Bounded Rationality and Long-Term Policy Change in the ACF and the IAD Framework

Abstract

Policy process theories model policy change. Agency and different kinds overlaying structures (temporal, spatial, jurisdictional) and their interrelations play a role. In this panel we aim to discuss contributions that address medium to long term processes of change in policies and collective organization. We reflect, what role assumptions about agency and modes of choice play, and the conceptual and methodological strengths and weaknesses of various policy process theories in explaining change. Contributions that discuss and explain medium to long term change in policies and collective organization are invited to this debate. In particular, this panel is about scholarship grounded in the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF). The ACF lists several possible pathways to policy change, such as policy oriented learning, external shocks, internal shocks and negotiated agreements. Policy beliefs, coalition formation and learning play a central role in explaining policy change for the ACF. The IAD is grounded in an open-minded rational choice approach, that considers actors’ modes of action selection, mental models, and heuristic frameworks but also features of the context (salience of issues or culture). Emotions are less well integrated. Jurisdictional scale or type of collective and decision are further aspects that potentially qualify the bounded rationality assumption of the IADF. The panel invites contributions that aim at capturing these dimensions of actors’ choices as much as it wonders how institutions structure these behavioral aspects and vice-versa in different realms of public policy and collective action.

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