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Many theories and approaches to policy studies have recently begun to question and research how emotions interact with peoples' understanding and behaviors, especially in policy and politics. This paper builds on and contributes to studying emotions in policy and politics via the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). In applying Emotional‐Belief Analysis, this paper examines the legislative testimony on one of the US' first gender‐affirming care (GAC) bans. It shows that those testifying can be organized in competing advocacy coalitions with distinct emotion‐belief expressions in combination with deep core and policy core beliefs. Moreover, expressions of negative emotions and policy core beliefs display significant and the largest effects in explaining coalition affiliation and shared views of the bill banning GAC. The conclusion summarizes the paper's empirical themes with suggestions for incorporating emotions more into the ACF and the broader policy studies field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Policy Studies Journal's second issue for 2024 features 10 research articles covering a wide range of topics within policy theories and substantive policy areas. The articles explore the interplay between policy theories and substantive issues, including climate change policy, preemption, advocacy strategies, collaborative policymaking, polycentric governance, policy influence online and offline, emotional belief expressions in gender identity politics, narrative storytelling in critical race theory discourse, policy responses to environmental change, and the rapid spread of Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) laws in college athletics. These articles provide valuable insights into policy mechanisms and their effects, emphasizing the importance of theory-driven research in crafting effective public policy. The journal also shares updates about new article types, ongoing special issue initiatives, and recent events and meetings. [Extracted from the article]

High levels of conflict among coalitions in a policy process are often attributed to belief divergence and may lead to policy gridlock. Thus, reducing belief divergence may facilitate negotiation and open the door for policy change. Beliefs are notoriously difficult to change, however, especially in high‐conflict settings. Collaborative governance has been touted as one method for mitigating conflict to a level where negotiation is possible by means including but not limited to belief change. This study investigates the relationship between belief divergence as a driver of policy conflict and collaborative governance as a conflict mitigation tool by analyzing the beliefs of two opposing coalitions as they participate in a decade‐long collaborative environmental governance process that ended in negotiated agreement. Using longitudinal survey and interview data, we find that coalitions' beliefs diverge more at a later point in the process, due primarily to the reinforcement and strengthening of one coalition's beliefs; however, we also identify aspects of the collaborative process that helped foster negotiated agreement amidst this growing belief divergence. These findings can inform scholarship on conflict mitigation in environmental governance as well as the design of more effective collaborative processes in high‐conflict settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy processes are ongoing phenomena without beginning or end. Accordingly, a major focus of research has been on questions of stability and change. This paper continues in this tradition by examining advocacy coalition stability, belief change, and learning. This paper draws on three waves of policy actor surveys that compare panel and non‐panel samples. The data were collected in 2013, 2015, and 2017 in the context of oil and gas development in Colorado, USA. The findings mostly confirm that coalitions and beliefs tend to be stable and that learning leans toward reinforcement rather than change in beliefs. However, although rare, some instances of belief change, change in coalition membership, and changing policy positions occur. This paper makes theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of stability, change, and reinforcement of advocacy coalitions and their beliefs and charges policy scholars to look more at the exceptions to the evidence rather than the confirmations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy scholars have increasingly focused on collaborative and competitive relationships between stakeholder coalitions. The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in particular has directed scholarly attention toward such relationships. The ACF defines advocacy coalitions as groups of actors who share beliefs and coordinate their action. However, previous research has been inconsistent in defining and measuring coalitions, which has hampered comparative research and theory building. We present a method called the Advocacy Coalition Index, which measures belief similarity and the coordination of action in a manner that makes it possible to assess the extent to which advocacy coalitions are found in policy subsystems, whether subgroups resemble coalitions, and how individual actors contribute to coalition formation. The index provides a standardized method for identifying coalitions that can be applied to comparative research. To illustrate the effectiveness of the index, we analyze two climate change policy subsystems, namely Finland and Sweden, which have been shown to differ in terms of the association of belief similarity with coordination. We demonstrate that the index performs well in identifying the different types of subsystems, coalitions, and actors that contribute the most to coalition formation, as well as those involved in cross‐coalition brokerage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing environmental problems requires cross‐sectoral and cross‐level collaboration among actors. Scholars of institutional arrangements investigate how rules shape such collaboration. Scholars of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) look for explanations for collaboration in actors' values and beliefs. Rarely have these two factors been considered together when studying collaborative behavior. This paper considers institutional arrangements and actor values to examine the structure and potential drivers of actor collaboration. The study combines the Institutional Analysis and Development framework and the ACF, applying social network analysis to explore an interaction network prescribed by rules and a surveyed collaboration network. It tests the influence of actor beliefs, reputation, and institutional arrangements on collaboration investigating water management in the German Ruhr catchment. The study finds that perceived power and actor beliefs explain actor collaboration better than institutional arrangements and that perceived interactions are more diverse and denser than hierarchically structured networks of prescribed interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores policy change in Swedish coastal and marine conservation, identifying advocacy coalition factors—focusing internal and external events, policy learning, and negotiated agreements—that explain divergent outcomes in disputed national park planning processes. A longitudinal study, covering three decades of three planning processes, indicates that all factors matter. External and internal events, combined with policy learning or negotiated agreements, constituted the main change pathways. We noted that events' influence on learning and agreements was facilitated by policy brokers and mediated through new venues and altered actor strategies. The findings indicated that competing coalitions' policy beliefs influenced the specific routes taken and underlined the centrality of governmental actors to different outcomes. The study illustrates how political conflicts occur and are addressed in environmental governance, generates insights critical to implementing international and national conservation policy, and builds theoretical knowledge of pathways to policy change in disputed policy processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy learning is an important concept in the study of policymaking, yet it is difficult to model and empirically estimate. Additionally, work on policy learning has not fully drawn from the work on information processing in the policy process. In this paper, I propose a model of policy learning that incorporates the Advocacy Coalition Framework's notion of policy‐oriented learning and the theory of disproportionate information processing within a Bayesian learning framework. Policy learning through Bayesian updating occurs as individuals adjust their prior beliefs in light of new information, and in the approach posited here, learning is a function of the strength of prior beliefs and the weight given to new information. Additionally, learning is thought to occur only when subsequent beliefs move in the direction of the information. Then, I demonstrate the policy learning model using public opinion data about Yucca Mountain, a proposed repository site for nuclear waste. Finally, I conclude with suggesting ways in which the policy learning model can be incorporated into current policy learning theories and frameworks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiated agreements are a promising pathway for policy change. This paper revisits and extends characteristics of negotiated agreements using the Advocacy Coalition Framework. We focus on two characteristics of negotiated agreements that previous literature has not explicitly addressed. First, we scrutinize the role of policy core and secondary policy beliefs in actor constellations. Secondly, we address partial success, that is, the notion that actors concede on some points, but in return succeed in others. We investigate these two characteristics in the 2014 reform of Swiss agricultural policy. Based on cluster and social network analysis, we exemplify how negotiated agreements embedded in a participatory policy process lead to a surprising level of policy change by promoting agricultural production practices with an intended positive effect on the environment. We show that rather than coalitions based on policy core beliefs, the formation of groups of actors based on secondary beliefs who span across the coalitions formed the basis for a negotiated agreement. Green and conservative groups were both able to achieve partial success. We conclude that insights from this exemplary case study should revive the concept and initialize a research agenda on negotiated agreements as a pathway for change in domestic policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) remains one of the leading conceptual models in the policy sciences because it continues to be revised and updated as required. A focus area of the ACF that requires further theorization is the roles of experts and expert‐based information in influencing policy problem contexts. Our article takes a necessary step in this direction by (1) evaluating the usefulness of Weible's expectations regarding the uses of expert‐based information in different types of policy subsystems and factors that contribute to shifts from one subsystem to another; and (2) making critical observations that result from this evaluation in the context of the controversial acid mine drainage policy case study in South Africa. The findings of our case study analysis indicate that Weible's framework performed reasonably well but also revealed opportunities for further improvement. We therefore suggest adding awareness raising as a use of expert‐based information, developing a typology of different types of experts who participate in policy subsystems, and including a focus on the use of expert‐based information in policy subsystem shifts. We also reflect upon the relevance and importance of continuing to expand ACF applications to countries outside of North America and Western Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networks are an important part of the environmental policy process as they influence the ability of actors to synthesize information and learn to manage complex risks. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, the dynamics of policy network formation lead to structures exhibiting belief‐oriented segregation—that is, a high correspondence between shared beliefs and policy‐relevant interactions. These structures may be produced through at least two pathways: belief homophily, where actors actively seek out connections with others sharing their belief system, and policy‐oriented learning, where connected actors become more similar in their beliefs. The cross‐sectional design of much policy research does not allow an examination of these potentially complementary forces that shape belief systems and networks. These dynamics are studied using data on policy beliefs and networking in the U.S. environmental risk policy subsystem across two time periods, 1985 and 2000 (N = 223). Results indicate strong homophily effects, but relatively weak learning effects in the evolution of this policy network. This study helps pave the way for additional research on the dynamics shaping policy networks and beliefs, and helps to clarify the differences between individual versus organizational contributions to policy network evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how beliefs affect preferences leading to policy instrument choices of elite actors. Beliefs are general attitudes regarding a given policy field, for example toward the role of the state or the urgency of a problem. Both beliefs and preferences are central for applications of Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework, but their interrelationship has remained undertheorized. Understanding how beliefs and preferences are linked can provide important insights into policy instrument choice, while improving the comparability of studies across policy subsystems. The article compares the relative contribution of beliefs to shaping instrument choices of elite actors in the domain of Swiss renewable energy policy. Results suggest that beliefs are likely to play a prominent role in shaping instrument choice. We find that policy core beliefs translate into preferences through a process involving two main pathways. First, some policy beliefs primarily influence the preferred characteristics of the overall instrument mix. Second, some policy beliefs are primarily associated with preferences for specific instruments. Some policy beliefs are influential via both pathways. These, therefore, emerge as especially important factors shaping the policy process. Our results offer insights for policymakers into how potential future conflicts in negotiations can be attenuated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review of 81 applications of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in China between 2006 and 2017 finds that the ACF's hypotheses about the existence and stability of competing advocacy coalitions in policy subsystems, the occurrence of change across its three‐tiered belief system, and the credence of its four pathways to policy change, which have been developed and mostly tested in Western democratic contexts, can be confirmed in China's authoritarian political system and transitional context. This review also finds some unexpected results, which have implications for studying China's policy processes and for future applications of the ACF. Adopting common vocabulary and theoretical foci, ACF applications have captured some of the complexity and evolving features of policy processes in China. Applications of the ACF to China have also enriched the discussions about how authoritarian governments, through interacting with other policy actors, adapt to external changes in transitional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of "advocacy coalitions" is the bedrock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), one of the most established and successful approaches for understanding policy processes across the globe. This article revisits and sharpens the conceptual definition of advocacy coalitions. We summarize the lessons from its theoretical emphases under the ACF and specify its five attributes (policy actors, shared beliefs, coordination, resources, and stability). Through this specification, we identify the ideal coalition type and several coalition subtypes. We then clarify and make a distinction between how we think about coalitions as a concept and how we approach coalitions empirically. This article sharpens the lens for describing and explaining coalitions toward better observations, theorizing, and measurements. It ends with next steps for further deepening and broadening knowledge about advocacy coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses the subject matter of the November 2020 edition of the journal, including Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), and state and local governance.

Despite the prominence of exogenous factors in theories of policy change, the precise mechanisms that link such factors to policy change remain elusive: The effects of exogenous factors on the politics underlying policy change are not sufficiently conceptualized and empirically analyzed. To address this gap, we propose to distinguish between truly exogenous factors and policy outcomes to better understand policy change. Specifically, we combine the Advocacy Coalition Framework with policy feedback theory to conceptualize a complete feedback loop among policy, policy outcomes, and subsequent politics. Aiming at theory‐building, we use policy feedback mechanisms to explain why advocacy coalitions change over time. Empirically, we conduct a longitudinal single case study on policy‐induced technological change in the German energy subsystem, an extreme case of policy outcomes, from 1983 to 2013. First, using discourse network analysis, we identify four patterns of actor movements, explaining coalition decline and growth. Second, using process tracing, we detect four policy feedback mechanisms explaining these four actor movements. With this inductive mixed‐methods approach, we build a conceptual framework in which policy outcomes affect subsequent politics through feedback mechanisms. We develop propositions on how coalition change and feedback mechanisms explain four ideal‐typical trajectories of policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), a well‐known framework used to understand policy changes at the subsystem level, is predicated on the idea that coalitions with distinct beliefs compete to influence policy subsystem decisions. The ACF is noted as being most appropriate for, and is typically applied to, high salience policy areas. However, scholars have noted the need to also apply the ACF to less typical application settings in the interest of theoretical refinement. This paper thus explores the applicability of the ACF to Day Habilitation and Employment services systems for working‐age adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in two U.S. states, Washington and Pennsylvania, both of which have experienced distinct state‐level policy changes during the last two decades despite low levels of public attention and conflict. Using a mixed‐methods approach, the paper identifies the presence of two advocacy coalitions (Employment First and Choice) in both states. The study concludes that there is sufficient evidence to apply the ACF to these low salience subsystems, noting theoretical and practical implications for scholars and policymakers interested in applying the ACF to similar settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to explain stability and change in China's national birth control policy from 1980 to 2015. We found that policy remained stable, despite internal and external changes to the relevant subsystem, from 1980 to 2013. The stability was explained by the dominant advocacy coalition's mobilization of considerable resources to defend its policy core beliefs. Policy changes in 2013 and 2015 were caused by a combination of external and internal perturbations, in addition to policy‐oriented learning and advocacy by two expert‐led minority advocacy coalitions. The case showed that the openness and plurality of China's policy processes had increased over time but were still limited in comparison with those in Western democracies. The case analysis confirmed two policy change hypotheses and suggested a mechanism for policy change: a hierarchically superior jurisdiction is more likely to impose a major policy change when it learns that the change is an adaptation to internal and external perturbations and that adopting the change will serve the jurisdiction's political interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative governance processes seek to engage diverse policy actors in the development and implementation of consensus‐oriented policy and management actions. Whether this is achieved, however, largely depends on the degree to which actors with different beliefs coordinate their actions to achieve common policy goals—a behavior known as cross‐coalition coordination. Drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework and collaborative governance literatures, this study analyzes cross‐coalition coordination in three collaborative environmental governance processes that seek to manage water in the Colorado River Basin. Through comparative analysis, it highlights the complex relationship among the institutional design of a collaborative governance process, how and why actors choose to engage in cross‐coalition coordination, and the consequent policy outputs they produce. The findings advance policy scholars' nascent understanding of cross‐coalition coordination and its potential to affect policymaking dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One purpose of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is to explain policy change. Previous holistic reviews of the ACF by Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen (2009) and Pierce, Peterson, Jones, Garrard, and Vu (2017) of the framework have not explicitly analyzed all the concepts and their interactions in a systematic manner. To address this gap and inform scholars and practitioners about past findings, strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for future research, this article analyzes how the ACF's theory of policy change is applied to 148 policy processes among 67 journal articles from 2007 to 2014. Similar to Weible et al. (2009), this research finds the frequent use of multiple primary pathways to policy change, infrequent use of many of the ACF's concepts, a plurality of applications in the environment and energy domain, comparison of subsystems, and a need for greater clarity and transparency among applications. Unlike Weible et al. (2009), this article explores associations between primary pathways and policy domains, the frequency of associations between primary pathways and secondary components, policy change and stasis, and identifies threats to internal validity of key ACF concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research examines the role of the devil shift and angel shift in interest group rhetoric using the case of gun policy. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) suggests that the devil shift—whereby political actors characterize their opponents as more malicious and powerful than they actually are—is common in intractable policy debates. Through an analysis of e‐mails and press releases by two gun control organizations and two gun rights organizations, I examine how groups portray themselves and their opponents. I identify two dimensions relevant to these portrayals: (1) whether a character in a policy narrative is portrayed as good or evil, and (2) whether a character is portrayed as strong or weak. The findings indicate that while the devil shift is present, the angel shift—that is, the glorification of one's own coalition—is more common in gun policy groups' communications. Two alternative characterizations, which I call the angel in distress and the devil diminished, are also present. The use of these character portrayals varies significantly across political coalitions and as a function of communication purposes. The results suggest a need to reconceptualize character portrayals to better understand how they operate as narrative strategies in the NPF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporatist Nordic welfare states are largely thought to have exemplary environmental policies. Finland, however, was labeled "a failing ecostate" by a recent study owing to its weak climate change policy. Why is Finland different? We use data from a survey of organizations belonging to the Finnish climate change policy network to investigate two alternative explanations related to policy networks. According to the Cooptation Thesis, inclusive corporatist polities, where environmental NGOs (ENGOs) have support from and access to the state, formulate less ambitious policies because environmentalists moderate their views to secure state funding and political access. Second, according to the Treadmill of Production Theory, the decisive feature of Nordic corporatism with regard to environmental policy is the tripartite system linking business interests, labor unions, and the state in a coalition that prioritizes economic over ecological values. The results indicate that the ENGO Coalition is the least influential, least resourceful, smallest, least linked to the others, and not particularly moderate. The Treadmill Coalition is the most influential, most resourceful, second largest, well linked to the state, and least ecological in its beliefs. Thus, of the two policy network explanations, the dominance of the Treadmill Coalition rather than cooptation of ENGOs gets support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The close link between scientific knowledge, learning, and beliefs is particularly relevant in environmental policymaking and the interaction of environmental with economic development‐focused policies. This article contributes to a more refined understanding of the links among scientific knowledge, belief changes, and the move from a collaborative to an adversarial policy subsystem within the Advocacy Coalition Framework. It analyzes the process of drafting and negotiating the biofuels aspects of the European Renewable Energy Directive, which was dominated by political disagreements between two advocacy coalitions. Their initial agreement on increasing the share of renewable energies in transport turned into conflict after new scientific evidence emerged on the negative environmental and climate change impacts of crop‐based biofuels. The environmental coalition changed its empirical policy beliefs to reflect normative policy beliefs on environmental protection. This change in empirical policy beliefs uncovered a pre‐existing conflict with the normative policy beliefs of the economic development‐focused coalition. As a consequence, the collaborative policy subsystem shifted to an adversarial policy subsystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of public policy deals with subsystems in which actors cooperate or compete to turn their beliefs into policy solutions. Yet, most studies concern mature subsystems in which the main actors and their allies and enemies can easily be identified. This paper tackles the challenge of studying nascent subsystems, in which actors have begun to engage in politics but are uncertain about other actors' beliefs. Actors therefore find it relatively difficult to identify their allies and opponents. Focusing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework, we examine three main ways in which actors might agree to support the same policy design before they decide whether or not to form long-term relationships within advocacy coalitions: they see the issue through the same lenses, they follow leaders, or they know each other from earlier cooperation. We use the case of fracking policy in Switzerland and the UK as a key example, in which actors have begun to agree with each other, but where final policy outputs were not yet defined, and long-term relationships not yet observable. We find that, when dealing with new issues, actors strongly rely on former contacts rather than shared ideologies or leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented which discusses topics within this issue including the social networks of policy entrepreneurs, the poststructuralist Discursive Agency Approach to studying policy, and advocacy coalitions.

To better understand how the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is applied, this article catalogues and analyzes 161 applications of the ACF from 2007 to 2014. Building on a previous review of 80 applications of the ACF (1987-2006) conducted by Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen in 2009, this review examines both the breadth and depth of the framework. In terms of breadth, there are over 130 unique first authors from 25 countries, in almost 100 journals applying the framework, including a majority outside of the United States. In terms of depth, a plurality of applications analyzes environment and energy, subsystems at the national level, and utilizes qualitative methods of data collection and analyses. This review also explores how the three theoretical foci of the framework-advocacy coalitions, policy change, and policy-oriented learning-are applied. Our findings suggest that the ACF balances common approaches for applying the framework with the specificity of particular contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss articles in the journal concerning the "Policy Studies Journal's Public Policy Yearbook" for 2017, and an article on the applications of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF).

Comparative public policy combines theories of the policy process with the study of political systems and specific issue areas. Yet, some ambiguity surrounds what distinguishes the comparative approach from other perspectives on public policy. This review brings greater clarity to the comparative policy project by emphasizing the need to be attentive to similarities and differences regarding the institutional contexts in which policymaking takes place. This attention is necessary to avoid 'forcing a fit' between the empirical reality and theories and frameworks designed with specific institutional configurations in mind. While forced fit posed problems for past research, recent theoretical advancements have been devised to facilitate comparison across dissimilar institutional settings. The following discussion highlights amendments to established approaches intended to deal with problems of comparison and identifies promising new perspectives from which comparative analysis may be conducted. The latest wave of comparative policy scholarship, having accounted for institutional variation, looks beyond institutions to policy discourses in order to explain how ideas, norms, and political culture affect how policy actors maneuver within, maintain, or change the institutional environment in which they operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research note synthesizes the main theoretical frameworks in public policy. The concept of policy knots ties policy cycles, multiple streams, punctuated equilibrium, and other frameworks into one useful analytical tool. We introduce two particular policy knots-the granny knot and the clinch knot-to demonstrate the utility of the concept. As an illustration, we examine climate change policy in the United States in order to show the challenges of tying and securing a policy knot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in the context of a nascent policy subsystem with a longevity of less than 10 years. It evaluates key aspects of the model in a recent area of Canadian national policymaking, namely the attempt to impose greater reporting and disclosure requirements on trade unions through Bill C-377. Following the ACF's prediction of a correspondence between policy belief systems and coordinated advocacy, the article identifies ideological groupings of advocates in this policy area-defined here as advocacy communities-and examines the level of coordination within and between them. The results show that advocacy coalitions emerged rapidly in this subsystem and corroborate the link between coordination and policy core beliefs. The article provides two qualifications. First, when there are multiple advocacy communities, rather than a simple dichotomy, the relationship between beliefs and coordination is weakened. Second, linkages across different advocacy communities were more prevalent with lower level forms of coordination, such as exchanges of information, than they were with higher level activities. The study is based on a content analysis of briefs and testimonies to two parliamentary committees and a mailed questionnaire to organizational representatives advocating on this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep core beliefs represent an important yet theoretically underspecified concept within the Advocacy Coalition Framework ( ACF). This underspecification can (in part) be attributed to the ad hoc way in which ACF scholars have defined and measured the concept over time. To overcome this, we advocate the development and future use of a standardized metric for measuring deep core beliefs in ACF studies. Such a measure, we contend, should be multidimensional, generalizable, measurable using multiple techniques, and broad enough in scope to operate across virtually all policy domains. Using these criteria as our benchmark, we evaluate the viability of cultural theory ( CT) as one such metric. In short, we find that CT meets all of these criteria, and therefore provides ACF scholars with a way to measure deep core beliefs across enduring public policy disputes that are demarcated by conflicting belief systems. Accordingly, we advocate its use in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the prospects for application of the 'grid/group' cultural theory ( CT), as advanced by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky, to the Advocacy Coalition Theory ( ACF). CT would seem to be relevant to several key aspects of the ACF: the content of the core beliefs that provide the 'glue' that binds coalitions; the resilience of core beliefs and associated implications for belief change and learning; and the structure of coalitions and the mechanisms for coordination and control within them. The paper considers the compatibility of the ACF's account of deep core beliefs and coalition structure with that of CT; surveys an array of empirical studies based on variations of CT; and extends accounts of change in cultural identities from CT to the ACF. In addition, we highlight some of the ways in which the ACF may offer important theoretical insights for scholars of CT, potentially clarifying hypotheses concerning the relationships among basic worldviews, more specific beliefs, and behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of multiple theories in policy studies has a great potential value-new combinations of theories or concepts may produce new perspectives and new research agendas. However, it also raises important ontological, epistemological, methodological, and practical issues that need to be addressed to ensure disciplinary advance. This article identifies three main approaches: synthesis, in which we produce one theory based on the insights of multiple theories; complementary, in which we use different theories to produce a range of insights or explanations; and contradictory, in which we compare the insights of theories before choosing one over the other. It examines the issues that arise when we adopt each approach. First, it considers our ability to 'synthesize' theories when they arise from different intellectual traditions and attach different meanings to key terms. Second, it considers the practical limits to using multiple theories and pursuing different research agendas when academic resources are limited. Third, it considers the idea of a 'shoot-out' in which one theory is chosen over another because it appears to produce the best results or most scientific approach. It examines the problems we face when producing scientific criteria and highlights the extent to which our choice of theory is influenced by our empirical narrative. The article argues that the insistence on a rigid universal scientific standard may harm rather than help scientific collaboration and progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does major policy change come about? This article identifies and rectifies weaknesses in the conceptualization of innovative policy change in the Advocacy Coalition Framework. In a case study of policy belief change preceding an innovative reform in the German subsystem of old-age security, important new aspects of major policy change are carved out. In particular, the analysis traces a transition from one single hegemonic advocacy coalition to another stable coalition, with a transition phase between the two equilibria. The transition phase is characterized (i) by a bipolarization of policy beliefs in the subsystem and (ii) by state actors with shifting coalition memberships due to policy learning across coalitions or due to executive turnover. Apparently, there are subsystems with specific characteristics (presumably redistributive rather than regulative subsystems) in which one hegemonic coalition is the default, or the 'normal state.' In these subsystems, polarization and shifting coalition memberships seem to interact to produce coalition turnover and major policy change. The case study is based on discourse network analysis, a combination of qualitative content analysis and social network analysis, which provides an intertemporal measurement of advocacy coalition realignment at the level of policy beliefs in a subsystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how concepts from the field of public policy, in particular the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) initially introduced by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, can be applied to the study of foreign policy analysis. Using a most similar comparative case studies design, we examine Switzerland's foreign policy toward South Africa under apartheid for the period from 1968 to 1994 and compare it with the Swiss position toward Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when the Swiss government imposed—for the first time—comprehensive economic sanctions against another state. The application of the ACF shows that a dominant advocacy coalition in Swiss foreign policy toward South Africa prevented a major policy change in Swiss–South African relations despite external pressure from the international and national political levels. Actually, quite the opposite could be observed: Swiss foreign policy increased its persistence in not taking economic sanctions against the racist regime in South Africa during the 1980s and early 1990s. The ACF, with its analytical focus on policy subsystems and the role of external shocks as potential triggers for change, provided a useful framework for analyzing the factors for policy change and stasis in Swiss foreign relations toward the selected two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arguments for collaborative rather than adversarial approaches to governance rest partly on two axioms: first, that collaborative approaches mitigate conflict to intermediate levels and second, that collaborative approaches help integrate science and values through various joint fact-finding strategies. Using questionnaire data in 1984 and 2001 of policy participants involved in Lake Tahoe water quality policy, this article investigates whether a shift from an adversarial to a collaborative policy subsystem is associated with (i) convergence in beliefs regarding water quality problems and policy proposals; and (ii) an increase in the use of science-based empirical beliefs and a decrease in the use of normative beliefs in supporting policy proposals. The findings send a mixed message to policymakers and researchers about science and collaboration. The analysis suggests that collaborative policy subsystems are associated with convergence in some beliefs between rival coalitions, but it also suggests that policy participants are no more likely to rely on science-based, empirical beliefs in collaborative than in adversarial policy subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the treatment of trans-subsystem change, and particularly the role of public opinion in fostering such change, within the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has been underspecified. We propose a model of “policy topography” that combines the concepts of public opinion, clusters of linked subsystems, and policy issue venues. While the ACF has characterized subsystems as relatively self-contained, we argue that they are more usefully understood as operating in a relatively permeable fashion among evolving clusters of subsystems linked together by networked relations, strategically overlapping policy considerations, and public opinion disruptions. The “policy topography” model offers opportunities to assess the relationships across policy subsystems, and to better specify the critical relationship between public policy and mass opinions. We offer examples, and suggest hypotheses along with avenues for appropriate empirical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the influence of policy knowledge (analysis, evaluation) on policy change represents a long-standing quest in the policy sciences. Despite attempts of Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) scholars, the first to embark systematically on this quest, utilization and policy process literatures still run parallel. Through a critique of ACF and utilization studies, we argue that the inability of policy theory to include how and which information decision makers use is the foundational issue hindering efforts to link process and substance in policy theory. Situating utilization studies in the policy design approach offers an improvement in conceptualizing relationships between policy knowledge, process, and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public policy scholars often accentuate the key role of crises in explaining policy change; however, much empirical work still remains to be done in order to explain crisis-induced policy outcomes. This article explores the prediction of the Advocacy Coalition Framework that stable coalitions and impediments to learning reduce the likelihood for policy change after a crisis. Strategic action is emphasized as a supplementary variable focusing on the role of political motivations in post-crisis policymaking. Sweden's decision not to accelerate the nuclear power phaseout following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster provides a case study to assess the utility of these explanations. Findings corroborate theoretical expectations about stable minority coalitions, cast doubts over the presumed rigidity of policy core beliefs, and emphasize strategic action and cognitive heuristics as important motivations for policy choice. The article concludes by outlining three sector-specific variables (ideological salience, level of conflict, and previous crisis experiences) that add to the explanation of crisis-induced policy outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Narrative policy analysis and policy change theory rarely intersect in the literature. This research proposes an integration of these approaches through an empirical analysis of the narrative political strategies of two interest groups involved in policy debate and change over an eight-year period in the Greater Yellowstone Area. Three research questions are explored: (i) Is it possible to reconcile these seemingly disparate approaches? (ii) Do policy narrative strategies explain how interest groups expand or contain policy issues despite divergent core policy beliefs? (3) How does this new method of analysis add to the literature? One hundred and five documents from the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the Blue Ribbon Coalition were content analyzed for policy narrative strategies: identification of winners and losers, diffusion or concentration of costs and benefits, and use of condensation symbols, policy surrogates, and science. Five of seven hypotheses were confirmed while controlling for presidential administration and technical expertise. The results indicate that interest groups do use distinctive narrative strategies in the turbulent policy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most of the network literature focuses on information and advice networks, there is increasing interest—particularly among Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) scholars—on ally networks and coordination networks. This article asks two basic questions: First, do information, ally, and coordination networks overlap with each other? Second, and drawing from the ACF, do policy core beliefs structure the interactions in ally, coordination, and advice/information networks? We pursue these research questions in the context of the California Marine Life Protection Act process. We find that ally and coordination networks overlap slightly more than information/advice networks and that policy core beliefs do a better job of predicting ally and coordination networks than advice/information networks. Thus, we show that ally networks can provide a useful proxy for coordination networks to identify advocacy coalitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]