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Policy scholars have increasingly focused on collaborative and competitive relationships between stakeholder coalitions. The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) in particular has directed scholarly attention toward such relationships. The ACF defines advocacy coalitions as groups of actors who share beliefs and coordinate their action. However, previous research has been inconsistent in defining and measuring coalitions, which has hampered comparative research and theory building. We present a method called the Advocacy Coalition Index, which measures belief similarity and the coordination of action in a manner that makes it possible to assess the extent to which advocacy coalitions are found in policy subsystems, whether subgroups resemble coalitions, and how individual actors contribute to coalition formation. The index provides a standardized method for identifying coalitions that can be applied to comparative research. To illustrate the effectiveness of the index, we analyze two climate change policy subsystems, namely Finland and Sweden, which have been shown to differ in terms of the association of belief similarity with coordination. We demonstrate that the index performs well in identifying the different types of subsystems, coalitions, and actors that contribute the most to coalition formation, as well as those involved in cross-coalition brokerage.

Collaboration between public administration organizations and various stakeholders is often prescribed as a potential solution to the current complex problems of governance, such as climate change. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, shared beliefs are one of the most important drivers of collaboration. However, studies investigating the role of beliefs in collaboration show mixed results. Some argue that similarity of general normative and empirical policy beliefs elicits collaboration, while others focus on beliefs concerning policy instruments. Proposing a new divisive beliefs hypothesis, we suggest that agreeing on those beliefs over which there is substantial disagreement in the policy subsystem is what matters for collaboration. Testing our hypotheses using policy network analysis and data on climate policy subsystems in eleven countries (Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Sweden, and Taiwan), we find belief similarity to be a stronger predictor of collaboration when the focus is divisive beliefs rather than normative and empirical policy beliefs or beliefs concerning policy instruments. This knowledge can be useful for managing collaborative governance networks because it helps to identify potential competing coalitions and to broker compromises between them. published

Collaboration between public administration organizations and various stakeholders is often prescribed as a potential solution to the current complex problems of governance, such as climate change. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, shared beliefs are one of the most important drivers of collaboration. However, studies investigating the role of beliefs in collaboration show mixed results. Some argue that similarity of general normative and empirical policy beliefs elicits collaboration, while others focus on beliefs concerning policy instruments. Proposing a new divisive beliefs hypothesis, we suggest that agreeing on those beliefs over which there is substantial disagreement in the policy subsystem is what matters for collaboration. Testing our hypotheses using policy network analysis and data on climate policy subsystems in eleven countries (Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Sweden, and Taiwan), we find belief similarity to be a stronger predictor of collaboration when the focus is divisive beliefs rather than normative and empirical policy beliefs or beliefs concerning policy instruments. This knowledge can be useful for managing collaborative governance networks because it helps to identify potential competing coalitions and to broker compromises between them.

Collaboration between public administration organizations and various stakeholders is often prescribed as a potential solution to the current complex problems of governance, such as climate change. According to the Advocacy Coalition Framework, shared beliefs are one of the most important drivers of collaboration. However, studies investigating the role of beliefs in collaboration show mixed results. Some argue that similarity of general normative and empirical policy beliefs elicits collaboration, while others focus on beliefs concerning policy instruments. Proposing a new divisive beliefs hypothesis, we suggest that agreeing on those beliefs over which there is substantial disagreement in the policy subsystem is what matters for collaboration. Testing our hypotheses using policy network analysis and data on climate policy subsystems in 11 countries (Australia, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Sweden, and Taiwan), we find belief similarity to be a stronger predictor of collaboration when the focus is divisive beliefs rather than normative and empirical policy beliefs or beliefs concerning policy instruments. This knowledge can be useful for managing collaborative governance networks because it helps to identify potential competing coalitions and to broker compromises between them.

Funding Information: We thank Risto Kunelius, Boyoon Lee, Kevin Reuning, Pertti Vehkalahti, and participants of the 2019 Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks Workshop held at the University of Bern for useful feedback. This research is produced under the ECANET consortium (Echo Chambers, Experts and Activists: Networks of Mediated Political Communication) funded by the Academy of Finland, Grant Nos. 320780 (TY) and 320781 (MK). Additional funding comes from the Kone Foundation (AG; Grant No. 201804137) and the Strategic Research Council, Academy of Finland (TY; Grant No. 312710). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Author(s) Prior research shows that public opinion on climate politics sorts along partisan lines. However, they leave open the question of whether climate politics and other politically salient issues exhibit tendencies for issue alignment, which the political polarization literature identifies as among the most deleterious aspects of polarization. Using a network approach and social media data from the Twitter platform, we study polarization of public opinion toward climate politics and ten other politically salient topics during the 2019 Finnish elections as the emergence of opposing groups in a public forum. We find that while climate politics is not particularly polarized compared to the other topics, it is subject to partisan sorting and issue alignment within the universalist-communitarian dimension of European politics that arose following the growth of right-wing populism. Notably, climate politics is consistently aligned with the immigration issue, and temporal trends indicate that this phenomenon will likelypersist.

Policy actors often try to influence decisions and outputs by joining forces and coordinating their action. Understanding patterns of coordination is important for the field of environmental policy and governance, as environmental policies typically target a wide range of stakeholders from different sectors. The public policy literature has advanced and tested several hypotheses concerning the factors that promote or hinder collaboration at the national or subnational level. However, an important caveat of the literature is that only a handful of studies compare these factors across different institutional contexts. In this paper, we draw on the existing literature to formulate hypotheses concerning the role of beliefs, actor types, and resources in shaping collaboration patterns. We test these hypotheses using data on the climate change policy networks in four countries with very different institutional contexts: Finland, Switzerland, South Korea, and the US. The crucial institutional axes along which the cases differ from each other are (a) federal (Switzerland, US) vs. unitary (Finland, Korea), (b) corporatist (Finland, Switzerland) vs. pluralist (US, Korea), and (c) majoritarian (USA, South Korea) vs. consensual (Finland, Switzerland). Estimating Exponential Random Graph Models for each country, we find no systematic variation across the different polity contexts, which is good news for important public policy theories such as the Advocacy Coalition Framework, policy networks, ecological modernisation theory, or resource dependence theory. However, we do find significant variation between different national policy contexts. Firstly, actors collaborate with others sharing beliefs or the same type of actor in particular during conflictive phases in the policy process, but not when major decisions are already made. In particular, the Swiss case illustrates that when important directions of a policy process are already laid out, actors of different beliefs or actor types start to collaborate across conflict lines. In a similar vein, public authorities are also more important targets in phases were important decisions are still to be made. However, one finding that holds for all countries across all polity and policy contexts is that resourceful and influential actors are popular collaboration targets., Many scholars would agree that political decisions are the result of collective action. By joining forces and coordinating their behaviour, actors try to influence decisions and outputs. Understanding these patterns better is highly relevant for the field of environmental policy and governance, as policies target a wide range of stakeholders from different sectors. Increased collaboration efforts are needed to ensure that environmental concerns are considered particularly in sectors with traditionally contradicting interests, such as economic, energy, agricultural, or traffic policy. The public policy literature already offers an in-depth knowledge of factors that promote or hinder collaboration at the national or subnational level. However, only a small number of studies also compare these factors across different institutional contexts. This is an important caveat of the public policy literature, as a consistent theory that explains collaboration across countries and policy domains is still absent and more comparative studies are needed. Hence, this study promotes a systematic comparison of the climate policy subsystem in four countries with different institutional settings to disentangle important characteristics that might influence collaboration. Specifically, we ask whether the institutional set-up (polity) in our case countries affects drivers of collaboration (politics). We assess three crucial institutional dimensions to systematically assess differences in collaboration structures, i.e. federalism (Switzerland, US) vs. centralism (Finland, Korea), corporatism (Finland, Switzerland) vs. pluralism (US, Korea), and representative democracies (USA, South Korea) vs. consensual democracies (Finland, Switzerland). We base our theoretical argument in the ACF literature and expect that corporatist and consensual countries exhibit less clearly demarcated advocacy coalitions based on collaboration than in representative or pluralist countries. Also, it is likely that all kinds of actors collaborate in corporatist and consensual countries, whereas vertical institutional levels structure collaborative patterns. Finally, in federal countries the additional level of governance raises the number of different interests that must be coordinated in the policy subsystem. We assume that in federal systems collaboration patterns are characterised by a higher level of complexity and level of conflict that bonds actors by beliefs and interests. As collaboration is necessarily interdependent, we use policy network data for our analysis, which was collected in connection to the international research project Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks (COMPON). To date, in 19 countries, elite surveys were conducted to gather information on the most important actors, with respect to their collaboration patterns, their sources of scientific information, their resources, interests, political activities, and their beliefs about climate policy. We started our analysis by running Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGM) for all four countries. Our preliminary results underline the assumption that collaboration obeys other rules in different institutional settings and gave a first impression of possible correlations between institutional characteristics and collaboration. Refining the analysis with a systematic, qualitative comparative of the four cases is the next step. The aim of this endeavour is to develop a blueprint of the relationship between institutional factors and collaborative actor behaviour to be further developed by future research and to draw some first conclusions about the implications for policy output.

The righteous mind : why good people are divided by politics and religion / Jonathan Haidt. New York : Pantheon Books, 2012.

Pragmatism has sometimes been taken as a catchphrase for epistemological stances in which anything goes. However, other authors argue that the real novelty and contribution of this tradition has to do with its view of action as the context in which all things human take place. Thus, it is action rather than, for example, discourses that should be our starting point in social theory. The introductory section of the book situates pragmatism (especially the ideas of G. H. Mead and John Dewey) within the field and tradition of social theory. This introductory also contextualizes the main core of the book which consists of four chapters. Two of these chapters have been published as articles in scientific journals and one in an edited book. All of them discuss the core problem of social theory: how is action related to social structures (and vice versa)? The argument is that habitual action is the explanation for the emergence of social structures from our action. Action produces structures and social reproduction takes place when action is habitualized; that is, when we develop social dispositions to act in a certain manner in familiar environments. This also means that even though the physical environment is the same for all of us, our habits structure it into different kinds of action possibilities. Each chapter highlights these general insights from different angles. Practice theory has gained momentum in recent years and it has many commonalities with pragmatism because both highlight the situated and corporeal character of human activity. One famous proponent of practice theory is Margaret Archer who has argued that the pragmatism of G. H. Mead leads to an oversocialized conception of selfhood. Mead does indeed present a socialized view of selfhood but this is a meta-sociological argument rather than a substantial sociological claim. Accordingly, one can argue that in this general sense intersubjectivity precedes subjectivity and not the other way around. Such a view does not indicate that our social relation would necessarily "colonize" individual action because there is a place for internal conversations (in Archer s terminology); it is especially in those phases of action where it meets obstacles due to the changes of the environment. The second issue discussed has the background assumption that social structures can fruitfully be conceptualized as institutions. A general classification of different institution theories is presented and it is argued that there is a need for a habitual theory of institutions due to the problems associated with these other theories. So-called habitual institutionalism accounts for institutions in terms of established and prevalent social dispositions that structure our social interactions. The germs of this institution theory can be found in the work of Thorstein Veblen. Since Veblen s times, these ideas have been discussed for example, by the economist Geoffrey M. Hodgson. His ideas on the evolution of institutions are presented but a critical stance is taken towards his tendency of defining institutions with the help of rules because rules are not always present in institutions. Accordingly, habitual action is the most basic but by no means the only aspect of institutional reproduction. The third chapter deals with theme of action and structures in the context of Pierre Bourdieu s thought. Bourdieu s term habitus refers to a system of dispositions which structure social fields. It is argued that habits come close to the concept of habitus in the sense that the latter consists of particular kinds of habits; those that are related to the reproduction of socioeconomic positions. Habits are thus constituents of a general theory of societal reproduction whereas habitus is a systematic combination of socioeconomic habits. The fourth theme relates to issues of social change and development. The capabilities approach has been associated with the name of Amartya Sen, for example, and it underscores problems inhering in economistic ways of evaluating social development. However, Sen s argument has some theoretical problems. For example, his theory cannot adequately confront the problem of relativism. In addition, Sen s discussion lacks also a theory of the role of the public. With the help of arguments derived from pragmatism, one gets an action-based, socially constituted view of freedom in which the role of the public is essential. In general, it is argued that a socially constituted view of agency does not necessarily to lead to pessimistic conclusions about the freedom of action. Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja yhteiskuntateorian yksi visaisimmista peruskysymyksistä liittyy siihen, mikä on yksilöiden toiminnan ja yhteiskuntarakenteiden välinen suhde. Monet teoriat painottavat toista näistä näkökulmasta toisen kustannuksella. Tällöin saatetaan esimerkiksi väittää, että yhteiskuntarakenteet ovat puhtaasti yksilöllisten valintojen summa. Tässä tutkimuksessa peruskysymystä tarkastellaan pragmatismina tunnetun ajattelusuuntauksen avulla. Pragmatismi on perinteisesti korostanut käytäntöjen ja toiminnan keskeisyyttä. Perusoletus on se, että sosiaalisesti tavanmukaistunut (habitual) toiminta on omiaan tuottamaan ja myös ylläpitämään yhteiskuntarakenteita. Niinpä tuttu sosiaalinen tilanne yleensä saa ihmiset toimimaan niin kuin on ennenkin toimittu. Joskus totutuista kaavoista toki myös poiketaan, mutta tämä vaatii erityistä paneutumista asiaan ja on helpompaa silloin, kun tilanne kannustaa siihen esimerkiksi muuttuvien olosuhteiden kautta. Vaikka elämmekin kaikki samassa fysikaalisessa maailmassa, toimintatapamme järjestävät ympäristön erilaisiksi toimintamahdollisuuksiksi. Väitöskirja koostuu yhteenvetoluvusta ja neljästä muusta luvusta. Kussakin näistä neljästä luvusta sovelletaan tutkimuksen perusajatusta tiettyyn nyky-yhteiskuntateoreettiseen teemaan. G. H. Meadin pragmatismia on tulkittu niin, että sen on katsottu johtavan ylisosiaaliseen ja yksilöllisyyttä vähättelevään näkemykseen minuudesta. Mead nimittäin argumentoi, että itsetietoisuus syntyy prosessissa, jossa lapsi oppii pikkuhiljaa ennakoimaan muiden asenteita suhteessa itseensä. Mead todellakin edustaa tällaista näkemystä, mutta hän käsittelee lähinnä itsetietoisuuden ja sosiaalisuuden ennakkoehtoja eikä niinkään sano mitään minuuden kulloisestakin sisällöstä. Itse asiassa voidaan väittää, että itsetietoisuus ja oman toiminnan reflektoiminen tulevat mahdolliseksi juuri siitä syystä, että lapsi oppii suhtautumaan itseensä objektina. Tällainen tietoinen reflektio ei kuitenkaan luonnehdi toimintaamme jatkuvasti ja reflektiokin nojaa aiemmin muodostuneisiin sosiaalisiin toimintatapoihin. Yhteiskuntarakenteiden olemuksesta on viime vuosina käyty vilkasta keskustelua puhumalla instituutioista. Tutkimus käsittelee erilaisia instituutioteorioita ja esittää, että niiden rinnalle voidaan hahmottaa niin sanottu habituaalinen instituutioteoria. Tässä teoriassa esimerkiksi säännöt tai tiedolliset diskurssit eivät näyttele itsenäistä roolia, sillä ne saavat merkityksensä osana tavanmukaistuneita toimintaprosesseja. Monet toimintatavoistamme liittyvät sosioekonomiseen asemaan ja taustaan. Näin ollen esimerkiksi koulutus korreloi vahvasti sen kanssa, millaisia toimintatapoja kullakin sattuu olemaan. Edesmennyt ranskalaissosiologi Pierre Bourdieu korosti habitus-käsitteellään juuri sosioekonomisten asemien merkitystä, mutta on hyvä huomata, että suinkaan kaikki toimintatapamme eivät ole sosioekonomisen aseman sanelemia. Ihmiset eivät muutoinkaan ole vain tapojensa orjia, sillä toimintatapojen muuttamisen tapa on sekin mahdollinen, mikäli ympäristö siihen kannustaa. Voidaan myös väittää, että yhteiskunnallista kehitystä voi mitata sen mukaan, missä määrin ihmisten toimintamahdollisuudet (capabilities) voivat toteutua. Esimerkiksi taloustieteen nobelisti Amartya Sen on korostanut tätä näkökohtaa. Senin teoriassa on kuitenkin ongelmia, sillä se ei kunnolla tarkastele relativismin ongelmaa eikä sitä, mikä on julkisen keskustelun rooli kehityksen arvioimisessa. Klassisten pragmatistien, G. H. Meadin ja John Deweyn argumentteja yhdistelemällä voidaan muodostaa näkemys, jossa toimintamahdollisuuksien voimakas riippuvuus sosiaalisesta kontekstista myönnetään, mutta jossa ei kuitenkaan päädytä pessimistisiin näkemyksiin toiminnan vapausasteista.

Only abstract. Paper copies of master’s theses are listed in the Helka database (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Electronic copies of master’s theses are either available as open access or only on thesis terminals in the Helsinki University Library. Vain tiivistelmä. Sidottujen gradujen saatavuuden voit tarkistaa Helka-tietokannasta (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Digitaaliset gradut voivat olla luettavissa avoimesti verkossa tai rajoitetusti kirjaston opinnäytekioskeilla. Endast sammandrag. Inbundna avhandlingar kan sökas i Helka-databasen (http://www.helsinki.fi/helka). Elektroniska kopior av avhandlingar finns antingen öppet på nätet eller endast tillgängliga i bibliotekets avhandlingsterminaler. Instituutiot ovat viime vuosikymmeninä nousseet taloustieteen ja taloussosiologian keskeisiksi teemoiksi erilaisten uusien institutionalististen teoriaperinteiden muodossa. Kirjallisuudessa on tapana erottaa toisistaan vanha ja uusi institutionalismi. Tutkielmassa tarkastellaan näiden oppiaineiden uusiksi ja vanhoiksi institutionalismeiksi kutsuttujen lähestymistapojen erilaisia instituutiokäsityksiä ja niiden teoreettisia taustaoletuksia. Tapaustutkimuksellisena esimerkkinä käytetään eri institutionalismien teoretisointeja omistusinstituutiosta, joka on erityisen tärkeä käsittelyn kohde taloustieteen uudessa institutionalismissa. Teoriaperinteiden instituutiokäsitysten hahmottamiseen käytetään Richard Scottin jaottelua instituutioiden regulatiivisiin, normatiivisiin ja kulttuuris-kognitiivisiin ulottuvuuksiin sekä Risto Heiskalan erottamaa neljättä, pragmatistisen institutionalismin ulottuvuutta. Sen keskeisin edustaja taloustieteessä on Geoffrey Hodgsonin ja Erkki Kilpisen mukaan Thorstein Veblen. Taloustieteen ja taloussosiologian uudet institutionalismit edustavat regulatiivista instituutionäkemystä, jossa instituutiot ovat ennen kaikkea yksilöiden toimintaa rajoittavia tekijöitä. Émile Durkheimin ja Talcott Parsonsin edustamalle lähestymistavalle ja sosiologis-vaikutteiselle organisaatiotutkimuksen vanhalle institutionalismille instituutiot tarkoittavat yhteisön jäseniä sitovia normeja, kun taas Bergerin ja Luckmannin fenomenologisesta sosiologiasta vaikutteita saanut organisaatiotutkimuksen uusi institutionalismi pitää instituutioita kulttuuris-kognitiivisina merkityskehyksinä, jotka ovat toimijoille itsestäänselvyyksiä. Kaikkein laajin instituution määritelmä löytyy kuitenkin taloustieteen vanhasta institutionalismista. Sen edustajista Veblen sai vaikutteita pragmatistisesta filosofiasta. Tutkielmassa vebleniläistä lähestymistapaa kutsutaan habituaaliseksi institutionalismiksi, koska siinä instituutiot pohjaavat ennen kaikkea habituaaliseen toimintaan niin, että yksilöiden habituaalistuneen toiminnan katsotaan tuottavan instituutiot, mutta toisaalta instituutiot tuottavat yksilöt, jatkuvassa produktion ja reproduktion prosessissa. Habituaalisen institutionalismin perspektiivistä niin sanottu laskelmoiva rationaalisuus ei luonnehdi normaalisti edes taloudellista käyttäytymistä muuten kuin sellaisena eritystapauksena, joka aiheutuu toiminnan kriisitilanteista, joissa habituaalistunut toiminta kohtaa esteitä toiminnan ympäristön muuttuessa. Myös kulttuuris-kognitiivisessa instituutionäkemyksessä käsitellään tapoja, mutta siinä johdetaan tiedostamattomat tavat alun perin tietoisesta toiminnasta, mikä aiheuttaa teoreettisia ongelmia. Pragmatismissa päättely taas kulkee toiseen suuntaan niin, että tietoinen toiminta johdetaan tavanmukaisesta toiminnasta. Tutkielmassa selvitetään institutionalismien erilaisia taustaoletuksia ja pohditaan myös sellaisen mallin mahdollisuutta, missä eri instituutionäkemysten vahvuudet voidaan yhdistää. Mittapuuna tällaisessa yhdistämisessä käytetään Veblenin habituaalista institutionalismia, johon muiden institutionalismien taustaoletukset pyritään sovittamaan.