Volume 18, 2016 Issue #3 – The Multiple Streams Approach in Comparative Policy Research

Kingdon Reconsidered: Ideas, Interests and Institutions in Comparative Policy Analysis

Author Daniel Béland

Subjects:
Kingdon, agenda setting, comparative policy analysis, public policy, multiple streams

Abstract: Initially published in 1984, John W. Kingdon’s Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies has long been classic reading in policy studies. This paper systematically explores its contribution to the analysis of the role of ideas in comparative policy analysis, which has dramatically expanded over the last two decades. Looking at this book about agenda-setting as well as two more recent, and much less cited, chapters by Kingdon, the article explores his perspective on ideas as they relate to the problem, the policy, and the political streams, before addressing crucial issues, such as the role of institutions and the relationship between ideas and interests, that remain central to the current debates within the ever-expanding ideational policy literature. As the article shows, Kingdon’s work, including its flaws, makes a powerful and most relevant contribution to the ideational approach to public policy, which is why this article ends with a synthetic agenda for future comparative research on the role of ideas in policy development.

Framing Effects and Comparative Social Policy Reform: Comparing Blame Avoidance Evidence from Two Experiments

Author: Pascal König

Subjects: welfare state retrenchment, comparative political communication, blame avoidance, framing, Italy 2011–2012, welfare state retrenchment

Abstract: Governments’ policy organization and communication, treated as an independent variable, has been shown to increase the public endorsement of unpopular reforms and to help to avoid blame. This study aims to shed further light on such strategic action from a largely neglected angle. It considers reform communication as a dependent variable and makes the case that the content of this communication does not so much depend upon blame avoidance motives but is primarily a function of contextual factors conditioning the limits and resources for a convincing communication. Using the Italian Monti government as a case where blame avoidance can be expected to be least likely, the analysis nonetheless shows clear features that resemble blame avoidance strategies for this case, namely a pronounced risk framing and justifications based on political cooperation. This communication can however, it is argued, be made plausible in light of political-institutional, political-cultural and economic circumstances.

Bringing Formal Political Institutions into the Multiple Streams Framework: An Analytical Proposal for Comparative Policy Analysis

Author: Reimut Zohlnhöfer, Nicole Herweg, and Christian Huß

Subjects:
multiple streams framework, comparative political institutions, policy entrepreneurs, package deals, manipulation, policy analysis

Abstract: The paper discusses how institutions can be introduced into the Multiple Streams Framework. While the existing literature does not systematically integrate political institutions that structure the decision-making process into the Multiple Streams Framework, the article suggests distinguishing two coupling processes, one for agenda setting and one for decision making. During the latter coupling, the main issue is the adoption of proposals – and formal institutions play an important role here. Political entrepreneurs can ensure the adoption of their bills under conditions of institutional pluralism by conceding concessions, proposing package deals or manipulating the severity or salience of problems.

Explaining Path Dependency and Deviation by Combining Multiple Streams Framework and Historical Institutionalism: A Comparative Analysis of German and Swedish Labor Market Policies

Author: Florian Spohr

Subjects:
John W. Kingdon, multiple streams, historical institutionalism, comparative case study, labor market policy, path dependency, welfare reform

Abstract: This article shows that combining the multiple streams framework with historical institutionalism can help improve both the understanding and explanation of far-reaching, path-departing policy reforms. This argument is illustrated using two case studies that deal with activating labor market reforms in Germany and Sweden. This comparison highlights that path dependency prevails until policy entrepreneurs use political windows to manipulate the policy-making process by altering policy discourses and thinking until the new paradigm is made compatible with the old order.

Weaving the Fabric of Public Policies: Comparing and Integrating Contemporary Frameworks for the Study of Policy Processes

Author: Michael Howlett, Allan McConnell, & Anthony Perl

Subjects:
policy cycles, policy streams, Kingdon, multiple streams models

Abstract: For close to three decades multiple frameworks of policy-making have served as competitive characterizations of policy processes. All claim to provide accounts that capture diverse factors such as changing governance norms, actors and ideas which drive programme interventions and policy outputs. Paradoxically, the resilience of different models such as the policy cycle framework and the multiple streams framework has been accompanied by numerous critiques that they are “incomplete” and even divorced from the real world. This article presents an effort to synthesize and reconcile these frameworks in which the appeal and strengths of each can be retained while going some way to overcoming their weaknesses and limitations. It does so through the introduction of an integrative metaphor for policy-making – what Wayne Parsons termed “weaving” – which can be applied to all stages of public policy, and is flexible enough to cope with issues such as power, complexity and critical junctures while reconciling different groupings and sets of actors highlighted as significant policy players in earlier models. It elaborates this framework before applying it by way of illustration to one of the most controversial policy initiatives in modern British history: the 1989–93 poll tax. The article and case study highlight the potential for its general application in policy studies.

Policy Analysis and Advising Decisionmakers: Don’t Forget the Decisionmaker/Client

Author: Beryl A. Radin

Subjects:
policy analyst, client decisionmaker, client decisionmaker, advising

Abstract: The field of policy analysis rarely emphasizes the role and importance of the relationship between the policy analyst and those whom they are advising. It is a topic that almost never shows up in the policy journals or in panels at policy conferences. The focus of the field has been on the assumptions, tools, roles and reality of the analyst and little acknowledgement that the analyst is an advisor to the decisionmaker – not actually making the decisions. The current experience involving policy advising has moved the field from one that had been found largely in the US to include experience within other countries focusing on the advising function. As such it illustrates similarities and differences that emerge from diverse political, cultural and organizational settings. This range of policy settings indicates both positive and negative experiences with the advising function. The paper uses the comparative approach to contrast the changes over time and to begin to compare the experiences of parliamentary systems with the US shared powers system.

Towards the Comparative Study of Policy Work. A Rejoinder to Radin’s Views on Policy Analysis as “Advice to a Client”

Author : Robert Hoppe

Policy Analysis as Client Advice

Author : Alessandro Colombo