International Advocacy Coalitions: the role of international actors on domestic policy making

This article investigates the role of power and ideology in the process of advocacy coalition formation. The Advocacy Coalition Framework is applied to the study of the labour market policy making in the republic of Georgia covering the period of 2005-2012, when the newly elected right-wing government pursued radical reforms in variety of policy fields, with a particular crack-down on the labour market policy. In order to understand the process of coalition formation, this paper combines ACF with process tracing. The radical deregulation of the labour market policy in Georgia is traced back to the government reshuffling and concomitant changes taking place in the international development policy. The paper argues that since ease of doing business was introduced as a conditionality for aid disbursement in 2003, it plaid a major role in liberalising labour market policies in transition economies like Georgia. However, this policy change triggered formation of two distinct advocacy coalitions in Georgia: one promoting the deregulation and the other opposing this process. The paper finds that there was a clear misbalance of power among the local actors. For instance, the Georgian Trade Union Confederation (GTUC) was unable to revert the policy process of deregulation, which was spearheaded by the government. The latter had a strong international support expressed by direct and indirect involvement of international actors like USAID and the World Bank. Due to this reason, GTUC decided to mobilise “partners” on the international level as well. Appealing to the ideological similarities with the International Labour Organisation, the European Union and the American Federation of Labour Organisations it mobilised a successful international campaign against the Georgian government, accusing it for the violation of basic labour rights. By shifting the focus on international actors and their influence on policy-making, this paper advances the understanding of advocacy coalitions and they way policy subsystems can be internationalised.