Advocacy coalitions,beliefs, and learning: An analysis of stability,change, and reinforcement

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.