Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-26-2025

Department

Department of Social Sciences

Abstract

As one of the most established theoretical approaches to public policy, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) has moored most of its theoretical arguments around a textbook policy conflict consisting of two or more advocacy coalitions in a mature adversarial policy subsystem within an advanced polyarchy. This article steps beyond the textbook by introducing deep core coalitions marked by compounding intersectional identities operating at the macro-system. It offers two illustrations of deep core coalitions, one bound by their collective transgender identity and the other by their collective traditionalist identity. Finally, this article concludes with a discussion of what it means for a research program to embrace a diverse research agenda, such as through better linkages with other theoretical approaches, launching more comparative research designs, or, as done here, focusing on a new type of advocacy coalition operating at the macro-system.

Publisher's Statement

© The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press.

Publication Title

Policy and Society

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Share

COinS