to collaborate effectively, but they combine to identify common features of collaboration. We synthesise the available advice to identify five main features of collaborative policymaking: plan and prepare to collaborate, such as by designing rules and allocating resources; create a sense of collective purpose, such as by setting a boundary around the collaboration and co-producing a common vision; foster creative methods to visualise collaboration and design policy; create new forums to supplement formal collaboration; and clarify the roles and skills essential to each collaborative task.

Do State Boards of Education Offer an Avenue for Public Voice?

Digital technologies provide new opportunities for increased participation by the general public in state and federal governance. In this article, we examine opportunities for public engagement in one type of state-level governmental body: the State Board of Education (SBOE). Limited research has focused on SBOEs, particularly the extent to which these powerful policy actors are accessible to the public. Drawing on the Open Government Maturity Model (OGMM), we examine data on the accessibility and opportunities for public engagement offered by 47 SBOEs to interrogate the validity of the assumption that SBOEs are avenues for public voice. We considered each SBOE to be a unique study participant and their websites to be their “electronic public faces.” Data were collected from SBOE websites on 39 different variables related to SBOE accessibility and used to create an SBOE E-Accessibility Index. Findings suggest that while most SBOEs meet lower levels of the OGMM’s criteria, they do not support meaningful public engagement in SBOE work.

Mapping policy actor networks and their interests in the FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement in Lao PDR

Abstract This paper maps the policy actors and their networks in the European Union’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan and the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) process in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). It analyzes power relations in the FLEGT VPA process, as well as actors’ preferences in relation to a number of policy issues dealt with in the FLEGT VPA. To provide contextual understanding, the paper explores pathways of policy influence along which international actors influence domestic decision-making processes within the FLEGT VPA. We find that in the Lao FLEGT VPA policy process, power is held by the traditionally most powerful policy actors, the central governmental agencies, donor community and international development partners, while the private sector, civil society organizations and actors from subnational levels are substantially less powerful. Strong policy preferences were noted for all aspects of timber legality, except for the legality of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Similarly, strong preferences were observed for considerations of transparency and accountability, while preferences were comparatively weaker for issues concerning i) forest communities' rights to forest and land, ii) livelihood impacts on small-scale operators and family businesses as well as those of forest communities, and iii) the involvement of civil society organizations in the VPA process. The most dominant pathways through which VPA influences domestic policy-making is the direct access to domestic policy-making, followed by the international rules pathway of influence. Based on our analysis, we argue that imbalance in distribution of power and in representation of actors in the VPA policy network may obstruct the intended outcomes and progress on important policy issues, despite the stated policy goals and resources provided by the donor community. This in turn fosters perpetual dominance of the traditionally powerful policy actors, which is likely to lead to further marginalization and disempowerment of the less powerful actors, such as forest communities and informal operators.

TVET Contributions Toward Education Policy, Economic Sustainability, Development, and Poverty Abatement in a Globalized Economy

Divergent discourses in education affecting social investment policies are driven by disparate perceptions of education as value, whether societal, individual, or by restructuring definitions of human capital beyond truncated utility measurements. In that context, powerful policy actors are making decisions based on their class cohort experience of what education should be, resulting in distinguishing evaluative properties that design education policy typologies to fit. Tightly framed within Rittel and Webber’s (1973) Wicked Problems and extrapolated across international education policy, are competitive academic performance outcomes, reflected by GDP increases that act as dimensions of national positioning within the global market. Panel regression findings from 14 years of world economic, vocational, and academic enrollment data reveal that academic education alone has no impact on GDP, but academics accompanying Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) does impact powerfully. Findings also reveal that every TVET enrollment proportionately increases overall academic enrollment, but not the inverse; while adoption of academic only investment increases poverty, negatively affecting GDP growth.

The voluntary sector and health policy: The role of national level health consumer and patients' organisations in the UK

This article explores the policy role of health consumer and patients' organisations (HCPOs), an important subset of the UK voluntary health sector. Based on research findings from two surveys, the article examines the activities, resources and contacts of HCPOs. It also assesses their impact on health policy and reform. There is some evidence that HCPOs can influence policy and reform. However, much depends on the alliances they build with other policy actors (including other HCPOs), their resources and leadership. HCPOs seem to have more impact on the detail of policy than on the direction of travel. In addition, there are potentially adverse consequences for HCPOs that do engage with the policy process, which may partly explain why some are wary of such involvement. For example, it is possible that HCPOs can be manipulated by government and other powerful policy actors such as health professionals and the drugs industry.

Principals, Power, and Policy: Enacting “Supplemental Educational Services”

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), schools that do not make adequate yearly progress must offer afterschool tutoring, entitled “Supplemental Educational Services” (SES). Drawing on 40 months of ethnographic research and utilizing actor–network theory, this article shows principals co‐opting the SES provisions to do what they determine is required for their schools, often in defiance of NCLB. It demonstrates how, within an increasingly centralized governance of public schools and heightened private intervention, principals emerge as powerful policy actors. [principal, policy, actor–network theory, NCLB, SES]

Reframing Garbage: Solid Waste Policy Formulation in Nova Scotia

A series of powerful focusing events established solid waste as a national problem in Canada and a provincial and local problem in Nova Scotia. The traditional approach, expanding and improving disposal options, was rejected at the provincial and local levels. Instead, both levels simultaneously developed and implemented policies that focused on maximizing the recovery of solid waste. In both cases, crucial to policy adoption was the reframing of solid waste from a useless by-product to a valuable economic resource. This reframing was the result of the intervention of powerful policy actors, environmental justice concerns, media attention, and the sustained presence of the issue on the agenda. This case study provides important lessons to governments interested in developing an alternative policy for solid waste other than the traditional disposal-reliance paradigm.

Biotic Carbon Sequestration and the Kyoto Protocol: The Construction of Global Knowledge by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

This paper explores the dynamics of the production of global knowledge by an international knowledge organization, in this case the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Based on previous notions of international boundary organizations, the idea of international knowledge organizations emphasizes the knowledge generation function of such organizations rather than their convening function. Using the case of controversial Kyoto Protocol biotic carbon sequestration policies, I argue that boundary work and uncertainty management are the essential dynamics in the successful construction of global knowledge by international knowledge organizations. This uncertainty management occurs in a manner broadly, although not completely, in conformance with the institutional preferences of powerful policy actors. Global knowledge can legitimate and help refine global policies, but the process of its construction must be iterative and transparent if it is to be credible for global environmental governance over the long-term.

The reorientation of market-oriented reforms in Swedish health-care

Sweden was an important pioneer of market-oriented reform in publicly funded health-care systems. Yet by the mid-1990s the county councils, which fund and manage most health-care, had substantially scaled back reforms based on provider competition while continuing to constrain health budgets. As policy makers faced new issues, they turned increasingly to longer-term and more cooperative contracts to define relations between hospitals and the county councils. Growing regionalization of government and hospital mergers further reconfigured acute care and limited opportunities for competition between hospitals. We seek to explain this reorientation of market-oriented reforms between 1989 and 1996 in terms of shifts in the positions taken by powerful policy actors, and in particular by county council politicians. During this period, elections moved liberal and conservative politicians, who were the most enthusiastic supporters of market-oriented reform, in and out of control of most county governments. Meanwhile many Social Democratic politicians gradually turned from initial support of competitive reform toward opposition. Politicians and county administrators from all parties were particularly concerned about controlling health expenditures during a period of recession. In addition, the public, politicians in the counties and municipalities, and health professionals resisted steps that threatened health sector employment and would have allowed market mechanisms, rather than governments, to determine the prices and distribution of health services. During the years under study Sweden's market-oriented reforms followed a course of development similar to that taken by other management and policy fashions (Abrahamson E. Management fashion, Academy of Management Review 1996;21: 254–85). At first the reforms enjoyed uncritical support by a broad spectrum of stakeholders. Gradually participants in the reform process recognized inherent tensions among the goals of the reform, conflicts between reform programs and fundamental social and political values, unrealistic assumptions about the effects of competition, technical and organizational obstacles to implementation, and threats to interest groups. Since 1998, there have been indications that Sweden may be entering yet another stage of experimentation with market-oriented reform.

The New Managerialism and the Policy Influence of Consultants in Government: An Historical–Institutionalist Analysis of Britain, Canada and France

Following the rise of the New Public Management (NPM) in the 1980s, policymakers increasingly mobilized management consultants from the private sector in the course of reforming their bureaucracies. To describe this situation some coined the term “consultocracy,” assuming that the emergence of the NPM created a growing demand for business management expertise in government circles that allowed consultants to penetrate the state and become powerful policy actors. Rather than taking these matters as given, I ask how has it been possible for consultants to become (or not) influential players in the process of administrative reform. It is argued that Britain, and to a lesser extent Canada, have been more likely than France to give rise to a “consultocracy” when implementing NPM reforms in the 1980s because in these two countries, management consultancy emerged earlier and is more strongly developed than in France because of its historical link with accountancy. Whereas French consultants only began to enter public administration in the 1980s, British and Canadian consultants have been involved in the last 30 years in the construction of the state's management capacities. Through their participation in these institution‐building processes, they established networks of expertise with the state and acquired the experience of work in government. Over the years, this created opportunities for consultants to make their voices heard in the inner circles of decision‐making and made possible the exercise of influence that they are now said to have on policy.