Approaching Actors - Institutions - Ideas Interactions in Public Policy and Policy Process Research

Interactions of actors, institutions, and ideas are shaping public policies and the policy process. Changing conditions are affecting these interactions and their outcomes. To better understand contemporary public policies and policymaking, it is important to address interactions among these basic elements. The 2026 section, endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Public Policy, will provide a platform for discussing research on interactions of policy actors, institutions, ideas, and their outputs and outcomes. The Section stimulates critical and ongoing dialogue, demonstrated during previous ECPR Sections. It brings together policy scholars at all career levels from Europe and globally to reflect on cutting-edge research in their field and contribute papers with diverse theoretical and methodological orientations in sub-national, national, international, or comparative settings. The Section ▪ provides a networking and community-building opportunity for policy scholars from different generations and countries who share common interests in policy process research and particular agendas; ▪ assesses and develops theoretical, methodological, and empirical knowledge concerning policymaking and policy change; ▪ encourages dialogue among different perspectives and on cross-cutting themes concerning the policy process and public policy. We recommend noting the panel in the submission and consultation of new panel submission with the section chairs. FRAMEWORKS’ PANEL Interaction of Actors, Ideas, and Institutions in the Advocacy Coalition Framework Chairs: Tuomas Ylä-Anttila & Aasa Karimo (University of Helsinki) Discussant: Antti Gronow (University of Helsinki) The Advocacy Coalition Framework centers on policy actors and the formation of coalitions united by shared ideas. Recent scholarship has increasingly examined how macro-institutional structures—often conceptualized as coalition opportunity structures—shape the formation and behavior of advocacy coalitions. However, a more nuanced understanding is needed of the interactions between political institutions and advocacy coalitions, particularly regarding how formal constitutional arrangements, informal rules governing political conduct, and institutional actors such as political parties influence coalition dynamics. Narratives in Action: Connecting Actors, Institutions, and Ideas through the Narrative Policy Framework Chairs: Hilda Broqvist (Mid Sweden University), Jule Ksinsik (University of Bern) Discussant: Johanna Kuenzler (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland) This panel provides a forum for scholars employing the Narrative Policy Framework to examine how narratives mediate between actors’ strategies, institutional constraints, and ideational change. We welcome both conceptual and empirical work across policy domains and governance levels. Social Identities, Programmatic Action, and Group Dynamics in Policy Processes Chairs: Nils C. Bandelow (TU Braunschweig) & Johanna Hornung (Université de Lausanne) Policy actors are members of different social groups that influence the way they form preferences, take action, and interact with others in the policy process. This panel brings together research on intra- and intergroup relations that provides group-focused explanations for policymaking dynamics. These can draw on a diversity of perspectives, including but not limited to the Programmatic Action Framework (PAF) and Social Identities in the Policy Process (SIPP), as well as a diversity of methodological approaches. The Multiple Streams Framework: Understanding Interactions Among Actors, Institutions, and Ideas in Policy Change Chairs/Discussants: Evangelia Petridou, Nikolaos Zahariadis & Reimut Zohlnhöfer How do policy actors transform ambiguous political circumstances into concrete policy outcomes? This panel examines the multiple streams framework (MSF) as a lens for understanding the complex interactions among policy actors, institutional structures, and competing ideas throughout the policy process. Despite the extant scholarship that has covered considerable on MSF, there exist significant opportunities to study their dynamic interplay of actors, structures, and ideas and how this interplay shapes agenda-setting, decision-making, and policy implementation across diverse contexts. CROSS-CUT PANELS Collaborative Governance: Policymaking and Cooperation in a Complex World Chairs: Ilana Schröder (University of Bern) & Annika Krüger (University of Bern), third chair tbd Discussant: handled by the chairs Collaborative governance approaches offer ways to effectively address complex societal problems, bringing diverse actors together to develop shared understandings, exchange knowledge, and co-produce policy solutions. However, collaboration is also subject to power games, conflict, and endogenous challenges. This panel invites theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions that advance our understanding of collaboration in policymaking, including collaborative governance, multi-actor and multi-level policymaking, polycentric policy learning, and related concepts. Policy Conflicts in the Policy Studies Chairs: Vilem Novotny (Charles University) & Eva Wolf (Tilburg University) / Discussant: Imrat Verhoeven (University of Amsterdam) Policy conflicts are an inherent and often contested feature of the public policies but they are usually as implicit or background conditions rather than as objects of systematic conceptual and methodological inquiry. The panel welcomes theoretical, conceptual, and empirical papers that seek to explicitly define, explain, and critically examine policy conflicts from various theoretical and methodological perspectives and across diverse contexts. The Role of Evidence and Expertise in the Policy Process Chairs: Julián Salazar (University of Bern) & Johanna Hornung (University of Lausanne) The relationship between evidence, expertise, and the policy process has attracted sustained scholarly attention, yet remains conceptually fragmented across diverse research streams. This panel seeks to advance this debate by inviting contributions that illuminate, from multiple analytical perspectives, how institutional and political contexts shape, enable, or constrain the role and use of evidence and expertise within the policy process.