The formation of policy networks - Preferences, institutions and actors' choice of information and exchange relations

This article attempts to explain why actors form policy networks of information and exchange contacts, and how the institutional settings of public decision-making affect policy network formation. In their empirical analysis of the formation of four different policy networks in the German labour-policy domain, the authors examine actors' choice of mutual contacts resting on similarity of preferences on political events and test the importance of either formal procedural settings or common sector membership for information and exchange network formation. The choice of policy network contacts is shown to be primarily determined by the similarity of actors' preferences. However, this is qualified by institutional settings.