Abstract
Competing coalitions can stabilise policymaking and hinder policy changes that are required to address the mounting pressures on land use systems across the globe. Thus, understanding the driving forces of coalition formation is important. This paper builds on the Advocacy Coalition Framework to determine the relative contributions of two sets of beliefs (more general policy core beliefs and more specific beliefs concerning policy instruments) to coalition formation in South African tree plantation politics and to identify coalitions therein. Discourse Network Analysis was used to code 656 statements regarding 40 beliefs to create network data from 55 interviews with organisational elites. Results from a network analysis of the twelve most salient beliefs indicate that dissimilar policy core beliefs about the validity of environmental regulation, social costs of tree plantations, and the conditionality of land reform in South Africa divide actors into two coalitions: the hegemonic “business-as-usual” coalition and the minority “justice and change” coalition. These boundaries were confirmed by comparing the network based on shared policy core beliefs with a co-ordination network. Dissimilar beliefs concerning policy instruments, including eco-certification and an indicative zoning, also divide actors, yet actors’ reasoning for or against these instruments differ to the degree that united fronts are unlikely to form. Hegemonic coalitions that combine selected state and business interests with labour arguments and prioritise short-term economic efficiency threaten to delay the necessary changes away from business-as-usual across land use systems in South Africa and beyond.
Highlights
The state of the global ecosystem continues to decline as a conse quence of the increasing exploitation of natural resources by humans (Díaz et al, 2019; Erb et al, 2018)
Using network data collected through 55 interviews with organisational elites, this paper addresses two specific research questions: i) Can we identify competing coalitions based on shared policy core beliefs and what is the relative contribution of such beliefs to coalition formation?
We collected our data in South Africa in 2017 through semi-structured interviews with 55 organisational elites that we identified as being involved in the country’s national tree plantation politics
Summary
The state of the global ecosystem continues to decline as a conse quence of the increasing exploitation of natural resources by humans (Díaz et al, 2019; Erb et al, 2018). This decline threatens the ecological processes upon which humanity depends (Pilling et al, 2020; Song, 2018; Steffen et al, 2018). Actors form coalitions to push for policy change, to defend material interests, or to uphold an existing social order. It is often crucial for a policy actor to be a member of coalition to achieve success in the policy process (Baumgartner and Jones, 1991). If a hegemonic coalition connects powerful actors and prioritises, for example, high and predictable supplies of biomass in the short term over long-range sustainability, coalition formation can be the focal social
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