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Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance pp 1–7Cite as

Issue Networks: The Policy Process and its Key Actors

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Synonyms

Policy subsystem; Policy network

Definitions

Iron Triangle:

Alliances of congressional committees, executive/administrative agencies, and interest groups that control major policy areas

Issue Network:

A shared knowledge group that can be populated by a wide and unpredictable number of actors who are devoted to the issues and not each other

Policy Technocracy:

A policy process that is dominated by actors with specialized issue expertise or knowledge

Introduction

Numerous studies have shown that the policy process and its key actors may differ considerably across policy domains. Introduced and reviewed by this chapter, the concept of the issue network (Heclo 1978) is now part of a broader literature that is devoted to making sense of the key actors, including who participates, who wields the power, and how they organize to exert influence on the policy process. Although a radical departure from the traditional conceptualization of this process, for a host of policy domains, the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Administration, University of Illinois at Springfield, Springfield, IL, USA

    J. Travis Bland & Kofi Abaidoo-Asiedu

Authors
  1. J. Travis Bland
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  2. Kofi Abaidoo-Asiedu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to J. Travis Bland or Kofi Abaidoo-Asiedu .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA

    Ali Farazmand

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Travis Bland, J., Abaidoo-Asiedu, K. (2016). Issue Networks: The Policy Process and its Key Actors. In: Farazmand, A. (eds) Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2445-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_2445-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31816-5

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