Issue № 51. August 2015

Policy Networks as a New Source of Political Risk

Anastasia N. Bordovskikh — Ph.D., senior researcher, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: bordovskikh@spa.msu.ru
SPIN-код РИНЦ: 2371-1449

Alexandr I. Solovyov — Ph.D., professor, Head of Political Analysis Department, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation.
E-mail: solovyev@spa.msu.ru
SPIN-код РИНЦ: 6709-2486

Policy networks are often seen as the most adequate instrument for the reformation of centralised vertical policy-making process. Even though the concept is usually associated with liberal democracies, we challenge this position by demonstrating that policy networks also exist in less democratic regimes. In both liberal and authoritarian democracies they influence public decision-making process either through direct interactions with the government or through the use of informal, hidden means of pressure. Correspondingly, these forms of activity refer to open and shadow policy networking, and both represent a substantial source of political risk for commercial entities. This paper aims to demonstrate the legal and procedural insufficiencies of public control over policy networks and warns about the risks they bring to private investors. While open policy networks change the nature of risk by diversifying and multiplying its sources, shadow networks are all the more dangerous since their activity is generally non-transparent. With shadow policy networks the risk becomes almost unpredictable and therefore greatly limits the efficiency of traditional enterprise risk-management tools.

Keywords

Governance, policy networks, political risk, policy making, political decision making, shadow government.