Policy Change Over a Decade or More

Abstract

The field of public policy analysis is undergoing major change and development in the theories its practitioners employ and the way those theories are tested. In this book, the contributors clearly lay out the advocacy coalition approach to public policy analysis and apply it to a variety of public policy problems and arenas. In the process of looking at case studies in education, airline deregulation, communications, energy, and the environment, Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith offer the fullest exposition and application of the advocacy coalition framework to date, revising the approach in significant ways for future research and analysis. Students are treated to a textbook example of how theory illuminates the policy world, while scholars and policy makers are brought up-to-date on developments in the advocacy coalition framework and its potential to account for many factors that elude the classic stages model of agenda setting, formulation, and implementation. Tables, figures, and a methodological appendix enhance the teaching value of the text.