Proactive vs. Reactive Policy Entrepreneurship Among Public Servants: A Network Approach
Becker, Per LU
; Sparf, Jörgen
and Petridou, Evangelia
(2022)
International Workshops on Public Policy
- Abstract
- A policy entrepreneur is a distinct kind of political actor aimed at affecting change. The theoretical narrative regarding policy entrepreneurs is underpinned by their commitment to a policy solution, the multi-dimensional strategies they use to promote that solution, and a suite of attributes and skills facilitating their actions. Policy entrepreneurs reveal themselves through their attempts to transform policy ideas into policy innovations and, hence, disrupt status quo policy arrangements. (Petridou and Mintrom, 2021). Indeed, policy entrepreneurs share sensibilities with entrepreneurs in the market, whose conceptualization served as a heuristic for their counterparts in policy and politics. The emphasis on change based on innovative... (More)
- A policy entrepreneur is a distinct kind of political actor aimed at affecting change. The theoretical narrative regarding policy entrepreneurs is underpinned by their commitment to a policy solution, the multi-dimensional strategies they use to promote that solution, and a suite of attributes and skills facilitating their actions. Policy entrepreneurs reveal themselves through their attempts to transform policy ideas into policy innovations and, hence, disrupt status quo policy arrangements. (Petridou and Mintrom, 2021). Indeed, policy entrepreneurs share sensibilities with entrepreneurs in the market, whose conceptualization served as a heuristic for their counterparts in policy and politics. The emphasis on change based on innovative solutions distinguishes policy entrepreneurs from many other actors, who aim at the maintenance of current institutional settings and power relations. The growing scholarship on policy entrepreneurship has assumed thus an intentionality inherent to the policy entrepreneur and their actions, foregrounding the image of the tenacious political actor set on steering their a priori pet policy to a suitable problem. Recent research on policy entrepreneurs has produced a more nuanced understanding of such actors in their identity as public servants. A recent paper by Petridou et al. (forthcoming) developed the concept of reactive entrepreneurship, engendered in the aftermath of focusing events characterized by a compressed time horizon; a policy community in consensus; low levels of ambiguity the urgency for a satisficing solution, and the framing of the policy problem in technical terms. In this paper, we adopt a formal social network analysis to explore proactive and reactive entrepreneurship in flood risk governance in two Swedish municipalities. We use centrality measures to articulate power of the flow of resources and trust in the respective networks concluding with an analytical framework of reactive and proactive policy entrepreneurship in relational terms. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/2ee02533-881a-467c-bd29-ab9769f0aa4a
- author
- Becker, Per
LU
; Sparf, Jörgen
and Petridou, Evangelia
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-06-28
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- policy entrepreneur, municipal administration, flood risk, governance, social network analysis
- conference name
- International Workshops on Public Policy
- conference location
- Budapest, Hungary
- conference dates
- 2022-06-28 - 2022-06-30
- project
- Sustainable Urban Flood Management
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 2ee02533-881a-467c-bd29-ab9769f0aa4a
- alternative location
- https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org//file/paper/62b86024b554a.pdf
- date added to LUP
- 2022-07-10 17:33:48
- date last changed
- 2022-08-04 10:13:43
@misc{2ee02533-881a-467c-bd29-ab9769f0aa4a,
abstract = {{A policy entrepreneur is a distinct kind of political actor aimed at affecting change. The theoretical narrative regarding policy entrepreneurs is underpinned by their commitment to a policy solution, the multi-dimensional strategies they use to promote that solution, and a suite of attributes and skills facilitating their actions. Policy entrepreneurs reveal themselves through their attempts to transform policy ideas into policy innovations and, hence, disrupt status quo policy arrangements. (Petridou and Mintrom, 2021). Indeed, policy entrepreneurs share sensibilities with entrepreneurs in the market, whose conceptualization served as a heuristic for their counterparts in policy and politics. The emphasis on change based on innovative solutions distinguishes policy entrepreneurs from many other actors, who aim at the maintenance of current institutional settings and power relations. The growing scholarship on policy entrepreneurship has assumed thus an intentionality inherent to the policy entrepreneur and their actions, foregrounding the image of the tenacious political actor set on steering their a priori pet policy to a suitable problem. Recent research on policy entrepreneurs has produced a more nuanced understanding of such actors in their identity as public servants. A recent paper by Petridou et al. (forthcoming) developed the concept of reactive entrepreneurship, engendered in the aftermath of focusing events characterized by a compressed time horizon; a policy community in consensus; low levels of ambiguity the urgency for a satisficing solution, and the framing of the policy problem in technical terms. In this paper, we adopt a formal social network analysis to explore proactive and reactive entrepreneurship in flood risk governance in two Swedish municipalities. We use centrality measures to articulate power of the flow of resources and trust in the respective networks concluding with an analytical framework of reactive and proactive policy entrepreneurship in relational terms.}},
author = {{Becker, Per and Sparf, Jörgen and Petridou, Evangelia}},
keywords = {{policy entrepreneur; municipal administration; flood risk; governance; social network analysis}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{06}},
title = {{Proactive vs. Reactive Policy Entrepreneurship Among Public Servants: A Network Approach}},
url = {{https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org//file/paper/62b86024b554a.pdf}},
year = {{2022}},
}