@article{Baiamonte:299678,
      recid = {299678},
      author = {Baiamonte, Valentina},
      title = {From legitimacy to credibility strategies an analysis of  policy diversity in environmental policy networks},
      publisher = {Graduate Institute of International and Development  Studies},
      address = {Geneva. 2022},
      number = {PHD_THESIS},
      pages = {247 pages},
      year = {2022},
      abstract = {This research contributes to academic understanding of  diversity in policy-networks, emphasising three main facets  of diversity: first, diversity as policy novelty, new  solutions emerging from strategic actors in policy-making  debates; second, diversity of beliefs and values within a  coalition, an advocacy strategy to enhance an actors’  credibility; third, diversity as a proxy for legitimacy,  when a debate includes issues from diverse sources, or when  policy positions are represented collectively through  coalitions, often polarised across diverging ideological  continuums.  The three papers of this thesis address these  facets, presenting theoretical frameworks that benefit  scholars working on the formation of coalitions, policy  networks and entrepreneurs, and legitimacy in policy-making  processes. The results suggest three overarching  considerations in respect to diversity. First, diversity,  in the form of novel policy positions, emerges  strategically when actors in favourable network positions  deploy entrepreneurial assets, such as financial resources  and credibility. This enhances academic understanding of  the extent to which endogenous and exogenous features have  multiplicative effects on policy novelty. Second,  credibility can be a motive for actors to join  heterogeneous coalitions with diverging beliefs and values.  Strategies such as greenwashing that enhance the  credibility of the narrative of certain policies and actors  can explain why coalitions include members with  heterogeneous beliefs and values. Thus, the homogeneity of  beliefs within a coalition, a core assumption in the  literature, is complemented with explanations that portray  diversity in coalitions as the outcome of strategic  behaviour of interest groups to enhance their influence.  Third, a new methodological approach allows a more  sophisticated measure of diversity, accounting for the role  of institutions and policy actors in agenda setting, the  role of coalitions in submitting policy positions  collectively, and the polarisation of policies along  ideological continuums. Each of these considerations,  presented in a new set of indicators, allows to precisely  measure an overlooked dimension of diversity within policy  networks.},
      url = {http://repository.graduateinstitute.ch/record/299678},
}