1 Introduction: Relationality in the Policy Domain

The central theme of this Element is the relational dimension of policy life. How does the web of relationships among policy actors affect the construction and conduct of policy? How might we approach the task of conceptualizing, then discerning, the nature and action of the relational?

One can dismiss the task by simply saying that relationships are everything and everywhere. You might as well study how molecules influence policy, somebody might say. But other concepts used for analysis are similarly ubiquitous and unbounded, for example, beliefs, narrative, discourse, and rationality. The ubiquity and unboundedness of the relational should not dissuade us from building policy theories around it and crafting new ways of studying it. What is needed is to operationalize the concept of relationality for the purpose of deepening policy analysis. Scholars and practitioners both should begin the task of discovering aspects of relationality that can be analyzed and that are useful for their theory and practice. As importantly, we should be accumulating a store of case studies that illustrate relationality in policy life, building an array of examples of analysis.

One reason (but not the only one) for formally addressing the relational is to better understand policy anomalies. Anomalies abound in policy life, where things are not as they are intended to be (e.g., Reference Carstensen, Hogan and HowlettCarstensen, 2015; Reference Wilder, Howlett, Hogan and HowlettWilder and Howlett, 2015). In one city, a formal schedule of property taxes is routinely deviated from, and payments are instead negotiated with assessors on a case-to-case basis. In another, a public-school charter that aims for a consistent level of quality everywhere gives way to a system where differing communities, with differing levels of income and influence, lobby to get better schools. In one state, a blanket public health measure requiring face masks is embraced in some districts and flouted in others.

The analyst can classify these as anomalies, call for better implementation, and leave it at that. But it is much more informative to take a more phenomenological view. This entails letting go of the urge to classify policy situations as normal or deviant and, instead, to describe and analyze them as they are. The early phenomenologist, Husserl, described a mode of description that brackets away strong assumptions about what a thing is or should be and, instead, returns “to the things themselves” (Reference Husserl and MoranHusserl, 1900/1901, 168). This can require attending more faithfully to the complexity of a situation, what Geertz referred to as “thick description” (Reference GeertzGeertz, 1973, 5).

One conventional way to view policy is as prescription – that is, as a plan for achieving good public ends.Footnote ¹ This is corollary to a conventional view of policy as problem-solving (as noted by Reference TurnbullTurnbull, 2006). As Wildavsky wrote early on, “Policies are goals, objectives, and missions that guide the agency. Analysis evaluates and sifts alternative means and ends in the elusive pursuit of policy recommendations” (Reference WildavskyWildavsky, 1964, 29). But, as Wildavsky and others later demonstrated, there may be gaps between the plan and its enactment because of the vagaries of implementation. Often, policy seems to invariably obey a different logic, repurposed if you will. Some suggest that policy actors behave according to a logic of appropriateness (Reference March and OlsenMarch and Olsen, 1989), but the question is: Appropriateness to what? Some allude to a more informal, transactional policy of “nondesign” (Reference Howlett and MukherjeeHowlett and Mukherjee, 2014) but, again, we wonder: What is the logic of nondesign? We need to better describe these logics or mechanisms that seem to drive public policy in opaque, unintended, or informal ways. In this Element, we propose to trace these inner logics to relational phenomena. We will refer to this as a model of relationality in public policy (Reference LejanoLejano, 2021).

In this Element, we will elaborate on the model of relationality and demonstrate how a relational framework can be used for policy analysis. A relational approach, as will be discussed, is useful not just for analyzing anomalies in public policy but in conventional policy situations as well. Later in this discussion, we sketch the outlines of how the relational approach might be useful in a prescriptive sense, in addition to its use for analysis.

In this provisional definition, we describe relationality not only as a condition but also as a set of processes. Relationships are mechanisms, operative among a web of policy actors, that generate policy. A relational analysis should aspire to a thick description of these mechanisms and their effect on policy.

2 Conceptualizing Relationality

Policymaking is often portrayed as a rational activity – that is, a deliberate fashioning of policy to best achieve predetermined ends. The exercise is all the more rational to the extent that such fashioning of policy is done in a way that reasonably optimizes the chance of a policy’s success. Understood in this way, policy is seen as ostensibly purposive; a prescription for achieving public goals.

In the discussion that follows, we set aside the complexity of policy for a moment and (artificially) draw a distinction between a rational model of policy and a relational one. This artificial, and somewhat playful, juxtaposing is pedagogical as, at some point, we return to the real world of policy where there are no clear-cut models, only the things themselves. The rational ideal is not the alpha and omega of policy thought as early writers might have once proposed, nor need it be the anathema of collective engagement that critics might charge; it is but one of many modes of description, all of them partial and incomplete. What it is, is a way of describing what policymakers and practitioners often aspire for and direct their activities toward – but it is not the only way. In our use of the word, rationality, we do not refer to the narrow idea of reason as instrumental/purposive (or the narrower idea of it as utility maximization) but the broader idea of applying the best of our knowledge, abilities, and multiple disciplines toward prescribing solutions to the problems of society, which is what Lasswell meant by introducing the idea of a policy science (Reference LasswellLasswell, 1970).

The most dominant notion of what rationality is, is conjured by the Cartesian ego, the autonomous individual (or subject) pondering the external world (or object) and divining what is true and good. The rational model is closely related to the idea of analysis, which has its roots in the Greek word, ἀνάλυσις, for taking something apart and inspecting it. The radical movement, applied to the field of policy analysis, involves, first, the separation of the analyst from the object of study and, secondly, the objective evaluation of the state of the object and the right course of action regarding it. In program evaluation, this takes the form of taking a policy or program in isolation, assessing its outcomes vis-à-vis intended objectives, and designing (or modifying) it to optimally meet those objectives. The subject, or analyst, is a person removed from the thing being studied, regarding it in objective fashion.

From this rational ideal comes the framing of policy as prescriptive. The rational decision-maker or decision-makers are those who, from their privileged perch, are able to apply criteria for what is true and good in judging something (say, a policy) as right or wrong and, if the latter, redesigning it for the better.

The idea of policy as ratio evokes the figure of the subject (or subjects) as that who is able to set explicit goals and prescriptions from a position external to a situation. These policies are then enacted, and their outcomes are assessed. The Cartesian subject sets policy from a position removed from the object of intervention (these objects invariably involve complex networks, including the public, field agents, organizations, and others). This is not an entirely radical model – in fact, rulemaking is idealized as done by external agents (e.g., legislators) viewing the situation from a more objective perspective. Policy analysis is often framed within a rationalist (even decision analytic) perspective – as one handbook suggests, policy analysis consists of specifying “explicit goals, concrete alternatives, systematic comparison, and clear recommendation” (Reference Weimer and ViningWeimer and Vining, 2017, 372).

Embedded in much of the literature previously discussed is the implicit assumption of the policy actor as autonomous agent and, going further, rational decision-maker. It is in this light that we understand models of policy actors as employing individual rationality or, more pragmatically, bounded rationality involving coping strategies. But there is, by now, substantial literature on the psychology of identity and more complex models of decision-making, which speak to the person as a relational being, motivated to think and act in ways that cohere with one’s relationships with others. We take a brief look at these bodies of thought, which support the relational perspective.

The early phenomenologists (Reference Husserl and MoranHusserl, 1900/1901; Reference BrentanoBrentano, 1874) critiqued the Cartesian notion of res cogitans, the individual taking in the world and making judgments about it from an objective perch. Instead, they saw the person as defined by intentionality, or as a being always tending toward the other (e.g. Reference Husserl and MoranHusserl, 1900/1901). Every mental activity, as Brentano would suggest, is something relational (Reference Brentano1874). The person is never the external subject removed from the object being examined but, instead, someone embedded, from beginning to end, in the situation itself.

Later scholars would further the critique of the rationalist model. In moral philosophy, Gilligan began describing a model of human reasoning that was relational, more complex and contextual than the deontological laws of the rational ego (Reference GilliganGilligan, 1982). Instead of cogito ergo sum, the relational position might be better stated as curae ergo sum (we care, we form relationships, therefore we are). We understand who we are not autonomously but through our relationships with others. This is supported by social psychological research on identity, which promotes the idea that self is a multidimensional construct that goes beyond the individual. Brewer and Gardner describe how self-identity is constructed in three fundamental ways, which are self as the individual, self in dyadic relationships with others, and self as part of a group (Reference Brewer and GardnerBrewer and Gardner, 1996). This is important because the person shapes her actions in ways consistent with not just who she is as an individual, but with her relationship with others, and her membership in groups. In fact, the latter two dimensions of selfhood can both be included in what we refer to as the relational, as we are open to relationships that are not just dyadic. Relevant to this is parallel work on the inclusion of the other in the self (Reference Aron, Aron, Tudor and NelsonAron et al., 1991).

People decide and act in ways that are guided by their relationships with others. We see this very directly in research on experimental games, where outcomes consistent with individual rationality are consistently deviated from. For example, in games of giving (e.g., dictator and ultimatum games), participants consistently give much beyond that predicted by individual rationality (e.g., Reference Camerer and ThalerCamerer and Thaler, 1995; Reference Bolton and OckenfelsBolton and Ockenfels, 2000), in amounts often related to one’s degree of social connection (or social distance) to the other (Reference Bohnet and FreyBohnet and Frey, 1999). This is entirely consistent with the social psychology literature that suggests that, when one enters into a relationship, not only does one’s self-conception include the other, but that decision-making becomes more altruistic toward the other as well (e.g., Reference Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce and NeubergCialdini et al., 1997). The idea that relationality matters in public policy owes much to insights from research in the areas of social psychology and experimental games that demonstrate how a person’s decisions and actions are influenced by one’s relationship with the other. This should hold true for policy actors at all points in the policy process, including those in the field who perhaps have face-to-face interactions with beneficiaries of policy.

We might take this as an alternative ontology of policy. In this formulation, policy is not the expression of the rational fashioning of rules and processes (by external decision-makers) to optimally achieve desired ends. Instead, we can view it as the working out of relationships among policy actors and, in this mode of description, policy emerges less as a rational fitting of means to an end, but as an expression of and coherence with the constellation of relationships among actors. Policy then emerges in a way reflecting the active formation and maintenance of relationships. Having said this, policy is of course neither rational or relational – it is not captured neatly by any model; it is the thing in itself and is described by all these models in concert, and only partly so. The second caveat we make, before we proceed, is that should we take the relational route, analyzing policy in this manner might prove (as we will soon figure out) to be more complex than conventional approaches.

We previously provided a working definition of relationality in policy. There might appear to be some circularity to this because the definition rests on the idea of relationship, which we have yet to define. We will craft a working definition of it, with an eye toward its use for policy analysis, without suggesting that our working concept encompasses the expansive territory mapped by the word, relationship. If the goal is to better understand how policies evolve and operate in ways influenced by relationships among policy actors, then it would be useful to better conceptualize relationship in ways amenable to analysis.

There is an inextricable connection between identity and relationship. How we act with regard to another has very much to do with who we are, and who the other is. The other side of this connection is that who we are is, at least in part, defined by our relationship with others. As proposed in previous work (Reference LejanoLejano, 2008, Reference Lejano2021), relationship might be understood as the aggregate constitution of identity along three different axes, as shown below.

We propose that an adequate definition of relationship requires recognition of these different aspects of identity. Relationship with another, in other words, is defined by who I am, who I am in contrast or with regard to the other, and who I am conjoint with the other. Of course, there are other ways of understanding relationship, but the concept as defined above will suit our purpose of illustrating the merits of the relational view. It should be understood that this definition is most applicable in a local sense, that is, the entire aspect of one’s identity is not necessarily brought into the encounter with another, but only those salient aspects that are relevant to or triggered by the situation at hand.

This formulation is also something that is limited to dyadic relationships among two individuals. The other can be a group, a society, an ideal, etc. In some cases, the most pertinent dimension is a person’s social identity, which pertains to being part of a group (e.g., Reference Hornung, Bandelow and VogelerHornung et al., 2019).

This formulation helps us unpack the logic of “appropriateness” inherent in relational mechanisms. Policy can be directed (or redirected) in accordance with the web of relationships in which policy actors are embedded in. But what is appropriate or in accordance with such relationships? It is, simply put, what policy meanings and actions maintain existing relationships or even foster even deeper or more positive relationships. This is most obviously evident in the arena of political foes and allies, where an autocratic leader might direct public projects away from the former and toward the latter. These patterns, furthermore, are inherent in identity – who these persons (or groups) are, who they are vis-à-vis the others, and who they are jointly. Such perverse behavior is part of the identity of the autocrat, and the autocrat’s response toward the other depends on their relationship as allies or foes. Such patterns are obvious in glaringly perverse political situations such as autocracies. But here is an important point: these relational patterns are to be found in much more subtle forms among healthily functioning polities. If we look closely enough, we should be able to find these patterns at work in every political situation.

We have to delimit the notion of what constitutes relationality for the purposes of what and how we analyze while allowing its broader meaning to remain fluid and open. In the above discussion, we typify the relational as a dyadic relationship between two actors, but this is just the most convenient form for us to continue this particular exposition. The relational is neither bound by the dyadic, nor even the idea of linkages between individuals. It need not be envisioned as networks of ties, but in many other possible ways, such as fields within which different actors circulate and differently position (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1984), assemblages of ontologically heterogeneous actants (Reference LatourLatour, 1993), narrative emplotments (Reference RicoeurRicoeur, 1988), social-ecological systems (Reference BronfenbrennerBronfenbrenner, 1992), or multidimensional topologies (Reference LejanoLejano, 2006).

The choice of how to frame the relational is not arbitrary. Grounding the rest of our discussion in the specific case of relationality as networks of social ties, let us turn to a specific illustration of the relational dimensions of policy.

3 Relational Accounts in the Literature

Scholars of public policy have long recognized the relational as a key element in policy processes. Early on, Lasswell noted how codified policies reflect and emerge from the workings of power relationships in society (Reference LasswellLasswell, 1958). “Power is always constituted and exerted in social relationships,” write Reference Arts and TatenhoveArts and Tatenhove (2004, 350), describing agents-in-interaction in the policy process (see also Reference HoffmanHoffman, 2013). Power is embedded in discourse, as we learn from Reference FoucaultFoucault (1975), which for some scholars also implicates the relational through “the socially constructed work of creating policy meanings and frames” (Reference HealeyHealey, 2006, 14).

We do not suggest that the policy literature has ignored the crucial role of relationships. There have been earlier calls for a better rendering of policy and institutions in relational terms:

However, there has yet, to date, not been a concerted effort at foregrounding the relational aspects of policy in a systematic manner (Reference UnwinUnwin, 2018). If relationships indeed are so central to the workings of policy, then perhaps it is time to subject it to serious analysis. How should scholars define a relationship, systematically categorize relationships, and perhaps even model them? How can a knowledge of the relational help explain policy processes and outcomes?

Policy scholars have long observed how the actual processes and outcomes do not match the formal prescription (e.g., Reference Mazmanian and SabatierMazmanian and Sabatier, 1981; Reference Pressman and WildavskyPressman and Wildavsky, 1984; Reference O’TooleO’Toole, 2000). At times, divergent outcomes emerge from the decisions and actions of street-level bureaucrats (e.g., Reference LipskyLipsky, 1980; Reference Frisch-Aviram, Cohen and BeeriFrisch-Aviram et al., 2018). The essential phenomenon being described is that the logic behind the rules and prescriptions of policy, as espoused by a set of policymakers, are sometimes supplemented, or displaced by other logics, some of which we attribute to the relational. Even when enaction fully adheres to formal policy, it can do so in a way that elaborates on policy and fits it to more complex realities in the field – and, we suggest, part of the logic or ethic that guides such elaboration can be traced to the relationships that govern interactions in the field.

Oftentimes, codified policy is interpreted, modified, or elaborated on as it courses its way through a network of policy actors. But what determines how the policy evolves as it weaves its way through the network? There are many factors that can shape policy in the field, but foremost among these is the working and reworking of relationships among the policy actors. It is in the transactions among these actors that policy is translated into action. A number of things can foster this condition. Sometimes, rules are underspecified, allowing room for interpretation. Policy can reflect a particular form of underspecification, where policymakers do not fully specify policy as to allow implementers to tailor it to differing contexts (Clark et al., 2006). At times, this is reflected in a degree of policy ambiguity (Reference Brugnach and IngramBrugnach and Ingram, 2012), which can result from differences in how a heterogeneous network of actors interprets policy. Sometimes, policy can be misspecified, disguising illicit policies with formally acceptable policy text. Misspecification is what Reference Lejano and ShankarLejano and Shankar (2013) refer to as policy double-talk, where the formal veneer of policy is presented on the frontstage while the real policy is crafted behind the scenes (Reference GoffmanGoffman, 1959). In more extreme cases, formalized rules and roles may become epiphenomenal to the working and reworking of relationships.

As an aside, foregrounding the relational provides even more justification for blurring the distinctions between policy design and policy implementation – after all, policy might be understood as what Reference BarthesBarthes (1974) referred to as a “writerly” text.

One can understand the vagaries of policy as reflecting the complex nature of practice, which can be likened to an orchestra without a conductor (e.g., Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1977). Theorizing about the logic of practice, Bourdieu describes social structures that guide human behavior in tacit ways, embedded in the social milieu – what he refers to as habitus (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1977). These unseen “structuring structures” ultimately are relational phenomena, which lie in the background but manifest themselves in the everyday life of a place. Policy actors operate within such habitus, their actions influenced in ways, seen and unseen, influenced by the webs of meaning in which they are enmeshed. For example, Reference AkramAkram (2018) uses the concept of the habitus to trace the historical underrepresentation of women in the Australian Public Service.

Subsequent scholars of practice, in the areas of public policy and public administration, emphasize the embodied, emergent, nature of institutions that come about through the interactions of actors in their context (e.g., Reference ColebatchColebatch, 2006; Reference Bevir and RhodesBevir and Rhodes, 2010).

Attention to the relational is evident in the considerable literature on the role of social networks and policy networks in governance. Mostly, however, relationships in public policy contexts are analyzed structurally, examining their existence (as a binary variable) and other properties such as centrality and density (e.g., Reference Arnold, Nguyen Long and GottliebArnold et al., 2017). Some researchers probe deeper into interactions and knowledge exchange between actors but, even with these, the main focus is on structural patterns of network ties (e.g., Reference Crona and BodinCrona and Bodin, 2006). What is lacking is a closer description of these relationships, the interactions that emerge from them, and their role in the trajectory and outcomes of policy.

The question of how we can describe and analyze the relational is an issue that remains to be fully worked out. In the social network literature, “links” between network actors are often characterized by simple binary ties between actors (i.e., linked, not linked), categorical associations between actors (e.g., friend, relative, neighbor) or by transactions (such as material, financial, etc.) that occur between them (Reference Bodin and CronaBodin and Crona, 2009). What we seldom find is any analytical attempt to more completely describe (especially in narrative terms) the complex, everyday nature of these social ties. A relationship, after all, is much more than a switch that one can describe as a zero-one variable.

More so than is found in the policy literature, public administration scholars have begun discussing varying notions of relationality and their implications for governance. Stout and Love discuss how governance is constituted by micro-level relational processes, such as face-to-face encounters among policy actors: “ … in many ways, macrolevel governance is shaped by micro-level encounters in a scaffolding process” (Reference Stout and LoveStout and Love, 2017, 130). Framed in this way, the relational perspective sees governance as emergent and co-determinative. This reflects earlier attention to “an appreciation of the ongoing production of organizational and material life through a network of interdependent human transactions” (Reference Huising and SilbeyHuising and Silbey, 2011, 15–16). Researchers in management and organization have begun studying how formal contracts and nonformalized, relational agreements interact (e.g., Reference Poppo and ZengerPoppo and Zenger, 2002; Reference Bertelli and SmithBertelli and Smith, 2009). To quote Stout and Love, the relational is “a synthesis between embedded and independent social condition through the quality of relationality – a concept that acknowledges we exist within interconnected webs in which all entities (humans, nonhumans, physical objects, and places) co-determine one another” (Reference Stout and LoveStout and Love, 2018, 70).

Bartels and Turnbull describe relational analysis as “an analytical focus on networks of interactions and relationships; explanation of the emergent properties that characterize their processes and outcomes of co-creation; and methodological foregrounding of social networks and their temporal and performative qualities” (Reference Bartels and TurnbullBartels and Turnbull, 2019, 6). The idea of governance as emergent has been a longstanding theme in this literature (e.g., Reference EmirbayerEmirbayer, 1997; Reference CrossleyCrossley, 2011). This brings us back to the question: if policy and the institutions of governance are co-created and emergent, what logics guide these emergent properties?

At times, the emergent means an alternative system of rules and practices arising in contradiction to the codified rules. One way to depict this might be Goffman’s analogy of processes occurring backstage versus front stage (Reference GoffmanGoffman, 1959). Reference Stewart and AyresStewart and Ayres (2001) discuss how policies sometimes act as general directives within which policy is worked out processually. Yet another would be to depict these as parallel, formal, and informal systems (e.g., Reference Christiansen, Follesdal, Piattoni, Christiansen and PiattoniChristiansen et al., 2004). But such depictions stop short of attempting to better characterize the generative forces behind the backstage and the informal, foremost among which are the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors.

In the broad area of institutional design, there are lines of work where the relational dimension is cast into the foreground more clearly. Scholars of regulatory design have begun focusing on situations where patterns of behavior do not conform to regulations per se, but instead emerge from everyday interactions among institutional actors (e.g., Reference Huising and SilbeyHuising and Silbey, 2011; Reference BraithwaiteBraithwaite, 2013; Reference Warne Peters and MulliganWarne Peters and Mulligan, 2019). This reflects an earlier focus on “rules-as-practiced,” which involve allowing leeway for governed to tailor institutional practices to the particulars of its context (Reference Ayres and BraithwaiteAyres and Braithwaite, 1995; Reference Gunningham, Grabosky and SinclairGunningham et al., 1998). Stewart and Ayres describe how sometimes the output of rulemaking is procedural rather than substantive, a relational program within which policy is worked out processually within general directives (Reference Stewart and AyresStewart and Ayres, 2001; Reference BraithwaiteBraithwaite, 2013). Huising and Silbey use the term, “relational regulation,” to describe how agents “govern the gap between regulatory expectations and performances with an appreciation of the ongoing production of organizational and material life through human transactions” (Reference Huising and Silbey2011, 17). We ask: What process or logic substitutes for rule-governed behavior, in these situations? Simply stated, it is the logic of relationship – the steering mechanism provided by the working and reworking of interpersonal (and intergroup) relationships among policy actors.

A related development is that of “relational contracting” (Reference Bertelli and SmithBertelli and Smith, 2010). Because of the difficulty of completely specifying the scope and detail of all these contracts, sometimes service providers and clients simply form a working relationship and work out the details within these relationships. As Bertelli and Smith describe this mode of contracting, “relationships enhance and expand the arrangements specified in a formal contract” such that “relationships have become the conduit for governance” (Reference Bertelli and SmithBertelli and Smith, 2010, 22). Sometimes, contracting arrangements combine contractual and relational elements (Reference Warsen, Klijn and KoppenjanWarsen et al., 2019). In the public administration literature, the term, relational governance, is used to refer to interorganizational transactions (e.g., purchasing of supplies or services) where relationships, supported by mutual trust, govern these exchanges rather than formal contracts. As Poppo and Zenger describe: “For such relationally-governed exchanges, the enforcement of obligations, promises, and expectations occurs through social processes that promote norms of flexibility, solidarity, and information exchange” (Reference Poppo and Zenger2002, 710). Relationships can pose advantages over formal contracts, such as lower transaction costs or increased flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances (Reference Heide and JohnHeide and John, 1992; Reference Dyer and SinghDyer and Singh, 1998). Moreover, this type of flexible contracting is most likely to promote trust among parties than formal contracts.

Returning to the policy literature, considerable scholarship has been devoted to explaining the motivating factors behind the decisions and actions of policy actors, particularly what binds them to collective action. Sabatier et al. attribute behavior to belief systems (Reference SabatierSabatier, 1988). Motivational factors have been described in linguistic/textual terms as well, from the literature on meta-narrative (Reference Rein, Schön, Wagner, Weiss and WittrockRein and Schön, 1991), discourse coalitions (Reference Hajer, Fischer and ForesterHajer, 1993), or mutually constitutive narrative-networks (Reference Ingram, Lejano and IngramIngram et al., 2014). But these motivations, as the phenomenologists might say, do not exist in and of themselves but are always directed toward something or someone. Behind these systems of belief, narrative, or discourse, there lies a constellation of relationships that give them shape. Beliefs, discourse, and narratives – these are all shared primarily through relationships (beginning with interpersonal ones) within a social network. But these bodies of scholarship have paid insufficient attention to the webs of relationships within which these policy networks evolve.

There is ample justification found in these various strands of literature for a focused attention on the relational dimensions of policy life. One persistent gap in each of the strands of literature mentioned earlier is the absence of any concerted effort to describe relationships among policy actors in any sufficiently rich way, and then, to connect these to the enactment of policy. As Kenis and Schneider suggest, “analysis that also includes the relationships between the different actors in policy-making is more powerful for understanding and explaining policy outcomes than studies that only include actor attributes and institutions in their analysis” (Reference Kenis and SchneiderKenis and Schneider, 2019, 472). There, however, remains the continuing challenge of how to capture, describe, and analyze relationships among policy actors.

4 Analyzing Relationality: The Challenge of Description

As a phenomenon to be analyzed, relationality is, practically speaking, unbounded. To simplify the point for a moment, suppose one were conducting a rational choice analysis of each person’s, in a network of twenty people, willingness-to-accept (or other measure) vis-à-vis the mask mandate. One would survey each person in the group and assess twenty such values. But what if we were trying to account for each person’s relationship with every other person in the group (and, to complicate it even further, with every coalition in the group)? We would be trying to assess a bewildering number of relationships.Footnote ⁶

And how would we assess the relational in a way that respected its complexity? Were we to employ the three-dimensional analysis (of the individual, relative, and collective self) suggested earlier through in-depth interviews, how much text would we generate? What book-length description would we generate were we to attempt to ask a person to give a full autobiographical account of self and one’s relationship with another (Reference Bruner, Fivush and HadenBruner, 2003)?

The point is that, to try and meaningfully analyze relationality, one has to delimit the analysis in reasonable ways. After all, the policy researcher does not have the luxury of the anthropologist who might spend a decade in the Tobriand islands studying its culture and institutions. Moreover, one would not want to interview a person about their relationships with every other policy actor, but just a representation of this network. For example, one might ask street-level agents about their relationships, either in general or with a representative other, with their clientele. It would be prudent to focus on aspects of a person’s autobiographical account that were more relevant to the situation at hand.

A relational analysis need not go fully into examining interpersonal relationships. One can study representations of these or categorical relationships (e.g., the general relationship in one county between agricultural extension officers and farmers). There should be a spectrum (or a field) of possible modes of relational analysis, ranging from the parametric to the fully autobiographical/ethnographic. One can further delimit analysis to summary representations of the relational – short-hand accounts of relationship, if you will. In fact, we can (and maybe we should) characterize social network analysis as one such mode of relational analysis, where relationships are described in an abbreviated manner as simple ties. To the extent that social network analysis attempts to explain the processes behind, and outcomes of, policy as influenced by the pattern of relationships in the network – this is relational policy analysis. The degree of complexity with which one describes relationships will depend on the particular needs of the study.

Some relational phenomena may act like Bourdieu’s “structuring structures” which steer behavior in tacit ways, such that the actor may not even recognize these at work (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1977). This further underscores the importance of relational analysis. To take an example, we might reflect on Habermas’ notion of an ideal speech situation that envisions deliberation through an agonistic process (Reference HabermasHabermas, 1985). Such an idealized model can lose sight of embeddedness, where these processes are enacted in an already structured field of relationships (Reference Bourdieu and RichardsonBourdieu, 1986). In this field, many actors who do not possess the same cultural and social capital as the dominant groups become alienated from the process. A relational perspective can highlight these phenomena and allow us to understand positionality in the field. Otherwise, it is hard to interpret what we hear or do not hear in a participatory forum, as voice (and silence) are structured by the unseen web of relationships.

The task of analyzing the relational is made all the more challenging by the fact that much of what we are trying to get often occurs in the backstages (or the wings) of the policy arena. Many relational phenomena occur behind what much of the literature on the policy process focuses on. What comes immediately to the mind of the reader would be the backroom deals that go on behind the scenes.

Just because analysis is potentially unbounded does not mean that we should avoid accounting for the relational. Social network analysis is a potentially unbounded endeavor, which is why the literature mostly focuses on dyadic, Boolean ties. The truth is that these limitations are present in the other modes of analysis as well. For example, accounting for belief systems invariably requires decisions about how to delimit one’s inquiry into beliefs. And we note that these different approaches toward explaining policy processes and outcomes are not mutually exclusive. A relational approach can add to the insights gained by extant analytics, and vice versa. But this is part of the challenge of description and underscores the need for different approaches to relational analysis.

5 Implications for Policy Reform

The previous discussion on relational analysis has been relatively non-normative in tone. The key idea in analysis is mainly about tracing how relational phenomena affect policy. Less has been said about normative considerations – that is, whether the suite or relationships are good or bad, or whether it is good or bad that policy might turn so much on the reach and nature of these relationships. But one can only forestall the normative consideration for so long. After all, many situations, where relationships strongly influence the outcomes of policy, are identified with corruption. We demarcate bureaucracies between those that are thought to be professional from those that are more “transactional.” But, to put a mild suggestion, there are times perhaps when one can employ a weak form of epoché, where one first describes the thing as it is (i.e., relational phenomena) as faithfully as possible, and only then apply a normative lens.

First, the concept of relationality is not good or bad, in and of itself. The nature of relational arrangements found in a policy situation can be necessary or detrimental to effective policy. Many of the most hopeful suggestions for enlivening policy situations involve improved relationships with an engaged public, more collaborative arrangements, and closer interactions between government and governed. In some cases, there are calls for co-determination (or co-design), where those most affected by policies have a greater hand in their construction. These are usually presumed to be good directions for reform (whether they actually prove successful is another matter). And these all speak to necessarily relational aspects of policy.

In this section, we turn our view to the possibility of viewing the connection from a different direction and thinking about policy reform. Improving public policy may require explicit attention to relational elements, such as relationship-building among the polity, sustaining existing relationships, and reforming broken ones. For example, what is the call for more collaborative governance if not a call for improving relationships between decision-makers and the governed? In doing so, however, it is not enough to simply do so in a categorical way, as if there were a universal template for collaborative governance – instead, it must be realized in context, within the particulars of social networks involved in the policy situation.

If, as we argued in previous sections, the richness of policy life is seen in the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors, then calls for policy reform must somehow involve reforming the relationships that undergird policy. Relationships are not static, even if embedded in the habitus of society. They evolve, they break, and they can heal.

Such reforms involve some basic conditions. First, relationships have to be established where there are none. When scholars write of the organizational determinants of policy capacity, largely, they are describing the strength of active, learning relationships among policy actors (e.g., Reference DunlopDunlop, 2015; Reference Wu, Ramesh and HowlettWu et al., 2015). We have to pay attention to connectedness, especially when broad swaths of a community are excluded from policymaking. Or when divisions prevent active relational transactions across the divide. If the last decade has provided any lessons in governance, it is that the polarization of a polity (which involves seclusion of groups one from another such that they do not interrelate) hinders policymaking, whether we are concerned with divisions over Brexit in the United Kingdom, the red-blue divide in the United States, pro- or anti-monarchism in Thailand, partisan politics in Venezuela, or other battlegrounds. Division is often fueled by social media, which allows groups to self-ensconce in “echo chambers” that serve to isolate groups from one another (Reference Jamieson and CappellaJamieson and Cappella, 2008). In these situations, one group never really encounters the authentic other, and bridging relationships are needed.

Secondly, relationships need to be equitable and responsive to the needs of the other, as the considerable literature on power and politics has shown us. Perverse policies have resulted from arrangements that systematically disenfranchised certain groups in relationships of domination, whether one thinks of the historical marginalization of Native Americans in the United States, Aborigines in Australia, Muslims in India, or other disenfranchisement. And reflect on how many of these, and other structured racial and socio-cultural divisions, are still active today. Policy occurs within and through these relational systems. Moreover, truly responsive policymaking cannot occur without, at the same time, beginning to address these broken (and institutionalized) relationships.

Relationality is not just a phenomenon to be described, it can also be an ethic for reforming policies and institutions. Take, for example, suggestions for a more “relational state” that involves, first, the co-production of policies with the governed and, second, fostering relationships among the governed (Reference Cooke and MuirCooke and Muir, 2012). These scholars point to the limitations of reforms undertaken as part of the “new public management” initiatives, with their focus on setting targets and using markets to introduce competition for social and health services (see also Reference Mulgan, Cooke and MuirMulgan, 2012). They point out that these initiatives have ignored the health of the relationships between government and citizenry that are needed for policy to be more responsive to the latter’s needs and preferences. Creating new forums for engagement among multiple publics comports with the idea of democratizing policy deliberation. With a sufficiently engaged public, policy might to some extent be thought of as co-designed, instead of constructed within centers of authority (Reference Evans, Terrey, Stoker and EvansEvans and Terrey, 2016). The relational dimensions of governance need to be foregrounded – that is, the government and its leaders need to become “virtuous hearers” amplifying the voice of the governed (Reference HandHand, 2021).

The aim of building more active and equitable relationships between multiple publics may require crafting new institutions and bodies for governance. As an example, in 1970, Bangladesh suffered the most tragic calamity in recorded history, as Cyclone Bhola swept through its southern coast and took the lives of more than 300,000 people. In the wake of the tragedy, the government sought to create a new agency tasked with disaster risk reduction. At the same time, it had to deal with limitations in budget and staffing. The solution, which evolved over decades, was to create a new program whose workforce consisted largely of community resident volunteers working with a small department staff. The result was the Cyclone Preparedness Programme which today draws more than 90 percent of its staff from community volunteers, with women comprising about half of the volunteer corps (ICCCAD, 2022). It is a unique institutional design based on fostering new networks of relationships around collaborative governance. This intricate interrelationship between government and community is thought to be among the factors that have helped reduce the toll of disasters by a thousand-fold (Reference Haque, Hashizume and KolivrasHaque et al., 2012).

An important aspect of relational governance consists in engaging community in building working ties with government. The first rationale for this is to strengthen social capital to the point that greater participation of community in policy is possible. But another reason for it is to ensure that everyone in a community is connected to a social network, that no one is an island. In some communities in India, isolation has been a factor in the vulnerability of many lower-income residents to poor health. The response was to deputize more than three million females, referred to as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), who would go door-to-door to ensure that no one was left out of the primary healthcare initiative, something especially crucial in rural areas where restrictions around caste and purdah may be practiced. The ASHA workers would later prove to be a quickly mobilized workforce, when COVID-19 struck (Reference BalachandranBalachandran, 2021). And, so, one basic relational prescription begins with assessing whether any needed ties are missing, and ensuring that no one is disconnected who should not and does not want to be.

Policy reform can include measures aimed at strengthening relationships among policy actors. In the case of the social services voucher in Hong Kong, discussed earlier, one of the recommendations that came out of the study was to add individualized case management to the program (Reference KanKan, 2022). The idea is that each client would have a dedicated case manager, who then ensures that the client interfaces smoothly with different providers and professionals. The case worker is essentially a “relationship facilitator” who can orchestrate these interactions, ensuring that no one is left alone.

Is it possible to create diagnostics for assessing relationship? Can we gauge the relational along some spectrum between that which empowers and that which corrupts? In a sense, social network analysis is all about assessing connectedness – that is, the presence and absence of ties. In some cases, it may be clear that a needed connection between policy actors is missing or active, adverse, or beneficial. But beyond this, this is yet another open question. Relationships are complex phenomena; they are the things that they are, and assessing them is not a simple valuation exercise.

Let us briefly return to the extended case study of the new voucher program in Hong Kong. The analysis in the previous section examined how relational factors were key to understanding voucher utilization and non-utilization. It would make sense if some of the resulting recommendations (for improving the program) were relational in nature as well. Interviews suggested that professionals could have an important role to play in managing relationships around the client. This idea became clearer in subsequent interviews with the professionals themselves (Reference KanKan, 2022). Social workers, for example, could pay closer focus on the “demand” side and help better attune policies to the needs of the public (Reference Yu, Lo and ChauYu et al., 2021). What professional workers can do, for example, is to provide information about the CCSV, give guidance and advice on service selection, and assist clients to gain familiarity with service units, all these enabling clients to make informed service choices (Reference Prgomet, Douglas and TariqPrgomet et al., 2017).

Policymakers adopted a so-called strengths-based approach, in which professional workers would shift the decision-making authority to seniors (KPMG, 2012; Reference RuggianoRuggiano, 2012) and empower them to make informed choices on service selection according to their own needs (Reference Fotoukian, Shahboulaghi, Khoshknab and MohammadiFotoukian et al., 2014). The case study illustrates how this requires more, not less, of relationships between clients and agencies. However, with the current CCSV program, the responsible social workers are largely unable to take up the role to educate, advocate, and empower clients in making the informed choices during the decision-making process, mostly because of time and resource constraints and the fact that such duties laid outside their formal scope of work. This is a consequence of the lack of attention to relational dimensions of policy.

The recommendation of individualized case management, which emerged from the analysis of the CCSV program, led to a focus group among social work and health professionals. These provided finer details on what an individualized program might look like. The research suggests that a group of well-trained professional workers, who are familiar with the health and social care systems, could work independently to coordinate different services with the participation of the older client. With this in mind, the focus group participants recommended the development of a comprehensive case management model, as described in the interview quotations below.

Dai [female, social worker, service provider]

Chow [female, social worker, service provider]

Woo [female, social worker, service provider]

As mentioned in the previous section, the lack of certain kinds of relational support can be compensated for by other forms of relational capital. Professional support is a kind of compensating capital that can make up for other deficits or limitations among the clients. Within the CCSV program, a professional worker can balance, combine, and coordinate different relational factors, compensating for the lack of other kinds of relational capital. Supportive professional relationships among case managers, seniors, and family caregivers are key for facilitating effective CCSV utilization. The needs of the clientele are unique and complex; thus, an individualized case management model is recommended. For the policymaker, the recommendation is to formally institute an individualized case management system as part of the design of the CCSV program (Reference Kan and ChuiKan and Chui, 2021).

This idea of an individualized case management system stems from the relational analysis shown earlier. As the analysis goes, so goes the prescription; if the analysis uncovers relational issues, then the prescription will logically address the relational as well. An apt metaphor for the case manager might be like that of Bourdieu’s virtuoso who, in command of the various resources (or forms of capital) available in a context, is able to coordinate, combine, and manage them to produce actions appropriate to each context (Reference BourdieuBourdieu, 1977, 8).

The case management approach has been recommended as a service delivery strategy for aged care in Hong Kong (Reference ChuiChui, 2011; Reference Chui and LawChui and Law, 2016), though such a program has yet to be put in place (Reference Lou, Tong and FungLou, 2014; Reference Kan and ChuiKan and Chui, 2021).

The above-mentioned focus group discussed the merits of having a formalized system of individualized case management. In envisioning the role of the case manager, the participants began describing work that was invariably relational in nature (as suggested in the quotations below).

Figure 1 summarizes the concept of the individualized case management approach. As depicted in the figure, relationships are resources (a form of relational capital) that the manager balances in a way to match the particular needs and situation of each client.

Figure 1

Relational elements of a case management model

In general, most of the participants pointed out that a case manager should be responsible for assessing the needs of the clients and balancing different resources to make up for deficits. Under the case management approach, a professional worker, normally a social worker or a nurse, takes up the roles and functions of need assessment, care planning, direct and indirect intervention, monitoring, review, and evaluation (Reference RothmanRothman, 1991). A case manager should communicate with clients and their caregivers, coordinate resources and services, and facilitate their decision-making. In other words, the case manager can be viewed as helping their clients “mobilize the power of relationships” (Reference Longhofer, Kubek and FloerschLonghofer et al., 2010, 203). Lastly, the case manager would orchestrate relationships with other agency personnel and service delivery professionals.

The main insight, for this Element, is that these policy recommendations emerge from the relational analysis discussed in the previous section. The analysis showed how users and nonusers tended to differ in the amount and activation of different forms of relational capital. Consonant to this is the recommendation that each individual CCSV client be assigned a case manager (often a social worker), whose role is to help clients tap into and manage multiple relationships. As the case study illustrates, we ignore the relational dimension to the detriment of effective policymaking. This neglect is not surprising, as such analysis requires going beyond the formal outlines of the policy and entering into its inner workings.

Broadly put, a focus on relationality suggests that we put a spotlight on connectedness as an ethic for policy reform. This is most relevant in the case of marginalized communities that are excluded from the beneficiaries of policy, but connectedness is a value relevant to all policy actors. Connectedness is an immediately relevant concept in some sub-fields such as social policy. Another immediately recognized area of application is environmental governance, especially around questions of resilience and vulnerability (vis-à-vis connectedness and disconnectedness, respectively).Footnote ⁸

6 Conclusion

We began this Element with a discussion of anomalous policy situations, when the process and outcome of policy diverges from the intended. This initial focus was a pedagogical choice, as the concepts presented manifest most clearly in these situations. However, we remind the reader that relationality is a condition that is found in every policy situation (non-anomalous or otherwise). It should not be supposed that the relational lens is most useful for situations involving aberrant implementation and rentseeking. While some might want to think of relationality as the “oil that greases the skids,” it is more than that. It is constitutive of the life of policy, the fuel that drives the engine.

The preceding case study illustrates how fresh insights can emerge from a closer attention to the relational. More conventional analyses might lead to changes to the set of rules or resources attached to the policy. Another conventional approach might focus on organizational culture, leading to proposals for retraining of field workers. But the relational view can provide insights into possible reforms that speak directly to the relationships among policy actors – in this case, it is a closer appreciation of how each individual’s ability to use the voucher is related to her relational resources, which leads to recommendations for how “relationship managers” can assist individuals. It helps us understand why policy implementation can differ so widely from case to case, even when local rules, norms, attitudes, and resources might not vary. Program challenges might be found not only in the capacities of individual actors but in the connections and interactions among them. Such policy reforms exhibit a degree of contextuality that one may not have conceived of without taking a relational view. Instead of blanket changes in rules, the relational analysis led to a recommendation that would tailor modes of support to each individual client’s situation.

With regard to implementation, the relational analysis provides insights that help explain utilization and non-utilization of the voucher on the level of the individual case, which is a greater level of contextuality than one finds in the literature. This is necessary in the voucher example since constraints to effective voucher use appear on the level of the individual client (and, so, is not explainable by typological descriptions of implementation cultures, norms, roles, etc.). A conventional social network analysis would miss these insights, as well, since it matters not just what the client’s social network looks like, but how these ties provide relational capital that is crucial for the client to utilize the voucher. In some cases, relationships with peers or other actors can make up for decrements in the person’s cultural capital (e.g., mobility, literacy, etc.).

These insights emerge from an analysis, using in-depth interviews, that peers more closely into the relationships among policy actors than one will find in the current policy literature. What primes us to conduct this kind of analysis is an appreciation of the importance of relationality, which understands policies and institutions as emerging from the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors.

As we have tried to illustrate in this Element, relationality is a condition that is constitutive of policymaking and implementation. Relational phenomena can be ignored in policy analyses because they often appear in the “inner life” of policy – that is, in the way relationships steer policy behind the scenes, in ways not acknowledged in the formal construction of a policy. But, as demonstrated in the voucher example, the success of policy can rest on the existence and strength of working relationships among policy actors (including members of the public).

In this Element, we establish several key ideas.

First, we develop the concept of relationality in policy life, the phenomenon of how policy is influenced, shaped, and even determined by the working and reworking of relationships among policy actors. Any policy is constructed, interpreted, and enacted by coursing it through a network of policy actors, and their interrelationships (including everyday interactions) will influence the policy. An artificial demarcation was cast, for pedagogic purposes, between the notion of policy as rationality and that of relationality. Of course, in actuality, these are merely shorthand descriptive for the phenomenon of policy, which is not encompassed by any set of representative concepts. Relationality is a feature of every policy context, sometimes working unobtrusively in the backstage, and other times, clearly seen in the workings of public policy.

Secondly, we sketched some outlines of how a relational analysis of policy might be attempted. This is an unbounded endeavor, since how we analyze relationships, and how we trace policy designs and enactments to them, is a field of rich possibilities. The policy community is just beginning to construct such modes of analysis. Part of the project must consist in defining, and operationalizing, what we mean by relationship – whether we treat it as a binary variable between pairs of actors, or autobiographical accounts of relationships with the other. Generally speaking, any attempt to trace the workings of policy to the nature and action of relationships among policy actors is relational analysis. We used an extended example of vouchers for social service delivery to illustrate one type of relational analysis and the insights afforded by this perspective.

In the analysis, we saw how the simplest mode of relational diagnosis (i.e., assessing the presence or absence of functioning relationships) already reveals much about policy effectiveness. Going beyond this, accessing the stories that policy actors tell allows us to discover how different forms of relational capital act (i.e., their mechanisms for effectuating policy) and interact, where relational capital often compensates for decrements in other forms of capital on the part of policy actors.

Lastly, we also discuss relationality as prescription. In this case, the question is how to reform policy by working on creating, strengthening, and restoring relationships among policy actors (whether we treat these as interpersonal, interorganizational, intersectoral, or other category of relationship). It is often the case that the prescription follows upon the analysis and, so, recommendations can (and should) address relational aspects of the policy situation. In the future, we should assess the relational properties (such as degrees of connectedness among actors) of policy environments.

This by no means implies that we have fully specified a working model of relationality in policy life. This Element is a first step in further developing this way of looking at the world of policy. What we present herein is a phenomenological perspective of the workings of policy, where the primary consideration is attempting a more faithful description of things as they are. And, so, our analysis looks closer at the arena of the everyday, of practice and interaction. Future developments in relational research can also focus on the more formal aspects of policy, one open question being to what extent relational considerations can be incorporated into policy design. Yet another is inquiring into what happens to formal models of decision-making and the policy process when we modify them to reflect relationality. We wonder what would happen to rational choice models when the aspect of relationship, other-regard, and empathy are taken into account (e.g., see Reference LejanoLejano, 2022). What are some relational “logics” that pervade policy processes, and how does awareness of these improve our understanding of implementation? What new approaches could be used to describe and even model the relational? What gains might be had from combining the insights from qualitative (such as narrative) analyses of the relational with the quantitative (such as social network analysis)? And, most of all, what do we learn about policy when we foreground the relational?

While, for the major part of this Element, we have described relationality as the workings of horizontal networks of relationships among individual policy actors, the concept is also useful for analyzing vertical networks that span different “levels” of a policy system – for example, relationships among individuals, local bureaus, state agencies, and national governments. In general, institutions can be described relationally, in terms of relationships among different (vertical) levels of a network (e.g., Reference FergusonFerguson, 2017).

Future work must involve further elaboration of the meanings of relationality and application of these ideas to concrete policy situations. This is not a “how-to” manual of relational analysis but, rather, a primer on the “why-and-wherefore” of relationality. As work on relationality evolves, what is needed are more scholars willing to take up this line of inquiry. But they must be open to departing from convention and doing work that differs from the established themes handed down from august names of policy academia.

We end this Element by invoking the reader to envision an agenda for research and practice. Relationality is an intrinsic property of any policy situation, something that scholars and practitioners have long recognized but have yet to formally study in its own right. Many related lines of work in policy studies have dealt with aspects of the relational but mostly in an indirect way. It is time to put the relational at the front and center of policy work. Our hope is that the policy community can put the concept to use in understanding and explaining the seemingly ineffable nature of public policy.