Governance network structures and urban environmental policy making — a case study in Helsinki, Finland

This paper describes changes in local environmental governance through the framework of governance.Governance literature states that policy making has moved from a centralized governmental process to an open negotiation involving various actors from both public and private sectors.The changes affect both the decision-making processes and policy focus, as measured by the issue areas included.The analysis is based on the City of Helsinki.The data used consists of 75 interviews with organizational representatives, as well as archival data.Descriptive measures of social network analysis are used to describe the links between the network and the policy decisions.