Policy forums: Why do they exist and what are they used for?

Abstract

Abstract:Policy forums are issue-based intermediary organizations where diverse types of political and societal actors repeatedly interact. Policy forums are important elements of modern governance systems as they allow actors to learn, negotiate, or build trust. They can vary in composition, size, membership logic, and other distinct features. This article lays the foundation of a theory of policy forums based on three interrelated elements: First, it discusses conditions for the formation of a forum and describes the logic of these organizations as one of an asymmetric multipartite exchange. Second, it enumerates the potential set of goals and motivations of participating actors that are fed into this exchange. Third, it proposes eight different dimensions on which policy forums differ and which affect the exchange mechanisms among actors. We claim that empirical work on policy forums should systematically take these elements into account and propose elements of a research agenda.

Balancing collaboration with coordination: Contesting eradication in the Australian plant pest and disease biosecurity system

“…We conceptualised the structure of response as a set of forums, where the characteristics of various forums range in organisational leadership, size, and decision-making mode (Fischer and Leifeld 2015). These forums also cut across local to national scales (Figure 1).…”

“…Even though a generic structure will apply to all incursions, the specifics of who participates where in a response will depend on which stakeholders are most relevant given the pest or disease, and how those in charge of any response interpret nuances of the Deed. Furthermore, across the various participants, the motivations for participation will be diverse (Fischer and Leifeld 2015). In summary, even though each response has a generic organisational structure under the Deed, each response will have unique structural patterns of stakeholder participation (e.g.…”

“…Such conceptual approaches have been applied to collaborative water governance Berardo 2014a;Berardo and Lubell 2016), climate change planning (McAllister et al 2014), plant biosecurity , and regional-scale conservation (Guerrero et al 2015a,b). Following these studies, we conceptualise our network as a set of organisational stakeholders who are connected to each other indirectly via mutual participation in the set of committees and working groups (policy forums, see Fischer and Leifeld 2015) which organised the response and subsequent management programs.…”

Technocratic recentralization in the French health care system: A critical evaluation

“…Anglo‐Saxon public governance argues that the fight against corruption and its relation to accountability and transparency implies greater citizen participation in the monitoring of public actors, as exemplified a Public Engagement Initiative in the United Kingdom. This is compounded by the consolidation of smaller regional public health organizations (they were regrouped within the Regional Health Agencies), despite being “elements of modern governance, as they allow local actors to learn, negotiate, or build trust.”…”

Politicians in white coats? Scientific advisory committees and policy in Britain

“…As Spruijt et al (2014: 23) suggest in their meta-analysis of the field, "research on expert roles has remained mostly theoretical" such that it is still possible, seventy years after Robert Merton called for it, for an article taking as its central thrust the argument that "more research" in the field was needed could still be published in a major policy science journal (Fischer and Leifeld 2015).…”