Month: January 2023

Advocacy Coalitions, Power and Policy Change: ‘Powering’ and ‘Puzzling’

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It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what drew me to the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) about a decade ago. Part of it was frustration with the policy process theories I had used to that point. Part of it was the concept of advocacy coalitions, which – intuitively – seemed ubiquitous and important in policy-making. In truth, though, my interest in advocacy coalitions has always been instrumental – a platform on which to build a general understanding of how and why policies change. What drew me most to the ACF was its implicit incorporation of both the “puzzling” and “powering” dimensions of policy-making, to borrow Heclo’s (1974) terms.

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People and beliefs in governance

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Alex Osei Kojo

This blog post is based on a research article recently published in the Policy & Politics journal titled “Analysing the stability of advocacy coalitions and policy frames in Ghana’s oil and gas governance.” The article begins on the premise that there are several ways for people to engage in governance. One way is for people to join an association. The other way is to engage in policy debates.

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COVID-19 May Have Increased Support for Social Welfare in the US

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Wehde and Crabtree

Wesley Wehde & David Crabtree

Members of the media and the US president. Joe Biden himself, have suggested that Americans’ experience with COVID-19 and federal response policy may have increased support for social welfare. Much to their credit, our recent scholarly research into this question which has just been published in our article for Policy & Politics found evidence that this may be the case.

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Analysing the contextual factors that promote and constrain policy learning in local government

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Kristin Taylor, Nathan Jeschke & Stephanie Zarb

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In spite of the best efforts of government, sometimes policies do not work as designed. As scholars of the policy process and citizens in a representative democracy, our normative expectation is that government should learn when policies do not work to improve outcomes for communities. This is especially true in the wake of a natural disaster. Disasters can serve as an opportunity for governments to engage in policy learning by updating beliefs about policies and learning lessons about policy tools, instruments, and politics. Often, disasters can reveal physical and social vulnerabilities and gaps in preparedness that unevenly distribute the risk of damage within a community. In our recent article in Policy & Politics , we investigate which conditions constrain or promote policy learning. Understanding these conditions is of critical importance in gaining a better understanding of why some governments learn to improve policies after a disaster and some do not.

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