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

该项目调查了社交网络如何影响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”）在说服加州和纽约的地方官员采用高频政策方面的效力。该项目还评估了政策企业家的社会网络如何影响当地高频政策的创新性。最后，分析了驱动决策者的社会机制。（不）参与在次州管辖范围内传播HVHF政策。本研究通过借鉴网络科学的见解，对人类代理人的政策企业家和地方政府官员如何参与社会网络并影响政策扩散进行定量分析，从而推进了学术研究。除了科学贡献之外，这项研究和相关的外展活动将帮助地方政府官员学习如何在寻求有关HVHF或其他地方治理突出问题的信息时最有效地利用其信息网络。鉴于这些官员经常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成果是一个在线决策支持工具，该工具将帮助地方官员了解高频政策选择。这个免费的、可搜索的网络界面将容纳数百个数字化、存档和分类的支持和反对hvhf的政策措施，这些措施是由加利福尼亚和纽约的次州管辖区通过的。本项目利用社会网络分析来阐明政策学术研究的盲点。政策扩散显然是一个依赖网络的过程，但政策学者几乎都忽略了地方官员所经历的学习、模仿或竞争的跨管辖区压力如何塑造扩散模式。他们也很少审查受扩散影响的政策的内容。政策企业家是指将一项政策推入公共议程并帮助确保其通过的个人。对政策企业家的研究承认网络在促进企业家倡导方面的重要性，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。它定量地检验了关于政策企业家如何方面的假设？社会网络影响市政决策者说服政策创新的成功，市政决策者之间的联系如何揭示政策扩散的社会机制，以及政策企业家精神如何影响政策的创新性和采用率。

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.