Studying Local Network Exclusion through Observation and Diaries

Abstract

This chapter aims to explore how observations and diaries can be used in studying the interaction among social and political actors engaged in network-based governance and policy-making at the local level. It aims to show how observation studies can be used in analysing policy interaction in relatively formal network meetings and how diary studies can be used in analysing the more informal interaction among the network actors between such meetings. As such, the objective is to assess the merits and problems of non-standard methods for the study of new forms of interactive governance.