Policy Advocacy Coalitions as Causes of Policy Change in China? Analyzing Evidence from Contemporary Environmental Politics

Abstract

This article employs the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), a set of concepts developed to account for policymaking primarily in the United States, to analyze factors that led China to downsize its latest big hydropower project, on the Nu River. The ACF helps us identify two conflicting coalitions based on their policy beliefs and the resources they mobilized to translate their beliefs into policy change, which the ACF also helps us explain. Conflict between state agencies contributed to the rise of a societally based environmental coalition to oppose a state-centered development coalition, and struggle and strategic learning between these coalitions led to interventions by the premier and a scaling down of the project from 13 dams to four.

There and Back Again: A Tale of the Advocacy Coalition Framework

“…The continent that is the most frequently studied using the ACF is Europe with 111 applications including 16 EU‐only applications (e.g., Sloboda, Szabó‐Gilinger, Vigers, & Šimičić, ). This is followed by North America with 64 applications (e.g., Sistrom, ), Asia with 25 applications (Han, Swedlow, & Unger, ), Africa with 13 applications (Kingiri, ), and Oceania with 5 applications (Battams & Baum, ). The only continent other than Antarctica that does not have an application is South America.…”

“…Learning is identified at different levels within and between coalitions, and can influence belief and policy change. In the articles reviewed, learning is identified at the individual level (e.g., Kingiri, ; Weible, ), the coalition level (e.g., Cairney, ), across coalitions (e.g., Nohrstedt, ; Weber, Driessen, Schueler, & Runhaar, ), and within coalitions, for instance in strategy alterations (e.g., Han et al, ; Kingiri, ; Nohrstedt, ). Learning across coalitions was also identified as leading to coordination between the coalitions (e.g., Johnson, Payne, McNeese, & Allen, ) and to changes in coalition alignments and the emergence of new alignments among policy actors (e.g., Kuebler, ).…”

Policy Change in Comparative Contexts: Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework Outside of Western Europe and North America

“…This illustrates how, as applications of the ACF in diverse contexts continue to accumulate, we will be able to observe variation in important variables that tend to remain constant when one focuses solely on the US and the EU but are central to other theoretical perspectives. Another intriguing challenge involves contrasting the ACF with conventional approaches used to understand policy processes in specific contexts, such as the fragmented authoritarianism framework in China (Han et al 2014). Studies that critically compare and contrast the theoretical premises of the ACF with other frameworks and theories are therefore an important basis for future development of the ACF (Weible et al 2011).…”

“…Han et al (2014) show, for instance, how the premier acted as a policy broker in shaping policy change in the Nu River subsystem. This application raises the important question of how to identify policy brokers based on the ACF's definition of the term.…”

Advocacy channels and political resource dependence in authoritarianism: Nongovernmental organizations and environmental policies in China

“…Recent literature provides various models for eNGOs' policy advocacies in contemporary China (Gaudreau & Cao, 2015;Han, Swedlow, & Unger, 2014;Mertha, 2008). It generally analyzes policy activities from two perspectives.…”