CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH METHODS 27


based knowledge take place. They include advisory committees, confer- ences, and journals of professional groups and temporary groupings such as “science courts.” Policy-oriented learning is more likely to take place in forums that are dominated by professional norms and that are prestigious enough to attract researchers belonging to different belief systems.


Empirical Research Methods Questions Addressed


Based on the conceptual framework developed earlier, the following questions guided the empirical research of this study: • What were their interests and beliefs? • Which actors formed discourse coalitions? • Which resources could different actors and coalitions mobilize to create political capital?


• How did the political interaction of different actors and coalitions influ- ence policy outcomes?


The study posed the following questions regarding the role of different factors that influence political outcomes: • Interest groups. Was there a close congruence between the position of specific interest groups and the content of the reform package either at the point of agenda setting (that is, drafting a policy reform package) or at the point of legislation or implementation?


• Bureaucracy. Were subsidy-reform proposals developed by one govern- ment department held up at the agenda-setting phase by other competing bureaucratic interests?


• Parliament. Where parliamentary approval was required, was government- proposed legislation for reform of the subsidy regime vetoed or blocked by parliamentary players?


• Party coalitions. Were proposals by the central government for fertilizer policy reform rejected either by state chief ministers (or their representa- tives) or by the political leadership of regional parties at the central level? What role did coalitions of political parties play in the reform of electricity supply to agriculture at the state level?


• Ideas. Which arguments did different groups of actors make to propose, criticize, and defend different reform proposals? Which core beliefs, policy beliefs, and factual and causal beliefs did they articulate?


• International pressure. Were international actors able to exercise political pressure in favor of reforms?


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