Theories of the Policy Process

by Christopher M. Weible

The most significant limitations to research thus far emanate from methodological concerns and data limitations.

Scholars of policy feedback are increasingly relying on more advanced methodological techniques and access to an array of rich datasets to gain better leverage over the causal questions of interest to them. Most of these advances in the study of feedback effects, however, have still focused primarily on social welfare provision. Perhaps the next step is to extend these techniques to study how other types of policies shape the attitudes and behavior of beneficiaries as well as the broader impact of policies on the views of citizens generally, not only those affected directly.

The study of policy feedback represents an exciting and still relatively new direction in policy research, one ripe with possibilities for further inquiry. It engages scholars in the study of how policies, once created, reshape the political world in myriad ways.

Yet another set of questions centers on the behavior of actors who directly or indirectly attempt to influence policy processes by advocating for change or maintenance of the status quo: Under what conditions do actors form and maintain coalitions to achieve their policy objectives in a coordinated fashion? What are the characteristics of the network structures of these coalitions? To what extent, and in what ways, do opposing coalition actors interact?

The ACF was created in the early 1980s by Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins-Smith.

ACF is best thought of as a framework supporting multiple, overlapping theoretical foci.7 The purpose of a framework is to provide a shared research platform that enables analysts to work together in describing, explaining, and, sometimes, predicting phenomena within and across different contexts.

a framework provides a common vocabulary to help analysts communicate across disciplines, from different substantive policy areas, and from different parts of the world.

Assumptions The policy subsystem is the primary unit of analysis for understanding policy processes. Policy subsystems are defined by a policy topic, territorial scope, and the actors directly or indirectly influencing policy subsystem affairs.

Individuals are boundedly rational, with limited ability to process stimuli, motivated by belief systems, and prone to experience the “devil shift.” The ACF conception of individuals is based on a modified version of methodological individualism, that is, change in the world is primarily driven by people and not by organizations (Sabatier 1987, 685).

In the terms coalition beliefs, coalition behavior, and coalition learning, coalition is used metaphorically in reference to the individuals comprising the coalition.

The ACF assumes that policy actors have a three-tiered belief system structure. Deep core beliefs are fundamental normative values and ontological axioms. Deep core beliefs are not policy specific and, thus, can be applicable to multiple policy subsystems.

Cultural theory offers four distinct orientations—hierarchs, egalitarians, individualists, and fatalists.

In contrast to deep core beliefs, policy core beliefs are bound by scope and topic to the policy subsystem and thus have territorial and topical components.

Empirically, policy core beliefs include overall assessments of the seriousness of the problem, basic causes of the problem, and preferred solutions for addressing the problem (called policy core policy preferences).

Secondary beliefs deal with a subset of the policy subsystem or the specific instrumental means for achieving the desired outcomes outlined in the policy core beliefs.

Remembering losses and the tendency to filter and assimilate stimuli through belief systems result in the “devil shift,” where actors exaggerate the power and maliciousness of their opponents (Sabatier, Hunter, and McLaughlin 1987). The expected result is a noncollaborative attitude, growing mistrust, the protraction of conflict, and the obstruction of effective policy solutions (Fischer et al. 2016).

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mature subsystems comprise relatively established and clearly differentiated coalitions, whereas nascent or emergent subsystems are characterized by ambivalence and unclear political positions.

A more effective approach is to organize actors into one or more advocacy coalitions on the basis of shared beliefs and coordination strategies. By grouping and analyzing actors by coalitions, the analysts can simplify the hundreds of actors and their organizational affiliations into groupings that may be stable over time (Sabatier and Brasher 1993) and that are instrumental for understanding policy actors’ strategies for influence and policy change (Nohrstedt 2010).

Policies and programs incorporate implicit theories reflecting the translated beliefs of one or more coalitions.

Analysts applying the ACF should, therefore, interpret policies not just as the actions or inactions of government but also as the translations of belief systems as manifested in goals, rules, incentives, sanctions, subsidies, taxes, and other instruments regulating any given issue (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014, 486).

To better understand policy processes is thus to understand how scientific and technical explanations are integrated into (or deflected from) belief systems, used in political debates and negotiations, and integrated with other forms of knowledge, especially local knowledge.

Policy processes are ongoing without beginning or end (Lindblom 1968, 4) and, thus, strategic behavior and learning of coalition actors, the reasoning and patterns of policy change, and assessments of the success or failure of public policy should be understood from a long-term perspective.

Scope A framework’s scope provides the set of general questions about the policy process that it helps the analyst answer. The traditional scope of the ACF includes questions involving coalitions, learning, and policy change.

the framework is most useful for understanding these topics in high-conflict situations at the subsystem level of analysis.

Figure 4.1 presents a flow diagram depicting the policy process within the ACF.12 The policy subsystem is represented by the rectangle on the right illustrating a case with two competing coalitions representing their actors’ beliefs and resources. The two coalitions use various strategies to influence decisions by government authorities that affect institutional rules, policy outputs, and, eventually, policy outcomes. These decisions then feed back into the policy subsystem but also can affect external subsystem affairs.

One of the central objectives of the ACF is to contribute to the understanding of policy change and stability,

the ACF focuses on the directionality of policy evolution and makes a clear distinction between minor and major policy change

The ACF assumes that public policies and programs are translations of policy-oriented beliefs and can be conceptualized and measured hierarchically, like belief systems. Change in the core aspects, defined as “major policy change,” indicates significant shifts in the direction or goals of the subsystem, whereas change in secondary aspects (e.g., change in means for achieving the goals) is evidence for “minor policy change” (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999, 147–148).

minor policy change should be not as difficult to achieve as major policy change (Sabatier 1988).

The ACF offers four conceptual pathways to policy change.

The first is attributed to some external source (e.g., as might be found in the categories of dynamic external events or even relatively stable parameters from Figure 4.1). External shocks, or perturbations, include events outside the control of subsystem participants (in terms of their ability to influence underlying causes and triggers) and involve change in socioeconomic conditions, regime change, outputs from other subsystems, and extreme events such as some crises and disasters.

require one or several enabling factors (causal mechanisms), including heightened public and political attention, agenda change, and most importantly redistribution of coalition resources and opening and closi...

significant perturbations external to the subsystem are one of the necessary, but not sufficient, paths for changing the policy core attributes of a governmental program (Sabatier 1988).

Major policy change may also result from a second pathway based on internal events that (1) occur inside the territorial boundaries and/or the topical area of the policy subsystem and (2) are more likely affected by subsystem actors (Sabatier and Weible 2007, 204–205).

Internal events can be expected to confirm the policy core beliefs of minority coalitions and increase doubts about the core beliefs of the dominant coalition and bring into question the effectiveness of their policies.

A third source of minor policy change is policy-oriented learning, but this is likely to happen incrementally over longer periods of time.

policy analysis seldom influences specific governmental decisions but often serves an “enlightenment function” by gradually altering the concepts and assumptions of subsystem participants.

A fourth pathway to policy change is through negotiated agreement among previously warring coalitions and may result in substantial change in governmental programs.

Weible and Nohrstedt (2012, 133) merge the four pathways to policy change into a single hypothesis: Policy Change Hypothesis 1. Significant perturbations external to the subsystem, a significant perturbation internal to the subsystem, policy-oriented learning, negotiated agreement, or some combination thereof is a necessary, but not sufficient, source of change in the policy core attributes of a governmental program.

The second hypothesis relates coalition influence in the subsystem, major policy change, and nested policy subsystems: Policy Change Hypothesis 2. The policy core attributes of a government program in a specific jurisdiction will not be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition that instated the program remains in power within that jurisdiction—except when the change is imposed by a hierarchically superior jurisdiction.

Advocacy coalitions are defined by actors who share policy core beliefs and who coordinate their actions in a nontrivial manner to influence a policy subsystem.

The traditional hypotheses about advocacy coalition include the following: Coalition Hypothesis 1. On major controversies within a policy subsystem when policy core beliefs are in dispute, the lineup of allies and opponents tends to be rather stable over periods of a decade or so. Coalition Hypothesis 2. Actors within an advocacy coalition will show substantial consensus on issues pertaining to the policy core, although less so on secondary aspects. Coalition Hypothesis 3. Actors (or coalitions) will give up secondary aspects of their belief systems before acknowledging weaknesses in the policy core. Coalition Hypothesis 4. Within a coalition, administrative agencies will usually advocate more moderate positions than their interest group allies. Coalition Hypothesis 5. Actors within purposive groups are more constrained in their expression of beliefs and policy positions than actors from material groups.

Important in these studies is the documentation that although coalitions are generally stable over time defection is not uncommon and membership often changes.

The testing of Coalition Hypotheses 2 and 3 has resulted in only a few confirmations (Weyant 1988; Elliot and Schlaepfer 2001; Kim 2003) but many falsifications and, at best, findings of partial support

difficult to isolate policy core beliefs from secondary aspects.

The fourth and fifth hypotheses are rarely tested in the ACF.

a large number of studies have tested the expectation that coalitions form on the basis of shared beliefs, known as the Belief Homophily Hypothesis.

Whereas the results tend to confirm the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, the findings raise two new implications for studying coalitions under the ACF. The first implication is the presence of other factors, outside of beliefs, that affect coalition formation and stability. These other factors include, but are not limited to, perceived influence or resources of others (Weible 2005; Matti and Sandström 2011), interests (Nohrstedt 2010), and trust (Henry, Lubell, and McCoy 2011). The second implication is that coalitions are shaped more by sharing opponents than by sharing beliefs

additional concepts and their interrelations, some of which are summarized below in four categories.

Dominant and minority coalitions. Although some subsystems exhibit advocacy coalitions steeped in conflict marked by long periods of ongoing one-upmanship, other subsystems exhibit a “dominant” coalition that largely controls (most likely through resource superiority) subsystem politics and policy,