Explaining Advocacy Coalition Change with Policy Feedback
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Date
2019-11
Publication Type
Journal Article
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yes
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Abstract
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.
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Publication status
published
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Journal / series
Volume
48 (4)
Pages / Article No.
1109 - 1134
Publisher
Wiley
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
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Date collected
Date created
Subject
policy change; technological change; energy transition; cambio de política; cambio tecnológico; transición energética; 政策变化; 技术变革; 能源转型
Organisational unit
09550 - Schmidt, Tobias / Schmidt, Tobias
Notes
Funding
166905 - Opening the black box of the co-evolution of policy and technology in the energy sector (SNF)