Contextualising the Advocacy Coalition Framework: theorising change in Swedish forest policy

AbstractThis article uses British Columbia forest policy to test our ability to distinguish between policy change and policy learning using the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) developed by Paul Sabatier. The authors find the ACF a useful way of approaching policy change in this sector, but argue that finer discriminations are needed to detect policy learning. They argue that Sabatier underestimates the extent to which the legitimation function of key ideas forces dominant advocacy coalitions to respond to criticisms in ways that promote learning. They conclude that, in this case, adaptive strategies undertaken by a dominant advocacy coalition in response to criticism has resulted in policy-oriented learning that may cause a major policy shift without an externally induced crisis in the forest policy sector.

Download Full-text

On the Place of Ideas: A Reply to George Hoberg

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423900007289 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 145-148 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ken Lertzman ◽

Jeremy Rayner ◽

Jeremy Wilson

Keyword(s):

British Columbia ◽

Policy Change ◽

Forest Policy ◽

Advocacy Coalition Framework ◽

Advocacy Coalition ◽

Excessive Weight ◽

The Way

In “Putting Ideas in Their Place,” George Hoberg raises some important and persistent questions about the explanation of policy change. In particular, he suggests that our attempt to demonstrate the role played by ideas in changing forest policy in British Columbia using Paul Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) gives excessive weight to ideas at the expense of more traditional concerns with power and interest. Although it is unclear whether he places the blame on the ACF itself or merely on the way we have employed it, the burden of his critique is that we fail to live up to our commitment to show how ideas and interests can be combined in a more comprehensive form of explanation than one which appeals to interests alone. Worse still, by our reckless overstatement of the case for ideas, we risk creating a “straw monster,” thereby warping the judgment of an entire generation of political scientists.

Download Full-text

Public forest policy development in New Brunswick, Canada: multiple streams approach, advocacy coalition framework, and the role of science

Ecology and Society ◽

10.5751/es-07795-200420 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 20 (4) ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

William F. A. Anderson ◽

David A. MacLean

Keyword(s):

New Brunswick ◽

Policy Development ◽

Forest Policy ◽

Advocacy Coalition Framework ◽

Multiple Streams ◽

Advocacy Coalition ◽

Multiple Streams Approach

Download Full-text

Putting Ideas in Their Place: A Response to “Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector”

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423900007277 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 135-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

George Hoberg

Keyword(s):

British Columbia ◽

Interest Groups ◽

Forest Policy ◽

Advocacy Coalition Framework ◽

Significant Variable ◽

Policy Studies ◽

Advocacy Coalition ◽

Previous Generation ◽

Policy Sector ◽

Learning And Change

Ken Lertzman, Jeremy Rayner and Jeremy Wilson provide an idea-based approach to explaining changes in British Columbia's forest policy by applying the concept of learning developed by Paul Sabatier as part of his “advocacy coalition framework.” This effort to highlight the importance of ideas and learning is a welcome development in Canadian policy studies. But a word of caution is in order as well, because the article has some indications of slipping into a disconcerting pattern in the development of our discipline. For periods of time we seem to single out one significant variable and pay an inordinate amount of attention to it, the most striking examples being interest groups in the 1950s and 1960s and institutions in the 1980s. As we seize upon the new variable, we discredit the previous generation of scholars who we claim (sometimes misleadingly) ignored it.

Download Full-text