Harben Porter PA 715 November 5th, 2012

AGENDAS, ALTERNATIVES AND PUBLIC POLICIESJOHN KINGDON, 1984

Overview

• Policy ideas travel through three streams: the problem stream, policy stream and politics stream.

• As ideas are floated around specialist communities, they mutate, fragment and recombine with other problems and solutions, at times for years on end.

 

• The three steams flow independently from each other, operating in disconnectedness and organized anarchy until they are joined together to capitalize on a “policy open window.”

Agenda Setting Agenda:

“The list of subjects or problems to which governmental officials (visible participants), and people outside of government closely associated with those officials (hidden participants), pay some serious attention at any given time” (Kingdon 2010, 3).

Governmental: Subjects receiving general awareness

Decision Making: Front-burner issues up for active decision

Issues and Alternatives

Issues: Broad areas of concern

Alternatives: Specific, practical ideas that could be

implemented

Example: Concern over rising cost of medical care versus regulating hospital costs.

ParticipantsVisible Participants

President Congress Political

Appointees Interest Groups

Hidden Participants

Interest Groups Academics Researchers Consultants Bureaucrats Staff

Broad Agenda Items Alternative Specification

Media, Elections, Public OpinionIndirect influence over broad agenda items and alternative

specification

The Garbage Can Model Cohen, March, Olsen 1972, Admin. Science Quarterly

Problems, alternatives and other issues are developed simultaneously. When a choice opportunity arises, visible and hidden players add various ideas and levels of participation into the choice opportunity garbage can. A decision is made on these inputs.

The Federal Government is more akin to the garbage can model than the rational decision making or incremental models.

The Three Streams

The Problem Stream

Problem Identification: Requires the evolution from condition to

problem Often tied to budget indicators Focusing events Crises Symbols Feedback procedures (reports and reviews) Dominated by policy entrepreneurs

The Policies Stream Specialists, academics, special interests and bureaucrats wield their

expertise to test and articulate details of a given problem.

Specialists float ideas, hold hearings and draft proposals which then mutate, fragment and recombine in a policy primeval soup.

Policy entrepreneurs push proposals and encouraging the softening-up process to familiarize policy communities with their ideas.

“Technical feasibility, congruence with the values of community members, and the anticipation of future constraints, including a budget constraint, public acceptability, and politician's receptivity” are needed for survival.

Ideas are softened, transformed, thrown out and then born to new life in tandem with a separate but congruent idea to be reintroduced to the agenda setting process.

The Political Stream

Dominated by visible members of government

More concerned with major issues than alternatives

Affected by national mood, elections, partisan or ideological distributions in congress, interest group pressures and changes in administration

Joining the Streams and the Open Window

Policy open windows are infrequent and fleeting They require policy entrepreneur readiness Windows open due to a change in the political stream, most often with the

introduction of a new administration or turnover in congress To capitalize on an open window, all three streams must come together in a

critical moment of problem recognition, solution development and community readiness

The administration must be receptive to the policy initiative, the alternatives must be adequately known throughout the policy stream, and the solutions must be congruous to the ripe political climate

Policies

Problems

PoliticsCouplin

g

Strea

ms

of Policy Windo

wPolicy Action

Provided clarity to a convoluted series of processes

Too little influence attributed to media, coalitions and individuals

Verbose, chart heavy

Created a context for understanding the evolution of national policy issues such as health care reform

Assessment

Generalizing Multiple Streams Theory

National: The Affordable Care Act

State: Reading Wars of the 1990s

Activity and DiscussionPlastic Bag Law – Multiple Parents Bill – Online Impersonation

LawDoes Kingdon’s 28 year-old theory of agenda setting hold up today? Analyze one of the three California cases below in the context of Kingdon’s multiple-streams theory.To Consider: Consider general awareness and issue “floating.” Consider public opinion, participant influence and administration receptivity. To Answer: Where along the decision agenda process is your case? How did it get there? What visible or hidden players can you identify? Was the issue an alternative to a larger policy? Did it couple with other policy

issues that you can think of? Was there a focusing event? Did magnitude affect the policy? Feedback? Budget? What do you think Kingdon would attribute to the outcome of your case? Are there any factors present in your case that Kingdon does not touch on?

Questions…