evaluating the advocacy coalition framework

Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition FrameworkAuthor(s): Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. SabatierSource: Journal of Public Policy, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1994), pp. 175-203Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4007571 .Accessed: 21/09/2014 23:35

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Jnl Publ. Pol., 14, 2, 175-203 Copyright ? 1994 Cambridge University Press

Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework

HANK C. JENK I NS- SM I TH, Political Science, University of New Mexico

PA U L A. S A B A TI ER, Environmental Studies, University of California at Davis

ABSTRACT The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was developed to provide a causal theory of the policy process which would serve as one of several alternatives to the familiar stages heuristic, with its recognized limitations. This paper first summarizes the central features of the ACF, including a set of underlying assumptions and specific hypotheses. We next review the implications for the framework of six case studies by various authors dealing with Canadian education and with American transportation, telecommunications, water, environmental, and energy policy. While generally supportive of the ACF, the case studies also suggest several revisions.

Many policy scholars have experienced growing dissatisfaction with a set of widely used concepts about the policy process which Nakamura (1987) dubbed 'the textbook approach' and which we refer to as 'the stages heuristic'. This has channeled the way research projects are framed concerning the policy process and how practitioners conceive the role of policy analysis. While the textbook approach made important contributions during the I970S and early I98os and still retains some value, it has outlived most of its usefulness.

The limitations of the textbook approach have stimulated efforts to develop more conceptually integrated and empirically falsifiable theories of the policy process (Sabatier, 1991). The advocacy coalition framework (ACF) deals with policy change over several decades, yet specifically considers the role of policy-oriented learning over shorter

An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the 1992 meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, September 2-5. The authors would like to thank John Scholz, Joe Stewart, Hanna Mawhinney, and several JPP reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this paper.


176 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier

periods of time within that broader process (Sabatier, I988; Jenkins- Smith, I988). The focus of this article is on the results of recent research that critically applied the ACF to cases of policy change over several decades in Canadian education, the regulation and deregulation of commercial airlines in the US., the controversy over additional water projects in California, the development of television design standards by the Federal Communications Commission, the regulation of petroleum leasing on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), and the regulation of land use and water quality in the Lake Tahoe Basin (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, I993). The intent has been to test some of the principal hypotheses and assumptions of the ACF over a diverse set of cases.

What have we learned? After briefly reviewing the limits of the textbook approach, we provide an overview of the ACF, including explicit hypotheses drawn from elements of the framework. The second part assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the ACF in light of the case studies. While the results generally support the ACF, they also suggest several important revisions and additions.

L Background

A. Limitations of the Stages Heuristic Beginning in the late I96os and early I970s, many policy scholars adopted a stages heuristic to public policy derived from the work of Harold Lasswell, David Easton and others. Briefly, it breaks the policy process into functionally and temporally distinct sub-processes. Among the most authoritative statements of the textbook model are Jones' (I977) An Introduction to the Study of Public Policy, Anderson's (I979) Public Polic-Making, and Peter's (I986) American Public Policy. These works all distinguish the stages of problem identification/agenda setting, policy formulation and adoption, policy implementation, and policy evaluation and reformulation. All place these stages within a broader political environment of federalism, political institutions, public opinion, political culture, and other constraints.

Scholars working within the stages heuristic have certainly made important contributions over the past two decades. The concept of a process of policymaking operating across the various institutions of government has provided an alternative to the institutional approach of traditional political science. By shifting attention to the process stream the stages model has encouraged analysis of phenomena that transcend any given institution. In addition, the stages heuristic has permitted useful analysis of questions that were less readily perceived


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework 177

within the institutionalist framework. Perhaps the most important of these has been its focus on policy outcomes. Traditional institutional approaches tended to stop at the output of that particular institution - whether it be a law, a court decision or an administrative agency rule, without specific attention to the ultimate outcome or impact of the policy. Finally, the stages model has provided a useful conceptual disaggregation of the complex and varied policy process into manageable segments, particularly regarding agenda setting (e.g. Cobb et al, 1976; Kingdon, 1984; Nelson, 1984) and policy implementation (e.g., Pressman and Wildavsky, I973; Barrett and Fudge, I98I; Mazmanian and Sabatier, I989).

Despite its contributions, we believe the stages heuristic has serious limitations for policy scholarship. First, the stages model is not really a causal model. It lacks an identifiable force or forces that can drive the policy process from one stage to another and generate activity within specific stages. The literatures on each stage shows very little integration with each other in terms of the major actors involved or the causal factors which drive the process along. And because it fails to specify the linkages, and influences that form the essential core of theoretical models, the approach also does not provide a clear basis for empirical hypothesis-testing across stages or within multiple stages. The means for confirmation, alteration or elaboration of the model are lacking, except within a specific stage.

Insofar as the stages heuristic posits a sequence of steps starting with agenda-setting and then passing through policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation, it is often descriptively inaccurate. Pro- ponents often acknowledge deviations from the sequential stages, in practice (see, e.g. Jones, 1977: 28-29). Empirical studies suggests that deviations may be quite frequent: evaluations of existing programs often affect agenda setting, and policy making occurs as bureaucrats attempt to implement vague legislation (Lowi, I969; Majone and Wildavsky, 1978; Barrett and Fudge, i98i; Kingdon, 1984; Nakamura, 1987).

More importantly, the stages heuristic suffers from a built-in legal- istic, top-down focus. It draws attention to a specific cycle of problem identification, policy decision, and implementation that focuses on the intentions of legislators and the fate of a particular policy initiative. Such a top-down view results in a tendency to neglect other important players (e.g., street-level bureaucrats), restricts the view of 'policy' to a specific piece of legislation, and may be entirely inapplicable when 'policy' stems from a multitude of overlapping directives and actors, none dominant (Sabatier, I986). Furthermore, focus on the policy cycle as the temporal unit of analysis is often inappropriate. Policy


178 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier evolution usually involves multiple, interacting cycles initiated by actors at different levels of government, as various formulations of problems and solutions are conceived, partially tested, and reformulated by a range of competing policy elites against a background of change in exogenous events and related policy issue areas (Heclo, I974; Jones, 1975; Nelson, 1984; Sabatier and Pelkey, I990).

These and other problems with the stages heuristic have encouraged the development of other conceptualizations of the policy process (Sabatier, i99i; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993: Chap. I). Two major alternative schools of thought consist of an institutional rational choice tradition (Kiser and Ostrom, 1982; Moe, 1984; Ostrom, I990; Chubb and Moe, I990; McCubbins and Sullivan, 1992; Ostrom et al, 1993) and another in comparative public policy, generally operating within a conceptual framework articulated by Hofferbert (I974; see also Leichter, 1979; Lundqvist, I980; Mazmanian and Sabatier, i980; Castles, I989). In this paper, we evaluate a third alternative, the advocacy coalition framework.

B. The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) The ACF originated in dissatisfaction with the implementation literature it represented an effort to synthesize the best features of both 'top down' and 'bottom up' approaches to that stage of the policy process (Sabatier, I986, Sabatier, I988; Jenkins-Smith, I988; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993: Chaps. 2-3).

The advocacy coalition framework has at least four basic premises. First, understanding the process of policy change - and the role of learning therein - requires a time perspective of a decade or more. Second, the most useful way to think about policy change over such a time span is through a focus on policy subsystems, i.e. the interaction of actors from different institutions who follow, and seek to influence, governmental decisions in a policy area. Third, subsystems must include an intergovernmental dimension, at least for domestic policy. Fourth, public policies or programs can be conceptualized in the same manner as belief systems, i.e. as sets of value priorities and causal assumptions about how to realize them.

The focus on a timespan of a decade or more comes directly from the findings about the enlightenment function of policy research. Weiss (1977) has persuasively argued that a focus on short-term decision-making will underestimate the influence of policy analysis because such research is used primarily to alter the perceptual appar- atus of policy-makers over time. A corollary is that it is the cumulative effect of findings from different studies and from every day knowledge



(Lindblom and Cohen, 1979) that has greatest influence on policy. The literature on policy implementation also points to the need for time frames of a decade or more, to complete at least one formulation/ implementation/reformulation cycle and to obtain a reasonably accu- rate portrait of success and failure (Mazmanian and Sabatier, I989). Numerous studies have shown that ambitious programs that appeared after a few years to be abject failures received more favourable evaluations when seen in a longer timeframe; conversely, initial successes may evaporate over time (Bernstein, 1955; Kirst and Jung, 1982; Hogwood and Peters, 1983).

Secondly, the most useful aggregate unit of analysis for understanding policy change in modern industrial societies is not a specific governmental institution but rather a policy subsystem (or domain), i.e. those actors from a variety of public and private organizations who are actively concerned with a policy problem or issue, such as air pollution control or mental health, and who regularly seek to influence public policy in that domain. Our conception of policy subsystems should be broadened from traditional notions of iron tri- angles limited to administrative agencies, legislative committees, and interest groups at a single level of government to include actors at various levels of government, as well as journalists, researchers, and policy analysts who play important roles in the generation, dissemi- nation, and evaluation of policy ideas (Heclo, 1978; Dunleavy, I98I; Jordan and Richardson, I983; Rhodes, I988; Scholz et al, i99i).

The third basic premise is that policy subsystems will normally involve actors from all levels of government. To examine policy change only at the national level will, in most instances, be seriously mislead- ing. Policy innovations may occur first at a subnational level and then expand into nationwide programs; even after national intervention, subnational initiatives normally continue. American cities such as Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, had viable stationary air pollution source controls 20 years before any significant federal involvement, and California continues to be several years ahead on most aspects of mobile source controls. Moreover, two decades of implementation research has conclusively demonstrated that subnational implementing officials have substantial discretion in deciding exactly how national 'policy' gets translated into thousands of concrete decisions in very diverse local situations (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973; Barrett and Fudge, I98I; Hull and Hjern, 1987; Rhodes, I988; Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1989).

The fourth important premise is that public policies/programs incor- porate implicit theories about how to achieve their objectives (Pressman and Wildavsky, I973; Majone, 1980), and thus can be


I80 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier conceptualized in much the same way as belief systems. They involve value priorities, perceptions of important causal relationships, perceptions of the state of the world (including the magnitude of the problem), perceptions of the efficacy of policy instruments, etc. Map- ping beliefs and policies on the same canvas permits assessing the influence over time of the role of technical information or beliefs on policy change.

Figure i presents a general overview of the framework. On the left side are two sets of exogeneous variables - the one fairly stable, the other more dynamic - that affect the constraints and opportunities of subsystem actors. Air pollution policy, for example, is strongly affected by the nature of air quality as a collective good, by the geographical contours of air basins, and by political boundaries which are usually quite stable over time. But there are also more dynamic factors, including changes in socio-economic conditions (e.g. public opinion and oil prices) and in the systemic governing coalition, which provide some of the principal sources of major policy change.

Within the subsystem, the ACF assumes that actors can be aggre- gated into a number of advocacy coalitions composed of people from various governmental and private organizations who share a set of normative and causal beliefs and who often act in concert. In United States automotive air pollution control, for example, one can distinguish an environmental coalition (composed of environmental and public health groups, most officials in federal and state air pollution agencies, some legislators at all levels of government, and specific researchers and journalists), as distinct from an economic efficiency coalition composed of most automobile manufacturers and petroleum companies and their allies in legislatures, research enterprises, and the mass media.

The belief systems of various coalitions are organized into an hierarchical, tri-partite structure, with higher/broader levels constraining more specific beliefs. At the highest/broadest level, the 'deep core' of the shared belief system includes basic ontological and normative beliefs, such as the perceived nature of humans or the relative valu- ation of individual freedom or social equality, which operate across virtually all policy domains; the familiar left/right scale operates at this level. At the next level are 'policy core' beliefs which represent a coalition's basic normative commitments and causal perceptions across an entire policy domain or subsystem. They include fundamental value priorities, such as the relative importance of economic development vs. environmental protection; basic perceptions concerning the general seriousness of the problem (e.g. air pollution) and its principal causes; and strategies for realizing core values within the


Evaluating the Advocagy Coalition Framework i 8i FIGURE I: Revised Diagram of the Advocacy Coalition Framework

I RELATIVELY STABLE SYSTEM PARAMETERS 1) Basic attributes of the problem area (good) _

I I I I iI 12) Basic distribution of natural resources j I POLICY SUBSYSTEM

13) Fundamental socio-cultural values and sociat structure -' i

4) Basic constitutional structure (rutes) | Constraints j Coalition A Policy Coalition 8 I__________________________________________ I1 I I J a) Policy beliefs Brokers a) Policy betiefs

and j | b) Resources b) Resources 'I I I I I I Resources I--- >1

Strategy Al I Strategy R1 of I re guidance re uidance

_____________________ _ * i instruIments instruments

EmXBL (SYSTEM) EVENTS Subsystem I I I >1. 1 1 1 1

1) Changes in socio-economic conditions Actors | | I 1 Decisions by SovereigrR

12) Changes in public opinion | | . Regarding Institutlonal Rules, I Rudgats, and Parsonnel

3) Chwnges in systemic governing coatition

14) Policy decisions and inpacts from other 1 . subsysteem I I I .

I S Coversnantal Program

i *--- -

Poticy Outputs ........>

----- Policy Ilacts ------->

subsystem, such as the appropriate division of authority between governments and markets, the level of government best suited to deal with the problem, and the basic policy instruments to be used. Finally, the secondary aspects of a coalition's belief system within a specific policy domain comprise a large set of narrower beliefs concerning the seriousness of the problem or the relative importance of various causal factors in specific locales, policy preferences regarding desirable regu- lations or budgetary allocations, the design of specific institutions, and the evaluations of various actors' performance.

In general, deep core beliefs are very resistant to change - essentially akin to a religious conversion. A coalition's policy core beliefs are somewhat less rigidly held. While several are almost exclusively normative and thus very difficult to modify, most involve empirical elements which may change over a period of time with the gradual


182 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier accumulation of evidence, as in Weiss's enlightenment function. For example, whereas all environmental groups in the United States supported command-and-control regulation in the early 1970S, a few have gradually come to prefer economic incentives as a policy instrument in many situations (Liroff, I986). Beliefs in secondary aspects are assumed to be more readily adjusted in the light of new data, experience, or changing strategic considerations.

At any particular point in time, each coalition adopts a strategy or strategies involving the use of guidance instruments (changes in rules, budgets, personnel, or information) to attempt to alter the behavior of one or more governmental institutions in order to make them more consistent with its policy objectives. Conflicting strategies from various coalitions are normally mediated by a third group of actors, here termed policy brokers, whose principal concern is to find some reasonable compromise which will reduce intense conflict. The end result is one or more governmental programs, which in turn lead to policy outputs. These outputs - mediated by a number of other factors - result in a variety of impacts on targeted problems (e.g. ambient air quality), as well as side effects.

On the basis of perceptions of decisions and their resulting impacts, as well as new information, each advocacy coalition may revise its beliefs, primarily in the secondary aspects, and/or alter its strategies. The latter may involve seeking major institutional revisions at the collective choice level, more minor revisions at the operational level (Kiser and Ostrom, 1982), or even going outside the subsystem by seeking changes in the dominant electoral coalition at the systemic level.

This framework has a particular interest in understanding policy- oriented learning. Following Heclo (1974: 306), this refers to relatively enduring alterations of thought or behavioral intentions which result from experience and are concerned with the attainment or revision of policy objectives. Policy-oriented learning involves the internal feed- back loops depicted in Figure i, perceptions concerning external dynamics, and increased knowledge of problem parameters and the factors affecting them. The framework assumes that such learning is instrumental, i.e. that members of various coalitions seek to understand better the world in order to further their policy objectives. They will resist information suggesting that their core or policy core beliefs may be invalid or unattainable, and they will use formal policy analyses primarily to buttress and elaborate those beliefs or attack their opponents' views.

Such learning comprises only one of the forces affecting policy change over time. In addition, there is a real world that changes.



Changes in relevant socio-economic conditions and system-wide governing coalitions, such as the 1973 Arab oil boycott or the 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher, can dramatically alter the composition and the resources of various coalitions and, in turn, public policy, within the subsystem. Turnover in personnel constitutes a second non-cognitive source of change which can substantially alter the political resources of various coalitions.

The basic argument of the ACF is that while policy-oriented learning is an important aspect of policy change, and can often alter secondary aspects of a coalition's belief system, changes in the policy core aspects of a governmental program are usually the results of perturbations in non-cognitive factors external to the subsystem, such as macro- economic conditions or the rise of a new systemic governing coalition. It differs from Heclo (I974; 1978) in its emphasis on ideologically based coalitions and in its conception of the dynamics of policy- oriented learning. It can also be clearly distinguished from analyses which view formal organizations as the basic actors, or those which focus on individuals seeking to attain their self-interest through the formation of short-term minimum winning coalitions (Riker, I962).

Table I lists a set of hypotheses drawn from the ACF regarding advocacy coalitions, policy change, and policy learning (Sabatier, I988). The three hypotheses concerning coalitions are all based on the premise that the principal glue holding a coalition together is agreement over policy core beliefs. Since these are very resistant to change, the lineup of allies and opponents within a subsystem will remain stable over periods of a decade or more (Hypotheses i). Hypotheses 2 and 3 are essentially a restatement of the underlying premise. Given the arguments concerning the stability of a coalition's policy core beliefs and its desire to translate those beliefs into governmental programs, Hypothesis 4 contends that the policy core attributes of such programs will not change as long as the dominant coalition which instituted that policy remains in power although the secondary aspects of those programs may well change. Given the logic thus far, it follows that the only way to change the policy core attributes of governmental policy is through some shock originating outside the subsystem which fundamentally alters the distribution of political resources among coalitions within the subsystem (Hypothesis 5). The last four hypotheses deal with the conditions conducive to policy- oriented learning across belief systems, i.e. between coalitions. These are based upon the premise that coalitions resist changing their policy core beliefs or important secondary aspects of their belief systems, and thus only very, very solid empirical evidence is likely to lead them to do so. It is hypothesized that such evidence is most likely


i84 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier TABLE i: Hypotheses Drawn from the Advocacy Coalition Framework Hypotheses Concerning Advocacy Coalitions: Hypothesis i: 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.

Hypothesis 2: Actors within an advocacy coalition will show substantial consensus on issues pertaining to the policy core but less so on secondary aspects.

Hypothesis 3: An actor or coalition will give up secondary aspects of a belief system before acknowledging weaknesses in the policy core.

Hypotheses Concerning Policy Change: Hypothesis 4: The policy core attributes of a governmental program are unlikely to

be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition which instituted the program remains in power.

Hypothesis 5: The policy core attributes of a governmental action program are unlikely to be changed in the absence of significant perturbations external to the subsystem, i.e. changes in socio-economic conditions, system-wide governing coalitions, or policy outputs from other subsystems.

Hypotheses Concerning Coalition Learning: Hypothesis 6: Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there

is an intermediate level of informed conflict between the two coalitions. This requires that: i) Each have the technical resources to engage in such a debate; and

that ii) The conflict be between secondary aspects of one belief system

and core elements of the other or, alternatively, between important secondary aspects of the two belief systems.

Hypothesis 7: Problems for which accepted quantitative data and theory exist are more conducive to policy-oriented learning across belief systems than those in which data and theory are generally qualitative, quite subjective, or altogether lacking.

Hypothesis 8: Problems involving natural systems are more conducive to policy- oriented learning across belief systems than those involving purely social or political systems because in the former many of the critical variables are not themselves active strategists and because controlled experiment- ation is more feasible.

Hypothesis 9: Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there exists a forum which is: i) Prestigious enough to force professionals from different coalitions to

participate; ii) Dominated by professional norms.

to be developed and accepted in fields where accepted quantitative data and consensual theories are available (Hypothesis 7), in the natural sciences more than the social sciences (Hypotheses 8), when a prestigious professional forum requiring the participation of experts from various coalitions exists (Hypothesis 9), and in situations involving an intermediate level of conflict, i.e. high enough to be worth expending analytical resources but not involving direct normative conflict (Hypothesis 6).


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework 185 I. Assessing the ACF on the Basis of Six Cases As part of a larger project designed to test these hypotheses and the overall utility of the ACF, we collected a set of six case studies covering a range of substantive issues, levels of government, and methods of analysis (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993) . Contributions were sought from scholars who were specialists in diverse policy areas and who had no vested interest in supporting the ACT:' (i) Hanne Mawhinney (I993) applied the ACF to efforts by the French- speaking minority in Ontario to gain their own secondary schools in that province. Her account, which focuses on the period from about 1970 to the approval of the Canadian Bill of Rights in I983, offers some fascinating parallels to the struggles of Southern blacks to abolish separate schools in the United States. (2) Anthony Brown and Joseph Stewart (I993) analyzed the deregulation of commercial airlines in the United States. They reviewed the rather stable coalitions within this subsystem over a very long period, with the late 1970S marking the transformation of a long-time minority coalition into majority status as the result of policy learning and external events. (3) John Munro (I993) examined California water supply policy over the past 50 years, with particular emphasis on the change from a clearly dominant water development coalition during 1930-69 to a stalemate starting in the mid-1970s because of the growing strength of environmentalists and, we would argue, efficiency-oriented economists. Learning played an important role, as did external events, particularly drought, the energy crisis, and gubernatorial elections. The analysis also contains a fascinating case study about how extremists from both camps blocked an effort by Gov. Jerry Brown to broker a solution in the early i980S. (4) Richard Barke (I993) describes how technical advisory committees of the United States Federal Communications Commission managed to develop a unified technology for the development of monochrome and color television in the 1940s and 1950S. As predicted by the ACF, learning and eventual agreement were facilitated by the presence of a quasi-professional forum and tractable technical issues, despite intense conflict involving enormous economic stakes. (5) Jenkins-Smith. and Gil St. Clair (I993) examine twenty years of testimony before Congressional committees dealing with petroleum exploration on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This policy subsystem had been examined previously by Theodore Heintz (I988) a senior policy analyst for the Depart- ment of Interior, using a qualitative case-study approach. Jenkins-Smith and St. Clair demonstrate how more systematic methods of data acquisition and analysis, when added to qualitative techniques, allow important distinctions to emerge. (6) Sabatier and Anne Brasher (1993) analyze I90 testimonies at legislative and administrative hearings dealing with land use and water quality policy in the Lake Tahoe Basin (California and Nevada) between I960 and I984. They demonstrate how a rather fluid situation in the I960s coalesced into two very distinct coalitions by the mid-I970s.


i 86 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier While these six cases do not constitute an exhaustive or formal test of the underlying assumptions or hypotheses of the ACF, they do provide a guide to its strengths and weaknesses in a variety of situations. They cases provide substantial support for the ACF; they also suggest several important revisions of, and additions to, the framework.

A. The Importance of Advocacy Coalitions First and foremost, the cases confirm the presence of advocacy coalitions and show the utility of focusing on them to simplify policy change over a decade or more. An advocacy coalition does consist of actors from a variety of governmental and private organizations at different levels of government who share a set of policy beliefs and seek to realize them by influencing the behavior of multiple governmental institutions over time. The concept of advocacy coalitions aggregates most actors within a subsystem into a manageable number of belief- based coalitions, whereas Heclo (1978) views individuals as largely autonomous and thus risks overwhelming both himself and the reader with an impossibly complex set of actors.

The data are probably clearest in the Tahoe case, where Sabatier and Brasher (1993) used cluster analysis of several hundred testimonies at a dozen hearings over 20 years to demonstrate that actors from a wide variety of institutions tended to coalesce over time into two major coalitions; one an Economic Development/Property Rights Coalition composed of most elected officials and staff from local governments and public utility districts in the Basin, local businessmen, leaders of property rights groups, and several Nevada legislators from the Basin. The opposing Environmental Coalition was composed of local and statewide environmental groups, officials from several California and Nevada pollution control agencies, several researchers, several Cali- fornia legislators from outside the Basin, and even a few representatives from two local governments in the Basin. This case also demonstrated how the Tahoe subsystem evolved over a decade or so from a vague initial consensus in favor of some form of regional environmental planning to two coalitions espousing quite different belief systems.

Mawhinny's (1993) analysis of educational conflict in Ontario revealed a rather cohesive Francophone Rights Coalition composed of national francophone interest groups, their local affiliates, local school officials from francophone schools, and elected officials and political parties from Quebec. In her view, the long-dominant Loyalist Coalit- ion was less cohesive, and may in fact have been an alliance containing traditional Anglophone conservatives, Scots, and English-speaking Catholics. This case suggests that minority coalitions have a greater


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework 187 incentive to remain cohesive in order to have any chance of gaining power, while those in a long-dominant coalition may become less cohesive over several decades.

The Brown and Stewart (1993) analysis of airline regulation revealed three coalitions which remained remarkably stable over several decades: (i) a Pro-Regulation Coalition composed of the major airlines, most airline unions, many smaller airports, and their Congressional allies' (2) an Anti-Regulation Coalition composed of the smaller airlines, larger airports, most consumer groups, some economists, and their Congressional allies; and (3) a Deregulation Coalition, which probably didn't emerge until the late I96os and which was composed largely of academic economists, Alfred Kahn (an economist who became CAB chair in the mid-I970s), some consumer groups, and a few critical members of Senator Kennedy's staff in the mid-1970s. The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) was usually in the Pro-Regulation Coalition, although it could be moved for a few years depending upon Presidential appointments. Kahn moved it into the Deregulation Coalition in the late 1970s.

B. Differences among Interest Groups, Agencies, and Researchers within Coalitions

The precision provided by the systematic analysis of testimonies at Outer Continental Shelf leasing hearings, I969 - 1987, by Jenkins- Smith and St. Clair (1993) suggests an important amendment to our understanding of changes in the composition of advocacy coalitions over time. The companies and industry trade groups most directly involved in OCS development were always in the Pro-Leasing Coalit- ion, while environmental groups were always in the Environmental (anti-leasing) Coalition. The involved federal agencies - DOE, DOI, EPA and the NOAA - were sandwiched between the competing interest groups. Over the course of the policy debate, the federal agencies - at least in their official pronouncements before Con- gressional committees - shifted between one coalition or the other in response to exogenous political and economic events. DOI and DOE were consistently closer to the pro-leasing side, however, while NOAA and EPA tended to be closer to the environmental side. The OCS case thus suggests a new hypothesis: Hypothesis I0: Within a coalition, administrative agencies will usually advo- cate more moderate positions than their interest group allies. The Advocacy Coalition Framework assumes that most administrative agencies have missions that usually make them part of a specific


i88 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier coalition. Their mission is grounded in a statutory mandate and reinforced by the professional affiliation of agency personnel and the agency's need to provide benefits to the dominant coalition in their subsystem (Meier, 1985; Knott and Miller, 1987). On the other hand, the OCS leasing case and the recognition that most agencies have multiple sovereigns (sources of money and legal authority) with somewhat different policy views suggests that agencies will generally take less extreme positions than their interest group allies, particularly those groups which are funded primarily from member contributions. In their study of Tahoe land use, Sabatier et al (1987) also found that administrative agencies tended to have more moderate views than their interest group allies. In fact, the OCS case indicates that agencies that are usually sympathetic to a given coalition can be moved to a neutral position or even to switch sides - at least in their official pronouncements - by major exogeneous events such as the arrival of a new chief executive (President or governor) favorably inclined to the opposing coalition, or by a major crisis. Note that a change in official pronouncements does not mean that the agency has changed coalitions. Official statements of political appointees may not reflect the positions of powerful civil servants or the majority of street-level bureaucrats. It should likewise be noted that different subunits within a bureaucracy may belong to different coalitions; for excellent examples, see Liroff (I986) and Eisner and Meier (I990).

The evidence presented in many of our cases - particularly airline deregulation, California water policy, OCS leasing, and Lake Tahoe - indicates that administrative agencies and university researchers are often not policy neutral, but instead are active members of specific coalitions.2 This should not be news (Friedson, 1971; Primack and von Hippel, 1974; Mazur, I981; Knott and Miller, I987; Jenkins- Smith, I990; Barke and Jenkins-Smith, 1993), but we are continually surprised by the number of people who still subscribe to the textbook portrait of neutral civil servants and researchers. The dominant role orientations of agency officials do, however, vary by country (Aberbach et al, 1981: 97). But even in European countries with a strong tradition of elitist and supposedly policy-neutral civil servants, bureaucratic role orientation also varies with political ideology (Ibid: 140) and professional training often guides agency behavior and creates de facto alliances with external groups (Jordan and Richardson, I983; Sharpe, I984; Laffin, I986; Rhodes, 1988). European countries have a very long tradition of politically committed university faculty, especially on the Left.

Cross-pressured by multiple principals, and uniquely subject to frequent exogenous shocks (via new executive appointments following



electoral turnover), agencies tend to occupy more moderate and, at least at the political appointee level, less consistent positions within advocacy coalitions than their interest group applies.

C Intergovernmental Relations The Advocacy Coalition Framework explicitly assumes that most coalitions include actors from multiple levels of government. First, almost all national domestic programs rely heavily upon sub-national governments for actual implementation (Van Horn, 1979; Rhodes, I988; Scholtz et al, I99I); second, intergovernmental transfers constitute a significant percentage of most sub-national government budgets (Wright, I988; Anton, I989); and, third, sub-national agencies form a substantial percentage of the groups lobbying national legislatures and agencies (Salisbury, 1984).

This has certainly been confirmed by the case studies analyzed here. All except the FCC's development of television design standards involved a significant intergovernmental dimension. In airline deregulation, local airports were important members of either the Pro or the Anti-Regulation Coalitions (Brown and Stewart, 1993). On OCS leasing, one of the major issues has been the distribution of authority between federal and state and local governments, and state agencies have been important participants in Congressional hearings (Heintz, I988). California water policy is an intergovernmental thicket involving hundreds of local water and irrigation districts; three federal agencies, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and EPA; and three major state agencies, the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, and the Department of Fish and Game (Huntley, 1992; Munro, I993). Land use and water quality planning in the Lake Tahoe Basin involves six local governments, several state agencies from Nevada and California, two federal agencies (the Forest Service and EPA), and a bistate regional agency (the TRPA) (Sabatier and Brasher, 1993). Finally, the Mawhinney (1993) analysis of francophone education in Ontario indicates that it has been linked to both francophone rights in other provinces and to the pivotal constitutional issue of Quebec separatism at the federal level.

There is also evidence that, as predicted by the ACF, members of a specific coalition will use a variety of institutions at different levels of government in order to achieve their policy objectives. For example, at Lake Tahoe the principal environmental group and its allies have pursued the following strategies over the past thirty years (Sabatier and Pelkey, Xggo):


Igo Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier (i) They supported the use of federal and state funds to help sewer the Basin in the I96os. (2) When land use issues became critical, they supported the creation of the bistate Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) in I967-70. (3) When the TRPA approved several major casinos, they first sued in both federal and state courts and then promoted the intervention of California land use, water quality, and air quality agencies in the Basin in an effort to slow development. (4) In order to put pressure on Nevada to renegotiate the TRPA Compact in the late 1970s, they convinced a sympathetic Congressman to sponsor legislation establishing a National Scenic Area in the Basin. (5) When stringent environmental controls were put into place starting in I980, the environmental coalition has sponsored buyout programs by both federal and state agencies in order to ease the burden on property owners.

One could cite an equally varied set of counter-strategies used by members of the opposing Economic Development Coalition involving institutions at all levels of government.

On the other hand, Mawhinney's (I993) analysis of educational policy in Ontario indicates that every actor should not be thrown into an undifferentiated, multi-level subsystem. Different levels of government are semi-autonomous, and coalitions spend a great deal of time trying to restrict authority to the level at which they have a comparative advantage (Schattschneider, I960). In the francophone case, for example, the Loyalist Coalition tried to keep education a purely provincial matter while the Francophone Coalition sought to expand the scope of the conflict by linking it to Quebec separatism. Ultimately, the federal government under Pierre Trudeau agreed with the Francophones that keeping Quebec in the country would require a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms providing educational rights for linguistic minorities in Ontario and other provinces. This was, of course, very similar to the history of school deregulation in the United States: racial minorities expanded the scope of the conflict from the states to the federal government and were eventually rewarded when the Supreme Court ruled Brown v. Board of Education that state- supported segregated schools violated the Constitution (Stewart, l99I).

In intergovernmental relations, the strength of the jurisdictional dividing lines is essentially an empirical question. In cases of national preemption, such as the regulation of television and radio broadcasts, there is basically a single national subsystem. In cases of traditional local autonomy such as the regulation of private land use, subsystems tend to be organized around particular local governments. Minority coalitions at the local level always have the option of trying to involve state and/or national officials. This means, however, revision is required in Hypothesis 4 that the policy core of a governmental


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework i 9I

program will not be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition which instituted a policy remains in power. In the Ontario case, for example, several policy core attributes of education were changed by the federal government even though the Loyalist Coalition remained in power in the province of Ontario. We thus suggest the following: Hypothesis 4 (Revised): The Policy Core (basic attributes) of a governmental program in a specific jurisdiction will not be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition which initiated the program remains in power within that jurisdiction - except when the change is imposed by a hierarchically superior jurisdiction. In such cases of hierarchically imposed reform, the literature on the implementation of school desegregation and other reforms indicates that the ability of hierarchically superior jurisdictions to alter not just the letter of the law but the behavior of governmental officials within the subsystem - in the absence of a change in the dominant coalition within the subsystem - is exceedingly difficult, but not impossible (Rodgers and Bullock, I976; Mazmanian and Sabatier, I989).

D. The Role of Policy-Oriented Learning in Policy Change

The advocacy coalition framework outlines a general argument and several hypotheses concerning the role that technical information and formal policy analysis play in policy-oriented learning and, in turn, in policy change.

Several of the cases support the ACF's argument that technical information and formal policy analysis are generally used in an advocacy fashion, i.e. to buttress and support a predetermined position. They also seem to support Hypothesis 5 that policy analysis and the policy-oriented learning it engenders will not by itself lead to changes in the policy core of a coalition or public policy. Finally, they provide some support for Hypotheses 6-9 that learning across coalitions is more likely when an intermediate level of conflict is involved, when the issues are analytically tractable, and when a professional forum is utilised.

According to Barke (I993), technical information played a critical role in the Federal Communication Commission's ability to develop uniform design standards for monochrome and color television sets in the decades following World War II. This was facilitated by the analytical tractability of the topic (Hypotheses 7-8), by the presence of a classic professional forum (Hypothesis 9), and by an intermediate level of conflict (Hypothesis 6). The stakes were sufficiently high


192 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier involving millions of dollars invested in competing technologies, to encourage the various companies to spend substantial sums doing the technical studies. On the other hand, this was not a conflict involving the policy core: everyone acknowledged financial self-interest as a legitimate goal and wanted the industry to come up with a uniform standard which would be sanctioned by the FCC. There was no alternative coalition arguing that color television represented a threat to consumer safety or to the moral fiber of the nation.

Likewise, the Brown and Stewart (1993) analysis of airline deregulation clearly stressed the importance of the evidence developed by economists in the 1950-70 period concerning the inefficiencies of entry and fare restrictions set by the CAB. In Brown and Stewart's view, however, the economists' evidence was not sufficient to produce a change in the policy core from entry/fare regulation to deregulation. Consistent with Hypothesis 5, major policy revision also required several changes exogenous to the subsystem, including public concern with inflation and the inefficiencies of regulation in general. These were trumpeted by Presidents Ford and Carter, who in turn appointed proponents of deregulation, notably Alfred Kahn, to the CAB. Kahn then used ambiguities in the CAB's existing statutory mandate to push deregulation wherever possible. This change so destabilized major carriers such as United Airlines that they agreed to changes in the law. Passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, a clear change in the policy core, was also facilitated by political compromises mitigating its adverse impacts on employee unions.

The Tahoe case likewise provides evidence of the use of technical information, consistent with Hypothesis 3 of the ACF. The accumulation of scientific evidence indicating that erosion from development had adverse effects on water quality was readily accepted by environmental groups and state/federal pollution control agencies but not by most business owners, property rights advocates, and local government officials. The most plausible interpretation is that these findings were consistent with the policy core of the former coalition but threatened the latter's adherence to economic development and property rights (Sabatier and Brasher, 1993). In a high conflict situation such as Tahoe, combatants tend to assume a siege mentality in which all evidence put forth by opponents is highly suspect (Sabatier et al, 1987; Jenkins-Smith, I990).

On the other hand, the CAB case and the analysis of OCS leasing by Jenkins-Smith and St. Clair suggest a new hypothesis concerning policy-oriented learning: Hypothesis il: Even when the accumulation of technical information does not change the views of the opposing coalition, it can have important impacts


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework on policy, at least in the short term, by altering the views of policy brokers or other important governmental officials.

In the case of OCS leasing, millions of dollars spent on environmental impact studies during the I970S had little effect on the beliefs of either oil companies or environmental groups (similar conclusions were reached by Heintz, I988). But these studies apparently helped convince Cecil Andrus, Secretary of the Interior under the Carter Administration, that improvements in drilling techniques meant that drilling posed far fewer environmental risks than he had previously believed. Combined with the exogeneous shock from the 1979 oil crisis, this led him to propose a greatly accelerated OCS leasing program in I980. In general, when the policy dispute is characterized by high technical complexity and intense political conflict, senior agency officials, and legislative committee staff, can play a critical role (Gormley, I987). Any learning they do may well have a significant impact on public policy within the subsystem, even if the same information is rejected by one of the competing coalitions. On the other hand, learning by such critical individuals will have a lasting impact on policy only if they are able to implement their views in time.

E. Changes Exogenous to the Policy Subsystem Hypothesis 5 of the ACF argues that changes in the policy core attributes of public policy within a subsystem will not come about solely because of activities internal to the subsystem, instead requiring some exogenous shock which alters the resources and opportunities of various coalitions.

The evidence presented in the cases reviewed here generally supports this hypothesis. The clearest example was the influence of Quebec separatism on francophone education in Ontario contributing to passage of the Federal Bill of Rights and Constitution Act (Mawhinney, 1993). One could also cite the role of inflation and the 1974 and 1976 changes in Presidential Administration on the radical change represented by the I978 Airline Deregulation Act (Brown and Stewart, 1993). On a somewhat lesser scale, California water policy changed from a clearly dominant Development Coalition in the I960S and early 1970S to essentially -a stalemate by the end of that decade, in large part because of the 1974 election of Jerry Brown as Governor and the rise of oil prices and pumping costs following the 1973-74 and 1979-80 oil crises (Munro, 1993). Finally, the 1979 Iranian Revolution and subsequent oil crises provided substantial impetus


194 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier to changes in the Carter Administration's policy on OCS leasing (Jenkins-Smith and St. Clair, 1993).

On the other hand, the cases suggest two clarifications in the role of exogenous events on policy change. First, both Brown and Stewart (I993) and Mawhinney (I993) argue that exogenous events by themselves do not directly and unambiguously alter the resources and opportunities of subsystem actors. Instead, such events are interpreted by subsystem actors and then exploited with greater or lesser skill. Francophone school interests, for example, were particularly adept at exploiting and fanning the flames of Quebec separatism in order to achieve their policy objective. Thus Hypothesis 5 needs to be revised: Hypothesis 5 (Revised): Changing the policy core attributes of a government action program requires both (a) significant perturbations external to the subsystem (e.g. changes in socio-economic conditions, system-wide governing coalitions, or policy outputs from other subsystems) and (b) exploitation of those opportunities by the heretofore minority coalition within the subsystem. The revised hypothesis makes it clear that, while external events provide opportunities to make changes in the policy core of governmental programs, those opportunities must be interpreted and exploited by the minority coalition if change is to be realized. Con- versely, the majority coalition will seek to dampen the effects of such opportunities by, for example, suggesting the need for further research, confining change to small experimental projects, or diverting attention to other issues.

Second, the ACF as presented in Sabatier (I988) accorded little attention to elections - except to note that a change in the system-wide governing coalition is one of the set of exogenous forces necessary for changes in the policy core within a subsystem. This is essentially what Burnham (1970) and other voting scholars have termed a 'realigning election'. The basic argument concerning the need for system-wide changes in a governing coalition as one of a set of necessary conditions for substantial change in the policy core within a subsystem still appears valid. In United States air pollution policy, for example, even the 1980 election which replaced the pro-environment Carter with anti-regulation Reagan in the White House created in the Senate the first Republican majority since the 1950s, was not sufficient to produce change in the policy core of federal air pollution policy. Members of the environmental coalition still controlled the House floor and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. They were able to block Reagan's attempts to amend the Clean Air Act in I98I and then negated his attempts to use political appointees and budgetary cuts to accomplish his objectives by publicizing the Burford-Lavelle scandals (Cook and Wood, I989; Cohen, 1992).



On the other hand, elections which change critical actors, but not an entire systemwide governing coalition, can still inaugurate important changes in subsystem policies and, if combined with other factors, even changes in the policy core of governmental programs. This is particularly true of elections involving a chief executive with substantial appointment powers (Wood and Waterman, i99i). While most political appointees probably raise barely a ripple within a subsystem (Heclo, 1977), those who combine extensive knowledge of a subsystem with technical and political skill can produce waves of some magnitude. Examples from the cases summarized here include President Carter's appointments of Alfred Kahn as CAB Chair (airline deregulation) and Cecil Andrus as Secretary of Interior (OCS leasing policy), as well as Governor Brown's appointment of Ron Robie as Director of the California Department of Water Resources (California water policy). Kahn helped facilitate a change in the policy core of airline regulation, while Andrus and Robie helped make less important, but still very significant, changes within their respective subsystems. Similarly, legislative elections which lead to changes in the chairs of critical congressional committees can have very important impacts on a subsystem even if there is no realigning election. For example, the series of legislative elections in the early i960s which resulted in the appointment of Sen. Edmund Muskie as chair of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution led over the next decade - in conjunction with the general growth of the environmental movement - to changes in the policy cores of federal air and water pollution control policy (Davies, I970; Ingram, 1978).

F. Beliefs vs. Interests: Does Importance Vaiy by Type of Coalition? As described in Hypotheses 1-3, the ACF holds that common beliefs rather than common interests constitute the fundamental glue holding coalitions together. The two tend to covary, however, and disen- tangling them raises different methodological and theoretical issues. Nevertheless, systematic analysis of the OCS case provides some support for the argument that the relative importance of abstract beliefs versus 'bottom line' self-interest may vary across types of subsystem actors. The ACF holds that more general and abstract policy core beliefs would be more resistant to change than the secondary aspects (Hypothesis 3). However, Jenkins-Smith and St. Clair (I993) showed that the relative propensity of group representatives to change stated beliefs varied systematically by type of group. Purpos- ive groups (e.g., environmental groups) showed relatively little tendency to change stated positions regarding any of the beliefs measured.


I 96 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier Material interest groups (including trade associations and businesses involved in OCS development), however, were just as resistant as purposive groups to change their positions on the 'bottom line' issue of the speed and breadth of OSC leasing, but much more likely to change regarding the issues of the extent and severity of OCS regu- lations and the level of involvement of state and local governments in shaping OCS policy.

There are at least two ways to view these findings. According to one interpretation, the hierarchical structure of beliefs may adequately describe representatives of purposive organizations, but not material interest groups. Instead, material groups may operate on the basis of an inverted hierarchy in which commitment to material self-interest (profit) is primordial, with more abstract policy core beliefs (for instance, commitment to local vs. national control) being adjusted when necessary. The rationale for this distinction comes from the application of exchange theory and principal/agent concepts to interest groups (Salisbury, I969; Moe, 1980; 1984). Because purposive groups rely on members' commitment to a broad platform of policy positions, typically based on a specific ideology, they are very reluctant to change any part of that belief system. On the other hand, members of material groups are preoccupied with bottom line material benefits and willing to allow group leaders to say almost anything to obtain them. If so, we would expect the stated beliefs of representatives of material groups to be more fluid than those of purposive groups and more conducive to the formation of 'coalitions of convenience' containing members with very different beliefs.

An alternative interpretation would argue that profit (or market share or return to shareholders) is the principal, publicly acknowledged goal of broad scope of the petroleum companies and other material groups, and thus part of their policy core. In OCS policy, the extent of leasing is usually a means for profit. By this interpretation, the fundamental value priorities in the policy core that operate across the entire subsystem are still the most stable aspect of a group's belief system. Belief systems are still hierarchically organized. Instead of abstract beliefs constraining more specific ones, it is fundamental goals operating across the entire subsystem that constrain implementing devices and perceptions of system states and causal relationships which are narrower in scope. Thus the basic argument of Hypothesis 3 can be maintained; all that is jettisoned is the assumption borrowed from Converse (I964) and Peffley and Hurwitz (1985) that abstract beliefs constrain specific ones. Instead, it is basic goals of wide scope that constrain secondary beliefs of narrower scope.


Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework I 97

III The ACF: An Assessment to Date

Table 2 summarizes our assessment of the implications of the six cases for the explicit hypotheses of the advocacy coalition framework. The cases generally support the ACF, except for the Barke (i993) analysis of the FCC is silent on many of the items because it focused on the relatively narrow topic of policy-oriented learning within the agency rather than a broader analysis of policy change in telecommunications.

Scholars are interested in understanding the world. This requires conceptual frameworks or paradigms to help tell them what is likely to be important and what can be ignored. (Kuhn, 1970; Brown, I977; Lakatos, 1978). It is time for a paradigm shift in the way that political scientists view the policy process. The stages heuristic has outlived its usefulness. It has been subjected to telling criticisms by 'bottom up' implementation scholars (Berman, I978; Barrett and Fudge, I98I; Hjern and Porter, I98I; Sabatier, I986; Nakamura, 1987). Moreover, it has severe conceptual limitations, the most important of which is that it does not specify a limited set of coherent causal forces that move the process within and across stages.

Among several candidate frameworks to replace the stages heuristic (see Sabatier, I99I), we find the advocacy coalition framework to be particularly appealing. For one thing, it appears to meet the require- ments of a viable causal theory (Lave and March, 1975): (i) It has two primagy forces of causal change: (a) the values of coalition members and (b) exogenous shocks to the subsystem. (2) It is testable/falsifiable. In fact, several of the proposed hypotheses have had to be revised as a result of the cases. (3) It is relatively parsimonious and fertile, i.e. it produces a relatively large number of interesting predictions per assumption (although this is certainly subject to contention). (4) It may produce some surprising results. (5) It has the potential for contributing to a better world by helping policy activists understand a very complex process and by showing how individuals with solid information can make a difference over time.

In addition, the cases presented here and elsewhere (Heintz, I988; Weyent, I988; Lester and Hamilton, I988; Davis and Davis, I988; Jenkins-Smith, I990; I99I; Stewart, I99I; Asmerom et al, I992; van Muijen, I993) indicate that the ACF can usefully be applied to a wide variety of policy domains and political systems. All except perhaps Stewart (i99i) and van Nuijen (1993) have found the evidence to be generally supportive of the framework.


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200 Hank C. Jenkins-Smith and Paul A. Sabatier The ACF still needs to be fleshed out conceptually in several critical

areas, most notably the range of 'guidance instruments' available and the factors affecting their use (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993: 227- 230). Several scholars have begun to deal both conceptually and empirically with coalition behavior, i.e. the extent to which people with similar beliefs interact with each other and the factors which encourage and impede such interaction (Gustilo and Sabatier, 1992; Schlager, 1994). In conclusion, the advocacy coalition framework rep- resents a long-term research program in the sense described by Lakatos (1978).

NOTES

I. With the exception of the co-authors (Anne Brasher and Gil St. Clair) of our two chapters, none of the chapter authors are our graduate students or otherwise indebted to us. All of the chapters contain both praise and criticisms of the ACF, and have resulted in several revisions of the framework.

2. Neutrality here does not refer to the absence of political party affiliation but rather to the absence of substantive policy preferences in the agency's public domain. The traditional wisdom views Britain as the paradigm of a neutral civil service. But the script from a i992 BBC episode of 'Yes, Minister', entitled 'The Bed of Nails', reveals a deft skepticism regarding that portrait: Minister: All these cabinet undersecretaries, they're civil servants. They're supposedly part of the Government, but they behave like counsel, briefed by various transport interests, to defeat the Government. Civil Servant: That's how the civil service works in practice. Each department is controlled by the people it's supposed to be controlling. . . Energy lobbies for the oil companies, Defense lobbies for the aerospace industry, the Home Office lobbies for the police... Granted, this is satire, but there are obviously people in Britain who do not accept the image of neutral civil servants. Our experience with English countryside planners indicates that they have a very coherent ideology and are, in fact, far less policy-neutral than their French counterparts (Sabatier and Wertheimer, 1993).

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Issue Table of ContentsJournal of Public Policy, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1994), pp. 95-250Creeping Competence: The Expanding Agenda of the European Community [pp. 95-145]Convergence in Policy Outcomes: Social Security Systems in Perspective [pp. 147-174]Evaluating the Advocacy Coalition Framework [pp. 175-203]Development Policy and Its Determinants in East Asia and Latin America [pp. 205-242]Book ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 243-246]Review: untitled [pp. 246-247]Review: untitled [pp. 248-249]Review: untitled [pp. 249-250]

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