Advocacy Coalition Framework—Advancing Scholarship in the Textbook and Beyond

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Abstract
Over 30 years ago, Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins-Smith edited a seminal volume that described and applied the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Building on over three decades of subsequent research on the ACF, this volume's primary contribution comes from an orientation to ACF scholarship that involves distinctions between textbook and non-textbook applications. This orientation raises a question: What adjustments do scholars make when applying the ACF outside its textbook “comfort zone”? This chapter addresses this question with the following argument: The ACF has always simplified and structured the complexity of policy processes by implicitly situating subsystems and the broader system architecture on key conceptual scales and levels, wherein the placement of the textbook ACF is just one possible (albeit very useful) configuration among many. When researchers apply the ACF outside the textbook context, they consciously or unconsciously adjust these levels or operate on entirely different scales and levels. Moving forward, critical tasks for ACF scholars will be to make these scales and levels explicit, recognize the configurations that apply to any given research project, engage in conduct cross-scale and cross-level research, and focus inquiry into which scales and levels are most crucial in advancing knowledge about policy processes and contributing to a better world.
Funding Information
  • University of Oklahoma

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