Contextualising the Advocacy Coalition Framework: theorising change in Swedish forest policy

Abstract

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is assessed and elaborated by applying it to the Swedish forestry policy subsystem, a dynamic subsystem in which environmental interests have challenged a dominating production coalition. Forest policy has changed as new ecological values and modes of governing have been introduced through an incremental, pragmatic learning process mediated by a pre-established partnership culture. This policy change is not satisfactorily explained by conventional ACF mechanisms (shocks and brokered learning). Policy change may be better understood if the ACF is nuanced and contextualised by recognising that the learning process has evolved over a long time within the ideological-discursive context of ecological modernisation, and that the forest sector has been under constant pressure due to its strong dependence on world markets.

Acknowledgements

Financial support from the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and insightful comments from two anonymous referees and the editor of Environmental Politics are gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. The fieldwork was conducted in 2003–2005 and consists of 60 qualitative interviews and a large number of protocols and policy documents. We used a bottom–up approach with ‘snowballing', using forest owners/forest companies as a starting point, to reach the individual actors actually involved in the forest policy process on multiple levels within the Swedish forestry subsystem, including representatives of ENGOs, business and owners associations, public officials, etc. (see Hysing and Olsson 2005, pp. 515–516, Hysing et al. 2005, pp. 92–94). An empirical focus on individuals is important when the ACF presupposes an understanding of beliefs and values. This is not unproblematic as individuals to some extent are regarded as representatives of their organisations. However, two types of validity checks were used: different interviews within and between organisations were checked for consistency and individual responses were compared with important policy documents from the relevant organisation. Both these validity controls indicate a fairly good consistency between individual and organisation.