Political Sociology Meets Public Policy: Exploring Policy Formulation as a Locus for Assessing Power of Policy Actors

Abstract

The uplift of a governance paradigm opened the door for different non-formal ‎actors to join the policy-making process. This proliferation of actors posed‎ some new questions about the relationship between them. One of the aspects ‎of this relationship is the power of actors. The paper seeks to contribute to ‎public policy literature in a way to explore if a policy formulation stage of a decision-‎making process can be used as an arena for assessing the power of the ‎aforementioned actors. The argument this paper suggests is that policy formulation‎ as a stage where the confrontation of actors is most visible and prominent ‎is in fact an appropriate place for studying actors’ dynamics and should be taken ‎into consideration when discussing the power of policy actors.‎

Keywords

• governance, policy formulation
• policy actors
• power