ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
1960s, growing awareness of the dangers of some of these pesticides, stimu-
lated by a series of food scares and by Rachel Carson’s ( 1962 )best-sellerSilent
Spring,produced a new, negative wave of interest, that eventually peaked
with the banning of DDT in 1969 and several new pieces of legislation regu-
lating pesticide use. Thus positive issue attention in the late 1940s provided
awindow of opportunity to create a producer-dominated iron triangle pro-
moting the pesticide industry, whilst negative issue attention during the
1960s provided a second window of opportunity that contributed to the
collapse of this cosy network and ushered in policy change.
This example of punctuated equilibrium suggests that the Downs model
overlooked the longer-term institutional legacies of agenda-setting, which
can produce change through an unfolding historical process. As the ‘eupho-
ria’ surrounding an issue fades away and public attention turns elsewhere,
theorganisations created during that period of heightened interest remain
(Baumgartner and Jones 1993 ). Another example arose from the huge pub-
lic interest provoked by theExxon Valdezoil-tanker disaster in Alaska Sound
in 1989, which disrupted a previously complacent policy network responsi-
ble for marine safety in the Sound and led to the creation of new institu-
tions. After the public interest died away, the institutional legacy remained,
notably a regulatory framework introduced to oversee the implementation
of improved safeguards in Alaska Sound and a new regional citizens’ advi-
sory council that has acted as an effective ‘sentinel’ by promoting further
policy change to improve safety (Busenberg 1999 ).◗ The advocacy coalition framework
Sabatier ( 1988 )argues that it is unrealistic to distinguish agenda-setting so
sharply from the wider policy process as a major source of policy change.
His advocacy coalition framework (ACF) is a comprehensive model of the
policy process emphasising the role of ideas, information and analysis as
factors contributing to policy change at all ‘stages’ of the policy process
(ibid.; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993 , 1999). A central claim of the ACF is
that an understanding of policy change requires a focus on elite opinion
and the factors that encourage shifts in elite belief systems over time.
The ACF, like network theory, focuses on the policy sub-system which
is composed of all the actors – politicians, bureaucrats, interest groups,
academics, journalists, professionals – who are actively concerned with a
particular policy issue such as air pollution control, and who regularly
seek to influence public policy on that issue. Within each sub-system these
actors may form several ‘advocacy coalitions’ drawing together people who
share the same normative and causal beliefs about how policy objectives
should be achieved. The belief systems of each coalition are organised into
athree-level hierarchy: (1)deep core beliefsare the broad philosophical values
that apply to all policy sub-systems (e.g. left–right); (2)policy core beliefsare
the fundamental values and strategies across that specific policy sub-system