An advocacy coalition framework approach to the rise and fall of Social Partnership

The advent of Social Partnership in response to deep economic crisis and the dissolution of Social Partnership in response to deep economic crisis creates something of a conundrum for studies of public policy. Though it is typically assumed that external crises pre-empt major policy change, the Irish case is counter-intuitive. If Social Partnership was acclaimed as the successful response to the economic crisis of the 1980s, why was it not used as such in response to the economic crisis of the 2008/9. If Social Partnership was not an effective means to manage macro-economic policy, why did it last so long? Whilst alternative political narratives may offer answers to these questions, they do not offer any conceptualization of the policy process as a whole and the determinants of policy change. This article uses recent and revised Advocacy Coalition Framework approaches to examine the evolution and dissolution of Social Partnership, applying the framework's insights into crisis and policy change as a means of explaining the rise and demise of Irish Social Partnership.