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The author explains the policy account of government & points out that policy is only one of the many possible accounts of the process of government. The policy perspective is characterized by an understanding of government as a more or less conscious attempt to manage collective problems. Still, even inside the policy camp, there are three different accounts of policy: authoritative choice, structured interaction & social construction. The author concludes that the three accounts are complementary & useful for understanding the process of government. References. Adapted from the source document.

Being of the theoretical approaches to the study of the EU, the goal of the analysis of policy networks is to identify the policy process actors, both governmental & non-governmental, & the structure of their interaction in order to describe, explain & predict the outcomes of the European public policy. Many authors claim that the exceptionally rapid development of this approach in the last thirty years (& its intensive EU application since the 1990s) can be attributed to the changes in the contemporary practice of governance. Namely, although public policy is above all related to the accountability of authorities in securing public goods, the tasks are increasingly allocated to a growing number of non-governmental actors, especially in the EU. In its analysis of policy networks the paper offers the typology of the actors & an array of the concepts which define the structuring of their interaction (in the policy literature the term policy network is used generically & also when referring to the EU). It also outlines the continuum of the types of EU policy networks which as independent variable affect the outcomes of the European public policy. The paper identifies which approach within the analysis of policy networks the application to the EU belongs to. In the EU research policy networks are understood as an instrument of the policy analysis that explains the decisions shaping public policy at the subsystem level of decision-making, which makes it necessary to combine it with other theoretical approaches for the other levels of decision-making, which makes it necessary to combine it with other theoretical approaches for the other levels of decision-making & for the other types of decisions to grasp the entirety of the manner in which public policy in the EU is shaped. The policy network analysis contributes most to improving the understanding of everyday events in the process of creating European public policy, the events the change the environment in which key decisions are made as well as the actors' perceptions of their own interests. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The use of policy networks in the research of public policies includes identifying policy actors (both state & non-state actors) & determining the type of their relations, with the purpose of description & analysis of the policy process. The basic assumption of the approach is that contemporary policy-making is characterized by sharing of responsibilities for policy-making among state & the non-state actors. The approach is faced with a critical charge that it doesn't make a clear distinction between dependent & independent variables, & that it does not contain an implicit causal logic that could be falsified. Even though this criticism is partly justified, the policy networks approach should not be dismissed, albeit it should not be understood as a theory (in the sense of E. & V. Ostrom's level of theoretical discourse). Furthermore, the criticism mostly affects the 'interest intermediation school', which understands policy networks as generic term for different forms of state-society relations. Thus, the 'governance school' is much more fruitful for the development of policy networks idea. The 'Governance school' of policy networks approach can be understood as a framework &/or a model. Firstly, the policy networks approach has most similarities with the cycle model of policy process & the two approaches are closely related frameworks of public policy research. The characteristics of contemporary policy-making calls for adding policy networks to the cycle model &, in this perspective, the policy networks approach becomes an analytical tool-box for organizing empirical material. Secondly, policy networks are conceived as a specific form of governance, which becomes dominant in the recent literature. Within this perspective, ideas about policy networks have bigger theoretical ambitions, but are still developed at a level of a model, & not theory. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.

The processes of Europeanization have invaded the public policy sphere & introduced into it, among other things, the altered views of the roles of policy players & their relationships in the processes of the formation & the implementation of public policy. As soon as these new developments had been detected, numerous political science debates understandably ensued about the changed roles & competences of the actors who operate at different political levels in the European Union. The paper begins with the definition of the policy actor in the research of the EU policy process. The usability of the traditional & the contemporary understanding of the policy actor in the EU policy system is looked into by means of the indicators of (non)statehood & the existing view of the role of the state, thereby articulating the dilemmas & the prospects for the potential new taxonomies of policy actors that might emerge as a consequence of the policy activity at the EU level, since the newly identified features breed suspicion in the unequivocal adequacy of the existing taxonomy of the actors. Also, the appropriateness of the categorization of the players according to their political level or to the structural-functional character of their activities is discussed. References. Adapted from the source document.