Climate change, a significant global challenge, necessitates understanding the political dynamics hindering or facilitating effective responses. This paper leverages the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), a robust model explaining contentious public policy choices, to examine the political contestation surrounding climate change. The ACF illuminates how individuals form coalitions, employ political strategies, and influence policy through learning and engagement. The study's focus is on a meta-review of 67 ACF applications to climate change, aiming to identify patterns and lessons learned concerning coalition characteristics, behaviors, policy impact, and learning processes. The researchers believe this approach offers crucial insights into the political forces driving (or hindering) climate change policy sub-nationally, nationally, and internationally. The paper proceeds with a brief ACF synopsis, a review of the 67 applications, a synthesis of lessons, and a proposed research agenda for addressing climate change through an ACF lens.

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), developed within political science, explains contentious public policy choices by focusing on the formation and interaction of advocacy coalitions. These coalitions consist of actors (individuals, organizations, government officials) sharing common beliefs and values who coordinate their actions to influence policy. The ACF emphasizes the importance of ‘policy core beliefs’—resistant to change—in binding coalitions. Coalition interactions, including both cooperative and adversarial behaviors, are central to the framework. The framework also accounts for ‘learning’—how actors adapt to information—which often reinforces existing beliefs rather than causing significant changes. While hundreds of studies employ the ACF in various policy areas globally, this study is the first meta-review specifically analyzing its application to climate change.

This meta-review comprises 67 peer-reviewed journal articles applying the ACF to climate change policy. Articles were gathered through searches of library databases and Google Scholar, using keywords such as "Advocacy Coalition Framework" and "climate change." Inclusion criteria focused on peer-reviewed journal articles in English that analyzed ACF applications to climate change policy at the subnational, national, or international levels. A codebook was developed, based on prior ACF meta-reviews, to systematically analyze the articles, with categories for ACF theoretical components (coalitions and beliefs, policy change, policy-oriented learning), geographic location, and journal disciplines. Coding was conducted in batches across authors and checked for consistency, employing a constant comparison method to summarize key arguments, identify methodological details, and synthesize findings.

The review revealed a substantial increase in ACF applications to climate change after 2010, indicating growing interest in this approach within the social sciences. However, there's a significant geographical skew, with the majority of studies originating from Europe and North America, leaving Asia, Africa, South/Central America, and Australia underrepresented. The study also uncovered that the ACF's application in climate change research primarily focuses on coalitions and their beliefs (61% of theoretical components addressed). This is far more frequent than its use in exploring policy change (26%) or learning (13%). The majority of publications appeared in policy, political science, or environmental science journals, although some studies spanned several disciplines. While the ACF is rooted in political science, its application to climate change extends across various disciplines showcasing its versatility.

The findings highlight the centrality of coalitions and their underlying beliefs in shaping climate change policy. The significant geographical bias in research indicates a need for more studies in underrepresented regions to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the global climate change policy landscape. The predominant focus on coalitions and beliefs, in ACF applications, emphasizes the need for strategies that consider the complex dynamics of belief systems and coalition building. These insights suggest the need to engage various actors, promote cross-coalition dialogue, and leverage external events to facilitate policy change. The interdisciplinary nature of the ACF applications further underscores the need for collaborative research efforts across diverse fields to address the multifaceted nature of climate change.

This meta-review demonstrates the utility of the ACF in understanding climate change politics. The findings emphasize the importance of coalitions and their beliefs, highlight geographical research gaps, and point to the need for interdisciplinary approaches. Future research should focus on non-democratic contexts, under-represented regions, integrating ACF with other frameworks, and addressing the normative dimensions of climate change politics. This would enhance our understanding of how to effectively address this pressing global challenge.

The review’s limitation stems from focusing solely on English-language peer-reviewed publications, potentially overlooking relevant research in other languages. The coding process, while employing reliability checks, still involves subjective interpretations, introducing a degree of potential bias. The analysis focuses on published research, which might not completely reflect the full range of perspectives or ongoing research efforts.