Theorizing Inside Activism: Understanding Policymaking and Policy Change from Below

Jan Olsson and Erik Hysing

Planning Theory & Practice, 2012, vol. 13, issue 2, 257-273

Abstract: To further our understanding on policymaking and policy change we need to recognize the significance of individual key actors in policy and planning processes. This article theorizes on the characteristics and policy influence of inside activism in which individual public officials act strategically from inside public administration to change government policy and action in line with a civic engagement and value commitment. Based on initial empirical findings from Swedish local government, we argue that inside activism is empirically relevant but not satisfactorily covered by other key actor concepts. We theorize that inside activism is 1) dualistic: open, deliberative, consensus-seeking and tacit, tactical, power-driven; 2) influential through informal networking inside and outside of government; and 3) dynamic as it varies over time and between critical situations. Due to current trends in society and public administration (e.g. governance), we expect inside activism to be increasingly relevant and we encourage further theoretical, empirical as well as normative research and discussion on this phenomenon.

Date: 2012
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/14649357.2012.677123 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rptpxx:v:13:y:2012:i:2:p:257-273

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rptp20

DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2012.677123

Access Statistics for this article

Planning Theory & Practice is currently edited by Heather Campbell

More articles in Planning Theory & Practice from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().