Advocacy Coalition Framework, Higher Education

Controversy is a common feature in any organization and governing system where there exist divergent value orientations. A number of policy issues in higher education illustrate such controversies, including debates over securing and allocating funds, affordability, and rights to free speech. One approach for understanding these controversies is the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF, Jenkins-Smith et al. 2014).

Through 2016, there have been over 300 applications of the ACF. Most of these applications have focused on North American and Europe, with an increasing number of studies in other parts of the world. Just over half the applications of the ACF have been in environmental policy, followed by health and economic policy. There have been a handful of applications of the ACF to higher education policy issues, including Beverwijk et al. (2008), Shakespeare (2008), Dougherty et al. (2010), Ness (2010), and Balbachevsky (2015).

Main Questions

The scope of the ACF centers around three main...