Advocacy Coalitions Along the Domestic‐Foreign Frontier: Globalization and Canadian Climate Change Policy

Abstract

With its emphasis on shared beliefs and the advocacy use of knowledge within policy subsystems, the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) is ideally suited to the study of environmental policy. Yet the ACF has generally been applied in a domestic context. This article argues that the twin phenomena of economic globalization and the internationalization of environmental affairs are blurring the distinction between some policy subsystems and the international arena. Thus, advocacy coalitions should be understood as operating increasingly along “the domestic‐foreign frontier.” In the case of Canada's efforts to develop a coherent climate change policy, the boundaries between political levels have been blurred as local and provincial actors come to understand themselves as players in a global game. This dynamic is exacerbated by Canada's unique constitutional division of authority, which delegates significant autonomy to the provinces on natural resource and energy issues.