mixed methods

How local councillors shape public policy: new insights into policy agency 

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by Oliver Meza & Ana Cecilia de Alba


Local government, policy agency and policymaking are often associated with mayors, senior officials or policy entrepreneurs. Yet elected councillors also play a vital role in shaping public policy, even when they operate with limited formal authority. In their article, “Power, Politics and Policy Agency: Towards a Functional Theory of Agency,” Oliver Meza and Ana Cecilia de Alba explore how municipal councillors influence the policy process and argue that their contribution has been overlooked in policy process research.  

Policy process scholarship has traditionally focused on institutions, coalitions and systemic dynamics, paying comparatively less attention to the individuals who navigate these environments. Drawing on the recently developed Functional Theory of Agency, the authors instead examine what policy actors actually do. They identify four key policy agency functions—steering, innovation, intermediation and intelligence—and investigate how these are performed by municipal councillors in Mexico.  

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Can community involvement policies mitigate NIMBYism and local opposition to asylum seeker centres?

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Dekker et alRianne Dekker, Caroline Oliver & Karin Geuijen

When numbers of refugees seeking asylum increase, local governments are prompted to open new asylum seeker centres (ASCs). This happened for example during the European ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015-16, and more recently, with increasing numbers of people fleeing Afghanistan. Decisions to open facilities such as ASCs often inspire opposition which local governments must navigate. This is the issue we explore in our recent article in Policy & Politics where we ask: Can community involvement policies mitigate NIMBYism and local opposition to asylum seeker centres?

Usually, governments assume that opposition to a facility is fueled by NIMBYism, where residents object to a facility’s local siting but would not object if it was opened elsewhere. They adopt strategies to isolate the facility from its locality, to prevent possible negative impacts. However, in many cases, local opposition has deeper roots than NIMBYism and requires a different policy approach. Continue reading →