Policy processes in South Korea through the lens of the Advocacy Coalition Framework

The central challenge in advancing the study of public policy is developing portable approaches that capture the specificity of a particular context while also identifying generalities. This article explores the portability of the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) to South Korea. The arguments are drawn from a comprehensive review of 67 peer-reviewed applications of the ACF in South Korea from 2002 through 2014 that were written in English and Korean languages. These applications of the ACF show usefulness but not without some reservations about its applicability and its capacity to generate original insights about the South Korean policy processes.