Sabatier, Paul (1944-)

Paul A. Sabatier is a political scientist and professor of environmental science and policy at the University of California, Davis. Sabatier is best known for his research on policy change and implementation, and particularly for the advocacy coalition framework (ACF), which he developed in conjunction with Hank Jenkins-Smith.

Sabatier earned a BA at Austin College, and an MA and PhD at the University of Chicago. He began his academic career at University of California, Davis, in 1972 and has served as a visiting scholar at a range of institutions, including Institut d'Éducation, Université de Paris-Dauphine (France), Universität Bielefeld (German Federal Republic), and Nuffield College of Oxford University (United Kingdom). In conjunction with Daniel Mazmanian, Sabatier received the 1997 Aaron Wildavsky Award from the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association in recognition of his enduring contribution to policy studies.

The ACF idea was first published in an article in Policy Sciences in 1988 and updated in 1993, 1999, and 2007 to reflect new findings from empirical applications of the framework. The goal of the framework is to explain how changes in beliefs can be translated into policy shifts over long periods of time (10 years or more). Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith argue that major policy change is rare, because individuals have very stable beliefs and policy preferences. The stability of individuals' preferences is enhanced by their tendency to filter new information subconsciously, accepting as true those notions or facts that affirm existing beliefs while dismissing those that do not. This unintentional and often unrecognized bias predisposes individuals to reject change, and may also exacerbate tensions with other actors in the same policy subsystem who hold conflicting beliefs and policy preferences. The ACF assumes that policy making in most countries is conducted by specialists who can be subdivided according to their preferences into advocacy coalitions. When major policy changes do occur, they are usually made possible by one or more of the following factors: (1) policy-oriented learning (i.e., the acquisition and application of new knowledge relevant to existing policies), (2) external shocks (a necessary but not sufficient path to change, an external shock can be defined as change that is beyond the control of actors in a particular policy subsystem, such as a natural disaster, socioeconomic shift, regime change, etc.), (3) internal shocks (such as a disaster with immediate relevance to the policy subsystem; e.g., a chemical spill), and (4) negotiated agreements (situations in which long-term conflict between coalitions is resolved by mutual consent). Since 1988, the ACF has been applied in over 100 empirical studies of policy change and constitutes one of the major empirical efforts at examining power in complex policy situations.

Sabatier has applied his expertise in policy making, implementation, and bureaucratic behavior to several case studies in the field of environmental policy, including analyses of the U.S. Forest Service, [Page 586]watershed management partnerships, and land use and air pollution in both the United States and Europe.