Analyzing the Role of Social Networks in Local Government Decision-Making about High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing

分析社交网络在地方政府大容量水力压裂决策中的作用

• 批准号: 1535004
• 负责人: Gwen Arnold
• 金额: $ 52.5万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-01 至 2018-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1535004&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Analyzing; Role; Social; Networks; Local

This project investigates how social networks shape policy decision-making about high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF), a technique for hydrocarbon extraction that is transforming the U.S. energy landscape. The research explores how the structure of local government networks affects the efficacy of policy entrepreneurs (sometimes known as "leaders" or "issue advocates") in convincing local officials in California and New York to adopt HVHF policies. The project also evaluates how the social networks of policy entrepreneurs affect the innovativeness of local HVHF policies. Finally, it analyzes the social mechanisms driving decision-makers? (non)participation in the diffusion of HVHF policies among sub-state jurisdictions. This research advances scholarship by drawing insights from network science that allow quantitative analysis of how human agents' policy entrepreneurs and local government officials' engage with social networks and influence policy diffusion. In addition to its scientific contributions, this research and associated outreach will help local government officials learn how to leverage their information networks most effectively when seeking information about HVHF or other issues of salience to local governance. Such learning is particularly important given the sharp capacity constraints these officials often face. Another important output of this project is an online decision-support tool that will help local officials learn about HVHF policy options. This free, searchable web interface will house hundreds of digitized, archived, and categorized pro- and anti-HVHF policy measures passed by sub-state jurisdictions in California and New York. This project uses social network analysis to illuminate blind spots in policy scholarship. Policy diffusion is clearly a network-reliant process, yet policy scholars all but ignore how learning, imitative, or competitive inter-jurisdictional pressures experienced by local officials may shape diffusion patterns. They also rarely examine the content of policies subject to diffusion. Research on policy entrepreneurs, individuals who push a policy onto the public agenda and help secure its passage, acknowledges the importance of networks in facilitating entrepreneurial advocacy yet devotes little attention to the mechanisms that drive this influence. Scholars who do tackle these questions rarely use quantitative methods. The project addresses these gaps. It quantitatively tests hypotheses about how aspects of policy entrepreneurs? social networks affect their success in convincing decision makers to adopt policy innovations, how ties among municipal decision makers can reveal the social mechanisms underlying policy diffusion, and how policy entrepreneurship can shape the innovativeness of policies and their rate of uptake.

该项目研究了社交网络如何塑造有关大容量水力压裂（HVHF）的政策决策，HVHF是一种正在改变美国能源格局的碳氢化合物提取技术。该研究探讨了地方政府网络的结构如何影响政策企业家（有时被称为“领导者”或“问题倡导者”）说服加州和纽约的地方官员采取HVHF政策的效力。该项目还评估了政策企业家的社交网络如何影响当地HVHF政策的创新性。最后，分析了决策者的社会驱动机制。（不）参与在次州管辖区传播HVHF政策。这项研究通过从网络科学中汲取见解来推进学术研究，这些见解允许定量分析人类代理人的政策企业家和地方政府官员如何参与社交网络并影响政策传播。除了其科学贡献，这项研究和相关的推广将帮助地方政府官员学习如何最有效地利用他们的信息网络时，寻求有关HVHF或其他突出问题的地方治理的信息。鉴于这些官员往往面临严重的能力限制，这种学习尤为重要。该项目的另一项重要产出是一个在线决策支持工具，将帮助地方官员了解HVHF政策选择。这个免费的、可搜索的网络界面将容纳加州和纽约州以下司法管辖区通过的数百项数字化、存档和分类的支持和反对HVHF的政策措施。 该项目使用社会网络分析来阐明政策研究中的盲点。政策扩散显然是一个网络依赖的过程，但政策学者都忽略了如何学习，模仿，或竞争的司法管辖区之间的压力，地方官员经历可能会塑造扩散模式。它们也很少审查政策的内容。政策企业家是将一项政策推到公共议程上并帮助确保其通过的个人，对他们的研究承认网络在促进创业宣传方面的重要性，但很少关注推动这种影响的机制。解决这些问题的学者很少使用定量方法。该项目解决了这些差距。它定量地测试假设如何方面的政策企业家？社交网络影响到它们能否成功说服决策者采用政策创新，市政决策者之间的联系如何揭示政策传播背后的社会机制，以及政策企业家精神如何塑造政策的创新性及其采纳率。

项目成果

Social Networks and Policy Entrepreneurship: How Relationships Shape Municipal Decision Making about High‐Volume Hydraulic Fracturing

• DOI: 10.1111/psj.12175
• 发表时间: 2017-08
• 期刊: Policy Studies Journal
• 影响因子: 3.8
• 作者: Gwen Arnold;L. Long;Madeline Gottlieb