Drivers of tie formation in the Canadian climate change policy network: Belief homophily and social structural processes

Abstract Extant research on policy networks tends to focus on explaining successes and/or failures of particular policy efforts. One commonly used theoretical framework – the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) – focuses on actor attributes external to policy networks. We argue this leads to an incomplete understanding of the social dynamics of climate change policy making. We incorporate a policy network analytic approach with the ACF in an ERGM of collaboration in a Canadian climate change policy network, showing the role micro-structural network processes play in giving rise to informal policy networks. We find certain policy beliefs are correlated with tie formation. We also find micro-structural network processes related to reciprocity, structural equivalence and transitive closure are correlated with tie formation. We argue combining these two prominent streams of policy network literature has potential to improve our understanding of climate change policy making processes.