What changes policies? Ideas against interests. Change in the model of management of Spanish airports

© 2016, Centro Estudios Politicos Constitucionales. All rights reserved. This article analyses the policy of the Spanish government in relation to a potential change in the model of airport management, through the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). This theoretical framework and other theories explain the shift of policies based on ideas, beliefs and learning processes. This study confirms some of the hypotheses of the ACF but at the same time points to the weakness of the framework, because it does not include the analysis of the interaction between beliefs at the micro-policy system level and political interests at the macro level. Along the same line of argumentation, the ACF does not pay enough attention to the institutional features that condition the authority of the executive to adopt new policies.