A three-stage model of the maturation of nascent policy subsystems toward stable advocacy coalitions, with evidence from the UK’s response to COVID-19

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

June 9, 2025

Summary:

Policy subsystems are comprised of competing advocacy coalitions, in which public and private political actors with shared belief systems learn from each other and coordinate their strategies in the pursuit of influencing policy making in their favor. While numerous studies have focused on the longevity and structural stability of advocacy coalitions, there is scant theory and evidence on how nascent policy subsystems bifurcate into stable, competing coalitions. This article proposes a three-stage model of problem discovery, differentiation, and consolidation. We apply discourse network analysis to the nascent subsystem of the UK's COVID-19 response in order to study these phases and discuss their applicability and implications for other institutional and issue contexts.

Published in

Policy Studies Journal

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.70047

ISSN

0190292

Subjects

Notes

Online Early

Open Access

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2025 The Author(s). Policy Studies Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Policy Studies Organization.

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