scholarly journals Comparing theories of the policy process and state tuition policy : critical theory, institutional rational choice, and advocacy coalitions

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tara R. Warne
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Advocacy Coalitions ◽  
Tuition Policy ◽  
Institutional Rational Choice

The Advocacy Coalition Framework

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paúl Cisneros
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Advocacy Coalition Framework ◽  
Advocacy Coalitions ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Advocacy Coalition ◽  
Policy Subsystems ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Please check back later for the full article. Paul Sabatier and Hank Jenkins Smith introduced the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in the late 1980s, to refine the theoretical and methodological tools available for the study of the policy process. In the past two decades, the framework has grown in use outside the United States, and it is now applied to study a broad range of policy arenas in all continents. ACF scholars have created a core community that regularly synthetizes findings from applications of the framework, giving the ACF the form of a true research program. The ACF has three principal theoretical domains: advocacy coalitions, policy subsystems, and policy change. Expectations about the interactions between and within these domains are contained in 15 main hypotheses. The ACF posits that advocacy coalitions and policy subsystems are the most efficient way to organize actors interested in the policy process for empirical research. The policy subsystem is the main unit of analysis in the ACF, and there are four paths leading to policy change. The aspect that has received more attention in existing applications is the effect that external events have on policy change, and some areas in need of refinement include: policy-oriented learning, interactions across subsystems, the theoretical foundations to identification of belief systems, and how the interactions between beliefs and interests affect coalition behavior.

Rational choice as critical theory

1996 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 43-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heath
Keyword(s):  
Critical Theory ◽  
Rational Choice

Is Talk Really Cheap? Prompting Conversation between Critical Theory and Rational Choice

1993 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Cheap Talk ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
Strategic Rationality ◽  
Basic Intuition

Critical theory and rational choice theory share both overlapping concerns and parallel theoretical weaknesses. Specifically, both critical theorists and rational choice theorists are preoccupied with determining what rational can mean in the realm of social and political interaction. I show in a provisional way how game theory extends and deepens the critical theorists' basic intuition that unembellished strategic rationality cannot adequately sustain social and political interaction. And I suggest how critical theory identifies a mechanism underlying the force of the “cheap talk” that game theorists introduce in hopes of circumscribing the indeterminacy generated by their models. My goal is to stimulate productive conversation between what are typically considered discordant research traditions.

Emotions and the policy process: enthusiasm, anger and fear

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan J. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Advocacy Coalitions ◽  
Target Populations ◽  
Group Behaviour ◽  
The Past

Emotions affect how we think and behave and should be better incorporated into theories and frameworks of the policy process. Most research on emotions in the policy process relies on a dimensional model of emotions. However, over the past 20 years, research has found that dimensional approaches are limited compared to using categories of emotions. This article discusses theories of emotion, focusing on the theory of constructed emotion, and how emotion is studied in politics and policy. It then discusses the characteristics of enthusiasm, anger and fear, as well as the effects these emotions have on attention and information processing, risk perception, judgement and persuasion, and political participation and group behaviour. The article concludes by exploring how these emotions can be used by theories and frameworks of the policy process to better understand how emotions have an impact on attention to public problems, judging target populations and characters, and mobilise advocacy coalitions.

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