Advocacy Coalitions in Crisis Resolution: Understanding Policy Dispute in the European Volcanic Ash Cloud Crisis

Disruptive crises are generally conducive to policy conflict between multiple stakeholders. Following the potentially adversarial nature of crisis resolution, there is a need for theoretical approaches to advance the understanding of the political context in which such disputes evolve. This article explains how the advocacy coalition framework ( ACF ) can be applied as a theoretical basis for understanding the development and effects of policy conflicts in crisis resolution. Illustrating the ACF as a tool for descriptive policy analysis in this context, the article conducts a case study of the European response to the 2010 volcanic ash cloud crisis, focusing on the nature of the policy subsystem, the role of scientific information, competing crisis narratives, exploitation of resources and venues, and policy change. The concluding section identifies a set of theoretical implications and specifies how the framework can be used by practitioners to mitigate the effects of policy conflicts on crisis resolution.