PSJ 54/3 2026-08-28
Original Conditional Autonomy, Discursive Gatekeeping, and Patterns of Action: How Experts Influence Policy in China's One‐Party System
PSJ 54/3 2026-08-12
Original Time's Sentimental Tale: Operationalizing Plot Within the Narrative Policy Framework
Rachel McGovern, Crystal Soderman, Alex Osei‐Kojo, Michael D. Jones, Kristin L. Olofsson
PSJ 54/3 2026-08-12
Original A Narrative Walks Into a Forum: Bridging the Narrative Policy and Ecology of Games Frameworks
Rachel McGovern, Danielle M. McLaughlin, Jack Mewhirter, Michael D. Jones
PSJ — 2026-05-29
Original Studying Advocacy Coalitions: Conceptual Choices and Methodological Approaches
Alejandra Medina, José Sánchez, Allegra H. Fullerton, Christopher M. Weible
PSJ — 2026-03-30
Original Coalition Breakdown and Subsystem Exit
Charlie F. Thompson
Abstract
ABSTRACT Why actors choose to work together (or not) to advance policy has been the central area of inquiry within the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Existing research has mainly emphasized the pathway towards coalition formation and evolution, underscoring the stable patterns of allies and opponents observable in policy processes over a decade or so. Why coalitions fracture, splinter or dissolve has seldom been theoretically articulated or empirically investigated, which leaves policy process research in the dark on the unstable factors of coalition evolution. This perspectives stresses three modes of coalition breakdown—the process by which an established advocacy coalition (i) fractures—a mode of enhanced internal conflict producing differentiated coordination patterns, (ii) splinters into competing coalitions—where previous allies stop working together entirely, and (iii) dissolves—the subsystem exit of an existing coalition. Focusing on internal threats, but also the external shocks provided by democratic backsliding, the article advances foundational theory on why coalitions fissure, become dormant and collapse—policy dynamics that are expected to continue to persist in an increasingly polarized society.