Master_thesis

2 ACF: Theoretical Framework
2.1 General Overview
The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was introduced to understand policy change and
explain its role in the policy process. An Advocacy Coalition “consists of actors from a
variety of governmental and private organizations at different levels of government who
share a set of policy and seek to realize them by influencing the behaviour of multiple
government institutions over time” (Sabatier, 1993). It has four premises: (1) that
understanding the process of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein –
requires a time perspective of a decade or more (enough to show one complete cycle of the
formulation/implementation/reformulation process); (2) that the most useful way to think
about policy change over such a time span is through a focus on “policy subsystems”, that is,
the interaction of actors from different institutions who follow and seek to influence
governmental decisions in a policy arena; (3) that those subsystems must include an intragovernmental
dimension, that is, they must involve all levels of government (at least for
domestic policy); and, (4) that public policies or programs can be conceptualized in the same
manner as belief systems (Sabatier, 1993).
For a better understanding of the framework of ACF, the key features and the subsystem
structure are described in this chapter. Fig.2 shows how ACF framework looks like. It has a
policy subsystem, belief system and external variables that are dealt in the subsequent
sections. In addition, the process of policy change and policy-oriented learning are
presented and elaborated.
2.2 Policy Subsystem
The policy subsystem or domain is the most useful unit of analysis for understanding policy
change due to the inclusion of the broadest range of socio-political interest. A policy
subsystem is defined as “those actors from a variety of public and private organizations who
are actively concerned with a policy issue” (Sabatier 1993) and who regularly seek to
influence public policy. Sabatier’s policy subsystem is not merely focusing on policy elites
from private and public institutions, he also recognizes latent or potential actors who would
become active if they had the appropriate information (Balbus, 1971).
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