This study uses content analysis of recent Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) research to determine the scope of MSA applications, examining the consistency, and coherence with which concepts of MSA are applied. Our analysis examines peer‐reviewed articles testing MSA concepts available in English published from 2000 through 2013 (N = 311). Among other findings, we observe that MSA is applied to study 65 different countries, at multiple levels of governance, across 22 different policy areas, and by researchers spanning the globe. Our findings suggest that while MSA is prolific, consistency across applications—in terms of operationalization of MSA core concepts—is needed to facilitate theoretical development of the approach.

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I apply the multiple streams lens, which was originally developed to explain agenda-setting in national systems, to the EU policy formation (agenda-setting and decision-making) process. Choice is the result of coupling by policy entrepreneurs of three relatively independent streams-problems, politics, and policies. Each stream is conceptualized as having a life and dynamics of its own. At fortuitous moments in time, skilled policy entrepreneurs will attempt to couple the streams together by "selling" their pet package of problem and policy to a receptive political audience. The chances that a particular policy will be adopted increase when all three streams are coupled together. I conclude with implications for the debate of the role of institutions, actors, and ideas in EU policy-making and a clarification of two paradoxes of EU policy. The first paradox stresses the centrality of political power in the absence of institutional hierarchies. The second paradox highlights but also circumscribes the role of epistemic communities in the EU.

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Why do some policies adopted by a wide margin fail to be implemented? Highlighting the role of policy entrepreneurial strategies within the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA), we examine the implementation of Greek higher education reform in 2011 to argue that when policies adversely affect the status quo, successful entrepreneurial strategies of issue‐linkage and framing, side payments, and institutional rule manipulation are more likely to lead to implementation failure under conditions of crisis, centralized monopoly, and inconsistent political communication. The findings clarify MSA by specifying the conditions that increase the coupling strategies’ chances of success or failure and illuminate the role ambiguity and conflict play in policy reform and implementation.