Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
In “Putting Ideas in Their Place,” George Hoberg raises some important and persistent questions about the explanation of policy change. In particular, he suggests that our attempt to demonstrate the role played by ideas in changing forest policy in British Columbia using Paul Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) gives excessive weight to ideas at the expense of more traditional concerns with power and interest. Although it is unclear whether he places the blame on the ACF itself or merely on the way we have employed it, the burden of his critique is that we fail to live up to our commitment to show how ideas and interests can be combined in a more comprehensive form of explanation than one which appeals to interests alone. Worse still, by our reckless overstatement of the case for ideas, we risk creating a “straw monster,” thereby warping the judgment of an entire generation of political scientists.
1 See Hoberg, George, “Putting Ideas in Their Place: A Response to ‘Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector,’” this Journal 29 (1996), 135–44.Google Scholar For our original article, see Lertzman, Ken, Rayner, Jeremy and Wilson, Jeremy, “Learning and Change in the British Columbia Forest Policy Sector: A Consideration of Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework,” this Journal 29 (1996), 111–33.Google Scholar
2 Hoberg, “Putting Ideas in Their Place,” 143–44.
3 Ibid., 136.
4 Ibid., 142.
5 Ibid., 144.
6 Bennet, Colin and Howlett, Michael, “The Lessons of Learning: Reconciling Theories of Policy Learning and Policy Change,” Policy Sciences 25 (1992), 275–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7 Lertzman, Rayner and Wilson, “Learning and Change,” 112.