Abstract
ABSTRACT Political actors participate in policy debates as an advocacy strategy to influence political opponents and public opinion. They often engage in cross-sectoral advocacy by participating in multiple adjacent debates. To investigate what factors influence cross-sectoral advocacy in policy debates, we examined advocacy coalitions in two health policy debates in the UK – the regulation of sugar-sweetened beverages and alcoholic drinks. We predicted cross-sectoral advocacy efforts across 237 actors, such as health charities, manufacturers, or retailers, as a function of their belief system alignment relative to their advocacy coalition. In a methodological innovation, Bayesian item response models were applied to policy beliefs stated publicly by actors in eleven newspapers to measure the ideological positions of actors and beliefs relative to their advocacy coalition. Extreme belief alignment relative to one’s coalition, a small spread of stated beliefs, and a strong engagement were found to explain cross-sectoral advocacy.
Highlights
Political actors often have a vested interest in specific policies
We aim to explain why some actors engage in cross-sectoral advocacy efforts and make use of this resource while others commit to a single policy debate
We derive two measures of belief system alignment from these estimates: the relative location of an actor in the belief system of its coalition and the spread of an actor’s beliefs relative to the collective belief system. Using these methods, we present a joint analysis of two health policies and the public debates surrounding their introduction: Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol (MUP) and the Soft Drinks Industry Levy (SDIL)
Summary
Political actors often have a vested interest in specific policies. To achieve their policy goals, they engage in advocacy. Advocacy efforts can take different forms, such as lobbying or engagement in policy debates. When actors participate in policy debates, they try to sway public opinion or influence their political opponents (Fischer & Forester, 1993; Jenkins-Smith et al, 1991). Each actor holds a complex system of policy beliefs. They feed into an actor’s decision on what to contribute to a policy debate, when, and how
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
