LIST OF PANELS

Political agency in the policy process is a highly relevant but a somewhat neglected theme today. Political agency can be defined as actors that can create and change procedural and substantial rules and norms of the policy process as well as directly influence value allocations between policy areas and groups of citizens. The aim of the panel Political Agency in the Policy Process is to increase our knowledge on the meaning and character of political agency in the policy process; the importance of contextual factors that tend to open up for different forms of political agency; and consequences and effects of political agency in terms of policy influence, power, and democratic legitimacy. The panel invites empirical, theoretical, as well as normative contributions on political agency in the policy process from different scholarly fields (policy analysis, institutional theory, public administration research, and planning studies) as well as from different research areas in order to jointly accomplish comparative overview that can help us synthesize and theorise. In particular, we are interested in papers that address issues within these three themes: What type of policy actors operate as political agents and how can those be theoretically conceptualised (policy entrepreneurs, street-level actors, inside activists etc.)? What type of contexts – such as institutional rules and norms, administrative organisations and professional networks – tend to give rise to political agency? What are the likely consequences and effects of different types of political agency when it comes to policy influence, power and democratic legitimacy?  

Political agency in the policy process is a highly relevant but a somewhat neglected theme today. Political agency can be defined as actors that can create and change procedural and substantial rules and norms of the policy process as well as directly influence value allocations between policy areas and groups of citizens. Policy agency in this respect was a taken for granted activity in the early days of policy analysis. It was perceived as a rational, top-down activity by leading politicians with the stage-heuristic model in the minds of both practitioners and academics. This further implied that issues of democratic control, accountability, and legitimacy were not seen as difficult challenges. From the 1980s onward, as a reaction to social and political changes, a number of theoretical developments – like implementation studies, new institutionalism, policy-network approaches and governance research – have fundamentally altered the meaning and importance of political agency in a number of respects. Today, political agency is relevant in all stages of the policy process, including implementation and evaluation; it is exercised by a much wider range of actors, including different types of public officials, professionals, and experts; it is more open to external contacts and influences; its nature has diversified in terms of the strategies and resources used; and it is exercised in a multi-actor context with complex interactions of different types (vertical-horizontal, symmetric-asymmetric etc.). A major challenge to further our understanding on political agency in the policy process is that important theoretical and empirical insights are spread over different scholarly fields like policy analysis, institutional theory, public administration research, and planning studies. We are thus in need of comparative overview to be able to synthesize and develop new empirical and theoretical insights. To contribute to this endeavour, this panel invite scholars specialised within different research areas and representing different subjects. The aim of the panel is to increase our knowledge on the meaning and character of political agency in the policy process; the importance of contextual factors that tend to open up for different forms of political agency; and consequences and effects of political agency in terms of policy influence, power and democratic legitimacy. What type of policy actors operate as political agents and how can those be theoretically conceptualised (policy entrepreneurs, street-level actors, inside activists etc.)? What type of contexts – such as institutional rules and norms, administrative organisations and professional networks – tend to give rise to political agency? What are the likely consequences and effects of different types of political agency when it comes to policy influence, power and democratic legitimacy?