Make it loud and simple: Coalition politics and problem framing in the French policy process of hydraulic fracturing

Abstract

AbstractBased on a case study and media content analysis, we rely on insights from the advocacy coalition framework and from the narrative policy framework to conduct a congruence analysis of the French politics of hydraulic fracturing (2010–2017). Despite the lobbying of a resourceful coalition of pro‐fracturing policy actors and their strategy of active participation in various professional forums, hydraulic fracturing was partially banned in 2011 and completely prohibited in 2017. Our results relate this ban to the stronger repetition of a simpler framing of the policy problem by the members of the anti‐fracturing coalition. In other words, coalition members willing to transform their policy beliefs into concrete decisions should frame them into loud and simple policy narratives. These findings call for further articulation between the narrative policy framework and the advocacy coalition framework to account for narratives as the essence of strategies that advocacy coalitions develop for influencing policy processes.