Comparing Local Policy Networks

Author:
  • CMChristian Melbeck
    Christian Melbeck
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper examines features common to both policy analyses and community-power studies, focusing on the conceptualization of power, the boundary specification of the system, the content of relationships and the effects of institutional frameworks. Two community studies, `Altneustadt' and `Towertown', provide the empirical basis. The effects of the institutional frameworks on policy-domain networks and the relation between policy-domain networks and policy networks are analyzed empirically, with information relationships as the most important content of the networks. With regard to boundary specification, actors in issue-specific networks differ from the discussion partners of actors within the social system, depending on the phase in the political process. Both pluralistic approaches and structural aspects of the policy domains are analyzed. In theory, the different institutional conditions in the German and American communities lead one to expect differences that can, in fact, be demonstrated empirically.