 Policy forums: Why do they exist and what are they used for?Manuel Fischer () and Philip Leifeld Policy Sciences, 2015, vol. 48, issue 3, 363-382 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. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Keywords: Policy forum; Governance; Exchange theory; Intermediary organization (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:policy:v:48:y:2015:i:3:p:363-382 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/s11077-015-9224-y Access Statistics for this article Policy Sciences is currently edited by Michael Howlett More articles in Policy Sciences from Springer, Society of Policy Sciences |
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