Policy change in nascent subsystems: Mozambican higher education policy 1993–2003

Abstract

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), developed by Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith in the late 1980s, has proven to be a valuable theory to explain policy change. At the same time, however, researchers have identified limitations in the ACF relating to various dimensions such as definitions of key variables, their operationalization, and the universal applicability of the framework to any context, be it Europe, the US, or countries outside the OECD. The key question addressed in this article is whether the ACF, like most other established public policy theories or frameworks developed in a western industrialized context, can be applied to very young (sub)systems in volatile contexts. We try to answer this question by applying the ACF to the development of the Mozambican higher education subsystem, a subsystem that fits the conditions of volatility and nascence. On the one hand this subsystem is characterized by a turbulent environment and a weak democracy. On the other hand, the higher education subsystem is built practically from scratch. The findings of the study suggest that the ACF is built on basic assumptions that do not apply to a country with a high degree of civil and political turbulence. Some revisions need to be made to improve the ACF's fit to such a context.

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

“…1 Most of the studies listed in Table 1 apply nearly all aspects of the ACF, including coalitions, learning, and policy change. This reflects the general tendency to apply the entire framework to understand the overarching policy context of a given policy subsystem over time, rather than to narrow the focus on one (2000) Climate change policy Australia Hogl (2000) Forest policy Australia Carvalho (2001) Metallurgical policy Brazil Elliott and Schlaepfer (2001) Forest certification policy Canada, Indonesia, and Sweden Tewari (2001) Forest policy South Africa Arnold (2003) Forest policy Chile Chen (2003) Computer regulations Australia Farquharson (2003) Tobacco Policy Transnational Kim (2003) Conservation policy South Korea Hsu (2005) Nuclear power policy Taiwan Nagel (2006) Labor policy Australia Villamor (2006) Forest policy Philippines Beverwijk et al (2008) (2012) Climate policy China Kim (2012) Environmental policy South Korea Ortmann (2012) Civil society policy Singapore Marfo and McKeown (2013) Forest policy Ghana Runkle et al (2013) Health Policy Liberia Policy Change in Comparative Contexts 303 particular component of the framework in order to develop greater theoretical description and explanations. Such general applications also reflect the source of data.…”

“…• The ACF's perspective of subsystem politics and non-sequential change is useful for understanding policy processes (Carvalho 2001). • Policy change within the ACF can be studied by examining changes in the relatively stable parameters (Beverwijk et al 2008). • The ACF offers useful principles for recommending political strategies regarding policy change (Runkle et al 2013) The authors reported several weaknesses as well:…”

“…• The ACF needs to develop its hypotheses better for nascent policy subsystems (Beverwijk et al 2008). • The ACF could improve its description of coalition politics by dealing with internal coalition relations and divisions, provide better theoretical depictions of belief systems (including relations and depictions between policy core and secondary beliefs), and describe theoretically how coalitions change over time (Sato 1999;Arnold 2003;Kim 2003;Nagel 2006).…”

“…The applications in Singapore and China, in particular, raise thought-provoking questions about the structure and stability of coalitions in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. Similarly, Beverwijk et al (2008) commented strongly on the challenges of applying the ACF in different political settings. Ainuson (2009), among others, mentions how useful it was to apply the ACF in their country of study.…”

Deadly divide: Malawi’s policy debate on HIV/AIDS and condoms

“…Hence, the condom issue has wide range of individuals and interest groups, including government ministries and departments, local and international NGOs, the media, researchers, the clergy, traditional leaders, and commercial sex workers. Although there is potential for widespread public participation in policy analysis, like in many nascent sub-systems (Beverwijk et al 2008), policymaking in Malawi largely remains confined within government circles, hence, the focus on MPs in this study.…”