Co-evolutionary Dynamics of the Development of Connection for Policy Conflict Resolution by Policy Actors Across Advocacy Coalitions and Their Media Attention-Seeking Strategies in Environmental Governance

Abstract

Policy actors striving to translate their policy beliefs into public policies in conflictual environmental policy-making processes forge formal and informal connections wisth other actors in their own advocacy coalitions or across multiple competing coalitions. These actors also strategically utilize the news media’s coverage of or attention to their own or potential partners’ development of connections to better achieve policy goals in these processes. Although there have been many separate studies on interactions among policy stakeholders in policy subsystems and the roles of media attention to policy actors and issues in public policy processes, very few studies have addressed the mutual influences between the emergence of sub-networks and behavioural changes throughout the stages of environmental policy conflict resolution. Hence, this research, which is based on the concepts of social selection and contagion/influence mechanisms, could contribute to a better understanding of the social mechanisms that determine how connection formations used for advocacy expansion and media attention-seeking behaviours could coexist or coevolve and how these interactions lead to more effective policy dispute resolution.