Exploring positive and negative additive effects between pathways of policy change: the case of the ecological crises in the Mar Menor coastal lagoon (SE Spain)

Paper proposal to be presented at the Panel ‘Major Policy Change and the Advocacy Coalition Framework’, Section 06 ‘Adressing Rationality and Irrationality in Policy Process Theories’, ECPR General Conference, Online Virtual Event, 31 August-3 September 2021 Abstract The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) scholarship has demonstrated that the pathways of policy change postulated by the framework (namely, policy-oriented learning, external and internal shocks and negotiated agreements [Sabatier and Weible 2007]) frequently interact (Pierce et al. 2017). In this paper, we aim to shed light on the complex mechanisms involved by these interactions between pathways of change and their effects. In doing so, we focus on the positive and negative additive effects these interactions entail. Positive additive effects refer to when pathways reinforce each other to produce policy change (change in policy beliefs and policy designs). For instance, when exogenous or endogenous impacts facilitate policy-learning within the subsystem. In contrast, negative additive effects imply pathways that counteract other pathways, reducing the likelihood of major policy change. In addition, positive and negative combinations may also take place simultaneously or sequentially, affecting the final output of the policy process. To explore these ideas, we use the case of the ecological crisis of the Mar Menor, Western Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon. Situated on the Region of Murcia, South East of Spain, the Mar Menor is an example of a complex socio-ecologic system which during centuries managed to maintain a delicate equilibrium. During the last three decades, the expansion of human economic and leisure activities (particularly intensive industrial agriculture in the Mar Menor’s basin area) has put pressure on the fragile natural ecosystem of the lagoon. The fragile ecological equilibrium finally broke during the past decade with two almost successive eutrophication crises – one in 2016 and the next in 2019 –, which triggered subsequent processes public mobilisation and policy response by Spanish authorities (national and, particularly, regional), which in the previous years had overlooked the progressive deterioration of the lagoon. In this paper, we will explore to what extent these external/internal shocks (since the eutrophic crises were the result of the combined effect of external events and the failures of the existing policies) combine with other pathways to policy change postulated by the ACF. More specifically, we will show that though external crises may accelerate processes of policy change (i.e. by reinforcing policy-learning), successive crises may add negative effects (opening opportunities to re-negotiate measures), curbing initial momentum.