RT Generic
T1 Las ideas en las políticas públicas: el enfoque de las coaliciones promotoras
A1 Martinón, Ruth
A2 Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Ciencia Política y Sociología. Área de Ciencia Política y de la Administración, 
AB One characteristic of the contemporary policy studies is toconsider that ideas play an independent role. The Advocacy CoalitionFramework is an attractive sample of this as it tries to explain policy change,paying special attention to cognitive aspects: ideas, beliefs, values, learning,knowledge…However, the Advocacy Coalition Framework considers cognitive aspects as apart of a more extensive framework that allows us to verify the real functionof the ideas through empirical analysis. It is very respectful withmethodological aspects and offers a theoretical framework that helps policyanalysis and political science to obtain a better understanding of the policycomplex processes.The Advocacy Coalition Framework focuses on the study of policy changebased on three premises: a) understanding policy change and the role ofpolicy-oriented learning therein requires a time perspective of at least onedecade; b) it is important to study policy change through a focus on policysubsystems (that is the interaction of those actors from public and privateorganizations, and from different levels of government, who are activelyconcerned with a policy problem or issue); c) public policies can beconceptualized in the same manner than beliefs systems, that means as setsof value priorities and causal assumptions about how to realize them.Based on this, and regarding the difference between policy subsystem andthe global political system in which the subsystem is inserted, and betweenthe stable and dynamic parameters, policy change is considered the result ofseveral variables:A) Relatively stable parameters: basic attributes of the problem area,basic distribution of natural resources, essential socioculturalvalues as well as social and constitutional structure;B) Dynamic system events: changes in socio-economic conditions andtechnology, changes in the systemic governing conditions, policydecisions and impacts from other subsystems;C) And the inner dynamic of the subsystem: the competitive interactionof advocacy coalitions formed by those actors who share basic beliefsand are sufficiently coordinated for changing rules, budgets,etcetera, in order to achieve their aims through the time, or in otherwords, to transfer their beliefs systems into public policies. Weconcentrate our attention on this last group of factors, because theyinclude the cognitive aspects.The basic argument of the Advocacy Coalition Framework is that, whilepolicy-oriented learning is an important aspect of policy change and canoften alter secondary aspects of a coalition’s belief system, changes in thecore aspects of a policy are usually the results of perturbations in noncognitiveexternal factors to the subsystem such as macro-economicconditions or the rise of a new systemic governing coalition. This is becauseto be able to translate their beliefs into public policies o programs, advocacycoalitions need resources and opportunities and these mainly depend on notcognitive parameters.The Advocacy Coalition Framework makes possible the empirical study ofthe beliefs systems by developing carefully their structure. And itinvestigates the role of policy oriented learning through the analysis ofneeded conditions to enable this learning in each individual, within anadvocacy coalition and between different coalitions. All these aspects arebased on a model of individual that emphasizes that people are not onlyguided by their interests and that their conception of the world is deeplyaffected by the limited human capacity to process and analyse information,and by all the problems related with cognitive dissonance.
SN 1698-482X
YR 2005
FD 2005
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10016/594
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10016/594
LA spa
DS e-Archivo
RD 3 jul. 2024