Policy Narratives and Policy Processes

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has influenced a generation of policy scholars with its emphasis on causal drivers, testable hypotheses, and falsification. Until recently, the role of policy narratives has been largely neglected in ACF literature partially because much of that work has operated outside of traditional social science principles, such as falsification. Yet emerging literature under the rubric of Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) demonstrates how the role of policy narratives in policy processes is studied using the same rigorous social science standards initially set forth by Paul A. Sabatier. The NPF identifies theories specifying narrative elements and strategies that are likely useful to ACF researchers as classes of variables that have yet to be integrated. Examining this proposition, we provide seven hypotheses related to critical ACF concepts including advocacy coalitions and policy beliefs, policy learning, public opinion, and strategy. Our goal is to stay within the scientific, theoretical, and methodological tradition of the ACF and show how NPF's empirical, hypotheses, and causal driven work on policy narratives identifies theories applicable to ACF research while also offering an independent framework capable of explaining the policy process through the power of policy narratives. In doing so, we believe both ACF and NPF scholarship can contribute to the advancement of our understanding of the policy process.     

Policy Coherence and Policy Domains

Policy scholars generally agree that greater coherence of policies is desirable, but the concept is under-theorized and has received little empirical examination. This research examines the policy coherence of 18 policy domains and considers institutional factors that affect variation among them. There is considerable variation in coherence among substantive, regional, and identity-based policy domains. Greater degrees of policy coherence exist for policy domains that have dominant congressional committees or have more involvement of lead federal agencies. These findings extend what policy scholars know about policy subsystems in American policymaking to consideration of the coherence of policy domains.     

Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change

This article reviews the concept of policy entrepreneurship and its use in explaining policy change. Although the activities of policy entrepreneurs have received close attention in several studies, the concept of policy entrepreneurship is yet to be broadly integrated within analyses of policy change. To facilitate more integration of the concept, we here show how policy entrepreneurship can be understood within more encompassing theorizations of policy change: incrementalism, policy streams, institutionalism, punctuated equilibrium, and advocacy coalitions. Recent applications of policy entrepreneurship as a key explanation of policy change are presented as models for future work. Room exists for further conceptual development and empirical testing concerning policy entrepreneurship. Such work could be undertaken in studies of contemporary and historical policy change.     

Policy Paradigms and Policy Change

Canadian policy towards Aboriginal Peoples is a complex regime involving property rights, constitutional entitlements, cultural concerns, and interlocking administrative, social, economic, and political aims and goals. Recent events related to constitution-making have led investigators to suggest that an old "assimilationist" paradigm established in colonial times is in the process of being replaced by a new policy paradigm of "self-government" and "peaceful coexistence." Utilizing a model of paradigmatic policy change put forward by Peter Hall, this paper examines the development of the old and new Canadian policy and the reasons for the transition between the two. In so doing, it establishes the need to focus more closely on the relationships existing between endogenous and exogenous sources of change in policy subsystems in understanding the liming and content of policy change.     

Policy Influence and Policy Responsiveness in State Pollution Control

This article develops an integrated theory of state policy influence and responsiveness, then operationalizes this theory to account for variations in the strength and scope of state water pollution control and hazardous waste management programs. The analysis finds that economic, ideological, interest group, and political system characteristics act in concert to affect state policymaking, and that the influences behind policymaking vary systematically and predictably across policy areas within environmental protection.     

Advocacy Coalitions, Policy Entrepreneurs, and Policy Change

The advocacy coalition framework (AC) explains policy stability The policy entrepreneurship model (PE) explains dynamic policy change. Thus, augmenting the AC with insights from the PE provides a method of explaining a common empirical phenomenon: policy stability punctuated by dynamic policy change. This analytical strategy could be used to explore stability and change in many policy arenas. Here, we use it to interpret the background lo and dynamics of recent education policy reform in Michigan.     

Policy Subsystems and Regimes: Organized Interests and Climate Change Policy

This research is an examination of the role of organized interests in international climate change policy formation. Systematic survey results are used to demonstrate that organized interests actually engage in the same activities in both the international and domestic arenas. This research demonstrates that the climate change negotiations can be characterized as both a policy subsystem and an international regime. It is further argued that these two concepts are in fact highly analogous, thereby facilitating new cross-discipline research opportunities. The research is based on a web survey of organized interests accredited by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and on interviews and field research at the 8th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC in New Delhi, India.     

The Intersection of Narrative Policy Analysis and Policy Change Theory

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.     

Agenda-Setting and Policy Results

This paper focuses on three episodes of US. policymaking concerning illicit drugs, one. during the Nixon administration, one during the Carter administration, and the contemporary war on drugs. Drawing upon evidence from drug-related Congressional hearings, the Gallup Poll, counts of relevant articles in the Headers' Guide to Periodical Literature and content analysis of the New York Times Index, the three episodes are characterized as fating one of Cobb, Ross, and Ross's (1976) models of agenda-setting. The paper then considers the linkage between these differences in agenda setting and the very different policy content of each episode. While the Nixon and Carter episodes exemplify the dynamics of "mobilization" and "inside access" agenda setting respectively, the contemporary drug policy episode is anomalous. It suggests the need for an extension of the Cobb, Ross, and Ross typology to incorporate a new, "network" type of agenda setting.     

Hollande and Africa Policy

Studies of French Africa policy have traditionally focused on its neo-colonial basis and the often corrupt nature of the relations it engendered because of the connivances of semi-official and unofficial networks and covert practices that characterised it. These are often referred to in the literature as la Françafrique. In seeking to understand François Hollande's Africa policy this article moves away from a neo-colonial, Françafrique analytical framework and instead seeks to engage with the continuity versus change debate in French Africa policy through the lens of geopolitics. The three central themes of Hollande's Africa policy—security, partnership and trade—are analysed, focusing firstly on the French interventions in Africa, notably in Mali, since 2012, before discussing French engagement with African regional organisations, such as the Economic Community of West African States, and the increasing importance attached to economic and trade links. The article ends with a brief survey of some of the challenges facing French Africa policy.