The transition from an industrial to a global knowledge-based economy has put universities in the spotlight of public policies as the new drivers of innovation and sustained economic growth. Consequently, societal expectations towards the academic community have changed and so has, under the influence of neo-liberal ideas, the public governance of higher education. This is particularly true in federalist systems, such as Germany, Australia and the European Union, where the roles of each government level in governing the higher education sector had to be renegotiated and clarified. In Canada, however, despite repeated recommendations by policymakers, scholars and international organisations, the respective responsibilities have not yet been clarified and, to date, there are still no mechanisms to coordinate the post-secondary education policies of the federal and provincial governments. This paper inquires into the reasons for this exception. In the academic literature, this has generally been explained in terms of Canada’s uniqueness with respect to its federalist system and the decentralized higher education sector. We attempt to go beyond this traditional federalism, state-centered approach, which is predominant in the Canadian higher education literature. Instead, based on interviews and official documents and inspired by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), we shall be looking at the belief systems of the major actors in the policy process and the degree of coordination among them. Our analysis comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, proponents of a pan-Canadian approach are divided over their fundamental beliefs regarding the compatibility of inclusiveness and excellence. Some argue that the federal government must legislate common standards to ensure equal opportunities for all Canadians. Others propose a New Governance-inspired approach to create a differentiated and competitive university sector that meets the demands of the global knowledge-based economy more efficiently. On the other hand, even though the provinces differ in their beliefs regarding the equal opportunity versus economic efficiency debate, they share the same strong belief with respect to the role of the federal government. According to this view, post-secondary education is exclusively a provincial responsibility and the role of the federal government is solely to help them ‘fix the problems’. Moreover, contrary to the proponents of more intergovernmental collaboration, the provinces have successfully strengthened the coordination among themselves to block further perceived federal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction. We come to the conclusion that the absence of intergovernmental mechanisms to govern post-secondary education is a consequence of the diverging belief systems and the establishment of formal coordination structures among the provinces to block – as they perceive - further federal intrusions. Also, there is less of a sense of urgency to act compared to, say, health care. Finally, remembering the near-separation of Quebec in 1995, there is very little appetite to reopen the constitutional debates. Therefore, based on our analysis, we argue that contrary to suggestions by some higher education scholars, the establishment of intergovernmental coordinating mechanisms appears unlikely in the near future.

A case study of the first 35 years, 1945 to 1980, of the Swedish nuclear institution. The purpose is to discover which actors that have shaped the Swedish nuclear institution. By using the theories of historical institutionalism and advocacy coalition framework I have analyzed these 35 years in three separate parts. Historical institutionalism puts emphasis on the creation of an institution, and so have I. The creation phase goes from 1945 to 1972. The following two parts are critical junctures that spans the years 1973-1978 and 1978-1980. The first critical juncture deals with the Centre Party's reversal in their opinion on nuclear power, the 1976 election and the outcome of that election. The third juncture starts with the Harrisburg accident and ends after the 1980 referendum. Using the advocacy coalition framework to analyze the actions or actors and coalitions during these three phases, I have come to the conclusion that the industry actors, those that have built the reactors, have been the most successful in pushing their coalition's agendas, over the years. Their influence was considerable during the years of institutional creation, while the coalitions that opposed nuclear power were quite weak during this time frame, which is consistent with historical institutionalism's focus on the creation, and path dependence.

The transition from an industrial to a global knowledge-based economy has put universities in the spotlight of public policies as the new drivers of innovation and sustained economic growth. Consequently, societal expectations towards the academic community have changed and so has, under the influence of neo-liberal ideas, the public governance of higher education. This is particularly true in federalist systems, such as Germany, Australia and the European Union, where the roles of each government level in governing the higher education sector had to be renegotiated and clarified. In Canada, however, despite repeated recommendations by policymakers, scholars and international organisations, the respective responsibilities have not yet been clarified and, to date, there are still no mechanisms to coordinate the post-secondary education policies of the federal and provincial governments. This paper inquires into the reasons for this exception. In the academic literature, this has generally been explained in terms of Canada’s uniqueness with respect to its federalist system and the decentralized higher education sector. We attempt to go beyond this traditional federalism, state-centered approach, which is predominant in the Canadian higher education literature. Instead, based on interviews and official documents and inspired by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), we shall be looking at the belief systems of the major actors in the policy process and the degree of coordination among them. Our analysis comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, proponents of a pan-Canadian approach are divided over their fundamental beliefs regarding the compatibility of inclusiveness and excellence. Some argue that the federal government must legislate common standards to ensure equal opportunities for all Canadians. Others propose a New Governance-inspired approach to create a differentiated and competitive university sector that meets the demands of the global knowledge-based economy more efficiently. On the other hand, even though the provinces differ in their beliefs regarding the equal opportunity versus economic efficiency debate, they share the same strong belief with respect to the role of the federal government. According to this view, post-secondary education is exclusively a provincial responsibility and the role of the federal government is solely to help them ‘fix the problems’. Moreover, contrary to the proponents of more intergovernmental collaboration, the provinces have successfully strengthened the coordination among themselves to block further perceived federal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction. We come to the conclusion that the absence of intergovernmental mechanisms to govern post-secondary education is a consequence of the diverging belief systems and the establishment of formal coordination structures among the provinces to block – as they perceive - further federal intrusions. Also, there is less of a sense of urgency to act compared to, say, health care. Finally, remembering the near-separation of Quebec in 1995, there is very little appetite to reopen the constitutional debates. Therefore, based on our analysis, we argue that contrary to suggestions by some higher education scholars, the establishment of intergovernmental coordinating mechanisms appears unlikely in the near future.

This study assesses the value of two analytical models explaining particular contemporary political events. This is undertaken through the comparative evaluation of two international models: the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Rhodes’s model of Governance. These approaches are evaluated against an single case study: the censorship of computer network (“online”) content in Australia. Through comparison evaluation, criticism, and reformulation, these approaches are presented as useful tools of policy analysis in Australia. / The first part of the thesis presents the theoretical basis of the research and the methodologies employed to apply them. It begins by examining how the disciplines of political science and public policy have focused on the role of politically-active “interest”, groups in the process of policy development and implementation. This focus has lead to ideas about the role of the state actors in policy making, and attempts to describe and explain the interface between public and private groups in developing and implementing public policies. These, largely British and American, theories have impacted upon Australian researchers who have applied these ideas to local conditions. The majority of this part, however, is spent introducing the two research approaches: Paul Sabatier’s Advocacy Coalitions Framework and Rod Rhodes’s theory of Governance. Stemming from dissatisfaction with research into implementation, Sabatier’s framework attempts to show how competing clusters of groups and individuals compete for policy “wins” in a discrete subsystem by using political strategies to effect favourable decisions and information to change the views of other groups. Governance, on the other hand, attempts to apply Rhodes’s observations to the changing nature of the British state (and by implication other liberal democracies) to show the importance of self-organising networks of organisations who monopolise power and insulate the processes of decision making and implementation from the wider community and state organs. Finally, the methodologies of the thesis are presented, based on the preferred research methods of the two authors. / The second part introduces the case serving as the basis for evaluating the models, namely, censorship of the content of computer networks in Australia between 1987 and 2000. This case arises in the late 1980s with the computerisation of society and technological developments leading to the introduction of, first publicly-accessible computer bulletin boards, and then the technology of the Internet. From a small hobbyists’ concern, the uptake of this technology combined with wider censorship issues leads to the consideration of online content by Australian Governments, seeking a system of regulation to apply to this technology. As the emerging Internet becomes popularised, and in the face of adverse media attention on, especially pornographic, online content, during the mid to late 1990s two Federal governments establish a series of policy processes that eventually lead to the introduction of the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999, a policy decision bringing online content into Australia’s intergovernmental censorship system. / The final part analyses the case study using the two theoretical approaches. What this shows is that, from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, debate over online content does not form a substantive policy subsystem until 1995, and within this three, relatively stable, competing coalitions emerge, each pressuring for different levels of action and intervention (from no regulation, to a strong regulatory model). While conflict within the subsystem varied, overall the framework’s analysis shows the dominance of a coalition consisting largely of professional and business interests favouring a light, co-regulatory approach to online content. From the perspective of Governance, the issue of online content is subject to a range of intra- and inter-governmental conflict in the period 1995-7, finally settling into a negotiated position where a complex policy community emerges based largely on structurally-determined resource dependencies. What this means is that policy making in the case was not autonomous of state institutions, but highly dependent on institutional power relations. Overall, in comparing the findings it becomes apparent that the approaches lack the capacity to fully explain the role of key sovereigns, defined here as those individuals with legal authority over decision making in the policy process, because of their methodological and normative assumptions about the policy process. By showing these individuals as part of wider networks of power-dependencies, and exploring the complex bundle of real, pseudo, symbolic, and nonsense elements that make up a policy, the role of Ministers as “semi-sovereign sovereigns” can be accommodated in the two approaches.

The transition from an industrial to a global knowledge-based economy has put universities in the spotlight of public policies as the new drivers of innovation and sustained economic growth. Consequently, societal expectations towards the academic community have changed and so has, under the influence of neo-liberal ideas, the public governance of higher education. This is particularly true in federalist systems, such as Germany, Australia and the European Union, where the roles of each government level in governing the higher education sector had to be renegotiated and clarified. In Canada, however, despite repeated recommendations by policymakers, scholars and international organisations, the respective responsibilities have not yet been clarified and, to date, there are still no mechanisms to coordinate the post-secondary education policies of the federal and provincial governments. This paper inquires into the reasons for this exception. In the academic literature, this has generally been explained in terms of Canada’s uniqueness with respect to its federalist system and the decentralized higher education sector. We attempt to go beyond this traditional federalism, state-centered approach, which is predominant in the Canadian higher education literature. Instead, based on interviews and official documents and inspired by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), we shall be looking at the belief systems of the major actors in the policy process and the degree of coordination among them. Our analysis comes to the conclusion that, on the one hand, proponents of a pan-Canadian approach are divided over their fundamental beliefs regarding the compatibility of inclusiveness and excellence. Some argue that the federal government must legislate common standards to ensure equal opportunities for all Canadians. Others propose a New Governance-inspired approach to create a differentiated and competitive university sector that meets the demands of the global knowledge-based economy more efficiently. On the other hand, even though the provinces differ in their beliefs regarding the equal opportunity versus economic efficiency debate, they share the same strong belief with respect to the role of the federal government. According to this view, post-secondary education is exclusively a provincial responsibility and the role of the federal government is solely to help them ‘fix the problems’. Moreover, contrary to the proponents of more intergovernmental collaboration, the provinces have successfully strengthened the coordination among themselves to block further perceived federal intrusions into provincial jurisdiction. We come to the conclusion that the absence of intergovernmental mechanisms to govern post-secondary education is a consequence of the diverging belief systems and the establishment of formal coordination structures among the provinces to block – as they perceive - further federal intrusions. Also, there is less of a sense of urgency to act compared to, say, health care. Finally, remembering the near-separation of Quebec in 1995, there is very little appetite to reopen the constitutional debates. Therefore, based on our analysis, we argue that contrary to suggestions by some higher education scholars, the establishment of intergovernmental coordinating mechanisms appears unlikely in the near future.

This qualitative comparative case study examined factors related to politics that might explain the notably different active transportation (AT - walking, cycling, and public transit use) rates achieved in Helsinki, Finland (a leading European city in AT, where 77 per cent of people use primarily AT for daily transportation) and Ottawa, Canada (a leading North American city in AT, but where the AT rate is 28.5 per cent). Applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) - a policy process theory - individual focused interviews were conducted with 47 active transportation experts from the two cities. Document review was employed as a secondary method. The results are discussed in three articles written for peer reviewed journals – the first two concentrating on the findings from Helsinki and Ottawa respectively, and the third article comparing the findings from both cities. Overall, differences stemming from the ACF category of relatively stable parameters (i.e., stable background-level factors) including land use, transportation planning traditions, and political systems were identified as likely important in explaining the discrepancy in AT rates.

Klimatförändringar innebär att Sverige i allt större utsträckning utsätts för problematik relaterat till havsnivåhöjningar, erosion, ras och skred, vilket kommer bli mer påtagliga i framtiden. Det finns alltså ett behov av att klimatanpassa svenska samhällen och det finns växande förväntningar att den fysiska planeringen ska kunna hantera och främja strategiskt nytänkande i klimatanpassningsfrågor. Idag finns flera metoder och strategier för hur klimatanpassning kan ta form, men det är främst så kallade hårda åtgärder, såsom vallar och murar, som verkställs i praktiken. Vad händer om en vall brister eller feldimensioneras? För att lösa denna problematik krävs nya tankesätt och typer av klimatanpassningsmetoder, såsom planerad reträtt, vilket krasst innebär att delar av samhället förflyttas bort från riskutsatta områden. Men planerad reträtt är nästan helt outforskat i en svensk kontext. Till följd av praktisk frånvaro råder förvirring kring metoden, vilket begränsar dess relevans och bidrar till det inte övervägs som en legitim klimatanpassningsmetod. Det finns alltså en deskripans mellan den svenska klimatanpassningsplaneringen och målsättningar om långsiktig resiliens. Därför finns det ett behov av att undersöka hur svensk planerings- och klimatanpassningspolicy förhåller sig till planerad reträtt och hur det kan bli en aktuell klimatanpassningsmetod. Denna uppsats ämnar att undersöka vilka förutsättningar som finns och behöver finnas för att planerad reträtt ska vara en aktuell klimatanpassningsstrategi i en svensk kontext, samt bredda kunskapen för beslutsfattande om förhållningssätt och ställningstagande i det fortsatta klimatanpassningsarbetet. Genom en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av intervjuer och dokument används Advocacy Coalition Framework för att analysera och kartlägga policyläget för planerad reträtt i en svensk kontext. Resultatet visar att en version av planerad reträtt redan bedrivs idag, men att det finns ett behov av formellt ansvarstagande och institutionsövergripande samarbete för att planerad reträtt ska bli en aktuell strategisk klimatanpassningsmetod i Sverige.

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This study seeks to identify and examine issue transformation in public policies, and to understand the relationship between issue transformation and policy change. The focus for this investigation, the information resources management (IRM) policy subsystem, is examined as a 28-year case study, concluding at the end of 2002. Study results are documented textually, and visually in an exploratory, "virtual reality-based" Policy World. This study examines the questions: "In what ways are the core issues underlying public policies transformed over time, and what is the relationship between issue transformation and policy change?" Using the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) for explaining policy change over considerable periods of time, this research identifies and examines the issues over which policy coalitions contend, and seeks to identify issue transformation in the IRM policy subsystem's 28-year history. Augmenting the traditional paper-based dissertation is an exploratory, "virtual reality-based" case study, called "Policy World," that visualizes both the policy subsystem environment and critical elements of the external policy system. Visually depicting the richness, texture, and artifacts of policy activities aids policy learning, and promotes understanding of the dynamic and complex environment of issue transformation and policy change. In confirming issue transformation, this study contributes to the advocacy coalition framework by detailing the initiation and maturation of a policy subsystem. In demonstrating issue transformation's role as facilitating policy continuity through policy change, this study contributes to policy theory. As a chronology of IRM's issue transformation and policy change, this study documents the rise of IT-enabled governance for public administrators and educators. Policy World provides an interactive, experiential learning environment for public administration scholars and practitioners wanting substantive knowledge of both policy theory and Federal IRM policies. Public administration literature notes both the need for and the lack of an information resource management component to public administration education. Information visualization concepts are combined with interactive designs and hosting on the World Wide Web, to provide wide access to Policy World and extend educational opportunities in public policy and information resources management wherever desired. / Ph. D.

At the end of 2016, the Swedish petroleum and biofuel company Preem applied for an environmental permit to convert high-sulfur bunker oil to low-sulfur petrol and diesel at Preemraff Lysekil. Something that required an expansion of the refinery. The process ended abruptly in September 2020 when Preem chose to withdraw their application. In connection with the process, two actor coalitions were formed, with one being for an expansion and the other against. Both coalitions had the explicit goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preventing climate change. The difference, however, was their view on whether this could be achieved thanks to an expansion of Preemraff Lysekil, or if it could only happen without it. Through their actions the coalitions have tried to influence the policy process in a direction that is desirable for them. This study aims to systematically map the coalitions and their actions and contribute to a deeper understanding of their actions and impact on the process of the planned expansion project of Preemraff Lysekil. The study is designed as a qualitative case study and is based on The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), which can be used to explain and understand beliefs and policy change when multiple actors are involved in a policy process. According to the ACF, actors who share similar policy core beliefs come together in coalitions to increase the chances of policy change. The study also uses urban regime theory to understand the informal and unspoken agenda between Preemraff Lysekil and Lysekil municipality. The results from previous research show several common denominators with the Preemraff Lysekil case. The analysis shows that the actors who were against an expansion had similar deep core beliefs and consistent policy core beliefs, they also had a consensus on how the policy change should be implemented. They have tried to influence the process by appealing court decisions and tried to get the Swedish government to take over the assessment of the application, which also happened. The analysis shows that the actors who were in favor of an expansion had more dispersed deep core beliefs but were consistent in their policy core beliefs and secondary beliefs. They have made attempts to stop the government from taking over the case from the court. As these attempts have been unsuccessful, they instead tried to get the government to allow an expansion. By using different forms of resources, both coalitions have tried to get the public and decision-makers to support their own proposal for policy change, with varying results. What ultimately led Preem to withdraw the application is not clarified. Maybe the pressure from those who were against an expansion became too powerful, maybe the COVID-19 pandemic left such a big mark on international production chains and the global market that an expansion was no longer profitable. There is also a possibility that Preem's decision is based on both parts, but we will probably never know.