Thursday, October 20, 2016
2:00pm – 4:00pm
GL 164

In 2005, the Ontario government passed the Places to Grow Act and the Greenbelt Act, both major changes in land use policy designed to preserve greenspaces and combat urban sprawl in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, Canada’s largest conurbation. This research presentation examines the actors, actor beliefs, and inter-actor alliances in the southern Ontario land use policy subsystem from the perspective of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Specifically, it shows the results of an empirical examination of the ACF’s Belief Homophily Hypothesis, which holds that inter-actor alliances form on the basis of shared policy-relevant beliefs, creating advocacy coalitions. The analysis finds strong evidence of three advocacy coalitions in the policy subsystem – an agricultural coalition, an environmentalist coalition, and a developers’ coalition – as predicted by the hypothesis. However, it also finds equally strong evidence of a cross-coalition coordination network of peak organizations, something not predicted by the Belief Homophily Hypothesis, and in need of explanation within the ACF.

Tim Heinmiller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science. Profesor Heinmiller came to Brock’s Department of Political Science in 2005, after completing a Ph.D. in Comparative Public Policy at McMaster University, and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Western Ontario. His research focuses on Canadian and comparative public policy, investigating why governments choose some policies over others. Much of his research has focused on water policy development in Canada and elsewhere, but his more recent work has expanded into other environmental policy areas and even into health and criminal justice policy. A common strain in all of his research is the application and development public policy process theories, and he has published work using most of the mainstream theories of the policy process.

For further information, please contact Zachary Spicer.