LIST OF PANELS

Although by no means the only perspective, in the last decades neo-institutionalist approaches have exerted a great influence in the study of social and political processes. In turn, the comparison of dominant theories of the policy process shows that they mainly focus on the systemic level of analysis. Even if these theories take into account individual actors (for instance policy entrepreneurs in the multiple stream framework or policy brokers in the advocacy coalition approach) or collective agents (for instance interest groups and administrations in the punctuated equilibrium theory), they don’t directly or explicitly address the role of actors in the policy processes. Thus, we find of great scientific relevance to address and specify the different possible types of actors and their respective explanatory relevance for the understanding of policy processes and outcomes.

After more than two decades in which structural-centered approaches brought a great deal of the attention in social sciences, more recently the importance of actors has started to reemerge, for instance in revised neo-institutionalist perspectives as well as studies on political leadership, neopopulist leaders or public policy processes. In fact, since several decades ago different authors (Schattschneider; Riker, Neustadt, etc.), have made important contributions for the development of approaches that consider the role of actors and their strategies. However, we believe that both old and new contributions still do not offer a precise enough set of traits of agents´ action as to allow for a systematic comparison of cases in order to develop better ways of analyzing the role of actors for the understanding of policy processes and outcomes.

In order to further advance the understanding of the role of actors in the policy process, this panel welcomes papers tackling one or several of the following questions: What is to be considered as an actor?  To what extent and how can actors be considered as an explanatory factor of policy processes and outcomes? In which ways actors interact or mesh with other independent variables, such as institutions or historical junctures, to shape policy processes and outcomes?  What is the added value of the different empirical methods used to analyze policy actors (interviews, biographical analysis, observation, network analysis, discourse analysis, process tracing, etc.). How can we compare and combine them?

Papers can address these questions either by discussing the role of actors in different theories of the policy process or through specific empirical comparative analyses of the role of actors among policy domains, time periods or political systems. The panel organizers are open to all methodological and theoretical perspectives, and welcome papers related to all types of policies and all regions of the world.