Replication Data for: Change or Stability in the Structure of Interest Group Networks? Evidence from Scottish Public Policy Consultations

Scholars have hotly debated the structure of group engagement in policy making. Two aspects of this conversation are examined here. Firstly, some claim that the ‘explosion’ of organized interests brings with it increasing fragmentation but also policy ‘balkanization’. Others suggest increasing fragmentation, but with overlap between sub-sectors. A second area of this debate concerns the existence and number of ‘central’ or ‘core’ groups. While we see evidence that, in aggregate, there is no more policy specialization among UK organized interests, we do not know if this means there are fewer or more central groups. In this paper we utilize public policy consultations in Scotland over a continuous 25 year period, and the tools of network analysis, to examine the above propositions. We find that the expanding system of policy consultation is not associated with more balkanization or with a decline of central policy actors that span policy communities.

学界围绕政策制定中的群体参与结构展开了激烈争论。本文将探讨该学术争论的两个核心维度：其一，部分学者认为，有组织利益集团的「爆发式增长」在加剧群体参与碎片化程度的同时，也催生了政策「巴尔干化」；另有观点则主张，群体参与虽仍趋向碎片化，但细分政策领域间存在重叠。其二，该争论的另一核心议题关乎「核心」群体的存在性与数量规模。尽管现有证据显示，从整体层面而言英国的有组织利益集团并未呈现出更强的政策专业化倾向，但我们仍无法据此推断核心群体的数量是有所增加还是减少。本文依托苏格兰地区连续25年的公共政策咨询数据集，并借助网络分析工具，对上述命题展开实证检验。研究结果表明，不断扩张的政策咨询体系，既未加剧政策巴尔干化，也未导致跨政策共同体的核心政策行动者出现数量衰减。