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In this paper two disparate areas of social science theory, actor-network theory and policy networks, will be brought to bear on the problem of explaining the rapid development of an area of medical science and health policy in the UK. There has been a surge of interest in the treatment and management of personality disorder from within both the psychiatric profession and government ministries, and particularly those personality disorders deemed to be severe or dangerous. This has resulted in the development of a new psychiatric classification, the 'dangerous and severe personality disorder' (DSPD), and the funding and development of a new service to deal with it. Major new mental health legislation has been set in train to provide legal backing for the pre-emptive detention of patients with such a diagnosis, despite widespread uncertainty over its status, reliability or predictive capability. In the process of presenting and analysing this development, actor-network theory and policy networks will themselves be reviewed and compared, and common and incompatible elements, foci and mechanisms identified.

Tangerang City as a city that is implementing the Smart City concept to solve city problems and improve city governance. Since 2016 the Tangerang City Government has been running Smart City by creating a Tangerang LIVE Room with the Tangerang LIVE vision of Liveable, Investable, Visitable, and E-City, the vision is based on the use of information, technology and communication to create a public service system and employee work to the community to be more optimal, efficient and effective. Innovations that are being developed by the City of Tangerang have successfully made 174 Applications. The success of the application made 31 City Governments and Agencies in Indonesia adopt applications owned by the City of Tangerang. The principle of the Tangerang Smart City Partnership aims to accelerate regional development at the local level, increase economic growth and community welfare through optimizing the use of regional resources. A qualitative approach was used in this research by collecting data through library research, interviews and documentation of informants who were directly involved in carrying out these activities. The analysis of this study uses Frans Van Waarden's theory model, the results of the study show that: (1) The actors involved have been from all walks of life, but it is better to increase their involvement, (2) The function of each actor should be improved again to achieve the Tangerang policy objectives Live (3) Network structure is already running, but the good Leading Sector is transferred to the Mayor (4) Institutionalization has not been regulated (5) Rules of action have not been regulated in mayor regulations or regional regulations specifically regarding Smart City (6) Power Relations have been running with good (7) The actor's strategy is well underway to manage his dependency.

This article evaluates two competing dynamic policy-network models and one static network model by applying them to local politics in Amsterdam. In the dynamic models an influence relation results from the acceptance of an influence request. The first model, Control Maximization, represents the view that politics are primarily power driven, and the second, Policy Maximization, policy driven. Zn the static model (the Two-Stage), network relations are empirically investigated as in other policy-network models and used as a benchmark for evaluating the dynamic models. Policy Maximization is shown to be the most accurate predictor of decision outcomes, better even than the static model, and to generate richer networks. However, both dynamic models generate networks that are too hierarchical.

En este artículo se analiza el proceso de cambio en dos áreas concretas de la políticafarmacéutica: la política industrial y la política de uso racional del medicamento. En amboscasos la adopción de un nuevo paradigma requiere una transformación en el plano institucional,y genera un cambio en la distribución de poder entre actores. Pero, la estrategiaque se adopta para llevar a cabo ese cambio de paradigma es distinta. Este análisis ofreceuna visión complementaria al modelo de cambio propuesto por Peter Hall, y se argumentacómo las características de cada policy network determinan la forma con que se llevana cabo estos cambios en los objetivos. El cambio de paradigma en la política industrialse lleva a cabo de forma lenta y gradual como resultado de un proceso de negociacióncerrado entre el Estado y la industria farmacéutica. Por el contrario, el desarrollo deuna política de uso racional del medicamento se lleva a cabo a través de un debate intensoy politizado, en el que participan un número cada vez más amplio de actores.

This article focuses on the strategies and processes of institutional design. It starts by recognizing that politicians often try to change institutional structures of networks and therefore more theoretical and empirical attention for these strategies is needed. First, th

Germany is frequently perceived as a fore-runner in environmental policy, in particu-lar after the turnover in government in 1998. We contribute to the debate on ca-pacities for environmental policy by ex-plaining this position with the specific ac-tors configuration in the German policy network. The paper describes and analy-ses the German policy-network that formu-lates the national position in international climate change negotiations. We ask what activities have been performed by the members of this network regarding the introduction of an eco-taxation, analyse what resources the various organisations dispose of, and in how far the organisa-tions are interrelated among each other regarding the exchange of information, cooperation and opposition. We conclude that NGOs are well integrated despite of comparable low financial resources. The network is not fragmented, and coalitions are possible among the different types of actors. This may contribute to the explana-tion of the German position, however, comparative research is needed.

In this article the process of developing a policy for the recent comprehensive retrenchment operation in the Dutch university system is analysed from a theoretical point of view on decisionmaking. The article especially addresses the question whether some empirical evidence can be found for the rationalist view of collective decision-making, which states that a process of social communication should eventually lead to a unanimous and rational consensus concerning the selection of the optimal policy. The actual analysis concerns the way a retrenchment policy has been developed in a process of social communication between the most important actors: the Minister of Education and Science and the thirteen Dutch universities. It is assumed that the various communicative linkages between these actors can be interpreted as a policy network in which both governmental and non-governmental actors operate. The article concludes that in the Dutch university policy-network a complicated balance of interdependencies exists and that several sub-networks can be distinguished. It is also concluded that the Minister, while recognizing the interdependencies in the network, was able to use a special kind of (negative) incentive, inducing the universities to act as he wished. This negative incentive steering, however, also persuaded the universities to go to the utmost in their consultation efforts, thus trying to reach the rationalist ideal of collective decision-making. The final conclusion therefore is that the rationalist view of collective decision-making does not appear to be unrealistic. The article ends with a warning against a common mistake made regarding the normative appearance of the rationalist perspective.

In the creation of trade policy, business actors have the most influence in setting policy. This article identifies and explains variations in how economic interest groups use policy networks to affect trade policymaking. This article uses formal social network analysis (SNA) to explore the patterns of articulation or a policy network between the government and business at the national level within regional trade agreements. The empirical discussion herein focuses on Brazil and the setting of exceptions list to Mercosur&rsquo ; s common external tariff. It specifically concentrates on the relations between the Brazilian executive branch and ten economic subsectors. The article finds that the patterns of articulation of these policy networks matter and that sectors with stronger ties to key government decision-makers have a structural advantage in influencing trade policy and obtaining and/or maintaining their desired, privileged trade policies, compared with sectors that are connected to government actors with weak decision-making power, but might have numerous and diversified connections. Therefore, sectors that have a strong pluralist&ndash ; clientelist policy structure with connections to government actors with decision-making power have greater potential for achieving their target policies compared with more corporatist policy networks.

This study examined the dimensions of the policy networks in handling Covid-19. This research used a qualitative approach with data collection techniques through interviews, observation and documentation. While data analysis techniques used was an interactive analysis model. The results showed that: 1). the composition of the policy network for handling COVID-19 is still dominated by government elements; 2) the function of the policy network in the context of communication has been established between actors but miscommunication is still found in dealing with Covid-19. 3) The level of network institutionalization in the policy for handling Covid-19 is high 4) there are still inconsistencies in the activities of handling Covid-19 in the field, and 5) The private sector plays an active role in supporting facilities and needs in the network for handling COVID-19.

This dissertation is a descriptive study of a policy network designed for U.S. government and global cooperation to promote Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). It is aimed at exploring the historical and structural features of the ITS policy network, and evaluating its roles in the policy process. Until now, the network literature has barely examined the full arrays of networks, catching just part of their full pictures. First, this study draws attention to transnational networks and their organic or systematic relationships with lower levels of networks. Second, it examines the individual properties and synergy of three core elements of the ITS policy network: public-private partnerships, professional networks, and intergovernmental networks. Third, it takes a close look at the pattern of stability change and power relations of the policy network from within the net. Finally, this study discusses what difference networks make, compared to hierarchies and markets. This dissertation employed multiple sources of evidence: unstandardized elite interviews, government documents, and archival records. Through a networking strategy to find the best experts, face-to-face, telephone, and e-mail interviews were conducted with twenty-two public officials and ITS professionals. It was found that the U.S. ITS policy network was a well-designed strategic governance structure at the planning level, but an experimental learning-focused one at the implementation level. It was initially designed by a new, timely, cross-sectional coalition, which brought together field leaders from both the public and the private sectors under the slogan of global competitiveness. Yet, day-to-day managers within the net often experience much more complex power relationships and internal dynamics as well as legal obstacles; also, they confront external uncertainty in political support and market. For better results, policy networks should be designed in flexible ways that will handle their disadvantages such as ambiguous roles, exclusiveness, and increased staff time. In this respect, it is inevitable for the networks to include some components of a wide range of conventional structures, ranging from highly bureaucratic to highly entrepreneurial, on the one hand, and ranging between issue networks (grounded in American pluralism) and policy communities (based on European corporatism), on the other hand. ; Ph. D.

This article focuses on two sets of literature that have developed out of a shared concern with networks: the network governance school, which has been engaged in a set of macro-level questions about the extent to which networks are changing the nature of state-society relations; and the policy network analysis school, which has focused on the relationship between processes of interest intermediation and their impact on policy-making outcomes. We examine how each school is underpinned by important epistemological differences between positivist, interpretivist and critical realist approaches. We argue that these differences complicate and make contestable what would otherwise seem to be an intuitively attractive argument in favour of combining these two schools. In seeking to understand better how these two schools might be combined, we adopt a critical realist approach and make a distinction between vertical coordination on the state-society axis and horizontal coordination on the interest integration axis. This produces a typology of governance arrangements, which are evaluated according to the level of input and output legitimacy that they are likely to generate, two criteria that are taken as overarching measures of how governance outcomes vary between different governance arrangements. This provides the basis for a broader discussion of how these outcomes are conditioned by both a network's structural characteristics and the way in which it is managed.

Comunicação apresentada na 30th Sunbelt Social Networks Conference, em Riva del Garda, Itália, a 3 de Julho de 2010. ; This paper draws on the conclusions of an international research project on EU Enlargement and Multi-level Governance in European Regional and Environment Policies. The project's main goal was twofold: first, to evaluate the impact of Europeanization of public policy on the governance structures of three traditionally unitary countries (Ireland, Portugal and Greece), and their response, in terms of learning and adaptation, to the European environment in the regional and environmental policies; and second, to identify the appropriate reforms that new member states (Poland and Hungary) should undertake, in order to facilitate the adaptation and adjustment of their public policy structures to the European environment. Focus is given to institutional formal and informal networks that sustain the policy-making process and its relation to EU policy, which were analyzed with SNA methods, namely, density, centrality and structural equivalence measures. This methodology allowed the research to identify points of resistance to change and to assess the level of expertise involved in the policy-making process and subsequently of the presence of relevant forms of governance. More centralized networks (Ireland and Poland; Portugal in regional policy; Hungary in environmental policy) were associated with the concentration of power in state actors; More dense networks (Ireland, Poland and Portugal), however, enabled better levels of informational flows and knowledge exchange. Structural equivalence revealed pattern similarities among central state actors on the one hand, and more peripheral ones on the other. On the basis of these findings, a new research program is proposed to address unanswered questions, with recourse to more sophisticated SNA methods.

In this paper we seek to understand the impact of the macro-political context on power configurations within policy subsystems. For this purpose we systematically compare policy networks in three major policy subsystems and seven Western European countries (and the EU) on the basis of a typology for the power configurations within policy subsystems. We link the European, domestic and policy-specific context to our typology of policy networks. To test the hypotheses we conduct empirical network and reputational analysis of 345 interviews with key policy‐makers. The results point not only to the importance of the EU context, but also to the complex interplay of domestic and policy-specific contexts for understanding domestic power configurations. Domestic power configurations vary not only from country to country, but also within the countries depending on the policy domain.

The article aims to examine the role of non-farm actors and environmental interest groups in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU). It uses policy networks as an analytical tool to understand the structure, dynamics and outcomes of the EU's agricultural decision-making processes. Both locations of actors in the CAP policy structures and interaction modes between actors are examined. Also, the role of networks in shaping the CAP's reform decisions is assessed. The article shows that non-farm actors, and specifically environmentalists, researchers and other agents interested in major CAP reforms, have limited influence on final policy outcomes. At the same time though it has been found that non-farm actors play an increasingly important role in framing the CAP policy debate. They form active and vocal issue networks that impinge upon initial stages of the agenda setting phase in the policy cycle process. Also, the EU institutions become more and more dependent on non-farm actors' expertise when it comes to policy evaluation. Although the pro-reform approach of these actors is clearly noticeable, it is still too small to bring more than incremental changes within the policy

The article aims to examine the role of non-farm actors and environmental interest groups in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU). It uses policy networks as an analytical tool to understand the structure, dynamics and outcomes of the EU's agricultural decision-making processes. Both locations of actors in the CAP policy structures and interaction modes between actors are examined. Also, the role of networks in shaping the CAP's reform decisions is assessed. The article shows that non-farm actors, and specifically environmentalists, researchers and other agents interested in major CAP reforms, have limited influence on final policy outcomes. At the same time though it has been found that non-farm actors play an increasingly important role in framing the CAP policy debate. They form active and vocal issue networks that impinge upon initial stages of the agenda setting phase in the policy cycle process. Also, the EU institutions become more and more dependent on non-farm actors' expertise when it comes to policy evaluation. Although the pro-reform approach of these actors is clearly noticeable, it is still too small to bring more than incremental changes within the policy