In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada's largest conurbation. This article examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter‐actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, this paper undertakes an empirical examination of the ACF's Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter‐actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy‐relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem—an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers' coalition—as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross‐coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.

Abstract. In 1996, the Alberta legislature passed the Water Act, a landmark piece of legislation that introduced a number of significant water policy reforms, including a variety of eco-support instruments: regulatory mechanisms that can be used to define and preserve a share of water for environmental protection and restoration purposes. This article explains the inclusion of eco-support instruments in the Water Act by combining the Advocacy Coalition Framework with Joseph Nye's distinction between “hard” and “soft” power. It identifies two main advocacy coalitions in the Alberta water policy subsystem, the “Greens” and the “Aggies,” and argues that the development of the Water Act can be characterized as a contest between Green soft power and Aggie hard power. Accordingly, the inclusion of eco-support instruments in the Water Act was the result of the Greens' newfound soft power, but the Aggies' enduring hard power ensured that more radical reforms were not undertaken.Résumé. En 1996, la législature de l'Alberta a adopté la loi sur l'eau, un projet de loi historique qui a introduit un certain nombre d'importantes réformes de la politique de l'eau, y compris une variété de l'éco-instruments de soutien: les mécanismes de régulation qui peuvent être utilisés pour définir et préserver une part de l'eau pour protection de l'environnement et à des fins de restauration. Cet article explique l'inclusion de l'éco-instruments de soutien à la loi sur l'eau en combinant l'Advocacy Coalition Framework avec distinction Joseph Nye entre «hard» et «soft» de puissance. Il identifie deux principales coalitions de plaidoyer dans le sous-système de l'Alberta, de la politique de l'eau “Verts” et le “Aggies, et affirme que le développement de la loi sur l'eau peut être caractérisé comme un concours entre soft power Vert et hard power Aggie. En conséquence, la prise en compte de l'éco-instruments de soutien à la loi sur l'eau a été le résultat des Verts soft power retrouvée, mais les Aggies énergie durable dur veillé à ce que des réformes plus radicales ne sont pas prises.

The purpose of this article is to determine whether degenerative politics, a central proposition of democratic policy design theory or social constructivism, has been evident in Canadian youth criminal justice policy. Using a synchronic and diachronic case study design, the article conducts a rigorous content analysis of the legislative debates leading to the Young Offenders Act in 1982 and the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2002. Policy makers’ social constructions of violent and nonviolent young offenders are measured, along with the benefit/burden content of the legislation, to determine whether young offenders have been caught in the downward spiral of degenerative politics. It finds evidence of degenerative politics for violent young offenders but not for nonviolent young offenders and explores some of the reasons for this divergence. Related Articles Related Media Films: Centre for Public Legal Education. . “Youth Criminal Justice in Action.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = KdZacGdgJrs International Public Policy Association. . “Public Policy Theory and Democracy.” http://www.ippapublicpolicy.org/teaching-ressource/public-policy-theory-and-democracy/9

Although much has been written on health policy making in developed countries, the same cannot be said of less developed countries, especially in Africa. Drawing largely on available historical and government records, newspaper publications, parliamentary Hansards, and published books and articles, this article uses John W. Kingdon's multiple streams framework to explain how the problem, politics, and policy streams converged for Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to be passed into law in 2003. The article contends that a change in government in the 2000 general election opened a "policy window" for eventual policy change from "cash-and-carry" to the NHIS.

In Canada, the provincial level of government is primarily responsible for the provision of mental health‐care services. In 2000, the Ontario government introduced community treatment orders (CTOs) as a new instrument for treating the mentally ill. CTOs were more coercive than prevailing practices, allowing mentally ill individuals to be compelled to receive treatment for their mental illness, including pharmacological treatment, on an outpatient basis. Using the advocacy coalition framework, this article explains the introduction of CTOs by identifying the prevailing advocacy coalitions in the Ontario mental health policy subsystem and by examining the power resources available to them in their efforts to influence policy decision makers. Ultimately, the pro‐CTO coalition was successful because it had public opinion, information, and credibility advantages that the anti‐CTO coalition simply could not match. Related Articles Related Media Master Control. . “CJOH: Brian Smith Shooting (Canada AM/Midday Newsline).” April 18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5v77FqydYk CBC News. . “ ‘Brian's Law’ Gets Hearing in Ottawa.” May 24. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/brian‐s‐law‐gets‐hearing‐in‐ottawa‐1.232466 StevePaikin. . “Ontario's Mental Health Crisis” [video file]. January 10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOk_Qdjo48