The Role of Policy Networks in Environmental Policy Change: Latvian Case Studies

Developing the capacity to formulate effective environmental policies that take account of the views and interests of diverse social actors is an essential part of the environmental and political modernization processes in post-communist countries. In order to understand the degree to which post-communist countries are meeting this challenge, frameworks for analyzing public policy processes that are sensitive to their unique structural conditions must be developed and tested. This study will develop a framework for analyzing policy networks in environmental policy subsystems in Latvia and the role they play in affecting environmental policy outcomes. Policy networks are relatively stable, informal and heterogeneous associations of policy actors who exhibit a non-trivial degree of coordinated action in pursuit of policy goals. This study seeks to determine the factors encouraging or inhibiting the process of policy network formation, the characteristics and functions of policy networks, their roles in processes of policy change, and what policy networks in Latvia can tell us about the nature of the democratic transition.