by Jeongyoon Lee and David Lee
Policy actors often clash during policy processes, especially in contentious areas like climate change, gun control, and healthcare reform. These actors—including government agencies, private companies, and interest groups—frequently vie for influence, and political rivalries can lead to gridlock or policy failure. Understanding the drivers of these conflicts and how to manage them is crucial in order to propose strategies that can mitigate their effects, and enhance network coordination.
In our recent article published in Policy & Politics, we explore the causes of political competition and propose strategies for reducing it, using the case of local fracking policy processes in New York as an example. The fracking debate involves a wide range of actors, such as landowners, media organisations, oil and gas associations, environmental groups, city agencies, local governments, and legal organisations—all competing over whether fracking should be permitted in the state. But what drives these actors to clash so intensely? We explore the underlying reasons for these clashes, investigating whether competition arises from shared struggles for scarce resources, similar structural positions in resource-sharing relationships, differing policy beliefs or all three.
Our analysis, based on survey data and interviews with key stakeholders, provides valuable insights into this issue. We found that actors with different policy beliefs about fracking, or those within the same policy advocacy coalitions but vying for limited resources, often become direct rivals in the policy process. However, when policy actors are connected through information-sharing relationships, they do not directly compete. Instead, they may be perceived as occupying complementary roles, such as coordinating strategies or improving communication—either directly or through neutral intermediaries.
Our study clarifies the mechanisms behind political competition and provides empirical evidence to support them. Importantly, policymakers can use the insights from our research to reduce competition in contentious policy processes by institutionalising approaches that accommodate differing policy beliefs, creating centralised platforms for actors to exchange ideas and share expertise, and/or by designating neutral community representatives or regulatory bodies to facilitate or coordinate communication and information flows among stakeholders.
We hope these findings inspire policymakers and stakeholders to rethink and reshape adversarial policy processes, helping to prevent escalating competition and conflict, and ultimately avoiding policy gridlock or failure.
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You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at
Lee, J., and Lee, D. (2025). How can political conflict in adversarial policy networks promote their coordination?. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2025), available from: < https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000052>
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