The Actor-ProcessEvent Scheme as a Tool for Policy Network Comparison. Paper presented at the 3rd ECPR Conference

One of the major shortcomings for the use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in comparative public policy research is the lack of practical, but all the same valid and reliable procedures to generate comparable network data. We suggest to transform information from qualitative decision-making case studies into quantifiable data for the analysis of policy networks. We have therefore developed the Actor-Process-Event Scheme (APES), a web-based software tool that allows to use qualitative case study data for a systematic comparative assessment of policy processes. APES provides a user-friendly tool for data recording, graphical presentation and estimating quantitative analytical measures. Focusing on the actors ’ participation in decision-making processes, in a first step the description of a policy process can be visualized with APES. In a second step, we transform the network data formalized by APES as a ‘two-mode’-matrix into ‘one-mode’-network data. In addition to the single case study analysis, the policy networks generated by this means, can be compared over different cases by the application of formalized methods