Replication Data for: Endogenous Coalition Formation in Policy Debates

Political actors form coalitions around their joint normative beliefs in order to influence the policy process on contentious issues such as climate change or population aging. Policy process theory maintains that learning within and across coalitions is a central predictor of policy change but has yet to explain how policy learning works. The present article explains the formation and maintenance of coalitions by focusing on the ways actors adopt policy beliefs from other actors in policy debates. A policy debate is a complex social system in which temporal network dependence guides how actors contribute ideological statements. Belief adoption matters in three complementary ways: bonding, which exploits cues within coalitions; bridging, which explores new beliefs outside one’s perimeter; and repulsion, which reinforces polarization between coalitions and cements their belief systems. We formalize this theory of endogenous coalition formation in policy debates and test it on a micro-level empirical dataset.政治行动者围绕共同的规范性信念组建联盟，以期影响气候变化、人口老龄化等争议性议题的政策进程。政策过程理论指出，联盟内部及跨联盟的学习是政策变革的核心预测因子，但该理论尚未阐明政策学习的具体运作机制。本文聚焦政策辩论中行动者从其他行动者处习得政策信念的路径，阐释联盟的形成与维系机制。政策辩论是一个复杂的社会系统，其中时序网络依赖关系主导着行动者表达意识形态言论的方式。信念习得具有三种互补的作用路径：联结（bonding），即利用联盟内部的线索；桥接（bridging），即探索自身边界之外的新信念；排斥（repulsion），即强化联盟间的极化态势并巩固自身的信念体系。本文将政策辩论中内生联盟形成的理论予以形式化，并基于微观层面的经验数据集对该理论展开实证检验。