Understanding policy stability and change. The interplay of advocacy coalitions and epistemic communities, windows of opportunity, and Dutch coastal flooding policy 1945-2003

Abstract:

The advocacy coalition, multiple streams, punctuated equilibrium, and epistemic communities frameworks all point to relevant processes conditioning policy stability and policy change. In this paper it is argued that these frameworks are partly overlapping, partly producing rival hypotheses, but most of all they offer complementary explanations for long-term policy development. In a case study of Dutch coastal flooding policy 1945–2003 we illustrate how a stable ‘safety coalition’, closely tied to an epistemic community of civil engineers, sustained a policy monopoly established by the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. This coalition was responsible for the construction of the Delta Works, a programme of coastal engineering works aimed at the enclosure of most estuaries in the south-western part of the Netherlands. It is also shown how an environmentalist coalition, supported by fishermen and a newly developing ecological epistemic community, has been able to bring about major policy change by fashioning a new policy image, and exploiting a window of opportunity created by a shift of national government.