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The advocacy coalition framework (AC) explains policy stability. The policy entrepreneurship model (PE) explains dynamic policy change. Thus, augmenting the AC with insights from the PE provides a method of explaining a common empirical phenomenon: policy stability punctuated by dynamic policy change. This analytical strategy could be used to explore stability and change in many policy arenas. Here, we use it to interpret the background to and dynamics of recent education policy reform in Michigan.
Introduction
Intrigued by the policymaking process, policy scholars have developed various models of how it works.l Among these contributions, the advocacy coalition framework (AC) presented by Sabatier (1988) and Sabatier and JenkinsSmith (1993) usefully explains periods of policy stability. Still, a puzzle remains. How can we explain periods of dynamic policy change? The agendasetting literature (e.g., Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Kingdon, 1995) and the literature on the politics of ideas (Derthick & Quirk, 1985; Wilson, 1980) suggest the importance of policy entrepreneurs as change agents. Following this line of research, recent contributions have presented what we term the policy entrepreneurship model (PE). We suggest that augmenting the AC with insights from the PE can provide a conceptually coherent understanding of how political forces generate stable policy arenas in some periods and dynamic change in others.
We have two main goals in this article. First, we seek to better understand the nature of policy change and how it comes about, by exploring the determinants of a recent, dramatic change in education policy in Michigan. Second, we seek to explore the compatibility of the AC and the PE.
We begin the article by discussing the general aims of models of policymaking. We then review the salient features of the AC and the PE. Following this, we interpret the build-up to and the dynamics of the recent education reform process in Michigan using the two approaches. We conclude the article by returning to a more conceptual level and discussing why it makes sense at least to acknowledge the activities of policy entrepreneurs within the AC. As a general point, we suggest that it is more important to strive for compatibility between the AC and the PE than to attempt some type of full-blown synthesis. This is because we see the models as...