Lessons from the Advocacy Coalition Framework for climate change policy and politics

The world faces grand challenges that threaten socio-economical, ecological, and political systems. Inequities, insurrections, invasions, and illiberal democracies represent a sample of the population of problems facing life as we know it. Paramount among these problems lie climate change, caused principally by human activity of burning fossil fuels. A problem of global and historic proportions, climate change affects all life on Earth, and the ways we — as societies — think about, talk about, and act will shape the future on this planet. Of course, climate change does not exist independently of us. We relate to this problem. We understand the impacts of this problem through our personal and professional lived experiences. We might assign social or economic values to any nonliving and living entity affected by climate change. We might use the natural and physical sciences to understand the severity of climate change's effects, link together explanations of its causes, and project its trajectories. Similarly, we might use the social sciences to understand better the dilemmas inhibiting or enabling collective responses. This paper examines the political contestation over climate change through the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018; Sabatier 1988). The ACF is a robust and well-tested framework that enlightens our understanding of climate change debates and policymaking by bringing attention to how individuals form coalitions and engage in various political strategies to learn and influence policy. We use the ACF as a social science "lens," or a way of understanding an issue through standardized assumptions in approaching complexity that leads to collective gains in knowledge and maybe inform how to act. This is a critical perspective for understanding climate change policy, as coalitions comprise the political forces that drive policy change or stasis sub-nationally, nationally, and internationally. The number of applications where researchers have used the ACF to understand contentious coalitional politics and policy issues counts in the hundreds worldwide (Jang et al. 2016; Li and Weible 2019; Nohrstedt and Olofsson 2016; Pierce et al. 2017; Weible 2008; Osei-Kojo et al. 2022). However, a meta-review that examines the applications of the ACF to climate change specifically has never been attempted. Because of the coalitional nature of climate change politics, this paper aims to examine what we can learn about the successes and failures of these coalitions, and how we might learn from them. The ACF is particularly well-suited to do this, considering its emphasis on coalitions and coalitional politics, as well as the variety of applications in this sample that represent a diversity of articles across various disciplines, different countries, and different governmental contexts. This paper draws insights from the ACF's research reservoir to help understand climate change and how coalitional politics either drive or inhibit policy to address climate change in a meaningful and comprehensive way. We begin with a brief synopsis of the ACF. We then review all ACF applications to climate change to date (n = 67) and synthesize the lessons learned from this research. We conclude by laying out an agenda for future research and some general strategies for addressing climate change from an ACF perspective.

The paper provides an overview of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) as the primary theoretical lens. Originating in political science, the ACF explains contentious public policy processes by focusing on policy subsystems and the formation of advocacy coalitions—networks of policy actors (e.g., government officials, NGOs, firms, researchers, media) that coordinate based on shared policy core beliefs. These beliefs include views on problem severity and causes (e.g., anthropogenic climate change), policy preferences (e.g., mitigation vs. adaptation), and values, and are resistant to change, binding coalitions over time. The ACF expands analysis beyond formal institutions to include informal actors and interactions, emphasizing that policy subsystems overlap, evolve, and occur at multiple governance scales. In adversarial settings, the ACF assumes actors process information through value-based biases, see allies as virtuous and opponents as malevolent, and are reluctant to compromise. Consequently, coalitions are stable; learning most often occurs within coalitions and tends to reinforce existing beliefs; cross-coalition learning is rare; and policy change is inhibited by persistent conflict. Policy change is most likely when coalitions exploit internal or external shocks, engage in negotiations after exhausting alternatives, or when learning occurs under conditions of moderate conflict and fair, transparent information exchange. Policy brokers may facilitate cross-coalition learning and agreements. The framework posits testable hypotheses regarding coalition behavior, belief stability/change, learning dynamics, and pathways to policy change.

The study is a meta-review of empirical applications of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to climate change. It includes 67 peer-reviewed journal articles analyzing climate change policy at subnational, national, and/or international levels, including sectoral domains (e.g., energy, forestry, water) insofar as they impact climate policy. The review excluded dissertations, book chapters, policy reports, and analyses. Search strategy: Articles were collected between October and December 2021. Stage 1 used the institutional library database with search terms: "Advocacy Coalition Framework" AND ("climate change" OR "climate" OR "global warming") in abstracts or keywords; English-only; peer-reviewed journals; no additional filters. This yielded 46 articles. Stage 2 used Google Scholar with the same terms (applied to full text due to platform limitations). After manual screening to remove duplicates and non-qualifying items, this added 21 articles, for a total of 67. Inclusion rationale: Restricting to peer-reviewed articles ensured consistency with similar ACF reviews, avoided duplication across formats (e.g., dissertations, conference papers), and facilitated systematic analysis. Coding and analysis: The authors adapted a codebook based on prior ACF review studies, adding a "Type of Response" category (mitigation, adaptation, transition, general) to classify pro-climate coalition responses. Coding was conducted in small batches across authors to ensure reliability and consistency. Analysis employed the constant comparison method: summarizing main points and arguments, close reading to identify methodological details and lessons, and synthesis of findings for reporting.

- Temporal trend: ACF applications to climate change increased sharply after 2010. From 2000–2009, five applications were published (mean 0.5/year); from 2010–2021, sixty-two applications were published (mean 5.2/year), indicating growing relevance of the ACF to environmental issues. - Geography: Study locations are concentrated in Europe (n=33) and North America (n=18). Asia accounts for 11 study locations. Authors’ institutional regions are similarly skewed toward Europe (n=50) and North America (n=22), with Asia contributing 8. Asia, Africa, Australia, and South/Central America are underrepresented. Only three studies examine climate change as a global problem. - Disciplinary venues: Most applications appear in policy, political science, or environmental science journals (n=43). Others are in energy (n=7), public administration and management (n=5), sustainability (n=5), ecology (n=3), sociology (n=1), technology (n=1), and interdisciplinary journals (n=2), demonstrating the ACF’s portability across disciplines. - Theoretical focus within ACF: Across the 67 studies (92 coded emphases due to multiple per article), coalitions and beliefs were examined most frequently (n=56; 61%), followed by policy change (n=24; 26%), and policy-oriented learning (n=12; 13%). This underscores that, for climate change research, the ACF is predominantly used to analyze coalition structures and belief systems.

The review set out to understand how coalitions form, behave, learn, and affect policy in climate change contexts using the Advocacy Coalition Framework. The strong skew of applications toward analyzing coalitions and their policy core beliefs indicates that coalitional dynamics are central to explaining climate policy trajectories. Findings support core ACF expectations: coalitions are durable, adversarial politics often inhibit policy change, and learning tends to reinforce within-coalition beliefs rather than produce cross-coalition convergence. Where policy change occurs, it aligns with ACF pathways—exploitation of internal/external shocks, negotiation after stalemate, and learning under fair, transparent, moderately conflictual conditions. The distribution of studies reveals important gaps: underrepresentation of non-Western regions and limited analysis of climate change as a global, transboundary subsystem. Yet the ACF’s publication across diverse journals demonstrates its portability and utility for interdisciplinary climate policy research. Together, these findings suggest that to advance understanding and effectiveness of climate governance, future work should extend ACF analyses into non-democratic and under-studied contexts, better integrate global-scale dynamics, and explore mechanisms that facilitate cross-coalition learning and negotiated agreements.

The paper synthesizes 67 empirical applications of the ACF to climate change, showing a marked rise in usage post-2010, concentration in Europe and North America, broad disciplinary reach, and a predominant focus on coalitions and beliefs. These insights affirm the value of the ACF for understanding how coalition structures, belief systems, learning processes, and political opportunities shape climate policy change and stasis. Future research directions include: (1) examining coalition dynamics and belief change in non-democratic governance arrangements; (2) expanding studies in underrepresented regions (Asia, Africa, South/Central America) and at the global scale; (3) pairing the ACF with complementary theories and frameworks to address complex, multilevel questions; and (4) prioritizing normative dynamics in climate politics, including equity and justice considerations. More attention to conditions that enable cross-coalition learning, effective brokering, and negotiated agreements could improve prospects for meaningful climate policy change.

- Language and publication bias: Only English-language, peer-reviewed journal articles were included, potentially excluding relevant work in other languages or formats (e.g., dissertations, reports, conference papers). - Search timeframe and scope: Articles were collected between October and December 2021, so more recent studies are not captured. - Methodological approach: Although many PRISMA criteria were met, the study did not formally adopt PRISMA procedures and did not conduct a meta-analysis. - Geographic skew: The sample is heavily weighted toward Europe and North America, reflecting broader publication patterns and the English-language filter, which may limit generalizability to underrepresented regions. - Data abstraction limits: Reliance on published articles and available details may introduce variability in coding depth and comparability across studies.