Manaf Bagirzade*
One of the important developmental features of the modern world community, as well as nationstates, is the active and rapid development of the information space. The emerging new informational realities have a significant impact on the characteristics and character of interpersonal, social, intrastate and inter-state relations. In particular, the dynamics of the information society has led to the emergence of new theoretical approaches in management and political sciences.
Developments in the perspective of political science also affect public policy. For example, the fact that the state is seen as the determining factor in political theories determines the centre of public policy as the state. When we talk about public policy, it is insufficient to consider it only as the process of preparing policies by state institutions. This is because the term public in public policy characterises the level of the policy, not the quality of the subject that carries out the policy. Especially in the periods before the 1970's, it was envisaged that only state institutions would take part in the determination and implementation of public policy working processes. The emergence of postpositivist, post-modern, post-structuralist, post-industrial, post-ethatist and other similar paradigms has had an impact on theoretical political analysis and later on applied policy analysis.
The aim of the study is to conceptualise the relationship between the effective realisation of public policy and political theory. Within the framework of this aim, the netocratic approach as a political theory is evaluated in terms of information policy.
Starting from 2001, the netocracy theory, which has gained currency and is directly related to information policy, is characterised as a post-modernist approach. Miller Hugh, in his study "Postmodern public policy", presents proposals for resolving the obstacles faced by the public sector in terms of public policy through new methods. According to him, the post-modernist approach enables the possibility of producing well-thought pragmatic solutions based on political pluralism and social interaction. In this respect, it is necessary to apply new theoretical approaches in public policy.
The study is characterised by an abstract-oriented, interdisciplinary, theoretical-methodological, complex phenomenon-examining, theoretical-to-practical approach. Therefore, abstract-logical and hypothetical deductive methods are used in the study.
Public policy, like any interdisciplinary research, consists of a wide range of complex understandings and concepts that draw fundamentally from disciplines such as political communication, sociology and economics. A number of theoretical formations in public policy are concerned with the problems of the state and public administration, the interaction of sovereignty structures with society, the acceptance and realisation of government decisions.
In short, netocracy as a political theory can be summarised as a theory explaining the new social formation in which the basic value shifts from material products to information, the new social formation in which netocrats become the elite class, the vertical hierarchical interaction is replaced by horizontal communicative interaction, a new form of governance is formed, the new (post-modernmobilistic) paradigm of power becomes current.
The study of public policy, from the point of view of the abstract theory of netocracy, leads to the establishment of interconnections between the objects of research necessary for the study of concrete information policy practice. The results of the synthesis of information policy and netocracy in policy analysis are the main findings of the study. The model built within the framework of the findings is characterised by the analysis of the applicability of netocratic theories in information policy. At the same time, it is shown that the abstract theoretical validity of netocracy is possible in the form of the use of the theoretical mechanisms through the creation of a concrete practical model of information policy.
Published Date: 2025-01-19; Received Date: 2024-07-13
