This article aims to empirically analyze the behaviors of advocacy coalitions. The AFC(Advocacy Coalition Frameworks), developed by Paul Sabatiers, has been applied to various policy sectors in Korea. The framework considers policy change as the result of learning processes within and between advocacy coalitions. However, in explaining policy change, The AFC focuses change processes of the policy belief system of advocacy coalition. In AFC studies, there have been a few attempts to account for how actors with certain policy belief systems develop and maintain these advocacy coalition.
From the literature on interdependencies, policy beliefs, coalition resources and coalition behaviors(see, for instance, Fenger and Klok, 2001; Zafonte and Sabatier, 1998; Weible and Sabatier, 2005), I designed the analysis framework. In this article, I analyzed the development and maintenance of advocacy coalitions, the coalition behaviors of actors by looking at both interdependencies and policy beliefs of the actors, and coalition resources. In Korea, the importance of this approach was demonstrated by applying it to consolidation among local governments, which was called YeoSu (United) City. Findings indicated the attention for interdependency and policy beliefs of the actors, and coalition resources contribute to explain the behaviors of actors and advocacy coalitions. And I deducted policy implications. First, advocacy coalition behaviors have changed from strong conflict to strong coordination during processes of consolidation among local governments. Second, in addition to interdependency and policy belief, political factors affected advocacy coalition behaviors. Third, public entrepreneurs play a important role in changing from strong conflict to strong coordination as to advocacy coalition behaviors.