Pathways to Dam Construction and Removal: Comparing cases of South Korea and the United States

This paper investigates the conditions under which policy change occurs — or fails to occur — by applying the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to four cases of dam construction and removal in South Korea and the United States. Using process tracing, the study examines how coalitions, institutional contexts, and triggering events interact to shape policy outcomes. The analysis finds that while external and internal events are consistently present across all cases, their occurrence alone is not sufficient to produce change. Policy change occurred only when such events were followed by negotiated agreements and supported by adequate coalition resources. These findings suggest that triggering events may serve as necessary but not sufficient conditions for policy change within the cases analyzed. More broadly, the results emphasize the importance of institutional structures, coalition dynamics, and the presence of viable negotiation mechanisms in enabling or constraining policy transformation.