Straddling multiple streams: focusing events, policy entrepreneurs and problem brokers in the governance of English fire and rescue services

Abstract

Empirical studies that use the multiple streams approach often examine cases of reactive policymaking in response to "focusing events", rather than proactive policymakers who seek to broker or construct problems that their preferred solution might address. Drawing on publicly-available debates about reforms to fire and rescue services in seven areas of England, we show how individuals within small policy subsystems may construct problems to try and convince others to support their preferred policy solution. By straddling all three streams and acting as endogenous policy entrepreneurs, policymakers and problem brokers simultaneously, we highlight how these actors can exert substantial influence over policymaking processesalthough consensus within the political stream about the existence of a genuine problem is still a key factor in facilitating change. These insights allow us to introduce a more obvious power dimension and greater predictive capacity into the multiple streams approach.

Policy Analysis for Implementing Neuroethics in Korea’s Brain Research Promotion Act

“…Policy entrepreneurs need to-formally and informally-form prior opinion exchanges and cooperative relationships with the gatekeepers who establish and enforce the policy so that the gatekeepers can determine the appropriate policy agendas. In addition, policy entrepreneurs serve as a support for the gatekeeper to achieve the desired policy output throughout the entire policy process [27,28].…”

Understanding the role of institutions in the multiple streams approach through the recognition of the diaspora as a development agent in Cameroon

“…This understanding of networks transcends streams by recognizing that a network can be made of multiple organizations whose activities may operate in one or more streams. The possibility for organizations to straddle the three streams to maximize their chances of success by influencing the mechanisms at work in each stream (Eckersley & Lakoma, 2022 ) does not negate the independence of the streams or some specialization of these organizations (Kingdon, 1995 , p. 87). On this point, studies examining the interactions between the streams have found that their independence is tempered when institutions and actors, among others, operating in the politics stream shape policy outcomes on the one hand (Robinson & Eller, 2010 ) and politicize problem indicators, thereby diminishing their effect on policy-maker attention, on the other hand (DeLeo & Duarte, 2022 ).…”

Preparedness and crisis‐driven policy change: COVID‐19, digital readiness, and information technology professionals in Canadian local government

“…But, if electronic meetings were a potential solution, no one person or group was making the effort to change the problem framing around electronic meetings, build a network of like‐minded partners, head off potential sources of opposition, and shop the idea to different jurisdictions (see Petridou & Mintrom, 2021: 945–946). In other words, electronic meetings were lacking a policy entrepreneur prior to the pandemic—a key driver of policy change, according to the MSF (Herweg et al, 2018; Mintrom, 2019; Eckersley & Lakoma, 2021), as well as other theories of the policy process (Shpaizman et al, 2016; Arnold, 2021; Petridou & Mintrom, 2021). Intergovernmental dynamics complicated matters as well.…”