Policy issue interdependency and the formation of collaborative networks

The study investigates two multilayer networks of policy actors and policy issues. Using data derived from two venues for collaborative water governance in the Norrström basin, Sweden, we investigate whether and how policy issues and policy issue interdependencies influence actors’ selection of collaborative partners.

This data set contains multilevel network data consisting of two types of nodes (actors and issues) and ties between them. The anonymized data consist of two social networks (sociomatrices) describing policy actors' collaboration through their exchange of information. One network is for the water council of Mälaren (MVVF) and the other is for the water council of Hjälmaren (HVVF). The social networks are described as A files, and are binary (1 or 0 - either actors have a network tie or not). Every row and column represent an actor in the same order, and the binary data the ties between them. Every A file has a complementary attribute file, with actors' attributes such as them holding a position as chair, civil servant, politician or "other". Every row represents an actor. X files describe links between actors and policy issues, i.e. actors' engagement in policy issues. Every row represents an actor and every column represents a policy issue. The B file describes data on the interdependency between policy issues, i.e. how much efforts to address one policy issue impacts efforts to address another policy issue. Every row and column represents a policy issue, and the binary data the ties between them. The dataset is adapted for the software MPNet and can also be used with other programs e.g. R.