Alternative Paths to Major Policy Change: Internal Shocks

• ACF (advocacy coalition framework) explain the coalition, policy stability

and change.
• The ACF views policy making or policy change as a product of competition
among at least two types of advocacy coalitions: dominant and minority.
• Government policy stable but sometimes it change.
• ACF focused on shocks as a necessary cause of major policy change.
• Major change within a subsystem is largely impossible because of
perceptual blinders and devil shift(perceptions and misperception of the
opponent)
• The ACF identifies four paths to policy change: policy-oriented learning,
external shock, internal shock, and negotiated agreement
 Alternative Paths to Major Policy Change: Internal Shocks
• ACF’s describe that policy subsystems are the most useful unit of
analysis for understanding and explaining policy change.
• Most policy subsystems are dominated by one advocacy coalition.
• Internal shocks can also occur from within a policy subsystem and
can lead to major policy change(e.g., disasters from within policy
subsystem) as providing an alternate path for major policy change.
For example, the Santa Barbara oil spill was a disaster strongly
affected by actors internal to the petroleum subsystem.
• Consistent with the model of the individual and causal assumptions
within the ACF, there are two effects from internal shocks related to
policy change, one of which is shared with external shocks.
 Alternative Paths to Major Policy Change: Internal Shocks
1.Internal and external shocks redistribute critical political resources
Both internal and external shocks put the public spotlight on a problem in a
policy subsystem and have the potential to draw in new or redistribute critical
resources (public support, financial support, etc.)
2.Internal shocks confirm policy core beliefs in the minority advocacy
coalition and increase doubt within the dominant coalition.
Internal shocks that indicate great failures of the policies and behaviors of a
dominant advocacy coalition also strongly affect the belief systems of policy
participants. For the minority advocacy coalition members, internal shocks
confirm their policy core beliefs.
In sum, the ACF is recognizing maintaining the distinction between—internal
and external shocks as causes for policy change.