Advocacy Coalitions and Climate Change Adaptation Networks in Southeastern Florida, USA

Policy networks are endemic to the policy process; stakeholders to policy issues must often seek out ties with other policy stakeholders in order to gain information about salient problems, coordinate action, or collaborate on joint efforts. And yet the particular configuration of these policy networks has a great influence on policy outcomes and the potential for stakeholders to collectively learn to manage complex, emerging, and uncertain problems. It is widely believed that segregation within policy networks—meaning a separation between actors with divergent belief systems, functional expertise, or resource availability—inhibits the ability of actors to effectively manage complex problems. This is particularly true in the domain of climate change, where policy systems are characterized by high degrees of information asymmetry and fierce conflicts over values and goals. Based on the Advocacy Coalitions Approach (ACF), this paper uses regional climate change policy in Southeastern Florida, USA, as an empirical content to study three questions about policy networks: 1) To what extent are networks segregated in terms of organizational type, scope of activity, and beliefs about climate change? 2) What is the rationale for organizations to form ties with one another? 3) To what extent are integrative ties (those ties that overcome segregation) considered to be important to the functioning of organizations in climate change policy? Statistical network analysis is used to examine these three questions using survey data drawn from approximately 100 policy stakeholders in the Southeast Florida region, representing a diverse array of organizations in the private, nonprofit, academic, and governmental sectors. Taken together, answers to these questions help to move us toward a better understanding of how collaborative relationships can be leveraged to enhanced learning and problem solving in the management of complex policy problems.