| Sumario: | Policy subsystems are comprised of competing advocacy coalitions, in which public and private political actors with shared belief systems learn from each other and coordinate their strategies in the pursuit of influencing policy making in their favor. While numerous studies have focused on the longevity and structural stability of advocacy coalitions, there is scant theory and evidence on how nascent policy subsystems bifurcate into stable, competing coalitions. This article proposes a three‐stage model of problem discovery, differentiation, and consolidation. We apply discourse network analysis to the nascent subsystem of the UK's COVID‐19 response in order to study these phases and discuss their applicability and implications for other institutional and issue contexts.
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