In addition to changing beliefs and resources within policy subsystems, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) identifies two sets of external variables that may affect policy change: (1) generally stable parameters like constitutional and social structures and (2) external events like public opinion and economic conditions. This paper studies how policy actors influence policy change within a policy subsystem where external parameters not only provide a stable environment for coalitions but also impose and maintain policy stasis. Using the local government autonomy (LGA) policy subsystem in Nigeria as our analytical case, we study how the 2024 policy change in favor of LGA occurred. Applying Discourse Network Analysis (DNA) to newspaper data from across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones from 2014 to 2024, we find that (1) policy change under these circumstances involved policy actors shifting from discourse with opponents to engagement with the superior jurisdictions that imposed the stasis; (2) policy actors resorted to redefining the problem away from its more constant elements like the constitution to more variable aspects like the effect of lack of autonomy on local government development. We discuss both the research and policy implications of these findings.
Ikpebe et al. (Wed,) studied this question.