During campaigns, voters often learn that their party's candidate advocates policy positions that conflict with their own attitudes. These cross-pressured voters can either adjust their policy positions to be consonant with their party's candidate or voting for others. I use monthly NES Panel Data from 2008-2009 to examine how voters' beliefs change about a specific policy: the redistribution of wealth through progressive taxation during a presidential campaign. I test this by creating a Random Effects Ordered Probit Panel regression model of ten monthly waves of survey data before the 2008 presidential election. The study shows that over the campaign, voters' policy positions evolve on redistributive taxation policy; voters adjust their prior policy cognitive dissonance to be in agreement with their candidate. The results indicate that in the 2008 Presidential election, the electorate more often moved their policy beliefs to be in agreement with their candidate, rather than switch votes.

Despite harm reduction’s social justice roots, the broader understanding of harm reduction is often influenced by morals and values which leaves harm reduction to be conceptualized within a morality policy domain. This study adopts the Qualitative-Narrative Policy Framework (Q-NPF) (Gray & Jones, 2016), to explore the policy beliefs and values that steer current harm reduction policy documents in British Columbia. Four questions guide this study: i) What are the underlying beliefs and values steering harm reduction policy in B.C.? ii) How are these beliefs and values narrated through policy?, iii) In what way do the underlying policy beliefs align with principles of social justice for harm reduction?, and iv) How have policy beliefs shifted since the 2016 public health emergency declaration? The social justice lens for harm reduction (Pauly, 2008) serves as this study’s analytical framework and is supplemented by the Systems Health Equity Lens (Pauly, Shahram, van Roode, Strosher & MacDonald, 2018); both of which emphasize the need for harm reduction to acknowledge and address social and structural conditions that contribute to substance use harms and their inequitable distribution. As this study reveals, there is an ongoing tension between equity-related and non-equity policy beliefs and values characterized within policy documents, thus fueling a policy climate with incongruent and contradictory beliefs. Further, equity-related beliefs are positioned in the confines of equitable access, thus they are not equity-oriented in entirety. Additionally, there have been minimal shifts in policy beliefs since the post-2016 public health emergency declaration yet shifts occur in terms of the specific constructs which form equity-related and non-equity beliefs. Finally, the study outlines potential implications of these beliefs and proposes recommendations to improve harm reduction policy in terms of becoming equity-oriented. This study also outlines methodological contributions to the Q-NPF for future policy narrative and analysis studies. / Graduate / 2022-08-15

Community forestry has become a prominent policy instrument over the past decades as a response to deforestation pressures and rural poverty. Its political implementation involves a complex process with a profound structural change - away from state-based forestry to locally based decision-making authority. The research analyzes the internal development among policy actors in order to understand how community forestry can emerge in a regional policy system. It explores three different case studies with distinct policy processes towards community forestry: an international development project (Ecuador: Esmeraldas), a grassroot environmental movement (Canada: British Columbia), and an institutional restructuring process (Mexico: Quintana Roo). The theoretical approach is based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The ACF views policy change as a result of competing advocacy coalitions which act according to their policy beliefs. Policy change can be affected by internal changes (policy learning and changes of beliefs) or by external perturbations which affect the power constellation between the coalitions. Each policy process is analyzed over more than a decade, based on empirical data from semi-structured interviews with key actors and complemented by literature. The major actors and coalitions are identified, as well as their learning and changes of beliefs over time to understand their influence on the policy process. In summary, the research found that policy learning has a high importance for the internal development of community forestry policy, while often hidden behind the strong presence of an external perturbation. Although not as a singular force, policy learning has been shown to have a very potent role in enhancing, or sustaining, policy changes. Policy learning can have a stabilizing effect against adverse events, once the implementation process has started (Mexico). Policy learning can even generate the major momentum of change that unfolds when released by an external catalyst event (Canada). It can also, however, have a very limited influence, if not form an internal challenge to the implementation (Ecuador). It has been found that a change of policy beliefs is not a requirement for policy change in the early stages of community forestry, and cannot be indicated by visible changes in the policy network or local forestry arrangements. These might concern other adjustments of the actors to the changes, which do not reflect their substantial policy beliefs. The changes of policy beliefs in the three case studies show some similar patterns in the way the Community Forestry Coalition developed their policy goals over time, as well as in the way the State Forestry Coalition adjusted strategically to the new impact of the CFC on the network. The research discusses three distinct strategic approaches of the coalitions and their varying success.

Community forestry has become a prominent policy instrument over the past decades as a response to deforestation pressures and rural poverty. Its political implementation involves a complex process with a profound structural change - away from state-based forestry to locally based decision-making authority. The research analyzes the internal development among policy actors in order to understand how community forestry can emerge in a regional policy system. It explores three different case studies with distinct policy processes towards community forestry: an international development project (Ecuador: Esmeraldas), a grassroot environmental movement (Canada: British Columbia), and an institutional restructuring process (Mexico: Quintana Roo). The theoretical approach is based on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The ACF views policy change as a result of competing advocacy coalitions which act according to their policy beliefs. Policy change can be affected by internal changes (policy learning and changes of beliefs) or by external perturbations which affect the power constellation between the coalitions. Each policy process is analyzed over more than a decade, based on empirical data from semi-structured interviews with key actors and complemented by literature. The major actors and coalitions are identified, as well as their learning and changes of beliefs over time to understand their influence on the policy process. In summary, the research found that policy learning has a high importance for the internal development of community forestry policy, while often hidden behind the strong presence of an external perturbation. Although not as a singular force, policy learning has been shown to have a very potent role in enhancing, or sustaining, policy changes. Policy learning can have a stabilizing effect against adverse events, once the implementation process has started (Mexico). Policy learning can even generate the major momentum of change that unfolds when released by an external catalyst event (Canada). It can also, however, have a very limited influence, if not form an internal challenge to the implementation (Ecuador). It has been found that a change of policy beliefs is not a requirement for policy change in the early stages of community forestry, and cannot be indicated by visible changes in the policy network or local forestry arrangements. These might concern other adjustments of the actors to the changes, which do not reflect their substantial policy beliefs. The changes of policy beliefs in the three case studies show some similar patterns in the way the Community Forestry Coalition developed their policy goals over time, as well as in the way the State Forestry Coalition adjusted strategically to the new impact of the CFC on the network. The research discusses three distinct strategic approaches of the coalitions and their varying success.

This diploma thesis examine a social housing in the Czech Republic. This is very actual topic of nowadays. Until now, no legislative norm has been adopted to deal with the difficult housing distress of the population. While comparing with other European and non-European countries, Czech housing legislation is about to lose its breath. For example in terms of affordability of housing, quality of housing, housing security etc. The reason of this diploma thesis is to analyze the network connections between subsystem of social housing through public political theory Advocacy Coalition Framework The very first software tool in the Czech Republic which apply the theory in practise was tool called Discourse Network Analyzer. The core part of the research of the diploma thesis is therefore a discourse analysis, which focuses on examining the political beliefs of the subsystems and identifying the advocacy coalitions of the subsystem. Followed up with interpretations of the data obtained indicated political beliefs in historical, social and economic circumstances. The main findings of the diploma thesis include confirmation of three advocacy coalitions in the subsystem of social housing.