The Power of the Inside Activist: Understanding Policy Change by Empowering the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)

Abstract

This article contributes to an understanding of policy change. Exploring a local land planning case, it investigates how an environmental advocacy coalition effectively challenged road and housing plans, with the result that an area was instead developed into a nature reserve. In the course of the article, the value and practical effectiveness of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is examined and developed with the help of two central concepts—the “value network” and “inside activist”. The outcome of the case is explained by the powerful influence of a value network of ornithologists, with particular inside activists of that network playing important roles in presenting a challenge to development of the area. Instead of trying to build an abstract theory of the ACF, the article argues the need to develop the ACF as a framework, opening it up to insights from policy network and social constructionist research as well as from practical processes.

Keywords:

• Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)
• advocacy coalition
• policy networks
• power
• value network
• inside activist

Acknowledgements

I want to thank a number of colleagues for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this article: Ingemar Elander (Örebro), Patrik Hall (Malmö) and Bengt Jacobsson (Södertörn). I am also grateful to three anonymous referees for really valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. By critical case, I mean that it includes a dramatic policy change, which was unexpected, considering the direction of the initial phase of the policy process and the strong influence of a dominant coalition of actors of the local authority. This case study started within the research programme “Sustainable Development from an Empirical, Theoretical and Normative-Constructive Perspective 1997–2004”. It was led by Jan Olsson at Örebro University and financed by the Swedish Research Council Formas. Only a part of the case study is used in this article. The whole study is broader and covers a longer time span than is presented here. A number of follow-up interviews are planned and a monograph on the whole case will be written. The case was chosen after consultations with a reference group of practitioners, who were involved during the whole research process of the programme. The case was chosen as a good example of sustainable development work, as described by the practitioners. However, this is open to debate, which is further developed in earlier publications of the case: Olsson, J. (2004) “Ornitologernas makt—om informella nätverk och hållbar utveckling”, Miljöforskning för ett uthålligt samhälle 2; Olsson, J. (2005) Hållbar utveckling underifrån. Nora: Nya Doxa (chapters 9 and 10). The case study is using a multi-method design including the following methods and materials: interviews with important actors in the two coalitions that were followed up with more interviews in order to confirm and complement facts from the first stage of interviews (“snowballing”); a lot of document studies of different kinds (formal documents such as local authority decisions and protocols, but also letters, newspaper debates, etc.); researcher-practitioner meetings, including presentations of the environmental project from the point of view of the policy makers in the beginning of the case study research, as well as meetings where programme researchers presented and discussed empirical results with politicians, public officials and environmental interests. The empirical material of the case relevant for this article is presented in the references.

2. In the more critical literature there are important variations in terms of ontological and epistemological positions. Ontologically, there is variation along the realist–idealist dimension. Some critical researchers have a realist position, supposing there is a real world “out there”, while others are stressing that we more or less construct the world around us. This also entails different understandings of the relationship between ontological and epistemological positions. Some researchers believe more than others in the possibility of doing research with some sort of truth claims (intersubjectivity). A few of the critical researchers (for example Fischer, 2003) tend to develop a “paradigmatic” warfare between a positivist/empiricist paradigm and a post positivist/constructionist paradigm. My own position here is more open and communicative since I believe there is a difference in degree, not in kind. I see no point in socially constructing an incommensurability problem (Kuhn, 1970). On the contrary, much of the constructive ideas of critical researchers are important contributions that can be fruitfully combined with more mainstream research, which I intend to illustrate in this article.

3. In this article the term “ornithologist” is used instead of “birdwatcher” even though the actors in focus are not professional biologists, specialised in birds. However, considering that the actors are really active, organised birdwatchers with a lot of experience and knowledge in relation to birds and their habitats, the term “birdwatcher” gives too much an impression of amateurs, watching birds just for fun. Ornithologist is therefore a better term for these semi-professional birdwatchers.

4. In fact, it is possible to make quite a general argument about actors from the environmental movement playing an increasingly important role in government agencies and corporations (Rubin, 2002; De Witt, 1994). An important point of debate here is whether these professionalised activists have degrees of freedom or if they become co-opted by the large organisation. Of course, this is an empirical question in need of more data, to which this article contributes.

5. This case can be seen as a breakthrough for ambitious nature conservation in the municipal planning of Örebro. The area developed during the 1990s in line with the ornithologists' ideas. Rynningeviken became the obvious example that the vision of a green Örebro was not simple rhetoric. In other areas of the municipality, similar environmental development work was implemented (the reshaping of Oset for instance). The municipal biologist was and still is a really important public official, not only in nature conservation, but also in more general planning processes in the municipality.