Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Policy brokers and policy entrepreneurs are assumed to have a decisive impact on policy outcomes. Their access to social and political resources is contingent on their influence on other agents. In social network analysis (SNA), entrepreneurs are often closely associated with brokers, because both are agents presumed to benefit from bridging structural holes; for example, gaining advantage through occupying a strategic position in relational space. Our aim here is twofold. First, to conceptually and operationally differentiate policy brokers from policy entrepreneurs premised on assumptions in the policy-process literature; and second, via SNA, to use the output of core algorithms in a cross-sectional analysis of political brokerage and political entrepreneurship. We attempt to simplify the use of graph algebra in answering questions relevant to policy analysis by placing each algorithm within its theoretical context. In the methodology employed, we first identify actors and graph their relations of influence within a specific policy event; then we select the most central actors; and compare their rank in a series of statistics that capture different aspects of their network advantage. We examine betweenness centrality, positive and negative Bonacich power, Burt’s effective size and constraint and honest brokerage as paradigmatic. We employ two case studies to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of each algorithm for differentiating between brokers and entrepreneurs: one on Swiss climate policy and one on EU competition and transport policy.

Relational Memory Is Evident in Eye Movement Behavior despite the Use of Subliminal Testing Methods

While it is generally agreed that perception can occur without awareness, there continues to be debate about the type of representational content that is accessible when awareness is minimized or eliminated. Most investigations that have addressed this issue evaluate access to well-learned representations. Far fewer studies have evaluated whether or not associations encountered just once prior to testing might also be accessed and influence behavior. Here, eye movements were used to examine whether or not memory for studied relationships is evident following the presentation of subliminal cues. Participants (assigned to experimental or control groups) studied scene-face pairs and test trials evaluated implicit and explicit memory for these pairs. Each test trial began with a subliminal scene cue, followed by three visible studied faces. For experimental group participants, one face was the studied associate of the scene (implicit test); for controls none were a match. Subsequently, the Display containing a match was presented to both groups, but now it was preceded by a visible scene cue (explicit test). Eye movements were recorded and recognition Memory responses were made. Participants in the experimental group looked disproportionately at matching faces on implicit test trials and participants from both groups looked disproportionately at matching faces on explicit test trials, even when that face had not been successfully identified as the associate. Critically, implicit memory-based viewing effects seemed not to depend on residual awareness of subliminal scenes cues, as subjective and objective measures indicated that scenes were successfully masked from view. The reported outcomes indicate that memory for studied relationships can be expressed in eye movement behavior without awareness.