Policy Formulation, Implementation and Feedback in EU Merger Control

different levels of the policy process, referring to a policy ‘universe’ (existing at the
larger policy area), ‘community’ (at the policy sector level) and ‘network’ (at the policy
sub-sector focus).

In wake of this, Marsh and Rhodes (1992) offered a more definitive clarification
of terms in network/community analysis. Building on the work of Grant et al. (1988) and
Rhodes (1988), the Marsh-Rhodes typology suggests that while issue networks involve
only policy consultation, there are four main characteristics of a community.³ First, a
limited number of participants operate in a largely insulated fashion, while others are
consciously excluded. This points to a highly restrictive membership. Second, when an
issue is discussed there is interaction between members that have their own goals. Third,
there is a consensus between actors as well as a consistency in values shared by them,
pointing to a ‘policy paradigm’, or, a view of the world in which there is agreement on
the most urgent problems to be tackled.⁴ Fourth, interaction is based on bargaining
between members with resources, where outcomes reflect a positive sum game (although
all members may not equally benefit). Extending on this last point, more recent ‘inter-
organizational’ approaches to policy networks implicitly argue against the necessity of a
hierarchical relationship in communities consisting of both public and private actors.
Accordingly, “such actors are partially interdependent but also partly autonomous, being
linked horizontally without being part of a single organizational hierarchy; their relations
are based on exchange, thereby producing policy networks, and combine elements of
conflict with those of cooperation” (Thatcher 1998, 389).

Despite its strengths, the policy networks/community literature suffers from two
main insufficiencies. The first relates to the impreciseness of the classification scheme
itself and its inability to provide for an exhaustive typology (Thatcher 1998). One may
argue that the Wilks-Wright typology counters this generalization: it is one of the few
studies that characterizes the types of actors involved in different levels of policy-making
by focusing on the policy area, sector and sub-sector. However, there remains a void in
our understanding of how different types of related communities may emerge during the
two main phases of policy development, namely policy formulation and implementation.
This is crucial for political systems generally, and the EU in particular, where regulations
are set and then, later, implemented. For example, are the actors that influence the

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