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Dealing with cross-sectoral policy problems: An advocacy coalition approach to climate and water policy integration in Northeast Brazil

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Abstract

The governance of several cross-cutting challenges, such as food security, climate change, and sustainable development, calls for integrative policy approaches. However, efforts to better theorize the drivers of integration beyond listing explanatory factors remain weak. Viewing integration as a process of policy change for dealing with complex problems, this study argues that policy integration analysis can benefit from an advocacy coalition approach (ACF) to address this theoretical gap. It illustrates the analytical framework by empirically investigating the drivers of policy (dis)integration in Brazil’s subnational water policy introduced in the 2010s. The level of conflict between coalitions, adjustment of policy beliefs, coordination within and across coalitions, and existence of venues for interaction and policy-oriented learning were presented as factors that can foster or hinder the integration of public policies. Moreover, the study discusses the potential to acknowledge in ACF the mechanisms for coordinating policy actors and instruments, which would facilitate the analysis of the policy processes of cooperation. It also demonstrates that recent droughts in Northeast Brazil have been increasingly related to the local impacts of climate change, contributing to reframing water management as a cross-sectoral climate and water governance issue. The analysis was based on a literature review, semi-structured interviews, and social network analysis.

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Fig. 1

Source: Authors, based on ANEEL (2018) and ANA (2017)

Fig. 2

Source: Authors, based on Candel and Biesbroek (2016), Howlett (2019), Henry (2011), Jenkins-Smith et al. (2014)

Fig. 3

Source: Authors

Fig. 4

Source: Authors, based on survey and interviews’ results

Fig. 5

Source: Authors, based on survey results obtained from analyses conducted using Ucinet

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Notes

  1. From a full roster list, the respondents were asked to indicate the ties as follows: (i) three organizations considered especially influential in the policy domain, (ii) organizations that supported (technically or financially) the actions under their supervision, (iii) organizations that co-implemented or monitored the actions under their supervision, (iv) organizations with which the respondent’s organization regularly exchanged information, (v) and organizations with which the respondent’s organization maintained alliances or partnerships in common agendas, forums, and committees. Limiting answers to three ties of each type renders the survey operational and it aligns with the results on actual density, which are almost always lower in large rather than small networks. The use of this methodology implies that the density of the overall network is predetermined; hence, comparing densities by groups is of higher interest (Borgatti et al., 2013).

  2. These include 30 parameters regarding the drought phenomenon, regional development priorities, public policy approach, sustainability concerns, land and water use priorities, water supply strategies, climate change concerns, and rural development strategies. They are detailed in Fig. 4 and in the coalitions’ presentations in the body of the text.

  3. A density higher than 0.5 is considered strong convergence and higher than 0.25 medium convergence. The maximal density, where every actor is tied to every other actor, is 1. A valued network is the total of all values divided by the number of possible ties (Borgatti et al., 2002). Although these two networks (beliefs’ and coalitions’ ties) display the same number of nodes, their densities are comparable not in absolute terms but in proportionately. The networks analyzed here were valued and actors were asked to indicate up to three other actors in each type of relationship, accounting for a maximum of 15 ties for an actor. This considerably reduces the total number of possible ties, reducing maximum network density in comparison with that of the belief matrix.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank the interviewees who shared their time and perspectives with us. We would also like to thank Pedro Gama, Francislene Angelotti, and Embrapa Semiarido team who helped us during the first stages of the research project. Finally, we would like to thank the participants of the International Conference on Public Policy, held in Montreal in 2019, who provided insights that greatly assisted the reformulation of the first draft of the paper.

Funding

This work was supported by the Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie [ARTIMIX N° ANR-17-CE03-0005]; Association Nationale de la Recherche et de la Technologie [TYPOCLIM ANR-16-IDEX-0006]; Brazil’s CNPq/Capes/FAPDF [INCT no 16–2014 ODISSEIA].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Agricultural Research and Development (CIRAD/UMR ART-Dev), Montpellier, France

    Carolina Milhorance, Jean-François Le Coq & Eric Sabourin

  2. Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Brasilia (CDS/UnB), Brasilia, Brazil

    Eric Sabourin

  3. Montpellier University of Excellence (MUSE), Montpellier, France

    Jean-François Le Coq & Eric Sabourin

  4. International Center for Tropical Agriculture (Alliance Biodiversity-CIAT), Cali, Colombia

    Jean-François Le Coq

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  1. Carolina Milhorance
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Correspondence to Carolina Milhorance.

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Milhorance, C., Le Coq, JF. & Sabourin, E. Dealing with cross-sectoral policy problems: An advocacy coalition approach to climate and water policy integration in Northeast Brazil. Policy Sci 54, 557–578 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-021-09422-6

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