Explaining Advocacy Coalition Change with Policy Feedback

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.     

Prognosis and Postgnosis in Biblical Prophecy

The Prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible are more than documents containing pronouncements from the prophets after whom the texts are named. They include not only prophecies, but also interpretations of these prophecies’ historical consequences, a quality that makes the Bible’s prophetic literature stand out from its ancient Near Eastern counterparts. This interpretive dynamic is indispensable for understanding the reception of these prophecies in the texts from Qumran and in the New Testament.     

Response to Wet Season Rainfall of an Alluvial Aquifer System in the Lower Herbert Floodplain,Queensland, Australia

Australia is one of the world's largest exporters of raw sugar. The lower Herbert River floodplain, one of the four main cane growing areas in Queensland, is subject to extremes of rainfall. Some areas are prone to waterlogging, which can lead to reductions in cane and sugar yields. This paper examines the risk of waterlogging and the role of surface drains in the Ripple Creek area, a subcatchment of the lower Herbert River floodplain. Following above‐average rains at the onset of this study, a perched water table developed and remained for the duration of the 19 month study. The responses of the perched watertable and a deeper semi‐confined aquifer following rainfall are examined. The rapid response of the perched water table following rainfall is attributed to the shallow depth of the water table, with soil properties exerting a dominant influence on hydrograph response. In the second year of the study, after above‐average rainfall, the water table of the deeper aquifer was on average 1 m higher than during the former months of the study. This trend, however, did not occur in the perched water table, and this is attributed to the efficiency of the surface drainage network.     

Middle Stone Age Bifacial Technology and Pressure Flaking at the MIS 3 Site of Toumboura III,Eastern Senegal

African Archaeological Review - Over the past decade, the increasing wealth of new archaeological data on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Senegal and Mali has broadened our understanding of...