Behind the scenes of COVID-19 response: a social network analysis of policy actors in Bandung City

Abstract

Mapping the roles of various actors involved in handling a pandemic is significant for effective policy integration. It helps clarify each actor’s authority, the coordination level and the interaction patterns formed. This emergence of COVID-19 as a cross-sectoral issue necessitates involvement from numerous actors, given its impact produces trade-offs in the health, social and economic sectors, thereby rendering a balance in its implementation imperative. In the context of the pandemic, swift and appropriate policy integration and collaboration between industries are essential to address its broad and complex impact. This study aims to identify prominent actors in handling the pandemic by employing social network analysis (SNA) supported by the Socio-Technogram Network to map the actor centrality in the network structure for handling the COVID-19 pandemic in Bandung City. The findings reveal that policy actors in the health sector had the highest centrality in handling COVID-19 in Bandung City, mainly due to the significant involvement of non-human factors regulated mostly by the Health Agency. Therefore, ensuring stability in the health system is pivotal to successfully handling COVID-19 in Bandung City.

Keywords

• Policy integration
• social network analysis
• centrality
• socio-technogram
• COVID-19
• Komalsingh Rambaree, Social Work and Criminology, University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden