Disputed Policy Change: The Role of Events, Policy Learning, and Negotiated Agreements

Abstract

This paper explores policy change in Swedish coastal and marine conservation, identifying advocacy coalition factors-focusing internal and external events, policy learning, and negotiated agreementsthat explain divergent outcomes in disputed national park planning processes. A longitudinal study, covering three decades of three planning processes, indicates that all factors matter. External and internal events, combined with policy learning or negotiated agreements, constituted the main change pathways. We noted that events' influence on learning and agreements was facilitated by policy brokers and mediated through new venues and altered actor strategies. The findings indicated that competing coalitions' policy beliefs influenced the specific routes taken and underlined the centrality of governmental actors to different outcomes. The study illustrates how political conflicts occur and are addressed in environmental governance, generates insights critical to implementing international and national conservation policy, and builds theoretical knowledge of pathways to policy change in disputed policy processes.

Social Learning: Methods Matter but Facilitation and Supportive Context Are Key—Insights from Water Governance in Sweden

“…Lastly, participatory and collaborative local processes, dialogue, and constructive conflict resolution in a continuously learning system is also important in other contexts, such as in the ecosystem-based approach according to the Malawi principles [71], fisheries management [3], or marine and coastal planning [11]. Based on similar needs and challenging situations in other areas, such as planning or nature conservation [72,73], we suggest that processes promoting SL based on TBA and CSS such as those analysed here can also be applied in other co-management situations. Moreover, water co-management can find inspiration in the creation of relationships with surroundings from environmental pedagogy (e.g., [74]), work on relation to landscape (e.g., [75,76]), and in facilitation of transformative processes from development research and planning (e.g., [77]).…”

Exploring enablers and obstacles to policy‐oriented learning in Swedish marine national park planning

“…This article aims to explore and explain policy-oriented learning and related enablers through a longitudinal cross-case comparison of two marine national park planning processes in Sweden with different outcomes, one in the Koster Sea and the other in the Sankt Anna Archipelago. A previous study established important similarities as well as significant differences in the processes and outcomes (Sandström et al, 2021). Both areas encompass valuable sea and archipelago areas with rural characteristics and were included in the first Swedish National Park Plan of 1989, put out by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA, 1989).…”

“…Actors from opposing coalitions met and discussed the benefits and threats of further protection. Collaboration in one process built trust, with beneficial consequences for others(Sandström et al, 2021). Linking conservation and local livelihoods through a national park was not viable in Sankt Anna, however.Overall, in terms of resource value and the actors' dependency on this, the Koster residents perceived the impact of tourism differently from those in Sankt Anna.…”

Editorial Introduction: Reaching Policy Change: Theoretical and Practical Advances in Policy Learning Research

“…In finalizing these important journal-related announcements, we now move to the exceptional article content included in this issue. Recent studies have expanded our understanding of the policy process, confirming that events, policy learning processes, and the actions of certain policy actors are useful for explaining policy change (e.g., see Sandström, Morf, & Fjellborg, 2020;Schmid, Sewerin, & Schmidt, 2019). Within polycentric governance systems, multiple actors, extended deliberation, and resource distribution are all features that are likely to support policy learning and adaptation (Berardo & Lubell, 2019).…”