Theories of the Policy Process [5 ed.] 9781032311296, 9781032311241, 9781003308201

Citation preview

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“Theories of the Policy Process, Fifth Edition continues to define public policy scholarship more than two decades after the first edition was published. The authors, under the editorial guidance of Chris Weible, deliver theoretically innovative material through the circumspect curation of updated chapters, a feat not insignificant for the fifth edition of an edited volume. Moreover, Theories of the Policy Process is most empirically relevant in substance and form: the expanding geographical scope of the theories’ practical applications renders the material spatially aware whereas the author teams are diverse, producing polyphonic scholarship. Theories of the Policy Process charted my own career path almost two decades ago – the fifth edition is a compass every student and researcher must possess in order to navigate the complex public policy questions of our time.” Evangelia Petridou, Mid Sweden University, Sweden and NTNU Social Research, Norway “Theories of the Policy Process, Fifth Edition provides the most comprehensive set of theoretical lenses, including comparative lens, to observe complex policy processes. Each lens offered within this book is clear, unique and up to date. It is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the policy process quickly and conduct policy process research better.” Fang Chen, School of Public Affairs, Xiamen University, China “The study of public policy processes is fundamental to our understanding of how governments, organizations and individuals interact over time. In this fifth edition of the famous Theories of the Policy Process book, Christopher Weible manages to give readers a new and improved set of theories and concepts of the policy process. From Punctuated Equilibrium Theory to Narrative Policy Framework to Institutional Analysis and Development, chapter authors (all of them experienced policy process scholars) offer excellent and accessible theoretical insight into how public policy works as well as diverse frameworks and theories to understand it. Keeping Paul Sabatier’s legacy alive, Christopher Weible’s Theories of the Policy Process book is, and will remain, an indispensable source for policy scholars, practitioners and government officials worldwide.” Raul Pacheco-Vega, Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) Sede México, Mexico

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Theories of the Policy Process

Theories of the Policy Process provides a forum for the experts in policy process research to present the basic propositions, empirical evidence, latest updates, and the promising future research opportunities of each policy process theory. In this thoroughly revised fifth edition, each chapter has been updated to reflect recent empirical work, innovative theorizing, and a world facing challenges of historic proportions with climate change, social and political inequities, and pandemics, among recent events. Updated and revised chapters include Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Multiple Streams Framework, Policy Feedback Theory, Advocacy Coalition Framework, Narrative Policy Framework, Institutional and Analysis and Development Framework, and Diffusion and Innovation.This fifth edition includes an entirely new chapter on the Ecology of Games Framework. New authors have been added to most chapters to diversify perspectives and make this latest edition the most internationalized yet. Across the chapters, revisions have clarified concepts and theoretical arguments, expanded and extended the theories’ scope, summarized lessons learned and knowledge gained, and addressed the relevancy of policy process theories. Theories of the Policy Process has been, and remains, the quintessential gateway to the field of policy process research for students, scholars, and practitioners. It’s ideal for those enrolled in policy process courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and those conducting research or undertaking practice in the subject. Christopher M. Weible is a Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on policy process theories, contentious politics, and environmental policy. He is the Editor of Theories of the Policy Process (Routledge, 2023), Co-Editor of Methods of the Policy Process (with Samuel Workman, Routledge, 2022), Co-Editor of Policy & Politics, and Co-Director of the Center for Policy and Democracy.

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Theories of the Policy Process FIFTH EDITION

Edited by Christopher M. Weible

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Designed cover image: © Getty Images Fifth edition published 2023 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Christopher M. Weible; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Christopher M. Weible to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Westview Press 1999 Fourth edition published by Routledge 2018 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Weible, Christopher M., editor. Title: Theories of the policy process / edited by Christopher M. Weible. Description: Fifth Edition. | New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. | Revised edition of Theories of the policy process, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2022061222 (print) | LCCN 2022061223 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032311296 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032311241 (paper back) | ISBN 9781003308201 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Policy sciences. | Political planning. Classification: LCC H97 .T475 2023 (print) | LCC H97 (ebook)| DDC 320.6—dc23/eng/20230302 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061222 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061223 ISBN: 978-1-032-31129-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-31124-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-30820-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201 Typeset in Bembo by codeMantra Access the Support Material: www.routledge.com/9781032311241

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To doctoral students who never stop making policy process theories better

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Contents

List of Figures List of Tables About the Contributors Preface and Acknowledgements to the Fifth Edition Introduction: The Scope and Focus of Policy Process Research and Theories

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C H RI STO P H ER M. WE I B LE

PART I

Theoretical Approaches to Policy Process Research

1 The Multiple Streams Framework: Foundations, Refinements, and Empirical Applications

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N I C O LE H E RWE G, NI KO LAO S ZAHARI AD I S, AND RE I M U T Z O H LNHÖ FE R

2 Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Explaining Stability and Change in Public Policymaking

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F RAN K R . BAUMGARTNE R, B RYAN D. JO NE S, AN D P E T E R B. M ORTE NSE N

3 Policy Feedback Theory

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SU ZAN N E M ETTLE R AND MALLO RY E . SO RE LL E

4 The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Progress and Emerging Areas DA N I E L N O H RSTE D T, K ARI N I NGO LD, CHRI S TOP HER M . WEIBL E, E LI ZAB E T H A . KO E B E LE , K RI STI N L. O LO FSSON, KEIICH I SATOH , AN D H A N K C. JE NK I NS- SMI TH

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x Contents



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Figures

1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 7.1 8.1 8.2

8.3

A Modified MSF Testing the Hypothesis for the Framework as a Whole Annual Percentage Change in Ten Budget Categories in Twenty-Four OECD Countries, 1996–2011 Punctuated Equilibrium Articles over Time Streams of Policy Feedback Inquiry Mechanisms of Policy Feedback for Mass Politics ACF Flowchart NPF’s Policy Narrative: Form and Content Narrative Mechanisms of Policy Change NPF’s Meso-Level Model A Framework for Institutional Analysis Levels of Analysis and Outcomes Rules as Exogenous Variables Directly Affecting the Elements of an Action Situation Bundles of Rights Associated with Positions Stylized Representation of NAS for Governmental Welfare Service Provision Different Conceptions of How Policy Innovations Spread An Illustration of Key EGF Components The Evolution of the SF Bay Sea-Level Rise Governance Network, 1991–2016 (a) Early Network: Forums Created between 1991 and 2007 (b) Later Network: Forums Created between 1991 and 2016 Delta Science Enterprise Network

42 52 82 86 104 113 135 164 168 174 199 203 207 211 213 231 264

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Tables

1.1 1.2 2.1 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 7.1 7.2 8.1 9.1 9.2 9.3

MSF Hypotheses on Agenda Setting MSF Hypotheses on Decision-Making Journals in Which Punctuated Equilibrium Articles Have Been Published Overview of ACF Assumptions Overview of ACF Hypotheses Summary of TotPP Five Major Changes to the NPF The Second-Tier Objects of the SES Framework Research Traditions Summary Organizing Principles behind Policy Diffusion Processes Core EGF Hypotheses and Associated Publications What Elements of a Theoretical Approach Are Included? How Active and Coherent Are the Research Programs? Explains or Emphasizes What Elements of the Policy Process?

40 44 87 159 160 195 216 240 251 286 296 303 307

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About the Contributors

Frank R. Baumgartner is Richard J. Richardson Distinguished Professor of Political Science at UNC–Chapel Hill. His work has focused on agenda – setting, lobbying, and issue framing in the context of US politics as well as in a comparative perspective.With Bryan Jones, Dr. Baumgartner created the Policy Agendas Project, and with many collaborators he has worked to create a comparative network of agendas scholars. Among his books related to the Policy Agendas Project are The Politics of Information (2015), The Politics of Attention (2005), Agendas and Instability in American Politics, all with Bryan D. Jones, and The Dynamics of Public Opinion (2021), with Mary L. Atkinson, Elizabeth Coggins, and James Stimson. He is also the author of numerous books and articles relating to the death penalty and racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Dr. Baumgartner has received numerous awards and recognitions, including a lifetime achievement award from the Political Organizations and Parties section of the American Political Science Association. Paul Cairney  is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Stirling, UK. His research interests are in comparative public policy, including policy theories (Understanding Public Policy, 2020), methods (Handbook of Complexity and Public Policy, 2015, co-edited with Robert Geyer), the use of evidence (The Politics of Evidence-Based Policymaking, 2016), policy outcomes in different countries (Global Tobacco Control, 2012, with Donley Studlar and Hadii Mamudu), and UK and devolved politics (Why Isn’t Government More Preventive?, 2020 with Emily St. Denny). He has been funded by UK and EU agencies to research multilevel policymaking processes, focusing on areas such as inequalities and preventive policymaking (e.g., Public Policy to Reduce Inequalities, with Michael Keating, Sean Kippin, Emily St. Denny). Tanya Heikkila is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Public Affairs, where she also co-directs the Center for Policy and Democracy. Her research and teaching focus on policy processes and environmental governance. She is particularly interested in how conflict and collaboration arise in policy processes, and what types of institutions support collaboration, learning, and conflict resolution.

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xiv  About the Contributors Some of her research has explored these issues in the context of interstate watersheds, large-scale ecosystem restoration programs, and energy development. Since 2020, she has also served as a member of the Delta Independent Science Board for the State of California. Nicole Herweg is Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science in the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. Herweg’s research interests are in comparative public policy. Her research focuses in particular on policy processes, energy policy, and European Union politics. She is the author of European Union Policy-Making. The Regulatory Shift in Natural Gas Market Policy (2017) and has published in academic journals, including the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Policy Sciences, and Policy Studies Journal. Karin Ingold is Professor at the Institute of Political Science as well as the Oeschger Center of Climate Change Research at the University of Bern. She heads the research group entitled “Policy Analysis and Environmental Governance” that is also affiliated to the Environmental Social Science Department at Eawag, the Water Research Institute of the ETH Domain in Zurich. She is interested in studying complex environmental problems and the production of policy solutions. She therefore mainly applies different policy process theories and methods of social network analysis. Hank C. Jenkins-Smith  is George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma and serves as Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA). Professor Jenkins-Smith has published books and articles on public policy, national security, natural disasters, and energy and environmental policy. He has served on National Research Council committees, as an elected member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, and as a member of the Governing Council of the American Political Science Association. His current research focuses on theories of the public policy change, with particular emphasis on the management (and mismanagement) of controversial issues involving high-risk perceptions on the part of the public. Bryan D. Jones is  J.J. “Jake” Pickle Regent’s Chair in Congressional Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and Director of the US Policy Agendas Project. His research centers on American public policy processes, including agenda setting and decision-making. He is the author or co-author of fifteen books, and has authored or co-authored articles in The American Political Science Review, The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, The Policy Studies Journal, The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and others. Jones is Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration. He holds an honorary doctorate from Aarhus University.

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About the Contributors xv Michael D. Jones is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee. He is currently editor-in-chief of the Policy Studies Journal and has published in a wide range of disparate disciplinary venues such as Political Psychology, Social Science Quarterly, Policy and Politics, and Critical Policy Studies, among others. His primary research interest is policy theory, where he has devoted most of his attention to developing the Narrative Policy Framework, a framework focused on understanding the role of stories in shaping policy processes and outcomes. Andrew Karch  is Arleen C. Carlson Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. His research centers on the political determinants of public policy choices in the contemporary United States, with a special focus on federalism and state politics. His most recent book, co-authored with Shanna Rose of Claremont McKenna College, is Responsive States: Federalism and American Public Policy (2019). His previous book, Early Start: Preschool Politics in the United States, was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2013. He is also the author of Democratic Laboratories: Policy Diffusion among the American States (2007). Elizabeth A. Koebele  is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Reno, where she is also affiliated faculty in the Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences. Her research focuses on collaborative governance, water policy and management, and policy process theory. She is Co-Editor of Policy & Politics. Mark Lubell  is Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at University of California, Davis. He studies cooperation problems in the context of environmental policy and governance. He is one of the developers of the Ecology of Games Framework, with empirical applications in the context of water governance and climate change adaptation. Mark K. McBeth  is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Idaho State University. His research focuses on using the Narrative Policy Framework to better understand the role of narrative in public policy. Substantively, his research focuses on a wide range of environmental issues, including wildlife policy, energy and the environment, and climate change. Suzanne Mettler  is John L. Senior Professor of American Institutions in the Department of Government at Cornell University. Her research and teaching interests include public policy, American political development, inequality, political behavior, and democracy. Mettler has written six books, most recently Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy (2020), co-authored with Robert C. Lieberman. Her earlier books include The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine Democracy (2011) and Soldiers to Citizens: The GI Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (2005), winner of the Kammerer Award

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xvi  About the Contributors of the American Political Science Association (APSA) for the best book on US national policy and the J. David Greenstone Award of the APSA Politics and History section. Her short essays and op-eds have been featured in popular outlets including the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Mettler has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and been the recipient of Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowship. Jack Mewhirter  is Associate Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Cincinnati. His research examines the origins, evolution, and resolution of collective action problems within complex governance systems. Much of his work is done within the context of regional water governance and policing. Peter B. Mortensen is Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University. His research interests include policy agenda setting, party competition, and public administration. He is the co-leader of the Danish Agenda Setting Project and leader of The Aarhus Research Group on Local Policy Agendas. His recent co-authored book is Explaining Local Policy Agendas. Institutions, Problems, Elections and Actors (2022). He has published articles in The American Journal of Political Science, The British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, and many others. Daniel Nohrstedt  is Professor in political science in the Department of Government at Uppsala University, Sweden, where he is also a research coordinator in the Centre of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS). He specializes in the policy process, particularly the advocacy coalition framework, spanning empirical applications in environmental policy and governance issues. Kristin L. Olofsson is Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Administration and Affiliated Faculty in Environmental Sciences Graduate Program at Oklahoma State University. She focuses on environmental policy and natural resource management through interdisciplinary approaches. Her work is multi-method, drawing on qualitative content analysis, surveys, interviews, and participatory model building. Osmany Porto de Oliveira  is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp). He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris III (2015) and the University of São Paulo (2013). His research centers on policy diffusion and development cooperation. He received the Early Career Award of the International Public Policy Association – IPPA (Montreal, Canada, 2019) and the Young Researcher Award of the European Council for Social Research on Latin America – CEISAL (Porto, Portugal, 2013). His main books are Handbook of Policy Transfer, Diffusion and Circulation (2021); Latin America and Policy Diffusion (Routledge, 2020), with C. Osorio,

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About the Contributors xvii S. Montero, and C. Leite; and International Policy Diffusion and Participatory Budgeting (2017). He is also an Associate Editor of Policy Sciences and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Policy and Politics. Matthew Robbins  is Lecturer in the Bren School at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He teaches courses in environmental data science, including machines learning and text analysis. He has conducted research on collaborative networks involved in natural resource management. Giulia C. Romano is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, and assistant to the Chair of Political Science with a special focus in East Asia. Her research centers on policy transfer/diffusion, with an emphasis on urban policies and urban governance and a special focus on China. Her most recent book, co-edited with Osmany Porto de Oliveira, is Brazil and China in Knowledge and Policy Transfer (2022). In 2020, she published Changing Urban Renewal Policies in China – Policy Transfer and Policy Learning under Multiple Hierarchies. Keiichi Satoh  is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Hitotsubashi University, Japan. He is interested in social network analysis and applies it to various fields, including policy process theories, social movements, and social capital. Edella Schlager  is Professor in the School of Government and Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on comparative institutional analysis using the IAD framework and its associated tools. Substantively, her research program centers on multi-level and multi-scale governance of transboundary watersheds in the western US and New York State. Elizabeth A. Shanahan is Professor in the Department of Political Science and Associate Vice President for Research at Montana State University. Her research centers on theoretical advancement paired with practical applications of the Narrative Policy Framework in the context of risk. Aaron Smith-Walter is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. His research focuses on the narrative policy framework, cultural theory, and images of public administration in apocalyptic fiction. He also serves as Vice-President of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration, the Associate and Managing Editor of the Policy Studies Journal, and the administrator of the Narrative Policy Framework Online Community. Mallory E. SoRelle is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her research investigates how public policies influence socioeconomic and political inequality in the United States. She is the author of Democracy Declined: The Failed Politics

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xviii  About the Contributors of Consumer Financial Protection and has published articles on the politics of public policy in journals, including Perspectives on Politics, Publius, and Interest Groups & Advocacy. Her research was awarded the 2017 E.E. Schattschneider prize for best dissertation in American government by the American Political Science Association. She holds a PhD in American Politics from Cornell University, a Master of Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BA with honors from Smith College. Dr. SoRelle has worked in both legal advocacy and electoral politics. Jale Tosun  is Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University, Germany. Her research concentrates on topics in comparative public policy and public administration as well as international political economy and European Integration. She is the editor-in-chief of Climate Action, an associate editor of Policy Sciences, and an executive lead editor of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. She has co-authored the textbook Public Policy: A New Introduction and published in outlets such as the Journal of European Public Policy, Policy and Politics, and Public Administration. Sergio Villamayor-Tomas  is Ramon y Cajal researcher in the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA) at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. His research focuses on community-based natural resource management and climate change adaptation in the water and agricultural sectors, using the IAD framework as well as tools and insights from Political Ecology. He has carried empirical work in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, and Europe. Craig Volden is Professor of Public Policy and Politics in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He is also Co-Director of the Center for Effective Lawmaking (www. thelawmakers.org). His research focuses on the politics of public policy, with an emphasis on legislative politics and on American federalism. His most recent book, co-authored with Charles Shipan of the University of Michigan, is Why Bad Policies Spread (And Good One Don’t) (2021). His 2014 book, Legislative Effectiveness in the United States Congress: The Lawmakers, co-authored with Alan Wiseman of Vanderbilt University, won the Fenno Prize for the best book on legislative studies and the Gladys M. Kammerer Award for the best book on US national policy. He has also published numerous articles in journals such as American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Politics. Christopher M. Weible is Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. His research focuses on policy process theories, contentious politics, and environmental policy. He is Editor of the Theories of the Policy Process, Co-Editor of Methods of the Policy Process, Co-Editor of Policy & Politics, and Co-Director of the Center for Policy and Democracy.

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About the Contributors xix Samuel Workman  is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs in the John D. “Jay” Rockefeller School of Policy and Politics at West Virginia University. His work addresses public policy, agenda setting, bureaucracy, regulatory policy, and research methodology. His research uses large data sets to answer fundamental questions about public policy. He is the Principal Investigator of the Education Regulations Project (EdRegs), funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the author of The Dynamics of Bureaucracy in the U.S. Government (Cambridge). His work has appeared in the Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Policy and Politics, Interest Groups & Advocacy, and Towards Data Science. He is a founding Editor of 3Streams. His popular writing focuses on data science and rural public policy, especially politics and public policy in Appalachia. Nikolaos Zahariadis  is Mertie Buckman Chair and Professor of international studies at Rhodes College, USA. He has published widely on issues of comparative public policy and European political economy. When not researching, he wishes the Coronavirus would just die so he can resume taking long inspirational walks on the beach. Reimut Zohlnhöfer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. His research interests include political economy, policy process theory, and West European politics. He is the author and co-editor of several books, including Decision-Making under Ambiguity and Time Constraints. Assessing the Multiple-Streams Framework, 2016 (co-edited with Friedbert W. Rüb). He has published in many leading political science journals, including the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, the European Journal of Political Research, the Journal of European Public Policy, Party Politics, the Policy Studies Journal, Socio-Economic Review, and West European Politics.

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Preface and Acknowledgements to the Fifth Edition

This fifth edition offers the latest revisions to the most established and leading policy process theories. All theories have been revised since the fourth edition to reflect recent empirical work, innovative theorizing, and a world facing challenges of historic proportions. Seven chapters return, including the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, Multiple Streams Framework, Policy Feedback Theory, Advocacy Coalition Framework, Narrative Policy Framework, Institutional and Analysis and Development Framework, and Diffusion and Innovation. A new theory also joins this collection in the Ecology of Games Framework. New authors are added to almost all chapters who help diversify perspectives and make this latest edition the most internationalized yet. Additionally, the Diffusion and Innovation chapter is written by an entirely new author team. Across the chapters, revisions have clarified concepts and theoretical arguments, expanded and extended the theories’ scope, summarized lessons learned and knowledge gained, and, perhaps most indicative of these turbulent times, increasingly addressed the relevancy of policy process theories. The theory chapters are bookended. This volume starts with a completely revised introduction that focuses on introducing the definition and descriptions of policy processes. This volume ends with three chapters, all updated from their earlier versions. They include Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila’s chapter comparing policy process theories and Jale Tosun and Sam Workman’s chapter on comparative research. The book concludes with a rewritten final chapter that summarizes the changes in this volume and an agenda for advancing policy process research and theory. In completing this volume, I wish to thank the Routledge team who have supported this volume and the companion Methods of the Policy Process (with Sam Workman). I also appreciate the anonymous referees who commented on the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal and helped improve this fifth edition. Of course, the contributing authors deserve the lion’s share of the credit. Their commitment to writing chapters with the highest quality standards continues to make this the premier outlet for the most established policy process theories.

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Preface and Acknowledgements to the Fifth Edition xxi I’m also grateful to the doctoral students at the School of Public Affairs in the University of Colorado Denver who, through ongoing discussions, help me understand this field in new ways. Among them, Anna Crawford, Allegra Fullerton, Kayla Gabehart, and Aerang Nam offered helpful edits and comments on the introductory and concluding chapters. These doctoral students – and many others with whom I interact around the world – could be described with an endless list of admirable traits that somehow make them incredibly important for my professional development and advancing this field. It might be their curiosity, never-ending questioning, personal perspectives, work ethic, energy, sense of humor, or something else entirely. I can’t fully describe what they do. All I know is that they make policy process theories better, and so for that, I dedicate this volume to them. To my family, I don’t think I could have achieved much of anything without Jen’s constant support in giving me the time I needed to work and sharing her time with me when I wasn’t working. Above all else, I will always be thankful for her loving patience and understanding, especially when I didn’t know how to stop my academic brain from churning or wasn’t even conscious it was churning. In writing my chapters and compiling the others, Theo, Ezra, and Oli have always been in my mind and heart. As I type, they keep growing into their adult selves, and nothing is as joyful as those moments when I take part in what they do. Finally, I can never say enough about my appreciation to Paul Sabatier, the editor of this volume’s first two editions. Paul put his nisus into creating a field with scientific theories of the policy process with norms of being clear enough to be proven wrong and with notions like clarity begets clarity and mush begets mush. His legacy lives on with those who contribute to and learn from this volume.

Introduction The Scope and Focus of Policy Process Research and Theories Christopher M.Weible

Policy process research refers to the study of public policies and the complex interactions involving people and organizations, events, contexts, and outcomes over time. It involves various dynamics and manifestations of politics as people strive to influence the design and adoption of public policies that might ultimately change the course of societies. The research can entangle stories and narratives, ideas and beliefs, norms and rules, and information and learning. It is shaped by and gives shape to our governing systems, including the formal and informal settings of collective action that might inform, make, and implement public policies. It involves the plurality of engaged people and organizations interacting in various networks, from political parties to advocacy coalitions. Empirically, policy process research is a significant phenomenon and an area of study with ongoing worldwide appeal. It also raises questions about what it means to influence the policy process, the implications for social and political equity, and how to assess and understand the effects on the world. Policy process research is all of this and much more. Experienced scholars and new students find this area of study fascinating. Some want to learn more about why governments do what they do and how they can engage and influence governmental affairs. Others value the study of policy processes because of its expansive and inclusive embrace of politics and government and its original insights in describing and explaining all things related to public policy. Still, others find intriguing the debates and challenges faced by the policy process research community, such as how to make better theories and methods or how to bridge knowledge and action. This volume provides an advanced understanding of policy process research by compiling its leading and most established theories.1 This introduction uses the term “theory” in a general sense to represent a coherent set of ideas embodied in an approach for conducting research to describe, explain, and predict an aspect of the policy process. Theories serve multiple purposes, including a pragmatic need to simplify policy process complexity enabling the making sense of it and learning about it. Theories simplify by suggesting what to look for and ignore and specifying questions or DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-1

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2  Christopher M.Weible objectives.2 Theories also identify and interrelate concepts through hypotheses, principles, propositions, conjectures, and other theoretical arguments.3 Hypotheses depict the interactions in the policy processes, some of which might apply to a particular context and others more generally across many contexts. Theories also offer a common language that enables communication, from those engaging in discussions in classroom settings to those collaborating on a research project comparatively across the globe (Tosun and Workman, 2023). Finally, theories serve as reservoirs of knowledge by encapsulating what is known and suggesting what is unknown. The inevitable challenge for anyone learning about or contributing to policy processes is that any theory gives a limited perspective and, thus, only a partial understanding. Subsequently, the best way to learn about the policy process and compensate for any theory’s limitations is to learn and use multiple theories. Each theory then becomes a complementary metaphorical “lens” offering a distinct view of the policy process, but none provides a complete view (Sabatier, 1999). We might take on and off different theoretical lenses to construct a more comprehensive understanding of a particular policy-process situation or develop generalizable knowledge across policy processes. This introduction begins with a description and definition of the policy process. It then explores the meaning of the policy process in juxtaposition to policy analysis, in the context of the policy sciences and its other foundations, and in contrast to the policy cycle. Finally, it lays out the criteria for including the theories in this volume, an overview of those theories, and strategies for using this volume.

Describing and Defining the Policy Process Any definition and description of the policy process must connote its ambiguous, complex, multifaceted nature with numerous interacting parts and elements that constantly evolve in an inherently political phenomenon with public policies at its core. As mentioned in the previous section, no single theory can capture the entirety of the policy process, but each can offer a perspective, and piecing these perspectives together can advance knowledge about it. This introductory chapter began with a definition of policy process research centered on public policies and including the complex interactions over time among people and organizations (actors) where things happen (events) in a setting (context) and result in outcomes. This definition is intended to be general to allow different interpretations and encapsulate the diversity of scholarship in this volume and beyond. This section unpacks the concepts constituting this definition.4 Public policy refers to the decisions and non-decisions of government or an equivalent authority toward specific objectives (Dye, 1972). Examples of public policies include, but are not limited to, statutes, laws, regulations, executive decisions, court decisions, and commonly understood rules in use

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Introduction  3 that structure behavioral situations in policy processes, such as the sustained practices of “street-level bureaucrats” in delivering public services (Lipsky, 1980; Schneider and Ingram, 1997; Ostrom, 2005). Public policies can include both means and goals and range from procedural to substantive and from symbolic to instrumental. Alternatively, public policies can be understood through their institutions (written rules) that constitute their design and content.5 For instance, some public policies might mainly consist of institutions allocating authority for a given position and requiring information exchanges under certain conditions (Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas, 2023). In studying policy processes, researchers might focus on a single public policy (e.g., a particular welfare law) or many public policies (e.g., the many types of public policies affecting the issue of welfare in a locale). Public policies innately connect to politics in translating and transforming societal values.6 Doing so necessitates a complex and ongoing web of interdependent interactions of activities and situations. These include defining issues as problems and attracting attention to public and governmental agendas (Cobb and Elder, 1971; Kingdon, 1984; Baumgartner et al., 2023; Herweg et al., 2023).When formulating, adopting, and amending public policies, these interactions involve bargaining, coercion, conflict, and cooperation (Mitchell and Mitchell, 1969, 437; Nohrstedt et al., 2023; Porto de Oliveira et al., 2023; Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas, 2023). They also consist in implementing public policies, thereby regulating behaviors, distributing and redistributing resources, changing constructions and interpretations, and delivering public services (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983; Schneider and Ingram, 1993; Mettler and SoRelle, 2023). They involve assessing policy successes and failures (McConnell, 2010) and assigning and avoiding blame (Weaver, 1986; Hinterleitner and Sager, 2015). Finally, these interactions entail acts of argumentation, debates, storytelling, and persuasion about the policy issue in the public discourse (Riker, 1986; Stone, 1989; Fischer and Forester, 1993; Jones et al., 2023). Placing public policy at the fulcrum of policy processes means studying these activities and situations (and more!). Of course, these activities and situations entail people and collectives, such as formal and informal groups and organizations.These people and collectives are referred to as “actors” and incorporate various attributes and categories in studying them. A short list of these attributes of actors found in this volume includes identities, knowledge, values, beliefs, interests, attention, strategies, and resources. As mentioned earlier, one common category of actors is the people and collectives (or their formal and informal associations, groups, and organizations). Another categorization distinguishes the general public from those actively engaged and involved in the policy process, often termed “policy actors.” Policy actors may be affiliated with government entities, interest groups, nonprofit organizations, corporate and private businesses, civic and community associations, think tanks, consulting firms, academia, the news media, etc. The conceptual separation of the general public and policy actors does not downplay the importance of the general public or

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4  Christopher M.Weible their potential to engage politically; instead, it recognizes that policy actors from numerous government and non-government affiliations are regularly engaged and can be influential in the course and cover of a policy issue (Sabatier, 1991). The theories in this volume assume actors act as the drivers or forces for change and stability (i.e., they have agency). Accordingly, the theories specify actors’ cognitive and motivational traits by espousing various microlevel assumptions related to them being “boundedly rational” (Simon, 1996; Jones, 2001). The concept of bounded rationality means that actors make decisions based on their goals and objectives but with constraints from their limited knowledge and abilities to process and make sense of available information. They, therefore, are subject to incomplete information processing, ambiguities in thinking, biased assimilation, complications in adaptation and learning, interpretive effects on their constructions and identities, and so on. The compilation of assumptions about actors for any given theory furls into its “model of the individual,” wherein lie the micro-foundations for describing, explaining, and predicting the policy process (Sabatier, 1999; Jones, 2001). Any good theory that aims to generate knowledge about the policy process must establish these micro-assumptions; otherwise, the underlying forces of change will never be posited or learned. No theory in this volume assumes atomized actors who behave independently from their “context,” the setting or environment of the policy process. Instead, actors and context interdepend. The context embeds actors and the policy process, thereby shaping their dynamics and being affected by their dynamics. Contextual descriptions often fall into several categories, including socioeconomic conditions, culture, infrastructure, biophysical conditions, and institutions (mentioned here as the fundamental government structures, as might be found in a constitution). Sometimes contexts lie in the analytical foreground as the target of public policies, such as economic stimulus programs to stimulate an economy. Other times contexts lie in the analytical background, thereby indirectly shaping the behaviors of actors and policy processes. Some contexts might also be more conducive to some policy decisions than others. In all contexts, things happen, which are called “events.” Events can be anticipated and unanticipated incidents that can be chronic or acute. Examples of events might include but are not limited to elections, scientific discoveries, policy decisions, societal dilemmas, and crises. Sometimes actors deliberately create or construct events to affect the policy process, as seen in social movements or recent election fraud claims in the United States. Other times, events are unintentional and beyond the control of actors, like an earthquake. Because events can be directly or indirectly related to a given public policy issue, they often provide opportunities for achieving policy objectives. For example, a bureaucracy might release a shocking report that brings attention to previously unnoticed successes or failures of a policy program. This report, in turn, might shape future legislative agendas. Of course, events do not necessarily lead to change. Events might help open

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Introduction  5 windows or provide opportunities for change, but they must interact with (or be exploited by) policy actors. Finally, while events might happen in the world, their meanings are constructed by policy actors through storytelling (Jones et al., 2023), analytical debates (Nohrstedt et al., 2023), or focusing attention (Birkland, 1998; Baumgartner et al., 2023; Herweg et al., 2023); that is, events happen, but their meanings and many of their impacts become apparent in conjunction with actors. The outcomes of policy processes are the short- or long-term consequences or impacts of public policy on society. These outcomes continue to interact with policy processes over time. Outcomes are changes (or stasis) in the context and actors constituting policy processes. Policy processes distinguish outcomes as a distinct category because of their importance in measuring and assessing the effects of policy processes on society and the ultimate use of this science. Whereas one of the goals of policy process research is the generation of knowledge, using this knowledge must eventually help attain societal values and realize a greater human dignity in observed outcomes.7 As defined and described above, policy process research tackles an ambiguous, multifaceted, complex, and evolving phenomenon. It, perforce, integrates traditional foci of political science, including legislatures, executives, courts, bureaucracies, elections, public opinion, interest groups, and more. This area of research also incorporates ideas from other fields and disciplines, from social movements often found in political sociology or the assumptions undergirding its model of the individual usually found in social psychology.8 Finally, its definition and description convey its importance and intrigue – indeed, outside of the spectacle of elections or the most attentiongrabbing issues that occupy news and social media and macro-politics, the policy process is where governance and politics take place and wherein lies much hope for the betterment of societies.9

Policy Processes and Policy Analysis A valuable way to understand the scope and focus of policy process research is to compare and contrast it with policy analysis. Policy analysis refers to the study and practice of providing policy-related advice, as often done to inform future decisions or to evaluate past decisions (Weimer and Vining, 2017; Bardach and Pataschnik, 2019). It usually, but not necessarily, includes a client who might be within or outside a government. The conduct of policy analysis is often described as a series of iterative steps: defining the problem, establishing evaluation criteria, identifying alternatives, estimating the impacts, assessing the tradeoffs, and making a decision (Bardach and Pataschnik, 2019). Whereas policy process research boasts theories, policy analysis boasts analytical tools; benefit-cost analysis is prominent among them with its associated criterion of economic efficiency based on an assumption of human rationality.10 One way to distinguish policy analysis from policy process research is through an analogy of the game of chess (Durnová and Weible, 2020). A

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6  Christopher M.Weible policy analyst analyzing a chess game might zoom in on one move faced by a player. The analyst might estimate the costs or tradeoffs of a player’s choices and then make recommendations. The player then makes a choice. Alternately, the policy analysis might assess the player’s move after the game, evaluating the impacts. Policy process research operates from a different orientation. For example, a policy process researcher might zoom out to examine the chess game as a phenomenon and study the moves and the players across multiple games, locations, and over time. Given the game’s complexity, this researcher might develop theories of the game that describe and explain how the game is played, its patterns, the conditions that affect choices, and who wins or loses. In contrast to the policy analyst, the policy process researcher might not inform a player on a singular decision but would offer general advice on playing the game. Although far from perfect, the chess game analogy offers a helpful description of the conduct and use of policy process research compared to policy analysis. Of course, anyone interested in public policy should know something about policy analysis and policy processes, as found in many master’s and doctoral programs, and many scholars work at their nexus. Their confluence in teaching and practice raises another point: there is no strict separation between policy analysis and policy process research. Some policy process theories have been deliberately designed as a tool for policy analysis, as found with the Institutional Analysis and Design Framework (Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas, 2023) and Policy Feedback Theory (Mettler and SoRelle, 2023). Some scholars apply policy theories as tools for policy analysis, as done with the Advocacy Coalition Framework in mapping political landscapes or assessing political feasibility (Nohrstedt et al., 2023) or the study of policy overreaction with the “policy bubble” concept in Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (Jones et al., 2014). One ripe and needed area of research is developing best practices in policy process theories as policy analysis tools, which would offer the twofold benefit of improving theory and practice. However, the distinction remains essential as the knowledge gained through policy process theories typically provides less utility for informing a particular decision and more utility for informing the overall setting of such decisions.The two fields also diverge in their journals, scholarly networks, and sometimes conferences. Scholars seeking to offer practical lessons from policy theories have recognized this point. For example, Cairney et al. (2022, 15) describe how policy theories do not provide a “step-by-step playbook” for influencing policy processes. Similarly, Weible and Cairney (2021, 207) state, Students and policy actors looking for that simple solution to influence or improve policy processes will be disappointed. Instead, policy process theories offer a way of thinking about policymaking-related phenomena. Policy theories also offer systematic ways to simplify the complexity in policy processes, to move from uncertainty towards theoretically-informed action.

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Introduction  7

Policy Process Research, the Policy Sciences, and Other Foundations Most courses on policy processes will likely mention the “policy sciences,” which provides part of the foundation for policy process research and offers another way to understand the field today. Championed by Harold D. Lasswell and associates, the policy sciences emerged after World War II as an adaptation of John Dewey’s American pragmatism (Dewey, 1927; Lasswell, 1951; deLeon, 1997; Dunn, 2019).11 In the policy sciences, knowledge came in two interrelated forms (Lasswell, 1971). The first, termed “knowledge of the policy process,” deals with understanding the context of policy processes and resembles today’s policy process research. The second, termed “knowledge in the policy process,” concentrates on providing advice to decision-makers akin to today’s policy analysis. Given the above-discussed distinctions (even if fuzzy) between the fields of policy process research and policy analysis, Lasswell’s policy sciences rejected such duality and asserted their unity in theory and application. Overall, Lasswell’s policy sciences sought to become a new discipline and profession by linking knowledge and action for a better democracy and greater human dignity. However, the vision of Lasswell’s policy sciences (1956), as made in a Presidential Address to the American Political Science Association, was mostly ignored by political scientists and arguably remained unrealized to this day (Garson, 1980; deLeon, 1994; Pielke, 2004; Farr et al., 2006). While the literature is replete with commentaries expounding on the reasons, two stand out: political scientists favored developing their science in the Behaviorist’s vein over policy sciences’ normative appeals and the sheer difficulty of bridging knowledge and action. Today, the “policy sciences,” when used, usually refer to “policy studies” as a general field (inclusive of policy process research and policy analysis). Many continue to invoke Lasswell and the policy sciences for the normative vision of democracy but forgo much of the overall “Policy Sciences Framework” (Torgerson, 2019).12 Nevertheless, Lasswell’s normative vision can still be a part of policy process research (Cairney and Weible, 2017), and some theories incorporate normativity in their evaluation criteria akin to Lasswell. As elaborated on in the concluding chapter of this volume, the Policy Feedback Theory (Mettler and SoRelle, 2023) and the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas, 2023) both explicitly address issues of democracy, either through citizen empowerment or through self-governance. There are also indications that other theories are following suit, especially given ongoing calls to do so (Ingram et al., 2016). Accepting the argument that political scientists mostly ignored Lasswell, the question then becomes who provided the foundation for policy process research as found in this volume.13 The answer lies among a suite of under-recognized scholars, many of whom the chapters in this volume cite or their source materials cite. A short list of scholars and themes add

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8  Christopher M.Weible another way to interpret policy process research as found in this volume; they include – but are not limited to – the following: • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Political groups and other types of associations pressuring the government (Truman, 1951; Freeman, 1955; Olson, 1965; Heclo, 1978) Agenda setting (Cobb and Elder, 1971; Downs, 1972) Policy change and decision-making (Lindblom, 1959; Dawson and Robinson, 1963; Dye, 1965; Bauer and Gergen, 1968; Walker, 1969; Burnham, 1970; Sharkansky, 1970; Cohen et al., 1972; Hofferbert, 1974) Policy design and instruments (Dahl and Lindblom, 1953) Implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973) System and subsystem theorizing (Easton, 1953, 1965; Freeman, 1955; Lowi, 1969; Redford, 1969) Interdependencies of decision-making venues (Long, 1958; Ostrom et al., 1961) Interdependencies between politics and policy (Schattschneider, 1935; Lowi, 1964, 1972) Models of the individual (Simon, 1957) Politics and conflict (Schattschneider, 1957, 1960) Power (Dahl, 1961; Bachrach and Baratz, 1963) Learning (Deutsch, 1963; Heclo, 1974) General descriptions of the policy process (Shipman, 1959; Ranney, 1968a, 1968b; Lindblom, 1968; Heclo, 1972)

These themes mirror many of the before-mentioned descriptions of policy process research and help convey its essence as an ambiguous, multifaceted, complex, and evolving phenomenon. These foundational scholars also fall mainly within the behavioral turn in political science in the United States in the mid-twentieth century and represent those who did not heed Lasswell’s call. Nonetheless, they continued to build a foundation for policy process scholarship seen herein.14 In sum, policy process research traces its roots to the policy sciences and Lasswell, who remains one of the founders. As the list above shows, the field’s foundations also span beyond Lasswell, including political scientists who took the Behaviorist turn and built many of the diverse themes still seen in today’s scholarship.

Policy Processes and the Policy Cycle Thus far, the definition and descriptions of the policy process have avoided the phenomenon’s traditional or textbook portrayal in the “policy cycle” (Nakamura, 1987). The policy cycle emerged in the early 1970s as a way to define the scope and structure of policy process research. It simplifies the policy process into decision-making stages through which ideas must traverse from their manifestations into government policies to their societal impacts. Often depicted in a circle, these stages typically include

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Introduction  9 agenda setting, policy formulation and adoption, implementation, evaluation, and termination. In a way, the policy cycle seeks to capture the life cycle of a policy-related idea from its birth (agenda setting) to its death (termination). The policy cycle emerged from several sources, namely Lasswell (1951), Easton (1965), and Simon (1966). Among these sources, Lasswell usually receives credit for its origins from what he termed the “decision functions” as part of the policy sciences described above (see also Lasswell, 1956). The decision functions emerged as an alternative to the then-dominant views and studies of government done through formal institutions (e.g., judicial, executive, legislative) and as a means for conducting comparative analyses (McDougal, 1952; Lasswell, 1956). Lasswell’s decision functions consisted of different activities performed by all governments, including intelligence (information generating/processes), recommending (promoting policies), prescribing (enacting policies), invoking (referencing rules to enforce policies), applying (implementing policies), appraising (evaluating policies), and terminating (stopping policies) (Lasswell, 1971; Dunn, 2019). While, on the surface, the decision functions look like the policy cycle, they are distinct by operating not in a sequence but simultaneously and interdependently across government and nongovernmental entities and levels of government with varied capacities and impacts in a context and with sub-functions in each of them. Moreover, Lasswell’s decision functions incorporate teleological reasoning with values driving their creation and use toward achieving value-based ends. Today, we see ideas similar to the decision functions in the concept of “polycentricity” in Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas (2023) and Lubell et al. (2023). Despite their differences, the decision functions became one of the main inspirations for the policy cycle (Jones, 1970; Brewer, 1974; Brewer and deLeon, 1983), and the policy cycle emerged as the principal organizing scheme for defining the scope and structure of policy process studies.15 Textbooks began to organize themselves around the policy cycle starting in the 1970s (Jones, 1970; Anderson, 1975; May and Wildavsky, 1978), and researchers focused their efforts on the stages. Indeed, stage-focused research was not for naught. As highlighted by deLeon (1999), the policy cycle prompted scores of advances in the understanding of the policy process in agenda setting (Cobb and Elder, 1971; Kingdon, 1984), policy formulation and adoption (Hofferbert, 1974), implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973; Bardach, 1977; Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983), evaluation (Titmuss, 1971), and termination (deLeon, 1978). The policy cycle has also been roundly criticized (Lindblom, 1968; Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993), with lasting reverberations. For example, JenkinSmith and Sabatier’s (1993, 3–4) critiques include the policy cycle’s lack of causal properties and basis for hypothesis testing, descriptive inaccuracy and top-down biases, restricting unit of analysis, and failure to integrate the role of information (e.g., policy analysis) and learning. In other words, the policy cycle suffers from an inaccurate and overly simplistic depiction that, while

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10  Christopher M.Weible supporting research within the 1970s and 1980s, failed to provide a foundation for more advanced policy process theories, as found in this volume.16 Despite its faults, the policy cycle need not be swept into the “dustbin of abandoned paradigms” (deLeon, 1999, 29). Indeed, describing policy processes as a policy cycle might be helpful in everyday conversations with its easy-to-convey imagery. Of course, the stages in the policy cycle also remain essential in the policy process. The policy cycle becomes a hindrance when new students and experienced scholars believe the critical interactions in the policy process are restricted to the policy cycle, force theories into its stages, and ignore essential questions that lie outside its scope. Indeed, the problem with the policy cycle is less its simplistic and inaccurate depiction of policy processes and more its overuse by scholars as the sole definition and lens through which to describe and organize the field.17 Instead, the best way to view the policy cycle is not as the definition of policy processes but as one of its simple “frameworks.”18 As a framework, the policy cycle identifies essential concepts, relates them generally, and establishes a broad scope of policy process research. In this way, the policy cycle provides a rudimentary and helpful lens to direct research and learning about policy processes – but not the only lens. As described in the next section, the theories in this volume offer so much more than the policy cycle, including scientific theories, vibrant research communities, rich and transparent comparative research, and sources for nontrivial advances in knowledge.

The Criteria for Including Theories The eight theories in this fifth edition meet, to various extents, the criteria outlined below. 1 Developing a scientific theory of policy processes. Each of the theoretical approaches in this volume represents efforts to advance a scientific theory that focuses on interrelated concepts involving actors, events, contexts, and outcomes surrounding public policies over time. As scientific theories, the approaches in this volume specify sets of assumptions and conditions under which they apply and posit interactions that come in various hypotheses or other relational forms (expectations, propositions, principals, theoretical arguments, and others). Underlying these hypotheses are causal drivers – usually anchored at the individual level – explaining why a connection could exist. These hypotheses enable falsification, sense-making, and learning, facilitate explicit communication of the relationships under investigation, and help summarize what we know about a given phenomenon. Moreover, when the concepts are defined abstractly, hypotheses promote comparative applications of the theories to tease apart local versus generalizable understandings and explanations.

1

Introduction

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2 Mobilizing and maintaining an active research community. Science is a “social enterprise” (King, Keohane, and Verba, 1994, 8). Therefore, a recognizable community of scholars must support any theory included in this volume. Such a community might be motivated by common research questions or objectives. They usually share a vocabulary of concepts and a balanced research portfolio that integrates theoretical expositions and empirical applications. The composition of these research programs varies, but most involve active and experienced leadership, a regular influx of graduate students, and an expanding base of interested scholars dedicated to advancing theory. These scholars often participate in the same research projects, publish books, special issues, and articles, and organize and participate in general conference panels and sessions. Sometimes, these communities organize and participate in small and specialized workshops, seminars, and conferences focused on developing a theory. 3 Conducting comparative research. Comparative research paves the way for advancing knowledge about policy processes. As Tosun and Workman (2023) described in this volume, conducting comparative research is not easy and can be organized in many ways. For example, comparative research can be done implicitly, when groups of scholars use a theory in different countries without coordinating their efforts. In this way, a follow-up study might aggregate the results across the studies to glean insights and lessons. It can be done explicitly, as when groups of scholars coordinate their efforts to apply the same theory often with the same methods across research designs; here, the underlying goal of the research might be to test the effects of the contextual settings on an outcome as posited by the theory. The comparative approach need not be restricted to country comparisons but may involve comparisons of various actors, contexts, events, outcomes, or times. Among the challenges in comparative research agendas, the most daunting might be developing and executing the same methods that help build generalizable knowledge without overlooking the localized particularities, a point addressed in the companion volume Methods of the Policy Process (Weible and Workman, 2022). 4 Making the research as transparent as possible. The quality of policy process research is only as good as the transparency of its procedures for collecting and analyzing data. Sabatier (1999, 5) made famous the phrase “be clear enough to be proven wrong.” This phrase’s spirit is that obscure methods are immune to criticism and falsification. Of course, there will always be some hidden decisions and steps in a research project, and replication is usually impractical or impossible. Given human fallibility, the best way to learn from mistakes is transparency in science. 5 Continuing to advance knowledge about policy processes. Theories offer several significant academic and practical contributions, from teaching to conducting community-based research. Of all these contributions, advancing the reservoir of localized and generalized knowledge is the most important. As some theories have existed for decades, we must eventually ask: what new insights have they produced since their creation? Our

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12  Christopher M.Weible understanding of the policy process is, and always will be, incomplete. Yet, if our theories stagnate, so does progress in reaching higher levels of knowledge. All the theories in this volume are imperfect but meet these criteria in various ways and extents. Of these criteria, the most important is an engaged group of new and experienced scholars advancing the science under a given approach. One of the main lessons from decades of developing theory is that it takes teams of researchers working together over extended periods to create shared methods, conduct their research comparatively, and aggregate those results into lessons learned. Without these teams of researchers, such a trajectory is impossible. The best short-term indicator of future progress is the presence of a large and diverse group of scholars working together to advance a theory.

Theories Included in This Volume This volume offers eight different theories of policy process research. They are the most established theories in the world with the most active research programs. The first chapter, coauthored by Nicole Herweg, Nikolaos Zahariadis, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer (2023), covers the Multiple Streams Framework. The Multiple Streams Framework depicts a process that emphasizes timing in merging problem, political, and policy streams to create windows of opportunity for agenda setting, decision-making, and implementation. Among the strengths of the Multiple Streams Framework are its accessibility, vibrant research community, and constant evolution. This chapter offers several revisions, including better articulation of their core hypothesis. Chapter 2, by Frank R. Baumgartner, Bryan D. Jones, and Peter B. Mortensen (2023), is on the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. Under this theory, scarce attention and disproportionate information processing drive incremental and punctuated policy change patterns over time. Of all the theories in this volume, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory offers perhaps the best current example of a coordinated policy community leveraging a comparative approach. Its updates include reporting on the greater generalizability of its claims across more contexts, topics, and methods. The third chapter on the Policy Feedback Theory, coauthored by Suzanne Mettler and Mallory SoRelle (2023), draws on the notion that policies shape politics. This approach seeks to understand what happens after a policy is adopted, emphasizing resource and interpretive effects on the mass public. Policy Feedback Theory represents another vibrant research community that continues to develop this theory and incorporates one of the most robust lenses on democracy and citizen empowerment. Among its updates is an articulation of the moderating effects of policy feedback. The Advocacy Coalition Framework is the fourth theory, coauthored by Daniel Nohrstedt, Karin Ingold, Christopher M. Weible, Elizabeth A.

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Introduction  13 Koebele, Kristin L. Olofsson, Keiichi Satoh, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith (2023). The Advocacy Coalition Framework deals with ongoing patterns of conflict and concord as reflections of different beliefs, situations fostering belief change and learning, and rationales for major and minor policy change. The literature under the Advocacy Coalition Framework features a strong comparative agenda with applications spanning the globe. The updates in this chapter report on the latest confirmations of its theoretical arguments. Michael D. Jones, Aaron Smith-Walter, Mark K. McBeth, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan (2023) coauthored Chapter 5 on the Narrative Policy Framework. This framework examines the politics of storytelling and its impacts on policy processes. The Narrative Policy Framework is quickly evolving, with an increasing number of applications, a common methodological approach that spurs applications across contexts, and constant refinement of its concepts and posited interactions. Its revisions include a new visual depiction of the framework, expanding its scope, renaming concepts, and clarifying the arguments underlying its hypotheses. The sixth chapter, coauthored by Edella Schlager and Sergio VillamayorTomas (2023), summarizes the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and its offspring, the Social-Ecological Systems Framework. Both frameworks are incredibly versatile, with a vast number of applications in various contexts. It spouses ideas of self-governance and the constant tinkering with institutional rules. This revised chapter reports on the continued growth and insights learned under this approach across the globe. Chapter 7 – composed by a new team of authors including Osmany Porto de Oliveira, Giulia Romano, Craig Volden, and Andrew Karch – summarizes Diffusion and Innovation scholarship.19 This approach essentially analyzes policy change by looking at the reasons, speed, and patterns of adoption or rejection of policy proposals across government units. This chapter provides the latest summary of this long-standing research area in the study of policy processes worldwide.This revised chapter builds a far broader foundation for this field by incorporating the literature on policy transfer, circulation, and mobilities. Mark Lubell, Jack MeWhirter, and Matthew Robbins coauthored the eighth and last theory chapter “Ecology of Games Framework.” The Ecology of Games Framework is a new addition to this volume and represents an increasingly emerging and vibrant research community focused on studying polycentric governance and complex adaptive systems. Compared to its previous publications, this chapter provides further clarity in its ideas, including a new visualized figure.

Strategies for Using This Volume The chapters are organized to facilitate reading the volume from beginning to end, though some instructors and readers will prefer a different order of the theories. Part I encompasses the theory chapters, beginning with the Multiple Streams Framework and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory,

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14  Christopher M.Weible given their traditional emphases on agenda setting and policy change. Policy Feedback Theory comes next, focusing on the impacts of policy design on society. The next three chapters deal with various political phenomena, including the Advocacy Coalition Framework, Narrative Policy Framework, and Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. The latter of these three, combined with the final two in the Diffusion and Innovation and Ecology of Games Framework, offer approaches that emphasize the interdependence of our governing systems. Part II of this volume includes three summary chapters.The first (Chapter 9), by Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila (2023), provides a comparison and critique of the theories in this anthology. Then, given the importance of the comparative approach in advancing policy process theory, in Chapter 10, Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman (2023) provide tips and strategies for using the theories to conduct comparative research. The final chapter, by Christopher M. Weible (2023), summarizes and assesses the theoretical changes across the chapters and offers strategies for supporting the policy process research community and for moving forward and climbing upward. Recently, a new companion volume was published titled Methods of the Policy Process (Weible and Workman, 2022). Whereas this volume provides the overviews of the most established policy process theories, Methods of the Policy Process elaborates on how to apply them. The underlying rationale for creating and reading both volumes is that advances in theories and methods go hand in hand. Some might want to forgo the Methods book if the interest lies more in understanding ideas in the theories without interest in applying them. Each theory chapter should be considered a thorough yet brief summary of a theory, including minor and major updates since the fourth edition of this volume. As discussed in the concluding chapter, these changes include efforts to clarify concepts and better articulate the theoretical arguments, confirm and strengthen the theoretical hypotheses and generalizations, expand and extend the theoretical scope, and bridge knowledge and action. Readers are encouraged to explore and assess these changes in learning about the theories. It is also imperative to read chapters in this volume along with some combination of the foundational pieces of a given theory, previous theoretical depictions of the theory, and empirical applications. For example, advanced graduate students exploring the Multiple Streams Framework could read Cohen, March, and Olsen’s (1972), Kingdon’s (1984), Herweg et al. (2023), the Multiple Streams Framework chapter in Methods of the Policy Process (Zohlnhöfer et al., 2022), and one or two empirical applications. Theories of the Policy Process is not intended to provide comprehensive coverage of policy process research. Readers are encouraged to supplement this volume with articles or books covering other topics or theories. Among those deserving attention are the policy cycle (deLeon, 1999), policy success and failure (McConnell, 2010), policy styles (Richardson, 1982), comparative policy studies (Dodds, 2013), power (Bachrach and Baratz, 1963; Lukes, 1974), policy instruments and design (Howlett, 2011), policy entrepreneurs

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Introduction  15 (Mintrom and Norman, 2009; Petridou and Mintrom, 2021), social capital (Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti, 1994), implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky, 1973; Moulton and Sandfort, 2017), causal stories (Stone, 1989), the interpretive and critical policy studies (Fischer and Forester, 1993; Fischer et al., 2015), policy drift (Béland, 2007), learning (Dunlop and Radealli, 2013; Heikkila and Gerlak, 2013), gender and policy studies (Lombardo and Meier, 2022), and the social construction framework (Schneider and Ingram, 1993; Schneider et al., 2014). As mentioned earlier, readers should avoid forcing the theories into a stage of the policy cycle – the result would be incomplete and quite possibly an inaccurate portrayal of them. Although some theories may fit into one or more of the stages, most incorporate the entire policy cycle in one way or another or depict the policy process in an entirely different way. The best strategy is to interpret how the different theories provide insight into policy processes rather than impose an artificial categorization on them. The goal of this volume is to provide in a single outlet the latest versions of the major theories of the policy process, to compare and contrast these theories, to offer strategies for strengthening the international community engaged in comparative policy process research, and to help propel policy process research to higher levels of excellence.Whether this volume serves as an introduction to the field or as a sturdy reference guide, the hope is that readers will test and develop policy process theories to understand better and explain policy processes.

Notes 1 Theories often invoke negative reactions among people, especially for a field with some applied elements. As a master’s student at the University of Washington, I took my first policy process theories course with Dr. Peter May. I remember a fellow student said they didn’t want to take the course because they thought it would lack practicality and said theory was a “four-letter” word, an expression in English meaning something profane. Of course, I took Peter’s course and never turned back. While some might think theories are detached from reality, useless for practice, and a barrier to critical and original thinking, I find none of it true. We can create, test, and refine theories through continuous empirical applications described in this volume and Weible and Workman (2022), draw practical lessons from policy theories (Weible and Cairney, 2021), and enhance critical thinking through learning multiple theories (Weible, 2020). That said, theories can be misused by shackling our imagination and are challenging to apply, test, and refine. They can also be interpreted and instructed as something too abstract and detached from day-to-day policy processes. We also have much to learn in drawing practical lessons from them and effectively communicating this field. I hope this volume helps avoid these misuses. 2 One concern raised against any policy process theory is its potential to blind researchers to critical contextual conditions unmentioned by the theory. However, theoretical simplification should never lead researchers to ignore something just because it goes unmentioned by the theory – context matters, and what we, as observers, bring to the research matters.Therefore, I recommend that the students (and myself) never lose sight of their observations or what

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16  Christopher M.Weible emerges – despite what a theory says to pay attention to – from the studied context (see discussion in Weible and Workman, 2022). 3 Some theories in this volume use hypotheses, and others don’t. I use the term “hypothesis” as an umbrella term that includes the various conjectures, theoretical arguments, and other relational forms. 4 An interesting point not addressed in current scholarship is the meaning of “process” in policy process research (see a critical take with Harrison [1958]). Generally, a process refers to the continuous points in time (e.g., perhaps in terms of actors’ decisions and actions, events, and outcomes) that constitute what we deem the policy processes. I interpret this volume’s theories as offering different process types. 5 Two main uses of the term “institutions” refer to organizations and rules. This introductory chapter, unless otherwise specified, uses the latter. I’m keen on Kiser and Ostrom (1982, 193) distinguishing description of institutions, We distinguish between institutional arrangements and organizations. … We define organizations as composites of participants following rules governing activities and transactions to realize particular outputs. These activities occur within specific facilities. The rules, which are components of all organizations, are the institutional arrangements. 6 Politics and public policy concepts have a complicated relationship (see Lasswell [1951]). For the sake of argument, politics relates to issues of influence, the influential, the impacted, and “who gets what, when and how” (Lasswell, 1936). For a commentary on the origins of the term “public policy,” see Lowi (2003). 7 Whether and how policy process research should serve society outside of academic conferences, journals, and books has been a point of discussion dating back to its emergence as a field of study (see, for example, Lasswell [1951, 1956], Ranney [1968a, 1968b], and Easton [1969]). Some have defended the need to do science for science’s sake; others argue that all of our science should be in service of humanity through various forms of engaged scholarship. I’m not sure what the distribution of views among the policy process community on this topic is other than people seem to accept the plurality of ways and purposes to conduct the science. It has been a topic that Peter deLeon, a stalwart defender of democracy and the policy process in his career, and I often debated and discussed; see how we handled it in deLeon and Weible (2010). The topic of bridging knowledge and action is also addressed in the concluding chapter. 8 I mention social movements; although they can be found in policy process research (Jones et al., 2019), they need to be studied more (Berglund et al., 2022). 9 I developed this definition and description of policy process research from early scholarship in the 1950s and 1960s, when this field emerged as a conscious area of study and before the policy cycle took hold as its textbook definition and quotidian description. Here are three examples of scholars from that time whom I found enlightening: (1) Shipman (1959, 545) states, “When the policyprocess approach is used, institutions and mechanisms of political organization, legislative action, executive administration, adjudication, and the rest merge into an intricately interconnected process for seeking satisfaction of societal values.” (2) Ranney (1968a, b, 8) depicted the “policy process” as “the actions and interactions that produce the authorities’ ultimate choice of a particular policy content over its rivals.” (3) Lindblom (1968, 4) described the “policymaking process” as an “extremely complex analytical and political process to which there is no beginning or end, and the boundaries of which are most uncertain.”

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Introduction  17

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18  Christopher M.Weible

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Introduction  19 Baumgartner, Frank R. and Bryan D. Jones. 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Baumgartner, Frank R., Bryan D. Jones, and Peter B. Mortensen. 2023. “Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Explaining Stability and Change in Public Policymaking.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 65–99. New York: Routledge. Béland, Daniel. 2007.“Ideas and Institutional Change in Social Security: Conversion, Layering, and Policy Drift.” Social Science Quarterly 88 (1): 20–38. Berglund, Oscar, Claire A. Dunlop, Elizabeth A. Koebele, and Christopher M.Weible. 2022. “Transformational Change through Public Policy.” Policy and Politics. Early view. Birkland, Thomas A. 1998. “Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting.” Journal of Public Policy 18 (1): 53–74. Brewer, Garry D. 1974. “The Policy Sciences Emerge: To Nurture and Structure a Discipline.” Policy Sciences 5 (3): 239–244. Brewer, Garry D., and Peter deLeon. 1983. The Foundations of Policy Analysis. Chicago, IL: Dorsey Press. Brunner, Ronald D. 1997. “Introduction to the Policy Sciences.” Policy Sciences 30 (4): 191–215. Brunner, Ronald D. 2008. “The Policy Scientist of Democracy Revisited.” Policy Sciences 41 (1): 3–19. Burnham,Walter D. 1970. Critical elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: Norton. Cairney, Paul and Tanya Heikkila. 2023. “How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 291–321. New York: Routledge. Cairney, Paul, Emily St Denny, Sean Kippin, and Heather Mitchell. 2022. “Lessons from Policy Theories for the Pursuit of Equity in Health, Education and Gender Policy.” Policy & Politics. Earlyview. Cairney, Paul, and Christopher M. Weible. 2017. “The New Policy Sciences: Combining the Cognitive Science of Choice, Multiple Theories of Context, and Basic and Applied Analysis.” Policy Sciences 50 (4): 619–627. Clark, Susan G. 2002. The Policy Process: A Practical Guide for Natural Resources Professionals. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Cobb, Roger W., and Charles D. Elder. 1971 “The Politics of Agenda-Building: An Alternative Perspective for Modern Democratic Theory.” The Journal of Politics 33 (4): 892–915. Cohen, Michael D., James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. “A Garbage Can Model of Organizational Choice.” Administrative Science Quarterly 17 (1): 1–25. Dahl, Robert, A. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Dahl, Robert A., and Charles E. Lindblom. 1953. Politics, Economics and Welfare: Planning and Politico-Economic Systems, Resolved into Basic Processes. New York: Harper & Brothers. Dawson, Richard E., and James A. Robinson. 1963. “Inter-Party Competition, Economic Variables, and Welfare Policies in the American States.” The Journal of Politics 25 (2): 265–289. deLeon, Peter. 1978. “Public Policy Termination: An End and a Beginning.” Policy Analysis 4 (3): 369–392. deLeon, Peter. 1994. Reinventing the Policy Sciences:Three steps Back to the Future. Policy Sciences 27 (1): 77–95.

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20  Christopher M.Weible deLeon, Peter. 1997. Democracy and the Policy Sciences. New York: SUNY Press. deLeon, Peter. 1999. “The Stages Approach to the Policy Process:What Has It Done? Where Is It Going?” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier, 19–34. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. deleon, Peter, and Christopher M. Weible. 2010. “Policy Process Research for Democracy.” International Journal of Policy Studies 1 (2): 23–34. Deutsch, Karl. W. 1963. The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control. New York: Free Press. Dewey, John. 1927. The Public and Its Problems. New York: Henry Holt. Dodds, Anneliese. 2013. Comparative Public Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Downs, Anthony. 1972. “Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue-Attention Cycle.” The Public 28: 38–50. Dunlop, Claire A., and Claudio M. Radaelli. 2013. “Systematising Policy Learning: From Monolith to Dimensions.” Political Studies 61 (3): 599–619. Dunn, William N. 2019. Pragmatism and the Origins of the Policy Sciences: Rediscovering Lasswell and the Chicago School. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Durnová, Anna P., and Christopher M. Weible. 2020. “Tempest in a Teapot? Toward New Collaborations between Mainstream Policy Process Studies and Interpretive Policy Studies.” Policy Sciences 53 (3): 571–588. Dye, Thomas R. 1965. “Malapportionment and Public Policy in the States.” The Journal of Politics 27 (3): 586–601. Dye,Thomas R. 1972. Understanding Public Policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Easton, David. 1953. The Political System. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Easton, David. 1965. A Framework for Political Analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Easton, David. 1969. “The New Revolution in Political Science.” American Political Science Review 63 (4): 1051–1061. Farr, James, Jacob S. Hacker, and Nicole Kazee. 2006. “The Policy Scientist of Democracy: The Discipline of Harold D. Lasswell.” American Political Science Review 100 (4): 579–587. Fischer, Frank, and John Forester, eds. 1993. The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis and Planning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Fischer, Frank, Douglas Torgerson, Anna Durnová, and Michael Orsini, eds. 2015. Handbook of Critical Policy Studies. Edward Elgar Publishing. Freeman, J. Leiper. 1955. The Political Process: Executive Bureau-Legislative Committee Relations. New York: Doubleday. Garson, G. David. 1980. “From Policy Science to Policy Analysis: A Quarter Century of Progress?” Policy Studies Journal 9 (4): 535–544. Harrison, Wilfrid. 1958. “Political Processes.” Political Studies 6 (3): 234–252. Heclo, Hugh. 1972. “Policy Analysis.” British Journal of Political Science 2 (1): 83–108. Heclo, Hugh. 1974. Social Policy and Political Learning: Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden: From Relief to Income Maintenance. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Heclo, Hugh. 1978. “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In The New American Political System, edited by Anthony King, 87–124. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Heikkila, Tanya, and Andrea K. Gerlak. 2013. “Building a Conceptual Approach to Collective Learning: Lessons for Public Policy Scholars.” Policy Studies Journal 41 (3): 484–512. Herweg, Nicole, Nikolaos Zahariadis, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer. 2023. “The Multiple Streams Framework: Foundations, Refinements, and Empirical Applications.” In

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Introduction  21 Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 29–64. New York: Routledge. Hinterleitner, Markus, and Fritz Sager. 2015. “Avoiding Blame—A Comprehensive Framework and the Australian Home Insulation Program Fiasco.” Policy Studies Journal 43 (1): 139–161. Hofferbert, Richard I. 1974. The Study of Public Policy. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Howlett, Michael. 2011. Designing Public Policies: Principles and Instruments. New York: Routledge. Ingram, Helen, Peter deLeon, and Anne Schneider. 2016 “Conclusion: Public Policy Theory and Democracy:The Elephant in the Corner.” In Contemporary Approaches to Public Policy, edited by B. Guy Peters and Philippe Zittoun, 175–200. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jenkins-Smith, Hank C. 1990. Democratic Politics and Policy Analysis. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole. Jenkins-Smith, Hank C., and Paul A. Sabatier. 1993. “The Study of Public Policy Processes.” In Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach, edited by Paul A Sabatier and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith, 1–9. Boulder CO: Westview Press. Jones, Charles O. 1970. Introduction to the Study of Public Policy. Belmont: Wadsworth Pub. Co. Jones, Bryan D. 2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice: Bounded Rationality and Governance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jones, Bryan D., Herschel F. Thomas III, and Michelle Wolfe. 2014. “Policy Bubbles.” Policy Studies Journal 42 (1): 146–171. Jones, Bryan D., Sean M. Theriault, and Michelle Whyman. 2019. The Great Broadening: How the Vast Expansion of the Policymaking Agenda Transformed American Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Jones, Michael, D., Aaron Smith-Walter, Mark K. McBeth, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan. 2023. “The Narrative Policy Framework.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 161–195. New York: Routledge. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kingdon, John. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: Addison Wesley Longman. Kiser, Larry and Elinor Ostrom. 1982. “The Three Worlds of Action. A Metatheoretical Synthesis of Institutional Approaches in Strategies of Political Inquiry.” In Strategies of Political Inquiry, edited by Elinor Ostrom, 179–222. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Lasswell, Harold D. 1936. Politics: Who Gets What, When, and How. New York: Whittlesey House. Lasswell, Harold D. 1951. “The Policy Orientation.” In The Policy Sciences, edited by Daniel Lerner and Harold D. Lasswell, chap. 1, 3–15. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Lasswell, Harold D. 1956. “The Political Science of Science: An Inquiry into the Possible Reconciliation of Mastery and Freedom.” American Political Science Review 50 (4): 961–979. Lasswell, Harold. D. 1971. A Pre-View of Policy Sciences. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company. Lindblom, Charles E. 1959.“The Science of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review 19 (2): 79–88.

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22  Christopher M.Weible Lindblom, Charles E. 1968. The Policy-Making Process. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lipsky, Michael. 1980. Street-Level Bureaucracy:The Dilemmas of the Individuals in Public Service. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Lombardo, Emanuela, and Petra Meier. 2022. “Challenging Boundaries to Expand Frontiers in Gender and Policy Studies.” Policy & Politics 50 (1): 99–115. Long, Norton E. 1958. “The Local Community as an Ecology of Games.” American Journal of Sociology 64 (3): 251–261. Lowi, Theodore J. 1964. “American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory.” World Politics 16 (4): 677–715. Lowi, Theodore J. 1969. The End of Liberalism. New York: Norton. Lowi, Theodore J. 1972. “Four Systems of Policy, Politics, and Choice.” Public Administration Review 32 (4): 298–310. Lowi, Theodore J. 2003. “Law vs. Public Policy: A Critical Exploration.” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 12 (3): 493–501. Lubell, Mark, Mark Mewhirter, and Matthew Robbins. 2023. “The Ecology of Games Framework: Complexity in Polycentric Governance.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 262–287. New York: Routledge. Lukes, Steven. 1974. Power: A Radical View. London: Macmillan. May, Judith V., and Aaron B. Wildavsky, eds. 1978. The Policy Cycle. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Mazmanian, Daniel A., and Paul A. Sabatier. 1983. Implementation and Public Policy. Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman. McConnell, Allan. 2010. Understanding Policy Success: Rethinking Public Policy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. McDougal, Myres S. 1952. “The Comparative Study of Law for Policy Purposes: Value Clarification as an Instrument of Democratic World Order. Yale Law Journal 61: 915–946. Mettler, Suzanne, and Mallory SoRelle. 2023. “Policy Feedback Theory.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M.Weible, 100–129. New York: Routledge. Mettler, Suzanne, and Joe Soss. 2004. “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (1): 55–73. Mintrom, Michael, and Phillipa Norman. 2009. “Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change.” Policy Studies Journal 37 (4): 649–667. Mitchell, Joyce M., and William C. Mitchell. 1969. Political Analysis & Public Policy: An Introduction to Political Science. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Moulton, Stephanie, and Jodi R. Sandfort. 2017.“The Strategic Action Field Framework for Policy Implementation Research.” Policy Studies Journal 45 (1): 144–169. Nakamura, Robert T. 1987. “The Textbook Policy Process and Implementation Research.” Review of Policy Research 7 (1): 142–154. Nohrstedt, Daniel, Karin Ingold, Christopher M. Weible, Elizabeth Koebele, Kristin L. Olofsson, Keiichi Satoh, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith. 2023. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Progress and Emerging Areas.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M.Weible, 130–160. New York: Routledge. Olson, Mancur. 1965 The Logic of Collection Action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Introduction  23 Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons:The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ostrom,Vincent, Charles M. Tiebout, and Robert Warren. 1961. “The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry.” American Political Science Review 55 (4): 831–842. Parson, Wayne. 1995. Public Policy: An Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Policy Analysis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Petridou, Evangelia, and Michael Mintrom. 2021. “A Research Agenda for the Study of Policy Entrepreneurs.” Policy Studies Journal 49 (4): 943–967. Pielke, Roger A. 2004. “What Future for the Policy Sciences?” Policy Sciences 37 (3): 209–225. Pierson, Paul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.” World Politics 45 (4): 595–628. Porto de Oliveira, Osmany Porto, Giulia Romano, Craig Volden, and Andrew Karch. 2023. “Policy Diffusion and Innovation.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 230–261. New York: Routledge. Pressman, Jeffrey L., and Aaron Wildavsky. 1973. Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Putnam, Robert D., Robert Leonardi, and Raffaella Y. Nanetti. 1994. Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ranney, Austin, ed. 1968a. “The Study of Policy Content: A Framework for Choice.” In Political Science and Public Policy, edited by Austin Ranney, 3–21. Chicago, IL: Markham Publishers. Ranney, Austin. 1968b. Political Science and Public Policy. Chicago, IL: Markham Publishers. Redford, Emmette. S. 1969. Democracy in the Administrative State. New York: Oxford University Press. Richardson, Jeremy John, ed. 1982. Policy Styles in Western Europe. New York: George Allen and Unwin. Riker, William H. 1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sabatier, Paul A. 1991. “Toward Better Theories of the Policy Process.” PS: Political Science & Politics 24 (2): 147–156. Sabatier, Paul A. 1998. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Revisions and Relevance for Europe.” Journal of European Public Policy 5 (1): 98–130. Sabatier, Paul A. 1999. Theories of the Policy Process. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sabatier, Paul A., and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith. 1993. Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1935. Politics, Pressures and theTariff. NewYork: Prentice-Hall. Schattschneider, Elmer. E. 1957. Intensity, Visibility, Direction and Scope. American Political Science Review 51 (4): 933–942. Schattschneider, Elmer E. 1960. The Semisovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Schlager, Edella, and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. 2023. “The IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 196–229. New York: Routledge.

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24  Christopher M.Weible Schneider, Anne L., and Helen Ingram. 1993. “Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” American Political Science Review 87 (2): 334–347. Schneider, Anne L., and Helen Ingram. 1997. Policy Design for Democracy. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. Schneider, Anne L., Helen Ingram, and Peter deLeon. 2014. “Democratic Policy Design: Social Construction of Target Populations.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 4th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible and Paul A. Sabatier, 105–149. New York: Routledge. Sharkansky, Ira, ed. 1970. Policy Analysis in Political Science. Chicago, IL: Markham Publishing Company. Shipman, George A. 1959. “The Policy Process: An Emerging Perspective.” Western Political Quarterly 12 (2): 535–547. Simon, Herbert. A. 1957. “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice. Models of Man, Social and Rational: Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Simon, Herbert. A. 1966. Political Research: the Decision-Making Framework. In Varieties of Political Theory, edited by David Easton, 15–24. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Simon, Herbert A. 1996. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Skocpol, Theda. 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers; The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Stone, Deborah A. 1989. “Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas.” Political Science Quarterly 104 (2): 281–300. Titmuss, Richard M. 1971. The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy. New York: Pantheon. Torgerson, Douglas. 1985. “Contextual Orientation in Policy Analysis: The Contribution of Harold D Lasswell. Policy Sciences 18 (3): 241–261. Torgerson, Douglas. 2019. “Lasswell in the Looking Glass: A ‘Mirror’ for Critical Policy Studies.” Critical Policy Studies 13 (1): 122–130. Tosun, Jale, and Samuel Workman. 2023. “Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process and Comparative Research.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 322–354. New York: Routledge. Truman, David B. 1951. The Governmental Process. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Walker, Jack L. 1969. “The Diffusion of Innovations among the American States.” American Political Science Review 63 (3): 880–899. Weaver, R. Kent. 1986. “The Politics of Blame Avoidance.” Journal of Public Policy 6 (4): 371–398. Weible, Christopher M. 2020. “Theories of Policy Processes: Ways to Think about Them and Use Them.” https://medium.com/policy-process-matters/theoriesof-policy-processes-ways-to-think-about-them-and-use-them-9368792ecb50. Accessed on June 15, 2022. Weible, Christopher M. 2023. “Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories.” In Theories of the Policy Process, 5th ed., edited by Christopher M. Weible, 355–372. New York: Routledge. Weible, Christopher M., and Paul Cairney, eds. 2021. Practical Lessons from Policy Theories. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Weible, Christopher M., Paul Cairney, and Jill Yordy. 2022. “A Diamond in the Rough: Digging Up and Polishing Harold D. Lasswell’s Decision Functions.” Policy Sciences 55 (1): 209–222.

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Introduction  25 Weible, Christopher M., and Samuel Workman, eds. 2022. Methods of the Policy Process. New York: Routledge. Weimer, David L., and Aidan R. Vining. 2017. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. New York: Routledge. Zohlnhöfer, Reimut, Nicole Herweg, and Nikolaos Zahariadis. 2022 “How to Conduct a Multiple Streams Study.” In Methods of the Policy Process, edited by Christopher M. Weible and Samuel Workman, 23–50. New York: Routledge.

Part I

Theoretical Approaches to Policy Process Research

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The Multiple Streams Framework: Foundations, Refinements, and Empirical Applications 029 Nicole Herweg, Nikolaos Zahariadis, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Explaining Stability and Change in Public Policymaking 065 Frank R. Baumgartner, Bryan D. Jones, and Peter B. Mortensen Policy Feedback Theory 100 Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Progress and Emerging Areas 130 Daniel Nohrstedt, Karin Ingold, Christopher M.Weible, Elizabeth A. Koebele, Kristin L. Olofsson, Keiichi Satoh, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith The Narrative Policy Framework 161 Michael D. Jones, Aaron Smith-Walter, Mark K. McBeth, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan The IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis 196 Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Policy Diffusion and Innovation 230 Osmany Porto de Oliveira, Giulia C. Romano, Craig Volden, and Andrew Karch The Ecology of Games Framework: Complexity in Polycentric Governance 262 Mark Lubell, Jack Mewhirter, and Matthew Robbins

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The Multiple Streams Framework Foundations, Refinements, and Empirical Applications Nicole Herweg, Nikolaos Zahariadis, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer

With rising ambiguity and turbulence in global affairs, the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) has become a major tool to analyze the policy process. Jones et al. (2016) report that no fewer than 311 English-language peerreviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2013 have empirically applied the framework—with an increasing trend over time. The Web of Science database reflects this continuing interest. It includes 762 peerreviewed English journal articles published since 2014 that cite any edition of John W. Kingdon’s Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies alone. Moreover, scholars apply the MSF to a wide variety of issue areas, countries, and levels of government, as will become clear in this chapter. One of the reasons for the high interest in the MSF could be that the conditions under which policies are made increasingly resemble the framework’s assumptions—particularly in global or subnational contexts for which the MSF originally had not been developed. Problems, from global warming and nuclear energy to migration and multilateral trade agreements, have become ever more complex and hotly contested in substance and politics. Ambiguity has increasingly become (or has come to be realized as) a fact of political life. The same could be said about what the MSF conceptualizes as the political stream. Particularly in the parliamentary systems of Western Europe, things have become much less orderly, with more fragmented party systems, a decreasing relevance of party ideologies, and voting behavior growing ever more volatile. Nonetheless, MSF’s success comes at a price. As Jones et al. (2016) and Cairney and Jones (2016) show, many of the (older) empirical applications remain superficial; theoretical innovations in the literature are often ignored, and key concepts more often than not lack clear specification. In this chapter, we present the current state of MSF thinking, including many innovations that have been suggested in the recent surge of MSF literature. We aim to provide an up-to-date presentation and discussion of the framework from which scholars may begin MSF empirical applications or theoretical refinements. We begin by outlining the main assumptions of DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-3

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30  Nicole Herweg et al. the MSF before presenting the five structural elements of the framework. Because the MSF was originally developed for the analysis of agenda setting processes, we discuss how it can be applied to other stages of the policy process (decision-making, implementation, etc.) next. We then turn to the question of how the framework is applied empirically in different contexts and how it must be adapted accordingly. Finally, we deal with the (alleged and real) limitations of the framework and its future prospects.

Assumptions Kingdon (2011), who originally put forth the MSF, was inspired by Cohen, March, and Olsen’s (1972) garbage can model of organizational choice. Consequently, the MSF’s basic assumptions deal with ambiguity, time constraints, problematic preferences, unclear technology, fluid participation, and stream independence. These terms characterize what Cohen et al. called organized anarchies, such as universities, national governments, and international organizations. In the following sections, we summarize the meaning of each of these basic assumptions. Ambiguity Instead of assuming that policymaking is an exercise in rational problem solving, the MSF negates the existence of a rational solution to a given problem. In contrast, the MSF assumes that because of ambiguity, a multitude of solutions to a given problem exists. Ambiguity refers to “a state of having many ways of thinking about the same circumstances or phenomena” (Feldman 1989, 5). In contrast with uncertainty, which may be reduced by collecting more information (Wilson 1989, 228), more information does not reduce ambiguity. For instance, more information can tell us how COVID-19 is spread, but it will not tell us whether COVID is a health, economic, educational, or civil liberties issue. Therefore, we often do not know what the problem is. Because problem definition is vague and shifting, in principle, many solutions are possible for the same condition. Time Constraints Policymakers operate under significant time constraints and must often take decisions quickly. Basically, time constraints arise because attending to or processing events and circumstances in political systems can occur in parallel, whereas individuals’ ability to give attention to or process information is serial. Owing to biological and cognitive limitations, individuals can attend to only one issue at a time. In contrast, organizations and governments can attend to many (though not infinite) issues simultaneously (Jones 2001; March and Simon 1958), thanks to division of labor. Policymakers, for instance, can actively consider only a relatively small number of issues,

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Multiple Streams Framework  31 whereas the US government can simultaneously put out fires in California, conduct trade negotiations with the European Union (EU), investigate mail fraud, and mourn the loss of soldiers killed in action. Thus, because many issues vie for attention, policymakers sense an urgency to address them and to “strike while the iron is hot.” Consequently, time constraints limit the range and number of alternatives to which attention is given. Problematic Policy Preferences Problematic policy preferences emerge in the presence of ambiguity and time constraints. How actors think about an issue depends on its overarching label (like health, economy, education, or civil liberties) and on the information that has been taken into account. Consequently, actors’ policy preferences are not fixed and exogenously given but emerge during (inter)action. To use economic terms, ambiguity and time constraints result in intransitive and incomplete policy preferences. The assumption of problematic policy preferences only means, however, that policymakers do not have clear preferences with regard to specific policies. It does not imply that they have no preferences at all.With regard to the outcome of the next election or the question of who will be the next president, they take an unequivocal stand: policymakers want to win elections, and they want their candidate to get elected as the next president. Unclear Technology In organizational theory, technology refers to work processes that turn inputs into products. If members of an organized anarchy are aware of only their individual responsibilities and exhibit only rudimentary knowledge of how their job fits into the overall mission of the organization, we speak of unclear technology. In political systems, for instance, jurisdictional boundaries are unclear, and turf battles between different departments or agencies are common. Members of the legislature often complain of unaccountable officials, who, in turn, frequently express their frustration with overburdening reporting rules and independent-minded public managers. Fluid Participation Unclear technology is complicated by fluid participation. Fluid participation means that the composition of decision-making bodies is subject to constant change—either because it varies with the concrete decision to be made or because turnover is high. Legislators come and go, and bureaucrats, especially high-level civil servants, often move from public service to private practice. In addition, the time and effort that participants are willing and able to devote to any one decision vary considerably.

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32  Nicole Herweg et al. Stream Independence In line with the garbage can model, the MSF assumes that independent processes or streams flow through the political system. In a nutshell, the MSF assumes that political problems, policy solutions, and politics—referred to as problem stream, policy stream, and political stream—develop mostly independently of each other. Problems, most obviously in the case of unpredictable problems like those caused by natural disasters, occur regardless of political developments or available policy solutions. Because consensus building in the political stream and in the policy stream takes different forms, these streams also have their own dynamic (Kingdon 2011). In the political stream, the mode of interaction may be bargaining or coercion; in the policy stream, it may be persuasion or exclusion. More precisely, actors in the policy stream aim to gain acceptance for a policy solution, whereas participants in the political stream build on power, lobbying, and group mobilization.

Structural Elements The MSF’s starting point is the notion of stream independence. Nonetheless, if an issue is to gain agenda prominence, and is ultimately to be decided on, these independent streams need to come together at some point.The opportunity to bring these streams together arises if a “policy window” (sometimes called “window of opportunity”) opens. Moreover, because there is no natural or inevitable connection between a problem and a solution, according to MSF thinking, the two often have to be coupled together by a policy entrepreneur and presented to receptive policymakers. We discuss the five structural elements of the MSF in turn—the three streams, the policy or, as we will call it, agenda window, and the policy entrepreneur. Problem Stream Policymakers will almost always argue that a policy responds to some problem. But what is a problem? According to the MSF, problems are conditions that deviate from policymakers’ or citizens’ ideal states and that “are seen as public in the sense that government action is needed to resolve them” (Béland and Howlett 2016, 222). Thus, problems contain a “perceptual, interpretive element” (Kingdon 2011, 110) because people’s ideals and reality vary significantly. Moreover, we might come to see a condition, which we previously perceived as acceptable, as a problem once we learn that other countries are doing better in this regard. Or we start seeing a condition in a different context that turns the condition into a problem. Nonetheless, many conditions deviate from citizens’ or policymakers’ ideal states, and not all of them receive political attention. Rather, indicators, focusing events, and feedback bring specific conditions to policymakers’ attention. Numerous indicators are in principle relevant for policymakers or the public, for instance, unemployment figures, budget balances, and crime

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Multiple Streams Framework  33 statistics. Some of these indicators are published regularly, and in other cases they are collected for a specific occasion. It is important to keep in mind, however, that all of these indicators only inform about conditions until an actor defines them as problems or integrates them into a larger policy narrative (DeLeo 2018). It will be easier to do so if an indicator changes for the worse because if people did not worry about a condition previously and the condition has not changed, it is very difficult to frame the condition as a problem now. Following DeLeo and Duarte (2021), if a changed indicator threatens the interests of certain groups (“indicator politicization”), framing a condition as a problem becomes more likely. According to Tom Birkland’s (1997, 22) definition, focusing events are sudden and relatively rare, are at least potentially harmful, and are known to policymakers and the public at the same time. Although it is far from certain whether events like natural disasters (earthquakes, hurricanes), severe technical accidents (airplane crashes, nuclear accidents), and particularly serious forms of violent crimes (terrorist attacks, high school shootings) will lead to agenda change, they at least increase the probability of agenda change. Moreover, there are different forms of focusing events. Whereas some are so grave that they “simply bowl over everything standing in the way of prominence on the agenda” (Kingdon 2011, 96), others are more subtle, including powerful symbols or personal experiences of policymakers. Finally, feedback about existing programs may direct attention to specific conditions. If it becomes known to policymakers or the public that a program does not attain its goals, that costs are skyrocketing, or that unwanted side effects occurred, this might also be framed as a problem. Nevertheless, policymakers are made aware of numerous problems on a daily basis, and it is impossible to pay attention to all of them at any given time (Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015; Kingdon 2011, 184–186). Thus, whether a problem receives policymakers’ attention also depends upon which other problems are currently discussed. In the aftermath of terrorist attacks or in a deep recession, other problems have a difficult time receiving attention. More generally, the more politically relevant a condition becomes, the more likely it is that it will be dealt with. However, what exactly political relevance means is not entirely clear. Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015) suggest that political relevance is strongly related to the electoral relevance of a condition: if a problem jeopardizes a policymaker’s reelection, it will probably be defined as a relevant problem the policymaker needs to attend to. Thus, MSF does not see problems (and their severity) as objective facts but rather as social constructs. Moreover, the framing of a problem is of utter importance because how a problem is defined substantially affects the solutions that can be coupled to it. That implies that agency becomes relevant because someone has to frame a problem in a specific way. Knaggård (2015, 452) argues that problem brokers are actors who “frame conditions as public problems and work to make policymakers accept these frames. Problem brokers thus define conditions as problems.” Problem brokers can simultaneously but not necessarily be policy entrepreneurs. The key

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34  Nicole Herweg et al. analytical difference between the two roles is that the problem broker only argues that something must be done about a specific condition, whereas the policy entrepreneur suggests solutions to the problem. For empirical applications, it is necessary to define when the streams are ready for coupling. The problem stream should not pose difficulties in this regard because policy entrepreneurs are always able to frame a condition as a problem that can be coupled with their favored policy proposal. Policy Stream In the policy stream, policy alternatives are generated in policy communities. A policy community “is mainly a loose connection of civil servants, interest-groups, academics, researchers and consultants (the so-called hidden participants), who engage in working out alternatives to the policy problems of a specific policy field” (Herweg 2016a, 132).The overwhelming majority of members of a policy community are policy experts who advocate and discuss policy ideas. Thus, various ideas float around in what Kingdon (2011, 116) called a policy “primeval soup.” During the process known as “softening-up,” members of the policy community discuss, modify, and recombine these ideas. Although the number of ideas floating around in the primeval soup originally is quite large, the process of softening-up filters out many of them until a limited number of viable policy alternatives emerge, each backed by a substantial part of the policy community. Only these alternatives will receive serious consideration. This process is heavily influenced by the structure of the policy community. Where policymakers search for solutions and how ideas germinate in the primeval soup depend on the degree of integration of the policy community—that is, the linkages among its members. The gestation period of ideas in the policy stream varies from rapid to gradual.The content ranges from totally new to a minor extension of the old.The typology that emerges from these criteria yields four categories: quantum (rapid propulsion of new ideas), emergent (gradual gestation of new ideas), convergent (rapid gestation of old ideas), and gradualist (slow gestation of marginal extensions of existing policies) (Durant and Diehl, 1989). Integration encourages one type of evolution rather than another. Less integrated policy communities, those that are larger in size and interact in a competitive mode, are more likely to facilitate a quantum to gradualist evolution of ideas. More integrated, that is, smaller and consensual policy communities, are likely to follow an emergent to convergent pattern.This is not to say that other combinations are not possible but rather that integration renders such evolutionary trajectories more likely (Zahariadis 2003). Policy diffusion and policy transfer should also be considered. For example, Lovell (2016) finds that MSF must be supplemented with theoretical insights from policy mobility as ideas move across national boundaries. This point makes policy communities more porous than previously conceived because ideas may not take time to soften up domestically as they

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Multiple Streams Framework  35 acquire “legitimacy” through success in other countries (see also Goyal 2021, 6). Hence, external nonstate actors may actually be thought of as regular members of an international network in a more broadly conceived domestic policy community (Lovell 2016). Regardless of the structure of the policy community, it is by no means random which proposals survive in the primeval soup. To the extent that proposals fulfill certain criteria, they are more likely to become viable policy alternatives. Kingdon (2011, 131–139) discussed various “criteria for survival”: technical feasibility, value acceptability, public acquiescence, and financial viability. Thus, when policy experts doubt an idea can be implemented smoothly, when a proposal contradicts the values of many members of the policy community, when it is perceived as unlikely that an idea can find a majority in the political stream, or when costs are high, it is unlikely that the idea will survive the softening-up process. More recently, other criteria for survival have been suggested (Zohlnhöfer and Huß 2016). In EU member states, for example, ideas that do not conform to EU law have a smaller chance of surviving. Similarly, if an idea’s conformity with constitutional regulations is doubted, the likelihood that this idea is pursued further decreases, particularly in countries with strong judicial review. Finally, path dependence can be incorporated in the selection criteria. If an idea strongly deviates from a previous policy path that is characterized by increasing returns, its chances of becoming a viable alternative are very low—consider the idea to turn a pay-as-you-go pension system into a funded system. The policy stream can be defined as ready for coupling when at least one viable policy alternative exists that meets the criteria for survival (for an in-depth analysis of these criteria, see Bothner 2021). If no such alternative is available, the MSF leads us to expect that coupling is unlikely. Political Stream While the policy stream is located at the level of the policy subsystem, where debating is the dominant mode of interaction, the political stream is located at the level of the political system and bargaining and powering dominate, as majorities for proposals are sought. Kingdon identified three core elements in the political stream: the national mood, interest groups, and government. The national mood refers to the notion that a fairly large number of individuals in a given country tend to think along common lines and that the mood swings from time to time. Kingdon suggested that government officials sense changes in this mood and act to promote certain items on the agenda according to the national mood. Thus, the national mood is characterized by a strong element of perception on the part of policymakers. Accordingly, Kingdon advises not to confound the national mood with the results of opinion polls because the latter lack the perceptual element. Nonetheless, given the immense professionalization of politics, which includes a proliferation of opinion polls many of which are actually commissioned by policymakers themselves, it seems plausible to follow more

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36  Nicole Herweg et al. recent research (e.g., Zahariadis 2015) and rely on opinion poll results for the operationalization of the national mood—preferably in addition to more direct sources of policymakers’ perceptions. Interest group campaigns are the second element of the political stream. Quite evidently, the more interest groups are opposed to an idea and the more powerful these interest groups are, the less likely it is that that idea will make it onto the agenda. It is important to keep in mind, however, that there is more to the activities of interest groups than just campaigns—and that the MSF is able to accommodate this fact. As discussed earlier, interest group representatives can be members of the policy community and thus propose ideas and participate in the softening-up process. But these activities take place in the policy stream and need to be kept distinct from the campaigns that interest groups might launch against proposals. Governments and legislatures and, in particular, changes in their composition, constitute the third element of the political stream. For example, some ministers or members of parliament might be more open-minded with regard to some policy proposals, or certain ideas match better with the ideology of one party than with that of another one, and therefore turnover may make a difference for which items enter the agenda. But this element of the political stream is not entirely about elected officials and political parties. Bureaucratic turf battles and important administrators are also highly relevant here. When is the political stream ready for coupling? For two reasons it is slightly more difficult to answer this question regarding the political stream than for the problem and policy streams—at least as far as agenda setting is concerned. First, the three elements of the political stream do not need to point in the same direction for a given policy proposal. For example, although the government might be receptive to a proposal and policymakers might sense a supportive national mood, interest groups could at the same time be rather negative. How does this constellation affect the possibility of agenda change? Building on the work of Zahariadis (1995, 2003), who suggested collapsing all three elements of the political stream (government, national mood, and interest group campaigns) into the variable “party politics,” Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015) argue that government and legislatures are the most relevant actors in the political stream—because ultimately these are the actors who have to adopt a policy change. At the same time, their position may well be influenced, but not determined, by the national mood and interest group campaigns. Thus, it is possible under certain conditions that a government is willing to ignore interest group campaigns and even a reluctant national mood. Second, it is not yet necessary at the agenda setting stage to build political majorities that may eventually be needed to adopt legislation. Indeed, in many cases legislative majorities are only gathered after an issue is on the agenda. Nonetheless, the political stream is certainly also important during agenda setting. The minimum that is needed to make the political stream ready for coupling is for a key policymaker, such as the relevant minister or an influential member of legislature, to actively support the idea in question

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Multiple Streams Framework  37 and be willing to stitch together a majority for it (Zohlnhöfer 2016). Following Roberts and King (1991, 152), Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015, 446) have suggested calling these actors “political entrepreneurs.” In contrast to policy entrepreneurs, political entrepreneurs are neither necessarily members of the policy community nor do they have to be involved in the development of the policy proposal at an early stage. Rather, once a policy entrepreneur has convinced a political entrepreneur of the project, the political entrepreneur, because of the individual’s formal leadership position, can further the idea from inside the formal governmental system and work for its adoption. Agenda (Policy) Window Even when all three streams are ready for coupling agenda change may not come about automatically. Rather, a coupling of the three streams, and eventually agenda change, becomes much more likely at specific points in time, which Kingdon has called policy windows. A policy window is defined as a fleeting “opportunity for advocates of proposals to push their pet solutions, or to push attention to their special problems” (Kingdon 2011, 165). Although policy window is a generic term widely used in the literature, it has been proposed recently to refine this term to capture important nuances. To distinguish opportunities to get an issue on the agenda from opportunities to get policies adopted, Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015) have suggested calling the former “agenda window” and the latter “decision window.” We follow this suggestion but keep the term policy window for more generic use. Agenda windows are rare (at least with regard to a particular policy proposal) and ephemeral; they can be predictable (elections, budgets) or unpredictable (disasters). They can open in two of the three streams: the problem or the political stream. A window in the political stream opens if the partisan composition of government changes or new members enter legislature. The incoming actors are interested in new ideas and are therefore open to novel policy proposals. Similarly, a significant shift in the national mood can open an agenda window. In contrast, an agenda window opens in the problem stream when indicators deteriorate dramatically—for example, unemployment or the budget deficit skyrocket in a very brief period. Alternatively, focusing events like natural disasters or terrorist attacks can open an agenda window. Depending on the stream in which the window opens, coupling differs. In the case of a window that opens in the political stream, we should expect “doctrinal coupling” (Zahariadis 2003, 72) or “problem-focused advocacy” (Boscarino 2009, 429). The main task is finding a problem to a given solution. Take a change of government, for example. The new government is likely to argue that it was elected to adopt new policies and will be eager to prove that it delivers. Thus, although the solution is already in the manifesto, the government looks for problems that these solutions can solve. Because

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38  Nicole Herweg et al. many conditions could be framed as problems, it should not be difficult to find a problem that suits the solution. Coupling in response to windows opening in the problem stream is called “consequential coupling” (Zahariadis 2003, 72) or “problem surfing” (Boscarino 2009, 429). It differs from coupling in windows that open in the political stream in at least two ways. First, the duration during which the window is open is shorter in the former than in the latter case because response to a problem must be more or less immediate (Keeler 1993). Second, in the case of a window that opens in the problem stream, a solution needs to be found that fits the problem that is on the agenda. Remember, however, that the window is open only for a limited period of time, which in most instances is insufficient to work out a solution after the problem has risen to prominence. Rather, even in the case of consequential coupling the problem will be coupled to a preexisting solution that is somehow linked to the problem.Thus, in both cases, under doctrinal and consequential coupling, the relationship between problem and solution is not particularly tight. Ackrill and Kay (2011) introduce a third coupling mechanism: commissioning. In contrast to doctrinal and consequential coupling, where policy entrepreneurs sell their pet proposals to policymakers, commissioning captures policymakers’ active reaction to the opening of a policy window. The opening of a policy window signals to policymakers that an issue needs to be addressed. Instead of waiting for a policy entrepreneur to sell a solution, policymakers actively select the solution they deem appropriate (and thus the policy entrepreneur who advocates it) as a reaction to changes in the problem or political streams. Dolan (2021) adds issue linking as a fourth coupling mechanism. She builds on Kingdon’s (2011, 202) observation that during the policy process, partial couplings of two streams occur but that changing the agenda requires the joining of all three streams. Dolan (2021) argues that policy entrepreneurs can attempt to rhetorically connect the partially coupled issues (e.g., from the problem and political stream for issue 1, from the problem and policy stream for issue 2, and from the political and policy stream for issue 3). If they are successful in linking issues, this results in a complete coupling of all streams for the linked issues and, thus, an agenda change. The main analytical problem with the concept of the agenda window in empirical applications is that it is usually only identified ex post. Certainly, some agenda windows are predictable, such as elections or budget negotiations.When the three streams are ready for coupling and issue competition is low, the likelihood is high that these kinds of windows can be used for coupling. Many other windows are less predictable, however—think of accidents, high school shootings, and a swing in the national mood. The main problem is not only that these events are very difficult (if not impossible) to predict. Rather, the issue is that it is often hard to decide ex ante whether these events constitute an agenda window for a given policy at all (Béland 2016, 234). Certainly, agenda windows are to an extent construed by problem brokers

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Multiple Streams Framework  39 and are a function of how crowded the agenda is. Nonetheless, according to Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015), the chances that an event can be utilized as an agenda window increase as the electoral relevance of an issue increases. Hence, even less dramatic events can open agenda windows in electorally salient issue areas (Zohlnhöfer 2016). Conversely, severe focusing events are indispensable conditions that may open windows in the problem stream in electorally less salient fields. Policy Entrepreneur Policy entrepreneurs, that is, “advocates who are willing to invest their resources—time, energy, reputation, money—to promote a position in return for anticipated future gain in the form of material, purposive, or solidary benefits” (Kingdon 2011, 179), are key actors in the MSF. They can be individuals or corporate actors and are not defined by a specific formal position. Essentially, any policy-relevant actor—policymaker, bureaucrat, academic, journalist, representative of an interest group, or member of parliament— can become a policy entrepreneur. Policy entrepreneurs push their proposals (“pet projects,” in MSF parlance) in the policy stream and adapt them in order to find broad support among the members of the policy community and make them viable alternatives. Once that has been achieved, they attempt to couple their pet project with the other two streams. When agenda windows open, policy entrepreneurs must immediately seize the opportunity to initiate action. Otherwise, the opportunity is lost and the policy entrepreneurs must wait for the next one to come along. Policy entrepreneurs are thus more than mere advocates of particular solutions; they are also manipulators of problematic preferences and unclear technology (Mintrom and Norman 2009). Entrepreneurs must be not only persistent but also skilled at coupling.They must be able to attach problems to their solutions and find politicians who are receptive to their ideas, that is, political entrepreneurs. An issue’s chances of gaining agenda status dramatically increase when all three streams—problems, policies, and politics—are coupled in a single package (for an empirical assessment of policy entrepreneurs’ coupling activities, see Frisch Aviram, Cohen, and Beeri 2020). Not all entrepreneurs are successful at all times. More successful entrepreneurs are those who have greater access to policymakers. For example, the Adam Smith Institute had greater access to the government during Margaret Thatcher’s tenure in power in Britain because its ideologies matched more closely than those of other groups. Hence, options put forth by individuals associated with the institute had a greater receptivity among policymakers. Entrepreneurs with more resources, that is, the ability to spend more time, money, and energy, to push their proposals have greater rates of success. Entrepreneurs have a variety of instruments at their disposal, including framing of a problem, affect priming, “salami tactics,” and the use of symbols (Zahariadis 2003, 14, 2015).

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40  Nicole Herweg et al. The MSF argues that agenda setting is not primarily an exercise in rational problem solving. Rather, sometimes a problem comes up that is coupled with a preexisting policy that somewhat “fits” it, whereas at other times a political opportunity arises—with the advent of a new government, for instance—to get a policy on the agenda, and that policy then needs to be coupled to some problem. Nonetheless, this does not exclude the possibility of formulating hypotheses for each of the MSF’s key elements as well as for the framework as a whole. We present a number of testable, probabilistic hypotheses in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 MSF Hypotheses on Agenda Setting Hypothesis for the Framework as a Whole Agenda change becomes more likely if (a) a policy window opens, (b) the streams are ready for coupling, and (c) a policy entrepreneur promotes the agenda change. Hypotheses for the Framework’s Key Elements Problem stream

Political stream Policy stream

Policy window

Policy entrepreneur

• A problem broker is likely to be more successful framing a condition as a problem the more an indicator changes to the negative, the more harmful a focusing event is, and the more definitely a government program does not work as expected. • Policy proposals that fit the general ideology of a government or the majority in a legislature have a better chance of gaining agenda status. • If a policy proposal does not fulfill the selection criteria, the likelihood of gaining agenda status, and thus being coupled, decreases significantly. • As the integration of policy communities decreases, it becomes more likely that entirely new ideas can become viable policy alternatives. • The policy window opens in the problem stream as a result of at least one of the following changes: change of indicators, focusing events, or feedback. • The more a condition puts a policymaker’s reelection at risk, the more likely it is to open a policy window in the problem stream. • The policy window opens in the political stream as a result of at least one of the following changes: changes in legislature, election of a new government, or changes in the national mood. • Policy entrepreneurs are more likely to couple the streams successfully during an open policy window if (a) they have more access to core policymakers and (b) they are more persistent.

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Multiple Streams Framework  41

Applications and Adaptations to Stages of the Policy Cycle Originally, Kingdon developed his framework to explain agenda setting in health and transport at the federal level of the United States. The subsequent literature, however, has also applied the MSF to different policy domains, further stages of the policy cycle, and different political systems. The policy domains covered range from gender equality (Béland 2009) to foreign policy (Travis and Zahariadis 2002) and from gun control (Sanjurjo 2020) to the regulation of private security (Staff 2020). In their literature review, Jones et al. (2016) report that twenty-two policy domains were explored using the MSF, with health, environment, governance, education, and welfare covering almost 80% of the MSF applications analyzed (see also Rawat and Morris 2016, 614). Although applying the framework in various policy domains does not automatically require adaptations, such a need arises when the MSF is applied to different policy stages and political systems. The MSF has mostly been applied to agenda setting and decision-making, but also to policy implementation and, rarely, policy termination (e.g., Geva-May 2004; Wenzelburger and Hartmann 2021). We discuss below some of the adaptations that have been suggested in the literature for decision-making and implementation. Decision-Making To understand how the MSF needs to be adapted to apply to decisionmaking, it is necessary to explicate the differences between agenda setting and decision-making (see, for example, Knill and Tosun 2020). During agenda setting, a large number of actors compete for attention for various proposals, whereas decision-making is about obtaining a majority for a specific proposal. Thus, the number of actors tends to decrease during decision-making. At the same time, the relevance of the institutional setting increases as we move from agenda setting to decision-making (Baumgartner et al. 2009).This implies that the decision-making process is more structured and orderly and that institutions need to be taken into account much more thoroughly. Because the original formulation of MSF essentially failed to integrate institutions (see Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Huß 2016 for an overview), this fact alone makes adaptation of the framework necessary. Several authors have suggested how the MSF can be adapted to explain decision-making (see Zahariadis 1992, 2003 as classics, and Howlett, McConnell, and Perl 2015 and Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015 as elaborate recent attempts). We discuss Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer’s (2015) concept because it leaves the operating structure of the MSF untouched and still explains decision-making. Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer’s (2015) main idea is to distinguish two windows, and consequently two coupling processes (see Figure 1.1): one for agenda setting, which they label agenda window, with its associated agenda

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42  Nicole Herweg et al.

Figure 1.1 A Modified MSF Source: Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015, 445). Copyright © 2015 European Consortium for Political Research, published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd

coupling (see above); and one for decision-making, called decision window, with the related decision coupling.We discussed agenda windows and agenda coupling above, so we concentrate here on decision windows and decision coupling. According to Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer (2015), a decision window opens once agenda coupling succeeds.The result of successful decision coupling is the adoption of a bill. The main question during decision coupling is how to build the necessary majorities to adopt a proposal that has already been coupled to a specific problem during agenda setting. Political entrepreneurs, that is, those who hold an (elected) leadership position and who actively support a proposal (see above), are the key actors in this process. They try to obtain majority support for their projects and bargain over the specific details of the policy. On the one hand, it is clear that the political stream dominates during decision coupling. As we will see, that is not to say that the problem and policy streams are irrelevant at this stage, but their importance is reduced compared to the agenda setting stage. On the other hand, it should be noted that institutional settings circumscribe whose support is needed. Therefore, there exist differences across countries and sometimes across issue areas and over time. The chances of a political entrepreneur getting a pet proposal adopted once it is on the agenda increase if the entrepreneur is a cabinet member in a Westminster kind of political system. Thus, in systems with few or no veto actors, decision coupling will be smoother in most instances because the adoption of a policy that is supported by the responsible minister is almost certain. The analytical value-added of the concept of decision coupling becomes clearer in situations in which the political entrepreneur does not command a majority for policy adoption—think of divided government, coalition governments, minority governments, or

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Multiple Streams Framework  43 cases in which supermajorities are required. In all these cases, the political entrepreneur must organize the necessary majority during decision coupling; in these cases the concept substantially increases the framework’s leverage. What can a political entrepreneur do to win over enough support to secure a majority for adoption of a proposal? The literature (Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015; Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Huß 2016) suggests three instruments: package deals, concessions, and manipulation. The basic idea of package deals in an MSF context is that more than one policy proposal can be coupled to any given problem. Therefore, political entrepreneurs may win additional support for their pet proposals if they combine a proposal with another proposal from the policy stream, thus winning the support of those policymakers who prefer the other option. For example, a political entrepreneur who favors a specific spending program in response to a recession could include a tax cut in the proposal to broaden support. Package deals might not always be feasible, however. To use the above example, budgetary restrictions might prevent the simultaneous adoption of spending programs and tax cuts. Therefore, it might be necessary to make some concessions, that is, to adopt the proposal in a diluted version. Less far-reaching changes are generally easier to adopt for a variety of reasons (see Zohlnhöfer 2009) that may also help political entrepreneurs obtain majorities for their proposals. Strategies for more far-reaching change could be introduced later (known as “salami tactics”; cf. Zahariadis 2003, 14). Finally, political entrepreneurs could try to manipulate policymakers. There are numerous ways to do so. For example, political entrepreneurs can resort to the problem stream and present the problem that the proposal under discussion is supposed to deal with as growing ever more severe. This way, they can pressure policymakers, particularly if they succeed in presenting the problem as a threat to policymakers’ reelection. Another way of manipulating is to centralize policymaking processes. Indeed, case studies (Herweg 2017; Zohlnhöfer 2016) have shown that sometimes policymakers circumvent other relevant actors in the decision-making process. For example, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder threatened to resign should his reluctant party not follow his course in labor market policy. The European Commission likewise threatened to take certain member states to court should they not support its liberalization plans. In both (and many other) cases, this allowed political entrepreneurs to get their proposals adopted despite the resistance of veto actors. The distinction between the two coupling processes thus makes it possible to analyze decision-making from an MSF perspective. It allows formulating hypotheses on the likelihood of policy adoption as well as on how much a policy is altered during decision coupling (see Table 1.2). Moreover, by distinguishing agenda coupling and decision coupling we can integrate formal political institutions into the framework. In doing so, MSF sheds a novel light on the well-known effect of political institutions on public

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44  Nicole Herweg et al. Table 1.2 MSF Hypotheses on Decision-Making Policy adoption

Size of change to the original proposal during decision-making

• Policy adoption is more likely if the proposal is put forward by political entrepreneurs who hold an (elected) leadership position in government. • Policy adoption is more likely if the proposal is put forward by a government or majority party that is not constrained by other veto actors. • Policy adoption is more likely if different viable alternatives embraced by different actors can be combined in one package. • Policy adoption is more likely if the problem that the policy is supposed to solve is salient among the voters. • The policy adopted will likely differ significantly from the original proposal if actors other than the government have veto power (e.g., second chambers). • The more powerful the interest groups’ campaigns against the original proposal, the more different the adopted policy is likely to be.

policies by bringing back into the debate political entrepreneurs and the possibility that veto actors can be circumvented and majorities built. Implementation MSF scholars have recently turned to analyzing policy implementation (for the following, see Herweg and Zohlnhöfer forthcoming). Essentially, there are two types of MSF implementation studies. Some scholars study how lower levels of government implement policies coming from higher levels of government in multi-level systems. Examples include the transposition of EU law by the member states (Rietig 2021) or the responses of Swiss cantons to specific decisions at the federal level (Sager and Thomann 2017). This form of implementation does not pose particular problems for MSF applications. While, depending on the specific case, the higher-level decision can affect any of the three streams, the basic operating structure of the framework remains intact. The second form of policy implementation, namely the administrative implementation of decisions by bureaucracies, raises more intricate questions. While there is a growing literature on this issue, many contributions extensively modify the MSF by adding (Goyal, Howlett, and Chindarkar 2020), excluding, or redefining streams (Boswell and Rodrigues 2016; Exworthy and Powell 2004). At the same time, it is not always clear if and how basic concepts of the MSF like ambiguity, time constraints, or problematic policy preferences play out during policy implementation. An application that stays comparatively close to the original framework while still introducing some necessary modifications is the study by Fowler

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Multiple Streams Framework  45 (2019). Formal policy adoption is considered to start the process of policy implementation, hence an “implementation window” (Zahariadis and Exadaktylos 2016) opens. Fowler argues that during implementation a new actor role becomes relevant, which he calls “implementer.” Implementers are “the primary decision makers in implementation processes” (Fowler 2019, 408). Importantly, implementers resemble the framework’s other actors in that they have problematic policy preferences. Hence, implementers might differ in their understanding how to implement specific policies. At the same time, policy entrepreneurs remain relevant during implementation as they want to make sure that their pet proposal does not fail during implementation. Therefore, they try to incentivize implementers to remain true to their proposal. At the same time, implementers are also alert to developments in the politics stream. They are expected to modify their implementation behavior in response to these developments. Finally, the problem stream remains relevant also during implementation. Implementers in principle are expected to focus on indicators that were relevant during policymaking. Nonetheless, possible non-specificity or ambiguity of indicators leave substantial discretion to implementers. In their conceptualization, Zahariadis and Exadaktylos (2016) estimate two policy phases (formation and implementation) with multiple rounds of deliberation. Each phase is marked by continuities with previous actions and by additions of new actors, potentially new resources, or both. They argue the process of reducing ambiguity inherent in many laws involves mechanisms organically linking actors, resources, and strategies in interactive ways. Focusing only on coupling strategies, they maintain that what leads to success in decision-making increases the chances of failure in implementation. 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. In MSF terms, the mechanisms linking strategy to failure involve decoupling problems from solutions, undermining support in the political stream, and altering estimates of equity and efficiency in the policy stream. Take the example of Greek higher education (Zahariadis and Exadaktylos 2016). The authors argue that the activation of a new set of actors during implementation—university administration, professors, and students (and through them political parties)—likely undermined the successful entrepreneurial coupling strategies of issue linking and framing during policy implementation.

International and Comparative Applications The MSF has also been employed to explain policy processes in political systems that differ substantially from the original system in which the MSF was devised, namely, the political system of the United States. For instance, MSF has been applied to other presidential systems like the ones

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46  Nicole Herweg et al. in Brazil and Uruguay (Sanjurjo 2020) as well as to parliamentary systems, ranging from Australia (Beeson and Stone 2013; Dolan 2021; Lovell 2016; Tiernan and Burke 2002), Belgium (Vanhercke 2009), Canada (Blankenau 2001), Germany (Storch and Winkel 2013; Zohlnhöfer 2016), Italy (Natali 2004) to India (Liu and Jayakar 2012; Sharma 2008). We also find a limited number of contributions applying MSF to policymaking processes in autocracies: for instance, Iran (Jafari et al. 2016), Belarus (Babayan, Schlaufer, and Uldanov 2021), and China (Van den Dool 2022; Zhou and Feng 2014). But the framework’s applicability is not confined to politics at the national level. Rather, MSF has proved to be applicable to subnational (Dudley 2013; Lieberman 2002; Liu et al. 2010; Oborn, Barrett, and Exworthy 2011; Ridde 2009; Robinson and Eller 2010) and, increasingly, to international (EU) levels (see Bache 2013; Cairney 2009; Copeland and James 2014; Saurugger and Terpan 2016). Depending on how much the political system analyzed differs from the US presidential one, it is necessary to adapt the framework to different degrees. Parliamentary systems necessitate fewer adaptations, whereas policymaking in autocracies requires more encompassing modifications. The adaptations necessary to make the MSF applicable to EU policymaking are somewhere in between these extremes. Nonetheless, these adaptation requirements need to be addressed explicitly and systematically. Focusing on the political systems that have gained most scientific attention in non-US MSF applications (i.e., parliamentary systems, autocracies, and the EU), we discuss some promising adaptations that have been suggested. Parliamentary Systems Compared to the US presidential system, parliamentary systems have been described as more “orderly” (Zahariadis 2003, 1), and thus less well suited for MSF analysis. In parliamentary democracies, governments depend on the confidence of the majority in parliament to a considerable degree, implying higher party discipline. Therefore, parties are the key political actors in most parliamentary systems although they do not figure very prominently in the original formulation of the MSF. Moreover, parties in many parliamentary systems used to be programmatically more coherent than their US counterparts. Does the assumption that policymakers have unclear policy preferences hold for these actors? Although it cannot be denied that many parties in parliamentary (and many presidential) systems have some basic programmatic positions, these are less and less able to guide concrete policy choices (see Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015). In other words, although parties might in principle be conservative, liberal, or socialist, it is often very difficult to derive preferences on specific policy proposals from these ideological positions. Therefore, the specific policy preferences of parties in parliamentary systems can be regarded as equally unclear as those of their US counterparts, particularly in recent years.

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Multiple Streams Framework  47 Nonetheless, the MSF must be adapted to the important role political parties play in parliamentary systems (cf. Zahariadis 2003). The literature on political parties suggests that parties pursue three goals (Strøm 1990): they want to win votes, get into office, and get their preferred policies adopted. Thus, political parties fill different roles at different times and should be included in more than one stream (Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015). On the one hand, parties’ policy experts are often members of the policy community. They participate in the softening-up process by proposing their ideas, criticizing proposals of other members, and recombining proposals (see the examples in Zohlnhöfer and Huß 2016). Party ideology could play some role here insofar as a party’s policy experts will be more likely to support proposals that can be attached to the basic party ideology or that address already well-known core positions of that party (Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer 2015). Moreover, these policy experts can play an important role in bringing viable policy alternatives to the parties. On the other hand, the party leadership is active in the political stream, where it seeks to organize majorities for policy adoption. In the political stream, party discipline and coalitions, which are typical of many parliamentary systems, are particularly relevant (especially during decision coupling), because political entrepreneurs seeking to obtain majorities will not focus on individual policymakers but rather on party leaders in these systems. In cases in which the political entrepreneur is a member of the governing party or coalition, this is certainly an advantage, while it tends to be a disadvantage for political entrepreneurs from opposition parties. The fact that parties—like interest groups—are relevant in two streams does not contradict the assumption of independence of streams as long as the two roles are kept distinct analytically. Moreover, in the case of parties, the different roles are filled by different actors: policy experts in the policy stream and party leadership in the political stream. European Union EU policy processes are astonishingly well captured by the features of organized anarchies (Corbett 2005; Natali 2004; Peters 1994; Richardson 2006), which qualifies the MSF as a promising analytical framework to study EU policy processes (Ackrill, Kay, and Zahariadis 2013; Zahariadis 2008). With regard to the issue areas covered, MSF has been applied widely, ranging from economic policy (Copeland and James 2014; Huisman and de Jong 2014; Sarmiento-Mirwaldt 2015; Saurugger and Terpan 2016), energy policy (Herweg 2016b; Maltby 2013), sugar policy (Ackrill and Kay 2011), and visa liberalization (Bürgin 2013) to counterterrorism (Kaunert and Giovanna 2010) and defense policy (Jegen and Mérand 2013). In line with the findings on MSF applications in general (Cairney and Jones 2016; Jones et al. 2016), these contributions do not build on a shared definition of the framework’s key concepts (Herweg and Zohlnhöfer 2022). Most obviously, though not exclusively, this applies to the political stream.

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48  Nicole Herweg et al. Some articles do not include a theoretically derived definition of the political stream, and others introduce different and only partly overlapping definitions (Herweg and Zahariadis 2018). The concept which has gained most attention is the policy window (which refers to both the agenda window and the decision window in our terminology) (cf. Ackrill and Kay 2011; Huisman and de Jong 2014; Saurugger and Terpan 2016). Ackrill and Kay (2011, 75), for instance, introduce the concept of institutional ambiguity in order to address the question why decision windows do not close as quickly as predicted by Kingdon (2011). They define institutional ambiguity as “a policy-making environment of overlapping institutions lacking a clear hierarchy.” According to the authors, various policy issues fall in the realm of more than one directorate-general (or policy area) without prioritizing one directorate-general over the other(s). Owing to institutional interconnectedness, a change in the policy issue in one policy area can trigger a change in that issue in related policy areas. Ackrill and Kay (2011) refer to this kind of reform pressure as endogenous spillover, whereas exogenous spillover resembles Kingdon’s idea that change occurs in institutionally unrelated policy areas. In terms of theory building, Herweg (2017) presents the most elaborate attempt to transfer the MSF to EU agenda setting and decisionmaking. Building on Zahariadis (2008), she systematically defines functional equivalents of the MSF’s key concepts at the EU level and applies Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer’s (2015) suggestion to differentiate between agenda windows and decision windows. She also explicitly derives and tests hypotheses, using EU natural gas market policy between the mid-1980s and late2000s as a case study. Non-democracies Although MSF has only rarely been applied to agenda setting and policymaking in non-democratic regimes so far, more recently scholars have started taking up this issue. While Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer (2022) provide a conceptual discussion of where and how MSF needs to be adapted to be applicable to authoritarian regimes and deduce testable hypotheses, a number of recent papers have also convincingly applied the framework to policymaking in non-democracies empirically. Van den Dool’s (2022) study on China and Babayan, Schlaufer, and Uldanov’s (2021) paper on Belarus are cases in point which even deduce hypotheses from the framework and test them empirically. It turns out that despite substantial differences, MSF’s basic assumptions also hold for non-democracies. Moreover, the framework can be applied empirically in these settings, too. Autocratic regimes need to couple problems to solutions and need to decide on which problems or policy projects they want to invest their time and resources—which might be even more limited as the centralization of an autocratic regime increases. In the absence of or under conditions of limited political freedom and competitive elections, the processes in the three streams are likely to differ somewhat from

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Multiple Streams Framework  49 the processes we observe in democratic systems. Policy communities might be smaller and more integrated, and the most important criterion for survival is probably acquiescence of the dictator. Problem brokers might need to find different ways to convince policymakers of their problem definition and there might be specific biases regarding which conditions are successfully defined as problems; for example, bureaucrats are less likely to report failures of government policies while the autocratic elite might be particularly alert regarding issues that are related to the regime’s core ideology. Finally, while the national mood is sometimes found to play a role also in non-democracies (see the examples in Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2022, 216), the “selectorate’s mood,” i.e., the mood among the autocratic elite, might be at least as important. The most important element of the politics stream clearly is the autocrat or the autocratic elite, however. So while adaptations clearly are required, the central idea that policies need to be coupled to some kind of problem in certain political contexts can be easily applied in nondemocratic settings. Future research should further engage in testing systematically the suggested modifications, discuss whether further adaptation requirements exist, and eventually introduce and test them. Foreign Policy/International Relations Zahariadis (2005), Mazzar (2007), Travis and Zahariadis (2002), and Durant and Diehl (1989) probe the utility of MSF in foreign policy. They find that MSF is a good candidate to bridge the divide between domestic and foreign policy. The key problem is to link domestic and external variables. Despite differences regarding the ability of interest groups and corporate actors to access the foreign policy establishment of a particular country, particularly those representing or having extensive ties to foreign interests, domestic concerns and actors assess and filter external threats while pursuing their own domestic pet projects. Ultimately, foreign policy outcomes need to be acceptable to domestic audiences who will ratify the solutions. The external environment plays a role, but externally generated problems or solutions still need to be domestically interpreted. Policy entrepreneurs play a major part in coupling, just like in the case of domestic policies (Blavoukos and Bourantonis 2012; Hamson 2014). Having started as an explanation of domestic policy in a “disorderly” presidential democracy, MSF proves to be useful even in small, parliamentary democracies, such as Greece, and in foreign policy where participation is less fluid. Investigating Greek foreign policy, Zahariadis (2005) probes the utility and explanatory power of three lenses, MSF, rational internationalism, and twolevel games, yielding some intriguing findings. Conceptualizing the dependent variable as degree of confrontational or cooperative policy, to avoid idiosyncratic explanations he finds that although MSF provides the better overall fit because it more accurately explains a greater number of occurrences, it systematically underexplains cooperative policy. Zahariadis (2015) adds the role of emotion as a tool for anchoring foreign policies around specific options,

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50  Nicole Herweg et al. making it exceedingly difficult to take corrective action even when there is widespread agreement that the policy is not producing desirable results. Building on one of Herweg, Huß, and Zohlnhöfer’s (2015) hypotheses, Heaphy (2022) argues that it is rather the exception than the rule that foreign policy issues involve severe electoral pressure. How then do problem windows open in this policy arena? This could be the case if “a condition puts the policymakers’ influence on negotiations […] at risk” (Heaphy 2022, 3). Examples include a loss of either the policymakers’ personal credibility or a state’s general reputation. At the international/systemic level of analysis, Lipson (2007) explains changes in peacekeeping as the result of policy entrepreneurs’ linking of a solution (peacekeeping) to a problem (intrastate conflicts) in the context of a policy window created by the ending of the Cold War. In addition, looking at administrative reforms in UN peacekeeping, Lipson (2012) argues that the creation of Integrated Operational Teams in the UN Secretariat is consistent with garbage can expectations. Bossong (2013) focuses on the utility of policy windows and the ensuing narratives and finds MSF to be a useful tool to analyze patterns of agenda setting (as opposed to particular events) and nonincremental policy change in the fields of international security and European counterterrorism.

Limitations Despite its wide appeal among policy analysts, MSF has also generated substantial criticism.We discuss the most relevant points in the following (cf. also Zohlnhöfer and Rüb 2016, 6–10). Are the Streams Really Independent? MSF argues that although the streams are not completely independent of one another, they can be viewed as each having a life of their own. Participants drift in and out of decisions, making some choices more likely than others. Problems rise and fall on the government’s agenda regardless of whether they are solvable or have been solved. Similarly, people generate solutions, not necessarily because they have identified a particular problem, but because the solution happens to answer a problem that fits their values, beliefs, or material well-being. Changes in the political stream take place whether or not problems facing the nation have changed. Thus, each stream seems to obey its own rules and flows largely independently of the others (Sager and Rielle 2013). Critics, including Mucciaroni (1992, 2013) and Robinson and Eller (2010), disagree, questioning the appropriateness of conceptualizing independent streams. The streams can be more fruitfully viewed as interdependent, Mucciaroni maintains, and changes in one stream can trigger or reinforce changes in another. For example, a focusing event, like a terrorist attack, may well have an impact on the national mood.

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Multiple Streams Framework  51 Stream independence is a conceptual device. It has the advantage of enabling researchers to uncover rather than assume rationality. Not all solutions are developed in response to clearly defined problems; rather, sometimes policies are in search of a rationale or they solve no problems (Stone 2011; Zahariadis 2003). Consider, for example, the decision by the Bush administration in 2003 to go to war in Iraq. Whereas the initial rationale had to do with what was claimed to be the clear and imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, subsequent rationalizations emphasized connections to terrorists, the liberation of Iraq, and democratization and nation building.The solution remained the same— depose Saddam—while the problem constantly drifted in search of an anchor. It is impossible to make the preceding argument in the absence of stream independence.The key is to specify when policy may be in search of rationale, but we cannot logically make this statement or explain why unless we differentiate between the development of problems and their solutions. Besides, assumptions are simplifications of reality. If policy analysts readily accept the assumption that people do not have to be rational, that they only need to act as if they are rational, analysts can also readily accept the assumption that streams do not have to be independent; they only need to flow as if they are independent. Is MSF Clear Enough to Be Proven Wrong? The question of whether MSF is clear enough to be proven wrong, put forward by Kuhlmann (2016) among others, points to two related criticisms. Critics claim that MSF’s core concepts lack clear definitions and they do not generate falsifiable hypotheses (e.g., Sabatier 2007). Regarding the latter criticism, it is true that Kingdon in his original formulation of the framework did not derive hypotheses. This does not mean, however, that it is impossible to derive hypotheses. In subsequent work, at least some researchers have put forward hypotheses, although many of these were rather case specific (e.g., Blankenau 2001; Boscarino 2009; Saurugger and Terpan 2016). More recently, more general MSF hypotheses have been made explicit, and we present some of these hypotheses in this chapter.We hope that these hypotheses will guide future MSF applications. To make it more tangible how such applications could look like, Figure 1.2 illustrates how to test systematically the hypothesis for the framework as a whole. The metaphorical language of the approach (Béland and Howlett 2016, 223) poses more intricate problems. Streams and windows, primeval soups and criteria for survival, national mood, and focusing events are all somewhat difficult to measure and seem to invite story-telling rather than rigorous empirical analysis. And although it cannot be denied that a significant part of MSF-related research has indeed been plagued by this problem (see the overview in Jones et al. 2016), this does not have to be the case. Rather, Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Zahariadis (2022) suggest how the individual elements of the MSF can be operationalized with adequate precision.

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52  Nicole Herweg et al. Agenda change (DV) becomes more likely if conditions one to three are met. Condition 1: All streams are ready for coupling. Problem stream Required observations: 1. Attraction of policy-makers’ attention due to at least one change in the following attention-generating mechanisms: indicators, focusing events, feedback 2. Problem broker manages to frame the condition as problematic Political stream Required steps: Assess the receptivity to agenda change of: 1. Government and parliament: Analysis of politicians‘ ideological affiliation & the framing of issues 2. Interest groups: Identify how policy-makers perceive the balance of support (e.g., via memoirs or interviews). 3. National mood: If available, policy-makers‘ perception (e.g., memoirs); otherwise, deduction from interviews, media analysis, or opinion polls. Required observation: A political entrepreneur actively supports a proposal and is willing to bring together a majority for it during decision-making.

Condition 2: A policy window opens in the problem stream or political stream. Path 1: Problem Window Required observations: 1. Observe at least one of the following changes: -Indicator changes -Focusing event occurs -Policy-makers receive feedback 2. Condition puts policy-makers re-election at risk Path 2: Political Window Required observations: Observe at least one of the following changes: -Electoral changes -Changes in the national mood

Condition 3: A policy entrepreneur promotes the agenda change.

Required observations: 1. Identification of at least one policy entrepreneur via his/her activities (investment of time, energy, reputation, or money) 2. Identification of a policy entrepreneur’s coupling activities -Promoting problem definition and recognition -Seeking political support 3. Identification of policy entrepreneur’s characteristics -Persistence -Political wellconnectedness -Access to policy-makers -Negotiating skills

Policy stream Required steps: 1. Identification of the policy community (PC) 2. Identification of the PC’s members 3. Identification of the alternatives generated by the PC 4. Analysis of the softening-up process of alternatives Required observation: At least one alternative meets the criteria for survival (technical feasibility, value acceptability, tolerable costs, receptivity among decision-makers, legality (compliance with constitutional or European Union law), path continuity)

Figure 1.2 Testing the Hypothesis for the Framework as a Whole Source: Created by the authors

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Multiple Streams Framework  53 Are Policy Entrepreneurs More Rational Than Policymakers? Some critics argue that the assumptions about policymakers and policy entrepreneurs do not easily fit together. Policymakers are assumed to have unclear preferences, which means that they do not really know which policies they favor; policy entrepreneurs are expected to know exactly what they want—namely, to get their pet proposals adopted. So it might seem that according to the MSF some people have policy preferences while others do not. That would indeed be a problematic inconsistency. However, this apparent contradiction can be resolved (Zohlnhöfer and Rüb 2016, 7). Policy entrepreneurs should not be considered as acting more rationally than average policymakers. Kingdon (2011, 183) already warned us not to “paint these entrepreneurs as superhumanly clever.” Rather, on the one hand, MSF presumes that all actors, policymakers and policy entrepreneurs, have unclear preferences concerning the vast majority of policies. On the other hand, any policymaker can become a policy entrepreneur for a specific proposal. The exact reasons why a policymaker catches fire for a particular issue can vary: personal reasons, party ideology, or advancing a political career. Whatever the reason, it is unlikely that there is a great amount of rationality involved when it comes to explaining who pushes for the adoption of a particular policy project and not for another one. Most importantly, however, while policy entrepreneurs (sometimes even irrationally) pursue pet projects, they are likely to have entirely unclear preferences with regard to all other issue areas that are under discussion in parallel. Are Elements Lacking from MSF? Another important criticism of MSF is that it lacks some elements. Of particular relevance seem to be political institutions and path dependence (e.g., Mucciaroni 2013; Rüb 2014). Although until recently it has been tried only rarely (see Béland 2005; Blankenau 2001; Koebele 2021; Ness and Mistretta 2009), nothing in the MSF per se precludes the integration of these elements into the framework—as we have shown in this chapter. Institutions affect the integration of policy communities and define whose agreement a political entrepreneur must obtain during decision coupling. Similarly, path dependence can be understood as one of the criteria for survival that affect a proposal’s chances of becoming a viable policy alternative. Alternatively, Spohr (2016) suggests a way to combine MSF with Historical Institutionalism. Moreover, Bolukbasi and Yıldırım (2022) discuss a great number of political institutions and how they can affect agenda setting from an MSF perspective. Another relevant factor that is missing from MSF—and many other policy process theories—is the mass media (Rüb 2014). The way the media report on certain issues, which issues they take up, and which they neglect are likely to have an important impact on the political agenda. The media’s role is indeed a topic that has not yet been theorized from an MSF perspective. But it is a matter of lack of empirical application and not theoretical omission.

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54  Nicole Herweg et al. Can Hypotheses Generated by the MSF Be Tested in Medium- to Large-N Studies? Methodological pluralism may be a virtue, but medium- to large-n analyses add weight to a lens’s explanatory power in ways that case studies do not. It is noteworthy in this context that the vast majority of MSF studies are case studies (Jones et al. 2016; Rawat and Morris 2016), whereas the number of MSF-guided medium- to large-n applications is in the low-single-digit percent range (Engler and Herweg 2019). Notwithstanding this disparity between case studies and medium- to large-n applications, there seems to be broad agreement in the literature that it would be useful to test MSF in a larger sample size (cf. Jones et al. 2016; Zohlnhöfer 2016). How could this be done? Because quantitative applications are the exception, not the rule, we highlight conceptual considerations exclusively faced by quantitative applications (for the following, see Engler and Herweg 2019). More specifically, we focus on the choice of method. To date, the methods applied in quantitative and medium- to large-n MSF applications are regression analysis (e.g., see DeLeo and Duarte 2021; Goyal 2021; Liu et al. 2011;Travis and Zahariadis 2002; but see also Novotný, Satoh, and Nagel 2020) and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) (e.g., see Sager and Rielle 2013; Sager and Thomann 2017; Shephard et al. 2021). Both methods have different advantages and drawbacks in terms of accurately modeling the framework. Compared to QCA, logistic regression analysis and event history analysis adequately capture hypotheses on individual elements of the MSF. Mirroring the framework’s probabilistic logic, the MSF, for instance, hypothesizes “If a policy window opens, agenda change becomes more likely.” Building on linear algebra, regression analysis allows for testing “The wider a policy window is open, the more the agenda changes,” or with regard to logistic (or event history) analysis, “If a policy window opens, agenda change becomes more likely (the time until agenda change decreases).” Instead, QCA builds on Boolean algebra (and thus on a deterministic logic) and tests “If a policy window opens, the agenda changes.” Furthermore, logistic regression analysis and event history analysis manage to capture the MSF’s idea that temporality matters by pooling time series and cross-section data and (in case of event history analysis) by modeling an element’s duration effect (the time until agenda change occurs). However, assessing the combined effect of the framework’s five key concepts on agenda change is next to impossible in a regression setting because this leaves researchers with the task of interpreting a specification of thirty-one independent variables, including a fivefold and various four-, three-, and twofold interaction terms. A solution might be to test the MSF only partially. Liu et al. (2011), for instance, test whether the opening of a window in the problem stream (indicated by a change in indicators and the occurrence of focusing events and feedback dealing with climate change) is correlated with change in the agenda of the US Congress (measured by

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Multiple Streams Framework  55 congressional hearings dealing with climate change). Similarly, DeLeo and Duarte (2021) quantitatively test if changes in problem indicators affect the agenda. In terms of testing how the interplay of different MSF concepts affects agenda change, QCA is the method of choice because it allows for testing which (combinations of) factors are necessary/sufficient for agenda change. Consequently, given their different strengths and weaknesses, regression analysis and QCA should not be treated as substitutes but as complements (Thiem, Baumgartner, and Bol 2016). Regardless of the choice of method, MSF applications must explicitly define the units of analysis, their dependent and independent variables, and the causal mechanisms they expect because they vary with the policy stage analyzed.

Prospects The MSF has gained a lot of momentum recently. Not only is the number of empirical applications high and rising but there have also been numerous attempts to refine the framework theoretically. Nonetheless, more work is needed. Three issues deserve particular attention in future MSF-related research: (1) further theoretical refinement, (2) more systematic empirical applications, and (3) more MSF-inspired research on global policy. Refine Hypotheses While scholars have started testing the recent theoretical advances empirically, it is too early to assess this endeavor. Nonetheless, findings are likely to need further elaboration. In particular, we probably need more well-defined hypotheses derived from the framework. What is more, the policy stages after decision-making have rarely been theorized from an MSF perspective and the existing contributions have not yet provided a clear path forward. Hence, more work in this direction would be helpful to advance the MSF to a framework capable of explaining the complete policy process. Moreover, MSF analyses of policymaking in autocracies are only in their infancy and need further elaboration. Finally, MSF scholars should address the scope of agenda or policy change. Why are some changes quite far-reaching while others are moderate? Conduct More Systematic Empirical Analysis Analysis is viewed here in terms of both method and context. The most recent literature reviews (Cairney and Jones 2016; Jones et al. 2016; Rawat and Morris 2016; see also Weible and Schlager 2016) amply demonstrate the point that the overwhelming majority of empirical applications are case studies, and most of them do not speak to each other. Thus, MSF scholars need to find ways to test the framework more systematically. Despite a number of obstacles, researchers should aim at quantitatively

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56  Nicole Herweg et al. testing empirical implications of MSF thinking (see Engler and Herweg 2019). More hypotheses make it easier to collect or find data and thus facilitate a wider range of analytical techniques to probe them. In this regard, the recent surge in hypotheses generated by the MSF is very helpful. Promising is also a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods as done by Fawcett et al. (2019) to analyze problem recognition and problem windows. Systematic testing is not necessarily limited to the application of quantitative techniques, however.We should also find ways to use the large number of existing case studies and even more importantly produce case studies that are suitable for knowledge accumulation. Thus, on the one hand, literature reviews that provide more detailed assessments of the cumulative results of existing case studies would be helpful. On the other hand, we should develop criteria that MSF-inspired case studies need to fulfill to ensure their results can be compared with others (for such guidelines, see Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Zahariadis 2022). Moreover, hypotheses should be tested not only in cases where a change occurred but also in cases characterized by agenda or policy stability (as an example, see Clark 2004). In terms of context, scholarship can more sharply differentiate between issues and levels of governance. MSF is theorized to be applicable in particular contexts—national policymaking, for instance—but is it equally applicable to certain types of issues regardless of level? If MSF can explain agenda items across issues within the same level (national context), can it explain with similar ease the same issue across (national, subnational, and international) levels? Surely, the same fundamental assumptions about preferences, participation, and technology apply to some issues (e.g., structural reforms) across national, international, and subnational levels. Zahariadis (2016) mentions this intriguing possibility and constructs a matrix to classify the different types of theorizing. Future research may systematically elaborate on the logic and adaptations needed to accomplish this task. Theorize and Apply MSF in Global Contexts Policymaking beyond the nation-state is a particularly suitable field for the application of the MSF because of fluid conditions (in terms of issues and institutions). If we accept the premise that international organizations are semiautonomous bureaucracies (Barnett and Finnemore 2004), MSF can provide interesting explanations about why and how they make the decisions they do. For example, agenda setting or decision-making in global institutions, such as the Security Council, is extremely fluid not only because of (mostly) rotating participation but also because of significant variability in problem definitions and focusing events. Famines as focusing events can sway the global community into action when no such appetite existed before, for example, Ethiopia in the mid-1980s. MSF could also provide fertile theoretical ground for international relations theorists who view transnational activism as external leverage over domestic opponents (e.g., Keck and

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Multiple Streams Framework  57 Sikkink 1998). Activism may be conceptualized as an entrepreneurial activity seeking to couple problems and solutions to receptive political audiences. Transnational activists act as policy entrepreneurs—they reframe issues, build coalitions, lobby, protest, and link internal contention to international conflict (Tarrow 2005). Their strategies could enrich MSF not only by pointing out the obvious venue-shopping implications but also by illuminating the benefits and drawbacks of national policymaking.

Conclusion The academic debate on the MSF is currently more robust and exciting than it has ever been before. A remarkable number of suggestions for its theoretical advancement have been published, many of which we have presented in this chapter. Nonetheless, more steps need to be taken in the coming years, including the further refinement of operational definitions of the framework’s key terms, the empirical application of the various theoretical innovations that have been suggested, as well as adaptation of the MSF to more contexts such as authoritarian regimes and international relations. The surge in the literature of the last few years makes it clear that there is a lot to be learned about agenda setting and policymaking in various contexts by adapting and applying the MSF.

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Punctuated Equilibrium Theory Explaining Stability and Change in Public Policymaking Frank R. Baumgartner, Bryan D. Jones, and Peter B. Mortensen

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) seeks to explain a simple observation: although generally marked by stability and incrementalism, political processes occasionally produce large-scale departures from the past. Stasis, rather than crisis, typically characterizes most policy areas, but crises do occur. Large-scale changes in public policies are constantly occurring in one area or another of American politics as public understandings of existing problems evolve. Important governmental programs are sometimes altered dramatically, even if most of the time they continue as they have in previous years. Although both stability and change are important elements of the policy process, most policy models have been designed to explain— have been most successful at explaining—either the stability or the change. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory encompasses both. In recent years, it has become clear that the general approach, developed in the early 1990s to explain US policymaking, applies to a broader set of governments than just the peculiar American system in which the theory was developed. Scholars around the world have confirmed aspects of the theory in a number of advanced democracies. In this chapter, we review Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, discuss new empirical studies in the United States and elsewhere, and interpret new theoretical developments. These developments have broadened PET to incorporate a general theory of disproportional information processing in the policy process. Over time, PET has changed not in the nature of its expectations but in the richness of its empirical support, especially cross-nationally, and in the development of more powerful foundations for its cognitive and institutional drivers. In this chapter, we examine Punctuated Equilibrium Theory and its foundations in the longitudinal study of political institutions and in political decision-making (for other reviews, see John 2006b; Robinson 2006; Jones and Baumgartner 2012).1 The theory has links to evolutionary biology (Eldridge and Gould 1972) though its application in the governmental context differs in important ways from its use in biology. Indeed, its intellectual roots are much closer to the study of complex systems (Érdi 2008), which DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-4

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66  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. investigates complex interactions among component parts of a system, including political systems, that can generate unpredictability. Complexity in political systems implies that destabilizing events, the accumulation of unaddressed grievances, or other political processes can change the “normal” process of equilibrium and status quo on the basis of negative feedback (which dampens down action) into those rare periods when positive feedback (which reinforces action) leads to explosive change for a short while and the establishment of a new policy equilibrium. We begin by discussing punctuated equilibrium in the context of the agenda-setting literature, extend the theory to national spending, and provide some recent evidence of punctuations and equilibria in US national government spending since World War II. Then we turn to how the theory has been generalized, including extensions to policymaking in US state and local governments as well as European national governments and in other governmental settings across the globe. These generalizations have been geographical (testing the ideas in new political systems), methodological (developing new statistical and qualitative means of testing the ideas), and substantive (expanding from only agenda setting and budgeting to a theory of institutional change). Next, we discuss in more detail how research on PET has developed since the first edition of this book. The chapter concludes with an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the PET approach to understanding public policymaking and notes the close linkage between the creation of a data infrastructure and the theoretical approach of analyzing policy dynamics.

Punctuated Equilibria in Public Policymaking Since the pathbreaking work of E. E. Schattschneider (1960), theories of conflict expansion and agenda setting have stressed the difficulties disfavored groups and new ideas face in breaking through the established system of policymaking (Cobb and Elder 1983; Cobb and Ross 1997). The conservative nature of national political systems favors the status quo; multiple veto points, separation of powers, and other equilibrium-supporting factors have long been recognized. The key insight of PET is that, as a corollary of any system with a status quo bias, policy change will rarely be moderate: inertial forces for change are eliminated or kept to the smallest scale until and unless they are overpowered. The system generates a pattern of change characterized by stability most of the time, with dramatic shifts occurring when the inertial forces are overcome. When Baumgartner and Jones (1993) analyzed a number of US policymaking cases over time and across a variety of issue areas, they found that (1) policymaking both makes leaps and undergoes periods of near stasis as issues emerge on and recede from the public agenda, (2) American political institutions exacerbate this tendency toward punctuated equilibria, and (3) policy images play a critical role in expanding issues beyond the control of the specialists and special interests that occupy what they termed “policy monopolies.”

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  67 Baumgartner and Jones (1991, 1993) saw that the separated institutions, overlapping jurisdictions, and relatively open access to mobilizations in the United States combine to create a dynamic between the politics of subsystems and the macropolitics of Congress and the presidency—a dynamic that usually works against any impetus for change but occasionally reinforces it. For example, mobilizations are often required to overcome entrenched interests, but once under way they sometimes engender large-scale changes in policy. The reason is that once a mobilization is under way, the diffuse jurisdictional boundaries that separate the various overlapping institutions of government can allow many governmental actors to become involved in a new policy area. Typically, the newcomers are proponents of changes in the status quo, and they often overwhelm the previously controlling powers. Institutional separation often works to reinforce conservatism, but it sometimes works to wash away existing policy subsystems. In short, American political institutions were conservatively designed to resist many efforts at change and thus to make mobilizations necessary to overcoming established interests.The result has been institutionally reinforced stability interrupted by bursts of change. These bursts have kept the US government from becoming a gridlocked Leviathan despite its growth in size and complexity since World War II. However, increasing partisan and affective (or emotional) polarization have led to greater friction in the system, and hence more difficulties in breaking through the extended periods of gridlock (Theriault 2008;Thurber and Yoshinaka 2015; Hetherington and Weiler 2018). This has led to longer periods in which there is an imbalance between the changing nature of problems facing the American system and the potential solutions available for addressing these problems. The longer the period of stability in which problems are allowed to fester because of the friction in the institutional mechanisms and the partisan polarization in politics, the larger the policy punctuations must be to re-calibrate the connection between problems and solutions. This longer period of stasis in which inaction dominates adaptive problem-solving has become a major feature of modern political systems. It leads to larger punctuations and the potential that the policy change overreacts to the problem, leading to what we term a policy bubble. We discuss this heightened friction feature later in this chapter. The American political system has developed in a way that partially overcomes this dilemma through bureaucratic rule-making. Other political systems have experienced similar stresses and have responded in similar ways.The system of rule-making overseen by congressional committees with expertise in the area has become a complex, interactive system because of overlap between policy areas. This has led to the potential for under-theradar adaptive problem-solving that avoids the gridlock of the major policymaking branches. Redford (1969) differentiated between subsystem politics and macropolitics. Baumgartner and Jones extended Redford’s insight and combined it with the issue expansion and contraction insights of Schattschneider (1960) and

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68  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. Downs (1972) to form a theory of long-term agenda change and policymaking. Thus, at the core, the literature on agenda setting has always been concerned with the power of specialized communities of experts and the degree to which they operate with relative autonomy from the larger political system or are subject to more intense scrutiny. Because the members of any professional community of experts (say, farmers, nuclear engineers, or members of the military) may prefer more spending on “their” policy, political scientists have long been concerned with tracing the relative power of these shared interest communities. No political system features continuous discussion on all issues that confront it. Rather, discussions of political issues are usually disaggregated into a number of issue-oriented policy subsystems. These subsystems can be dominated by a single interest, can undergo competition among several interests, can disintegrate over time, or can build up their independence from others (Sabatier 1987; Worsham 1998). They may be called “iron triangles,” “issue niches,” “policy subsystems,” or “issue networks,” but any such characterization can be considered only a snapshot of a dynamic process (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, 6). Whatever name one gives to these communities of specialists operating out of the political spotlight, most issues, most of the time, are treated within such a community. Nonetheless, within the spotlight of macropolitics, some issues catch fire, dominate the agenda, and result in changes in one or more subsystems.The explanation for the same political institutions producing both stasis and punctuations can be found in the processes of agenda setting—especially the dynamics produced by bounded rationality and serial information processing. These affect the interactions between communities of experts and the larger political system.

Serial and Parallel Processing Herbert Simon (1957, 1977, 1983, 1985) developed the notion of bounded rationality to explain how human organizations, including those in business and government, operate. He distinguished between parallel and serial processing. Individuals devote conscious attention to one thing at a time, so decision-making must be done in serial fashion, one thing after the other. Organizations are somewhat more flexible. Some decision structures are capable of handling many issues simultaneously, in parallel. Political systems, like humans, cannot simultaneously consider all the issues that face them at the highest level, so policy subsystems can be viewed as mechanisms that allow the political system to engage in parallel processing (Jones 1994). Thousands of issues may be considered simultaneously in parallel within their respective communities of experts. Sometimes parallel processing within distinct policy communities breaks down, and issues must be handled serially. In the United States, the macropolitical institutions of Congress and the public presidency engage in serial processing, whereby high-profile issues are considered, contested, and decided one—or at most a few—at a time. An issue moves higher on the

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  69 political agenda usually because new participants have become interested in the debate: “When a policy shifts to the macro-political institutions for serial processing, it generally does so in an environment of changing issue definitions and heightened attentiveness by the media and broader publics” (Jones 1994, 185). Issues cannot forever be considered within the confines of a policy subsystem; occasionally macropolitical forces intervene as friction or gridlock is overcome. The intersection of the parallel-processing capabilities of the policy subsystems and the serial-processing needs of the macropolitical system creates the non-incremental dynamics of lurching that we often observe in many policy areas. Agenda access does not guarantee major change, however, because reform is often blunted in the decisionmaking stage (Wolfe 2012). But this access is a precondition for major policy punctuations. An interesting but largely untested area is the likelihood of substantial policy change in the absence of salience or agenda access. This could come, for example, by shifting norms within a professional community, but without broad social discussion, or by the accumulation of many small changes each moving in the same direction. Such slow accretion of policy changes moving in the same direction can correct maladaptive policies, and many have been documented (see, e.g., Jacob 1988 on the issue of US divorce law or Armstrong 2003 on the development of the US medical consensus on the harmful effects of any alcohol during pregnancy). However, problems can aggregate in a similar manner, and such problem aggregation is easier for a policymaking system to ignore than the emergence of a crisis. Epp and Thomas (2023) find that such patterns lead to worse problems and more intense policy punctuations. When dominated by a single interest, a subsystem is best thought of as a policy monopoly. A policy monopoly has a definable institutional structure responsible for policymaking in an issue area, and its responsibility is supported by some powerful idea or image. This image is generally connected to core political values and can be communicated simply and directly to the public (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, 5–7). Because a successful policy monopoly systematically dampens pressures for change, we say that it contains a negative feedback process.Yet policy monopolies are not invulnerable forever. A long-term view of US policymaking reveals that policy monopolies can be constructed and can collapse. Their condition has an important effect on policymaking within their issue areas. If the citizens excluded from a monopoly remain apathetic, the institutional arrangement usually remains constant, and policy is likely to change only slowly (the negative feedback process). As pressure for change builds up, it may be resisted successfully for a time. But if pressures are sufficient, they may lead to a massive intervention by previously uninvolved political actors and governmental institutions. Generally, this requires a substantial change in the supporting policy image. As the issue is redefined or previously dormant dimensions of the debate become salient, new actors that had previously stayed away feel qualified to exert their authority. These new actors may insist on rewriting the rules and

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70  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. changing the balance of power, which will be reinforced by new institutional structures as previously dominant agencies and institutions are forced to share their power with groups or agencies that gain new legitimacy. Thus, the changes that occur as a policy monopoly is broken up may be locked in for the future as institutional reforms are put in place. These new institutions remain in place after public and political involvements recede, often establishing a new equilibrium in the policy area that lasts well after the issue backs off the agenda and into the parallel processing of a (newly altered) policy community. Important elements of this process are the power, prestige, and legitimacy of the previously established policy monopoly. Such “incumbents” seek to maintain their control. Whether they are or are not discredited enough by policy failures to lose their influence depends on both their levels of policy success and prestige and the strength of those who seek to replace them (see Baumgartner 2013). Friction in the policymaking system and associated policy monopolies can be disturbed by either exogenous (i.e., external) events or endogenous (internal) forces. Oftentimes, a combination of both occurs, putting intense pressure on the governing system. The COVID pandemic offers the potential of comparing the responses of different systems with different degrees of friction to the challenges generated by the pandemic. In the United States, public health officials first responded slowly to the challenge, failing to sponsor enough testing and relying on poor-quality but locally developed tests. These proved to be limited obstacles, and as time went on the system improved its performance. China, an authoritarian system with more friction and less responsiveness to information resisted by central authorities, at first responded quickly and with great efficiency due to the attention directed to the problem by authorities. Authorities quickly developed a locally developed vaccine, but the vaccine proved to be less effective than other non-Chinese versions. Yet, authorities held to the early strategy of local vaccines and complete lockdowns of outbreaks, which continued to buffer the economy. High levels of friction do not mean that no action is possible; it means that it is difficult to absorb new information into the decision-making system because the set of rules makes that difficult. It does mean that once set courses of action are hard to shift. As a consequence, where friction is very high, adjustment can be quick, but it is not adaptable over the long run, leading to larger policy punctuations when they cannot be avoided. In lower friction systems in which information is continually processed, adjustment is smoother, and the resulting punctuations are less severe. Only a system with perfect proportionality between incoming signals and immediate governmental response would avoid punctuation, but all complex decision-making systems are subject to the types of information overload that generate the disproportionate response characteristic of PET. Those with higher levels of friction have more severe punctuations, however. How institutions process information is key in comparing high and low friction systems, and we return to this distinction later in this chapter.

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Positive and Negative Feedback Punctuated Equilibrium Theory includes periods of equilibrium or near stasis, when an issue is captured by a subsystem, and periods of disequilibrium, when an issue is forced onto the macropolitical agenda.When an issue area is on the macropolitical agenda, small changes in objective circumstances can cause large changes in policy, and we say that the system is undergoing a positive feedback process (Baumgartner and Jones 2002). Positive feedback occurs when a change, sometimes a fairly modest one, causes future changes to be amplified. Observers often use terms like “feeding frenzy,” “cascade,” “tipping point,” “momentum,” or “bandwagon effect” to characterize such processes. Negative feedback, however, maintains stability in a system, somewhat like a thermostat maintains constant temperature in a room. Note that our use of the phrases positive and negative feedback differs from that of some other scholars in different contexts. For example, sometimes “negative feedback” is understood to mean criticism, and “positive feedback” means praise. To avoid confusion because of these similarities in the language used to describe very different things, we recommend caution. Our use of “positive” and “negative” is mathematical in origin. When faced with an incoming signal, a negative feedback system responds in the opposite way as the signal, as a thermostat puts out cold air in the face of warming ambient temperatures. In a “positive feedback” system, the response is in the same direction as the input, not in the opposite direction. If this is a closed loop, a positive feedback system can be explosive. Thus, readers should use caution in their use of terms and understand the underlying meaning of positive and negative feedback systems. These differ from more colloquial uses of the terms positive and negative feedback. Physical scientists have studied large interactive systems that are characterized by positive feedback. Physical phenomena like earthquakes can result from fairly modest changes. Pressure inside the earth builds up over time and eventually causes the tectonic plates on the planet’s surface to shift violently during an earthquake. Similarly, if we drop grains of sand slowly and constantly onto a small pile of sand in a laboratory, most of the time the pile remains in stasis, with occasional landslides, some of which are minor, and others of which are huge (Bak 1997). A landslide may not be caused by a large-scale event; it may be caused by the slow and steady buildup of tiny changes. Like earthquakes and landslides, policy punctuations can be precipitated by a mighty blow, an event that simply cannot be ignored, or by relatively minor events that accumulate over longer periods. What determines whether an issue catches fire with positive feedback? The interaction of changing images and venues of public policies. As an example of positive feedback in policymaking, let us take the case of the involvement of the US national government in criminal justice. Before the late 1960s, federal involvement in crime policy was relatively modest. At the end of that decade, however, the Lyndon Johnson administration initiated several new federal grant-in-aid programs to assist state and local

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72  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. governments in crime prevention and control. Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act in 1968; between 1969 and 1972 federal spending on crime and justice doubled in real dollar terms. What happened? Crime was rising during this period, but more importantly other trends highlighted the increasing insecurity citizens were feeling, causing people and government officials to direct their attention to the crime problem.Three important measures of attention and agenda access came into focus all at once: press coverage of crime stories, the proportion of Americans saying that crime was the most important problem (MIP) facing the nation, and congressional hearings on crime and justice. All of this happened as major urban disorders swept many American cities. In the words of John Kingdon, a window of opportunity had opened, and federal crime policy changed in a major way. After 1968, the three trends fell out of focus, going their own ways, and crime policy moved back into the subsystem arena. It is not possible to say which of the three variables was primary; all three were intertwined in a complex positive feedback process. In a classic pattern, public attention to crime jumped, press coverage focused on the problem, and Congress scheduled hearings. The issue left its normal subsystem home, with incremental adjustments, and entered the realm of macropolitics. Congress passed a major law, and spending increased in a major punctuation. US crime policy at the federal level is still powerfully affected by decisions that were made during this surge of attention on the “war on crime” and those that later reinforced them. Jones, Thomas, and Wolfe (2014) define a policy bubble as sustained overinvestment in a policy solution (or instrument) or set of solutions relative to the efficiency of the policy solution in achieving goals. To illustrate they study three potential policy bubbles: crime control, privatization and contracting, and charter schools and vouchers. They conclude that the first two policies clearly generated overinvestment bubbles, but the third did not, primarily because countermobilization by affected interests limited the positive feedback effects. Baumgartner and colleagues (2021) give another example: how US politicians at all levels promoted extremely harsh criminal justice penalties, including life without the possibility of parole, in the 1990s and how the obvious mathematical consequence of this, exploding numbers of geriatric prisoners needing expensive medical care but presenting little threat to community safety, were ignored. Over-reactions such as this are not uncommon in policy. One major reason for this is the power of ideas, or “policy images,” and how these change.

Policy Images Policymakers, political activists, and citizens at large develop images of policies that interpret both the problem and the policy solution being discussed. Policy images are a mixture of empirical information and emotive appeals.

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  73 Such images are, in effect, information—grist for the policymaking process. The factual content of any policy or program can have many different aspects and can affect different people in different ways. When the policy image is connected to what we might call a story-line, the result is a policy narrative (see Chapter 5 in this volume). When a single image is widely accepted and generally supportive of the policy, it is usually associated with a successful policy monopoly. When there is disagreement over the proper way to describe or understand a policy, proponents may focus on one set of images while their opponents refer to a different set. For example, when the image of civilian nuclear power was associated with economic progress and technical expertise, its policymaking typified a policy monopoly. When opponents raised images of danger and environmental degradation, the nuclear policy monopoly began to collapse (Baumgartner and Jones 1993, 25–28, 59–82). A new image may attract new participants, and the multiple venues in the American political system constitute multiple opportunities for policy entrepreneurs to advance their cases. Federalism, separation of powers, and jurisdictional overlaps not only inhibit major changes during periods of negative feedback but also mean that a mobilization stymied in one venue may succeed in another. The states can sometimes act on a problem that has not advanced onto the national agenda, and vice versa. The US system of multiple policy venues is an important part of the process of disrupting policy monopolies during periods of positive feedback. Today the difference in policy images between states governed by Republicans and those governed by Democrats is striking on many issues, including the acceptance of vaccines, firearms policies, abortion regulation, and voting laws. Many of these policies have experienced the politics of positive feedback as states rush to copy innovations in other states, but are often stopped at the red (Republican)–blue (Democratic) boundary. In summary, subsystem politics is the politics of equilibrium—the politics of the policy monopoly, incrementalism, a widely accepted supportive image, and negative feedback. Subsystem decision-making is decentralized to the iron triangles and issue networks of specialists in the bureaucracy, legislative subgroups, and interested parties. Inertia tends to dampen departures from established interests until political mobilization, advancement on the governmental agenda, and positive feedback occur. At that point, issues spill over into the macropolitical system, making possible major change. Macropolitics is the politics of punctuation—the politics of large-scale change, competing policy images, political manipulation, and positive feedback. Positive feedback exacerbates impulses for change; it overcomes inertia and produces explosions or implosions from former states (Baumgartner and Jones 1993; Jones, Baumgartner, and Talbert 1993; Jones 1994; Talbert, Jones, and Baumgartner 1995). Rigorous qualitative and quantitative studies again and again find strong evidence of the process, including studies on regulatory drug review (Ceccoli 2003), environmental policy (Repetto 2006), education (Manna

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74  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. 2006; Robinson 2004), firearms control (True and Utter 2002), and regulation of state hospital rates (McDonough 1998). This sweeping depiction of issue dynamics may hide a great deal of variability in the operation of policy subsystems. For example, Worsham (1998) examines three different subsystem types and finds substantial variation in the actors’ ability to control attempts to shift conflict from the subsystem level to the macropolitical level by appealing to Congress. In his study of federal land management, Wood (2006) shows that even conflictual subsystems can sometimes avoid disruption through conflict-management strategies. More generally, this suggests that institutional arrangements can affect the magnitude of punctuations—a point to which we return later in this chapter.

Boundedly Rational Foundations and the Centrality of Decision-Making Embedded in the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory of policy change is an implicit theory of individual and collective decision-making. Large-scale punctuations in policy spring from a change in either preferences or attentiveness to different aspects of preferences. If we regard preferences as relatively stable, and political actors do not change, then how can we explain major changes in government policy? Part of the answer is found in Jones’s (1994) analysis of serial attention, and part is found in Jones and Baumgartner’s (2005) analysis of the disproportionate nature of human individual and collective information processing. They expand on these themes in The Politics of Information (Baumgartner and Jones 2015). Jones (1994) argued that individual and collective decision changes, including choice reversals, do not spring from rapid flip-flops of preferences or from basic irrationality (choosing to go against our own preferences); they spring from shifts in attention. In individuals, serial attentiveness means that attention is given serially to one thing, or at most a few things, at a time (Simon 1977, 1983). Although reality may be complex, changing, and multifaceted, individuals cannot smoothly integrate competing concerns and perspectives. We usually focus on one primary aspect of the choice situation at a time (Simon 1957, 1985; Jones 1994). A shift in the focus of attention of a group can lead to a disjointed change in preferred alternatives, even when the alternatives don’t change (Jones 1994). More generally, bounded rationality undergirds all policy change because the mechanisms associated with human cognitive architecture are also the characteristic of organizations, including governments (Jones 2001, 2003; Kahneman 2011; Jones and Thomas 2012). Bounded rationality is the decision-making underpinning of both the punctuated equilibrium and the advocacy coalition approaches (see Chapter 4 in this volume), but the theories emphasize different aspects of the process. Punctuated equilibrium is based on the serial processing of information and the consequent attention shifts, whereas the advocacy coalition approach traces policy dynamics to the belief systems of coalition participants (Leach and Sabatier 2005).

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  75 Bounded rationality was wedded early to incrementalism, minor adjustments to the status quo (Lindblom 1959; Wildavsky 1964). Yet incrementalism proved to be an incomplete explanation of government policymaking, because budget changes were sometimes very large. And the major non-incremental changes could not be integrated with the incremental changes in a single model. With Jones’s (2001) reconceptualization, however, boundedly rational decision-making is a foundation for both major and minor changes—for both punctuations and equilibria. In the case of public policymaking, the twin foundations of conservative and overlapping political institutions and boundedly rational decision-making (especially the role of images in dampening or exacerbating mobilizations against entrenched interests) combine to create a system that is both inherently conservative and liable to occasional radical change.

Information Processing Punctuated Equilibrium Theory is at base a theory of organizational information processing. Governments are complex organizations that act on the flow of information in producing public policies (Jones, Workman, and Jochim 2009).The manner in which public policy adjusts to these information flows determines the extent of bursts of activity in the system. The general punctuation hypothesis suggests that information processing is disproportionate. That is, policymaking alternates between periods of under-reaction and over-reaction to the flow of information coming into the system from the environment (Jones and Baumgartner 2005). This reaction may stem from a vivid event that symbolizes everything that is wrong (Birkland 1997) or from the accumulation of problems over longer periods. In either case, how the policymaking system allocates attention to the problem is a critical component of problem recognition and subsequent policy action, but so are the institutional arrangements responsible for policymaking. One would expect a policymaking system, then, to be more subject to punctuations when it is less able to adjust to the changing circumstances it faces. Jones and Baumgartner (2005) show that a perfect pattern of adjustment to a complex, multifaceted environment in which multiple informational input flows are processed by a political system will yield a normal distribution of output changes. As a consequence, the extent of the adjustment of a policy system may be gauged by a comparison of its distribution of policy outputs with the normal curve. In an important sense, the more normally public policy changes are distributed, the better the policymaking system is performing (in the sense of producing efficient adjustment to environmental demands). Adler and Wilkerson (2012) have developed what amounts to a new theoretical approach to the study of congressional behavior by adopting an information and problem-solving approach. They note, for example, that much of the US congressional workload is organized around a small number

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76  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. of “must-pass” pieces of legislation and that lawmakers structure things to ensure that bills that “must” be passed will periodically arise.That is, Congress plans policy punctuations. This dynamic has become more severe as partisan polarization has become more severe, leading to packaging of bills into a “reconciliation” package designed to avoid the friction-producing Senate filibuster. Complex interactions, however, cannot always be confined to activity within fixed institutional frameworks. The entire policymaking system can evolve, and the pieces of the system can feed back into the whole, actually changing the decision-making structures that acted as policy venues in the first place. Richardson (2000) argues that this is happening in European policymaking, and Daviter (2009) reinforced this point in the EU context as well. In the United States, a technical budget mechanism called reconciliation has become the major mechanism for policy change, because it is not subject to another arbitrary rule, the filibuster. The policy process can be viewed as a complex, evolving system with the decision-making structure itself subject to change. Such changes can add friction to a policymaking system, as in the case of the evolution of the filibuster to a more powerful mechanism for blocking policies.

The Politics of Information and the Pathology of Punctuations The concept of punctuated equilibria in policy studies is based on the theory of policy subsystems, in particular on ideas originating with E. E. Schattschneider and Emmette Redford (see above). In the early work on punctuated equilibria, major policy changes were seen as natural outcomes of normal democratic processes. Friction in policymaking systems was a natural outcome of parallel processing in policy subsystems, rules that limit policy action, and the cognitive capacities of human actors that limit informationprocessing abilities. As a consequence, changes in collective attention were necessary to overcome the bias of the status quo, leading to disjointed largescale policy changes. As the Politics of Attention showed, such changes could happen even in the absence of crises in the policymaking environment. It has become clear in recent years that this view is incomplete. Political systems may be designed with such a high level of friction that they strongly resist change, so when major changes come (and they will), the changes can be highly destructive. The friction dynamic implies that the more centralized and authoritarian the regime, the larger the policy punctuations will be because the system is less able to adjust to the flows of information from the environment. Lam and Chan (2014) show that policy changes were greater when Hong Kong was more centralized but abated as the political system democratized. Chan and Zhao (2016) develop what they call the “information disadvantage of authoritarianism.” They show that large policy punctuations occur in authoritarian China relative to democratic regimes and that punctuations are larger in regions of China with less social

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  77 discontent. Given the lack of other input means, discontent is one of the few mechanisms for stressing problems that exist. It is a mechanism of information processing in closed systems but can be important in democracies, especially those with high friction, as well. For example, more centralized agency structures within government may lead to patterns of less stable outputs (May, Workman, and Jones 2008). Epp (2018) shows that firms in decentralized markets are less punctuated than firms in less competitive situations. Punctuations are inevitable, but their size and distribution are not. How can policymaking systems be designed so that the size of punctuations can be minimized? It is well established in the policy process literature that the dynamics affecting the discovery and interpretation of policy problems are distinct from the search for solutions. In Human Problem-Solving, Newell and Simon (1972) found that people solving problems tended to return to prepackaged sets of policy solutions when encountering a superficially similar problem to one they had solved before (see Jones 2001 for a discussion).The garbage can theory of Cohen, March, and Olsen (1972), extended by Kingdon (1984) to what is now called the Multiple Streams Framework (Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2017), treats problem dynamics and solution search as separate processes at the systems level. Baumgartner and Jones’s Politics of Information develops the thesis that problem discovery and definition require a different organizational system than solution search. They show that policymaking systems may reach suboptimal equilibria by suppressing attributes in a complex problem space. They develop the thesis that “entropic search,” in which multiple potentially competing jurisdictions of government agencies and legislative committees are considered, yields a superior (in the sense of more consistent input streams of information) depiction of the problem space. But often collaborations among experts are better at designing solutions than a cacophony of competing voices is. Organizational design may need to differ for detecting and defining problems and designing solutions. Although punctuations are unavoidable, better governance systems tend to minimize the disruption from such punctuations. Crises, of course, can be unexpected, what Taleb (2007) calls black swans when they are particularly extreme. But many and probably most crises are foreseeable to some extent; open and even confusing policy systems are better equipped to detect such potential crises than are more centralized and less adaptive ones. In a study of budgeting outcomes in a range of authoritarian and democratic political systems, Baumgartner and colleagues (2017) found that authoritarian systems had greater punctuations. Apparently, the institutional power of the authoritarian leader was outweighed by the informational disadvantage of that form of government.

The Dual Role of Friction in Policymaking Punctuated equilibrium in policy studies applies to a particular situation: when political conflict is expanded beyond the confines of expert-dominated

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78  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. policy subsystems to other policymaking venues. It relies on the mechanism of policy image—the manner in which a policy is characterized or understood—and a system of partially independent institutional venues within which policy can be made. The general punctuation hypothesis generalizes this basic framework to situations in which information flows into a policymaking system, and the system, acting on these signals from its environment, attends to the problem and acts to alleviate it if necessary (Jones, Sulkin, and Larsen 2003; Jones and Baumgartner 2005). This translation is not smooth, however, because decision-making activities are subject to decision and transaction costs.These are costs that policymakers incur in the very process of making a decision. Participants in a policymaking system must overcome these costs to respond to the signals from the environment, which themselves are uncertain and ambiguous. There are two major sources of costs in translating inputs into policy outputs. The first consists of cognitive costs: political actors must recognize the signal, devote attention to it, frame the problem, and devise solutions for it. Cognitive costs also involve the resistance that emerges from ideological rigidity.The second source consists of institutional costs: the rules for making policy generally act to maintain stability and incrementalism. Some of these rules are higher in friction than others. In the case of US national institutions, constitutional requirements of supermajorities to pass legislation mean that policy outputs will be more punctuated than the information coming into government. Policymaking institutions add friction to the process of translating inputs into policy outputs. This friction acts to delay action on issues until enough pressure develops to overcome this institutional resistance. Then there is a lurch or punctuation in policymaking. This framework has proved useful in understanding differences among political systems, which, after all, add friction to the policymaking process in different ways. Some social movement theorists have critiqued policy process approaches as too narrow, but they do stress issue dynamics (Kenny 2003). A more general formulation may lead to grappling with how one might integrate the voluminous work on social movements with punctuated change within institutional frameworks. (For a discussion of how social movements can be integral to the process of institutional change, see Jones, Theriault, and Whyman 2019.) Recently, E. J. Fagan (2022) has developed an approach that integrates under-reaction to policy problems and over-reaction to them (which in the extreme he terms “policy disasters”). Most policy disasters are avoidable, resulting from major mistakes by government. High friction systems are subject both to more punctuations due to under-reaction and to those associated with over-reactions.

Punctuations and Stability in Government Spending Over the past twenty-five years, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory has been extended to produce an agenda-based model of governmental budgeting (Jones, Baumgartner, and True 1998; True 2000; Jones and Baumgartner

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  79 2005; Jones et al. 2009; see also Jensen, Mortensen, and Serritzlew 2016, 2019). Collectively, government decision makers usually process information in a parallel way through subsystems, policy monopolies, iron triangles, and issue networks. When that happens, budgets change only incrementally. However, sometimes issues move from subsystem politics to macropolitics, and national attention in Congress and in the presidency is, of necessity, focused on one or a few high-profile items at a time. In the attention limelight of the macropolitical institutions, policies and programs can make radical departures from the past, and budgets can lurch toward large changes. The study of budgets grew from a desire to construct a comprehensive test of PET; Jones and Baumgartner (2005) presented data on thousands of budget changes at the federal level, demonstrating a pattern in the overall distribution that was consistent with the theory. Since then, an entire theory of budgeting has developed based on bounded rationality (Jones et al. 2009). Choice situations are multifaceted; yet decision makers tend to understand choices in terms of a circumscribed set of attributes, and they tend to have considerable difficulty making trade-offs among these attributes. If a given policy promotes economic growth but simultaneously has some negative consequences in terms of human rights, one or the other of those competing values may be at the forefront of decision makers’ attention. If attentiveness to these two dimensions was to shift—say, as a result of scandal or changes in the composition of the group of decision makers, as sometimes occurs—then the chosen policy might shift dramatically as well. In general terms, Jones (2001) has noted that decision makers tend to stick with a particular decision design (a term that refers to the attributes used in structuring a choice) until forced to reevaluate it. Government spending reacts to both endogenous and exogenous forces. Such influences may include changing levels of public attention, striking and compelling new information, or turnover in the composition of the decisionmaking body through elections.When changing external circumstances force us out of an old decision design, the result is often not a modest adjustment but a major change. Yet subsystem politics and the bureaucratic regularity of annual budget submissions constitute endogenous forces that favor continuing with the same decision design. As a consequence, budget decisions tend to be either static, arrived at by applying the current decision design and subsystem institutions to the new choice situation, or disjointed, arrived at by utilizing a different decision design and macropolitical institutions that may incorporate new attributes into the choice structure or shift attention from one dimension to another. This view of the budget process leads us to expect that annual budget changes within a given spending category will not be distributed in the normal, bell-shaped curve. Rather, these changes should reflect the nonnormal distributions found in earthquakes and other large interactive systems (see Mandelbrot 1963; Padgett 1980). The “earthquake” budget model anticipates many minuscule real changes, few moderate changes, and many large changes (True 2000).

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80  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. If budgets generally change very little, but occasionally change a great deal, annual budget changes will be distributed leptokurtically. Their univariate distribution should have a large, slender central peak (representing a stability logic), weak shoulders (representing difficulty in making moderate changes), and big tails (representing episodic punctuations). A normal, or Gaussian, distribution of budget changes would be found if continuous dynamic adjustment were the primary decision mechanism (Davis et al. 1966; Padgett 1980). The model implies that punctuations ought to occur at all levels of policymaking and at all levels of the budget and should not be driven simply by external (exogenous) factors in a top-down manner. This is a consequence of two factors. First, budget decisions are hostage to the statics and dynamics of selective attention to the underlying attributes structuring a political situation. Second, the theory of punctuated policy equilibrium is based in part on a bottom-up process in which policy change may occur in isolated subsystems, may spill over into other, related subsystems, or may be affected by exogenous shocks (Jones, Baumgartner, and True 1998).

Punctuations in Budget Theories The empirical and theoretical literature on public budgeting provides ample precedent to expect budget punctuations, beginning as shown above with Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky (1966). This study focused on the use by decision makers of budget decision rules. These rules, understood by participants and offering a stable organizational environment for decision-making, were based on the concepts of base and fair share, which led to incrementalism in both process and output. But Davis, Dempster, and Wildavsky (1974, 427) later added that “although it is basically incremental, the budget process does respond to the needs of the economy and society, but only after sufficient pressure has built up to cause abrupt changes precipitated by these events.” The policymaking literature is replete with models of exogenously forced policy change (Krasner 1984). But external forces may sometimes damp down policy changes, not always cause punctuations. Scholars studying public representation see changes in public policy as exogenously driven by changes in public opinion (Stimson, MacKuen, and Erikson 1995) in a thermostatlike process (Soroka and Wlezien 2010).The thermostatic model adds to our understanding of why budget changes often vary within a limited range. If friction is incorporated, then one would predict smoother connections between changes in public opinion and changes in public policy where institutional friction is lower. Lower friction systems imply better representation of public opinion (Fagan, Jones, and Wlezien 2017). The key is the interaction between institutional friction and external changes. The agenda-based budget model assumes that budgeting is a stochastic process. This just means that we study distributions of budget changes rather than examine them separately. It remains extremely difficult (and perhaps impossible) to specify precise causal linkages among all of the variables that

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  81 interact in complex ways to produce changes in all of the line items of annual national budgets. The agenda model predicts a distribution that has few moderate changes but a relatively large number of very large changes, because different forces act on the different policies that comprise a government spending pattern (Jones, Baumgartner, and True 1998; Jones and Baumgartner 2005; Jones et al. 2009; Jones, Zalányi, and Érdi 2014).

The Distribution of Budget Changes We first presented tests of this hypothesis in the first edition of this book; since then, policy process scholars have produced a virtual explosion of work on the distribution of budget changes. Figure 2.1 shows a frequency distribution of year-to-year percentage changes of ten budget categories across twenty-four OECD countries for the period 1996–2011. Each observation is an annual percentage change for a country for a particular budget category, and the dashed line represents a normal distribution with a similar mean and variance as the observed distribution. A further explanation of the data can be found in Fagan, Jones, and Wlezien (2017). The distribution is clearly leptokurtic and positively skewed. Note the very strong central peak, indicating the great number of very small changes, the weak shoulders, indicating fewer than normal moderate changes, and the big tails, indicating more than normal radical departures from the previous year’s budget. So far, every study examining public budgets has found a pattern similar to that shown in Figure 2.1. Jordan (2003) finds punctuated budget change distributions for US local expenditures; Robinson (2004), for Texas school districts; Breunig and Koski (2006), for state budgets; and Jones and Baumgartner (2005), for US national outlays since 1800. The pattern also emerges in other countries, including the United Kingdom (John and Margetts 2003), Denmark (Mortensen 2005), Germany (Breunig 2006), France (Baumgartner, François, and Foucault 2006), Belgium (Jones et al. 2009), Spain (Caamaño-Alegre and Lago-Peñas 2011; Chaqués-Bonafont, Palau, and Baumgartner 2015), and South Africa (Pauw 2007). Indeed, the results are so strong and invariant that punctuated equilibrium has been classified as “a general empirical law of public budgets” (Jones et al. 2009). This suggests that we need a broader theory of how policy punctuations occur, one that is not so tightly tied to pluralistic forms of government. It is likely that different systems lead to different intensities in punctuations, yet don’t escape the process—because it is rooted in the capacities of government to process information and allocate attention. Work done by a team of researchers analyzing budget data from seven Western democracies showed that all the national-level frequency distributions not only could be characterized as leptokurtic but that the degree of leptokurtosis varied with the level of institutional friction (Jones et al. 2009).The higher the levels of friction in a nation’s political system, the greater the extent of punctuations in the budget data. The stochastic process studies of public budgets indicate that friction does indeed lead to more

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Figure 2.1 Annual Percentage Change in Ten Budget Categories in Twenty-Four OECD Countries, 1996–2011 Source: Created by the authors.

stability, as noted by political economy scholars such as Tsebelis (2002), but also to more dramatic changes than anticipated by those scholars.

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory in Comparative Perspective The punctuated equilibrium model was originally developed to understand the dynamics of policy change in subsystems, but it has been extended to a more general formulation of punctuated change in policymaking, such as public budgeting.This has resulted in new insights into the process, including (1) an elaboration of an agenda-based, attention-driven budgeting model, (2) the generation of hypotheses concerning the distribution of annual budget changes and the reasons for its shape, and (3) empirical evidence that conforms to the new theory but is antithetical to the normal changes expected from incremental theory or from most other budget theories. Punctuated equilibrium, rather than incrementalism alone, characterizes national budgeting in America and elsewhere, just as punctuated equilibrium, rather than gridlock or marginalism, characterizes overall policymaking in the American political system. But how general are these dynamics? Do they hold across political systems? The ubiquity of serial attentiveness and organizational routines of operation leads us to expect that stability and punctuations are a feature of policymaking in many governments. At the same time, the institutional

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  83 aspect of multiple venues interacts with boundedly rational decision-making to make Punctuated Equilibrium Theory particularly apt for relatively open democracies. It is likely that the processes of stability enforced by organizational routines interrupted by bursts of activity due to shifts in collective attention are general ones but that these processes are mediated by political institutions. Where multiple venues occur as a consequence of institutional design, such as in federal systems, one would expect the dynamics of punctuated equilibrium to emerge. In the United States, overlapping jurisdictions of policy venues offer opportunities for issue entrepreneurs to change jurisdictions by emphasizing particular issue characterizations (Baumgartner, Jones, and McLeod 2000). To what extent does this kind of dynamic extend beyond US policymaking organizations? Sheingate (2000) has used the basic punctuated equilibrium to study agriculture policy in the European Union and the United States, and Pralle (2003) has studied environmental groups’ exploitation of policy venues in forest policy in Canada and the United States. These systems have the requisite elements of openness and multiple venues. In the case of the European Union, the emergence of a strong central government from what previously were fully independent governments has offered students of public policy processes the opportunity to observe the effects of new venues for policy change. Princen and Rhinard (2006, 1) write that “agenda setting in the EU takes place in two ways: ‘from above,’ through high-level political institutions urging EU action, and ‘from below,’ through policy experts formulating specific proposals in low-level groups and working parties.” Schrad (2010) used the idea to explain the global wave of prohibition in Western countries in the early twentieth century. Boushey (2010) applies the theory to how policies diffuse across the US states. These interacting venues operate in many ways similarly to the pluralistic policymaking system in the United States (Wendon 1998; Guiraudon 2000; Mazey and Richardson 2001; Cichowski 2006). But such venue shopping does not always aid disadvantaged groups, as Guiraudon (2000) shows for immigration policy in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the European Union, losing in a narrow venue does not mean winning in a broader one; it could instead invite even bigger losses (see also Mortensen 2007, 2009). When immigration rights organizations won victories in national courts, conservatives on the issue were able to appeal to the European Union and blunt their victories (see also Givens and Ludke 2004). Losers in one venue may also lose in the next. If policymaking devolves to experts in all systems, then a key question is: when does the subsystem dominate, and when does the issue spill over into the broader macropolitical arena? Timmermans and Scholten (2006) suggest that, even in the technical arena of science policy in a smaller European parliamentary system—the Netherlands—this does occur, and again the dynamics are roughly similar to those highlighted in the American version of the punctuated equilibrium model. In a study of immigration policy, Scholten

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84  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. and Timmermans (2004) show that immigration policy is punctuated but damped down through the implementation process at the local level. Punctuated-type dynamics also occur in other European countries. Maesschalck (2002), in a study of a major police failure in Belgium in the Dutroux child abuse scandal, shows that policymaking generated by scandal follows a conflict expansion model consistent with the punctuated equilibrium approach.This finding is no fluke. In a comprehensive study of Belgian public policy processes during the 1990s, Walgrave, Varone, and Dumont (2006) directly compare the party model with the issue expansion model. They note the ability of the Dutroux and other scandals to destabilize the system, basically disrupting the party-dominated policymaking system with highly emotive information that political elites cannot afford to ignore. Similarly, John (2006a) finds that the interaction of media coverage and events is more important in explaining major changes in budget commitment for urban affairs in the United Kingdom than are changes in party control. Cross-country studies of issue expansion offer the opportunity to examine how different institutional arrangements—that is, variations in the nature of political venues—affect the course of public policy. Timmermans (2001) examined cases of biomedical policy in four countries (Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland), finding that variation in arenas both at the macropolitical and policy subsystem levels had major effects on the tempo of agenda dynamics. Even where policy dynamics are broadly similar, as they seem to be in European democracies, the specific paths of policy development can be varied. In this enterprise, we need the qualitative studies of Pralle (2003), Princen and Rhinard (2006), and Timmermans and Scholten (2006), as well as quantitative studies capable of tracing policy changes across longer periods (Cashore and Howlett 2007; Daviter 2009). Many of these studies focus on how institutional structures permit change to occur and how the institutional structure influences the speed and magnitude of policy dynamics (Mortensen 2005, 2007, 2009; Chaqués-Bonafont and Palau 2009).

The Comparative Policy Agendas Project One of the major outcomes of the policy agenda-setting research initiated by Baumgartner and Jones in the early 1990s is the development of an international community of scholars doing policy agendas research. Within this loosely structured Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), some scholars apply and extend PET to countries other than the United States, but many scholars also work with other theories and other research questions. What unites these scholars is the application of the measurement system originally developed to construct the databases of the US-based Policy Agendas Project, as later adjusted for comparative use (Jones 2016). Currently, the CAP consists of more than twenty country projects, with more in the pipeline. Every year in June the group of scholars organizes an annual meeting with around eighty participants on average.

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  85 Whereas the range of theoretical approaches and research questions is broad, a main advantage from a comparative perspective is the strict enforcement across countries of a common measurement system. This is a necessary requisite for further development of comparative research. Another recent initiative to promote more comparative policy agenda-setting research is the setup of a common webpage from which all country datasets can be downloaded and where students and researchers can easily conduct online analyses of the data. CAP’s website, www.comparativeagendas.net, is hosted by the University of Texas. The Congressional Bills Project and the larger US-based Policy Agendas Project are all integrated into the cross-national Comparative Agendas Project. To give an impression of the scope and direction of research inspired by either PET or the methodological approach to agenda setting affiliated with the theory, we performed a set of systematic keyword searches in the major online bibliographic databases Scopus and ProQuest.The search strings were “punctuated equilibrium Jones Baumgartner,” “disproportionate information processing Jones Baumgartner,” and “agenda setting Jones Baumgartner.” Publications just mentioning or briefly referring to the PET or the measurement system of CAP were then excluded. In the second round of searching, we supplemented this list of publications with more ad hoc online searches of relevant websites like the CAP and the European Union Policy Agendas Project (http://www.policyagendas.eu). In the third round, we circulated the list to Comparative Agendas Project scholars and asked them to identify whether some of their relevant publications were missing from the list. As of April 1, 2022, we ended up with a total of 550 relevant publications covering the period from 1991 to the present. For the full list of publications, see the online resources for this chapter at www.routledge.com/9781032311296. Figure 2.2 provides a sense of the growth in use of the theory and the measurement system over time. First, the figure inflects sharply upward after 2005. Second, there is a marked increase in the number of publications using non-US data.The number of US studies has also increased over the years, but a total of 65% of all empirical studies before 2006 were based solely on US data, whereas the equivalent number is reduced to 28% for studies published after 2005.The bulk of the studies now focus on political systems outside the United States. Third, the two most senior authors of this chapter were listed as coauthors for 23% of the publications in the early period, but for only 10% of those after 2005. Fourth, although the figure does not represent this finding, the literature is highly empirical: our review showed just twenty-six review articles (such as this one), forty-nine purely theoretical treatments, and 475 empirical works; this last category represents 86% of the publications in the field. Finally, a closer look at the list of publications shows a recent increase in publications in authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes. Thus, we can see that the CAP is developing into a truly comparative project, and not just a project for the usual comparisons of Western democracies. Table 2.1 shows the journals in which these articles have appeared. This makes clear the importance of comparative work; 138 different journals are

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Figure 2.2 Punctuated Equilibrium Articles over Time Source: Created by the authors.

represented in the list, including virtually all the major disciplinary journals as well as those focused on public policy, public administration, and US and comparative politics. The dramatic increase in comparative use of the ideas and policy agendasetting approach associated with the PET is a remarkable development given the initial response to what some perceived as a peculiarly American focus in Baumgartner and Jones’s Agendas and Instability in American Politics, with its notions of venue shopping in the complicated US system of separation of powers, federalism, and weak political parties. Surely, some surmised, things must be different in more centralized systems with more disciplined political parties. Although many things are indeed different in each political system, the basic limits of human cognition, organizational capacity, and attention at the core of PET give the theory a potential for universal application. The increase in the number of publications around 2006 coincides with the development of the network of the comparative policy agendas project formed around independent country projects. An overview of the country projects and databases can be found at www.comparativeagendas.net. CAP offers the possibility of tracing policy dynamics in multiple countries simultaneously. In Denmark, Green-Pedersen and his collaborators have done so by studying tobacco policy in Denmark and the United States (Albaek, Green-Pedersen, and Nielsen 2007), euthanasia in Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands (Green-Pedersen 2004), and health care in Denmark and the United States (Green-Pedersen and Wilkerson 2006). Another line of research where the issue attention approach has led to new important insights is the classic question about the interplay between

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  87 Table 2.1 Journals in Which Punctuated Equilibrium Articles Have Been Published Journal

Articles

Policy Studies Journal Journal of European Public Policy Journal of Public Policy Policy Sciences West European Politics Party Politics American Journal of Political Science Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Review of Policy Research Political Research Quarterly Public Administration Political Communication European Journal of Political Research Political Studies Governance Italian Political Science Review Comparative Political Studies European Political Science Review Canadian Journal of Public Policy British Journal of Political Science Journal of Politics 117 other journals, combined Nonjournal publications (books, book chapters) Total publications

61 26 24 23 13 13 11 10 10 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 7 6 6 5 166 106 550

Source: Created by the authors.

media and politics. In Belgium, Walgrave and colleagues have taken a lead on this research agenda (Walgrave 2008; Walgrave, Lefevere, and Nuytemans 2009; Vliegenthart and Walgrave 2011), but the question has also been studied intensively in other countries such as Denmark (Green-Pedersen and Stubager 2010; Thesen 2013; Green-Pedersen, Mortensen, and Thesen 2015), the Netherlands and Switzerland (Sciarini, Tresch, and Vliegenthart 2020), as well as across countries (Vliegenthart et al. 2016). The mechanisms of issue expansion and policy development are broadly similar in different democratic political systems, even though they may play out differently as they are channeled through different decision-making institutions. In an edited book (Engeli, Green-Pedersen, and Larsen 2012), scholars analyze morality politics through focused case comparisons of the treatment of such issues as euthanasia, abortion, and in vitro fertilization in the United States and several Western European countries. Green-Pedersen and Walgrave

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88  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. (2014) have edited a book bringing together more quantitative findings from the Comparative Agendas Project in Europe to develop a theory not only of policy agendas and agenda setting but also of the dynamics of institutional evolution more generally. John et al. (2013) developed a similar argument about the development of UK politics from 1945 to present, and John and Jennings (2010) examined punctuated changes in governmental attention in the UK, finding that these punctuations were often unrelated to electoral turnover. Chaqués-Bonafont, Palau, and Baumgartner (2015) review recent Spanish political history through the lens of the Spanish agendas project and document a range of new insights from a country that quite recently transitioned to democracy. Part of any differences in policies between countries may be attributed to differences in the mobilization of actors and the subsequent timing and sequencing of events. Consequently, even differences in policies between countries cannot necessarily be attributed to differences in institutions, as Pralle (2006) has shown in a case study of lawn pesticide policy in Canada and the United States. Jumping to the conclusion that Canada provides a more receptive venue for pesticide regulation might not be warranted without a study of the dynamics of political choice. The punctuated equilibrium model is also proving useful in understanding relations among nations, such as in protracted interstate rivalries (CioffiRevilla 1998), the role of norms in international politics (Goertz 2003), and agenda setting in global disease control (Shiftman 2003; Shiftman, Beer, and Wu 2002). The latter study compared three models of policymaking—the incrementalist, the rationalist, and punctuated equilibrium—and found “a more complex pattern in which interventions are available only to select populations, punctuated with bursts of attention as these interventions spread across the globe in concentrated periods of time” (Shiftman, Beer, and Wu 2002, 225). It is critical to begin to understand which aspects of policymaking result from more general dynamics based on human cognition and organizational behavior and which relate to the particulars of the institutions under study. Such considerations move us beyond the confines of theories for institutions and toward a more general theory of the interaction of humans in organizations (Goertz 2003). The study of party competition from an issue attention perspective represents another new research area, focusing primarily on parliamentary systems. Two subthemes can be identified within this research agenda. One track offers a new approach to the classic question about the importance of elections and changes in the partisan composition of governments as drivers of policy and agenda changes. Research in this perspective challenges conventional wisdom about the importance of elections and ideology as explanations of change. Mortensen et al. (2011), for instance, in a study of change and stability in government agendas across three different countries and several decades, conclude that there is no evidence that elections, changes in government colors, or changes of prime minister systematically affect the

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  89 level of change and stability in government agendas. This finding corresponds with studies of agenda setting in France (Baumgartner, Grossman, and Brouard 2009), the United States (Jones and Baumgartner 2005, 84–85), and the United Kingdom (John and Jennings 2010) and across a large number of countries (Green-Pedersen and Walgrave 2014). Agendas do change over time, but the timing of such changes is not closely related to elections or shifts of governments, as Grossman and Guinaudeau (2021) report in a comprehensive study of issue agendas across five democracies since the 1980s. The other subtheme within this research agenda on political parties regards how political parties compete with each other when trying to set the political agenda. Though most scholars acknowledge that parties do respond to their competitors’ attention to issues, the dominant theoretical accounts (Budge and Farlie 1983; Petrocik 1996) have had much more to say about selective issue emphases (or “issue ownership”) than about issue overlap and responsiveness. Agenda-setting studies challenge this conventional understanding by showing that political parties do respond to each other on the same issues instead of simply talking past each other on different issues (Vliegenthart and Walgrave 2011). Furthermore, the literature has focused on the unequal agenda-setting power of different political parties. Green-Pedersen and Mortensen (2010) provided a key insight into the roles of the parliamentary opposition in defining the political agenda in Denmark, discerning both the limits of strategic agenda setting available to the government and the power of the opposition to focus attention in those areas the government might prefer to avoid (see also Seeberg 2013; Green-Pedersen and Mortensen 2015; Green-Pedersen, Mortensen, and So 2018; Abou-Chadi, Green-Pedersen, and Mortensen 2020). In a recent book, Green-Pedersen (2019) advances the understanding of party issue competition in a comprehensive study of the issue agendas of seven West European countries since 1980. The European Union Policy Agendas Project represents another important development in which a number of researchers have utilized the topics coding system to systematically trace attention to policy issues in the European Union (e.g., Princen 2009, 2013; Alexandrova and Timmermans 2013; Alexandrova 2015; Princen, Siderius, and Villasante 2021). Central questions within this research agenda include which issues appear on the EU agenda and how the definitions of issues change. One promising new development is the application of the issue attention measurement system to local policy agendas. The local policy agenda is of crucial importance if we want to understand how local political systems work and function. Furthermore, the large number of comparable, local political systems offers new opportunities for systematic examination of the role of institutions, actors, and information in politics. A Danish research group led by Mortensen has been at the forefront of this new local policy agendas research (Baekgaard, Mortensen, and Seeberg 2018; Baekgaard, Larsen, and Mortensen 2019; Mortensen, Loftis, and Seeberg 2022), but projects are also underway in Norway and Austin.

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90  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. Finally, vibrant work on PET is ongoing in several Asian countries (e.g., Hong and Sohn 2014;Yoon 2015; Chan and Zhao 2016;Yao,Yan, and Zhu 2021). The application of the ideas to new countries illustrates that the insights contained in Baumgartner and Jones’s 1993 book were not limited to the time period, the political system, or the particular cases studied in that book.The perspective has proven to have much broader applicability, and we have no doubt that many of the insights and major findings will come from non-US locales.

Conclusion The initial theory of punctuated equilibrium in policy processes is applicable to the dynamics of the specialized politics of policy subsystems. It has proved useful enough that scholars have employed it to understand a variety of policymaking situations in the United States and abroad. It has proved robust enough to survive several rigorous quantitative and qualitative tests. It has spawned a new approach to the study of public budgeting based on stochastic processes, and it hence has satisfied the criterion that any theory be not only falsifiable but also fruitful in suggesting new lines of inquiry. It has also led to considerable discussion among policy practitioners. In his call to action on environmental change, Red Sky at Morning, Speth (2004) cites Punctuated Equilibrium Theory as a policy analysis that can lead to rapid, correcting change in the face of accumulating factual evidence. Theories of the Policy Process aims to supply better theory in the study of policy processes, and better applied work on policy change will occur with better theory; indeed, there is no substitute for this. The formulation of the theory in stochastic process terms has made it possible to compare policy process theories with general formulations of human dynamic processes. Punctuated dynamics, in which any activity consists of long periods of stability interspersed with bursts of frenetic activity, may be the general case in human systems. For example, Barabasi (2005) shows that when humans prioritize incoming information for action, the distribution of waiting times for action on the information is “heavy tailed”—that is, leptokurtic. When prioritization is not practiced and inputs are instead subject to random choice for processing, the distribution is not fat tailed. The complexity and changing interactions of the policy process mean that accurate policy predictions will be limited to the system level. Complex adaptive systems are characterized by nonlinearity, interdependencies, and complex interactions of variables across time. As a consequence, clear causal chains and precise predictions work only in some cases and during some times. Because stasis characterizes most of the cases and most of the times, scholars may be convinced that they have a good working model of the process. But a complete model will not be locally predictable because we cannot foresee the timing or the outcomes of the punctuations. What will cause the next big shift in attention, change in dimension, or new frame of reference? Careful study of a policy or issue area may lead to

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory  91 inferences about pressures for change, but when will the next attention shift occur in that particular policy area? At the systems level, punctuated equilibrium, as a theory, leads us to expect that some policy punctuation is under way almost all of the time. And the theory joins institutional settings and decision-making processes to predict that the magnitude of local changes will be related to their systems-level frequency of occurrence. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory will not help us make point-specific predictions for particular policy issues, unless we look only during periods of stability. Linear predictions about the details of future policies will fail each time they meet an unforeseen punctuation; they will succeed only as long as the parameters of the test coincide with periods of equilibrium. This limitation means that it will be tempting to offer models applicable only to the more easily testable and confirmable periods of relative stability. Or investigators will focus on big changes and work backward from them to try to explain the case. This approach is subject to the fallacy of attributing causality to spurious factors. In our view, a clearer, more complete, and more empirically accurate theoretical lens is that of punctuated equilibrium, especially in its more general form, which integrates large policy changes with periods of stability.

Note 1 Special issues of the following journals have also appeared: Policy Studies Journal 41, no. 1 (2012); Comparative Political Studies 44, no. 8 (2011); and Journal of European Public Policy 13, no. 7 (2006).

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92  Frank R. Baumgartner et al. Bak, Per. 1997. How Nature Works. New York: Springer-Verlag. Barabasi, Albert-László. 2005. “The Origin of Bursts and Heavy Tails in Human Dynamics.” Nature 435 (May): 207–211. Baumgartner, Frank R. 2013. “Discrediting the Status Quo: Ideas, Levels of Policy Change, and Punctuated Equilibrium.” Governance 26 (2): 239–258. Baumgartner, Frank R., Marcello Carammia, Derek A. Epp, Ben Noble, Beatriz Rey, and Tevfik Murat Yildirim. 2017. “Budgetary Change in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes.” Journal of European Public Policy 24 (6): 792–808. Baumgartner, Frank R., Tamira Daniely, Kalley Huang, Sydney Johnson, Alexander Love, Lyle May, Patrice McGloin, Allison Swagert, Niharika Vattikonda, and Kamryn Washington. 2021. “Throwing Away the Key: The Unintended Consequences of “Tough-on-Crime” Laws.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (4): 1233–1246. Baumgartner, Frank R., Abel François, and Martial Foucault. 2006. “Punctuated Equilibrium and French Budgeting Processes.” Journal of European Public Policy 13: 1086–1103. Baumgartner, Frank R., Emiliano Grossman, and Sylvain Brouard. 2009. “AgendaSetting Dynamics in France: Revisiting the ‘Partisan Hypothesis.’” French Politics 7 (2): 57–95. Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones. 1991. “Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems.” Journal of Politics 53: 1044–1074. . 1993. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . 2002. “Positive and Negative Feedback in Politics.” In Policy Dynamics, edited by Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, 3–28. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . 2015. The Politics of Information. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Baumgartner, Frank R., Bryan D. Jones, and Michael McLeod. 2000. “The Evolution of Legislative Jurisdictions.” Journal of Politics 62: 321–349. Baumgartner, Frank R., et al. 2017. “Budgetary Change in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes.” Journal of European Public Policy 24 (6): 792–808. Birkland,Thomas. 1997. After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Boushey, Graeme. 2010. Policy Diffusion Dynamics in America. New York: Cambridge University Press. Breunig, Christian. 2006. “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: A Comparative Analysis of Budget Punctuations.” Journal of European Public Policy 13: 1069–1085. Breunig, Christian, and Chris Koski. 2006. “Punctuated Equilibria and Budgets in the American States.” Policy Studies Journal 34 (3): 363–379. Budge, Ian, and Dennis Farlie. 1983. Explaining and Predicting Elections: Issue Effects and Party Strategies in Twenty-Three Democracies. New York: Allen & Unwin. Caamaño-Alegre, José, and Santiago Lago-Peñas. 2011. “Combining Incrementalism and Exogenous Factors in Analyzing National Budgeting: An Application to Spain.” Public Finance Review 39 (5): 712–740. Cashore, Benjamin, and Michael Howlett. 2007. “Punctuating Which Equilibrium? Understanding Thermostatic Policy Dynamics in Pacific Northwest Forestry.” American Journal of Political Science 51 (3): 532–551. Ceccoli, Stephen J. 2003. “Policy Punctuations and Regulatory Drug Review.” Journal of Policy History 15: 158–191.

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Policy Feedback Theory Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle

Most theories of the policy process analyze, in one way or another, how policies come into being.To explain that, they focus on factors that are seemingly exogenous to public policy itself. In contemporary political life, however, policy creation typically occurs in a context that is deeply influenced by existing policies. Perhaps the most obvious and well-documented example of this involves the processes of policy diffusion in which policymakers in one location learn from the experiences of those in another and may be pressured by the same interest groups and associations pushing for change elsewhere. But policies enacted previously reconfigure the political landscape in myriad other ways as well, and these transformed circumstances affect whether and how policymaking occurs in the future. How do policies, once created, reshape politics, and how might such transformations in turn affect subsequent policymaking? Today we dwell in what might be called a “policyscape,” a political landscape densely laden with existing policies that were created at earlier points in time and that structure multiple dimensions of contemporary politics (Mettler 2016). Policies influence the political agenda by shaping the realm of “old business” that requires attention and by offering frames for interpreting new issues and policy alternatives (Adler and Wilkerson 2012). They also affect governing operations through multiple mechanisms, such as by imposing resource commitments and constraints and configuring governing capacity and standard operating procedures. In addition, policies—for example, by providing social benefits to particular groups of citizens—shape political behavior, influencing the extent to which affected individuals take part in politics and the goals they pursue. They may create incentives for interest groups to form in the first place or, once established, shape their level of activity around or commitment of resources to a particular political agenda. Policies may foster partisan identities associated with the protection of specific public programs and, in the process, enable parties to mobilize voters who rely on them, thus turning those parties into devoted defenders. The possibilities abound. Over the past few decades, a growing number of scholars have begun to explore the ways in which “policy, once enacted, restructures subsequent political processes” (Skocpol 1992, 58). This developing literature on the aptly named “feedback effects” of public policies provides insight into the ability of policies—through their design, resources, and implementation—to DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-5

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Policy Feedback Theory  101 shape the attitudes and behaviors of political elites and mass publics as well as to affect the evolution of policymaking institutions and interest groups, and through any of these dynamics potentially to affect subsequent policymaking processes (Pierson 1993; Mettler and Soss 2004). The policy feedback approach not only adds a new dimension to the study of the policy process but also positions scholars to engage in a novel form of policy analysis that has been neglected by the dominant approaches to that task. The field of policy analysis, which aims to predict the most valuable approaches to solving social problems or to evaluate the ability of existing policies to do so, typically focuses exclusively on matters of economic efficiency or social well-being. Analysts assess policy alternatives on the basis of the cost savings they will promote and the social good they will foster, such as higher college graduation rates, lower teenage pregnancy rates, or lower incarceration rates. Meanwhile, scholars of the policy process have helped to illuminate, among other things, whether the adoption of such alternatives is politically feasible and, if not, the circumstances under which it might be. Policy feedback theory sits at the intersection of these two approaches: it brings political considerations to bear on policy analysis, assessing how policies affect crucial aspects of governance, such as whether they promote civic engagement or deter it, whether they foster the development of powerful interest groups, and how they affect institutional governing capacity. Such analysis can illuminate the impact of policies on democracy and help reveal what might otherwise become “unintended consequences” of policies, such as the development of vested interests that reconfigure arrangements of power in society. It can also enrich studies of the policy process by highlighting how policies created previously affect the likelihood and form of future policy creation. With democratic forms of governance coming under increasing threat, the value of an approach to policy analysis that takes seriously the democratic potential of government programs has perhaps never been higher for scholars, policymakers, and the public.

Intellectual Development of Policy Feedback Theory Although scholarship on policy feedback effects constitutes a relatively recent addition to political science literature, the idea that public policies have the capacity to shape the political behavior of a range of actors has a long lineage in the discipline. E. E. Schattschneider (1935) famously argued that “new policies create new politics”; Theodore Lowi (1972) echoed the sentiment several decades later. In the comparative context, Gøsta EspingAndersen (1990) employed a similar logic in his historical institutional analysis of welfare states, arguing that political behavior is shaped by the content and structure of policies. Historical institutionalists took these general ideas and began to fashion from them an analytical approach to studying public policy. Putting public policy front and center in the analysis fits neatly with institutionalists’ interests in how the state itself affects political and social life. They view durable

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102  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle public policies as possessing the attributes of formal institutions, such as government agencies and governing bodies: policies bestow resources, impose coercive rules, and convey norms and messages. Public policy embodies the “state in action” (Lowi 1985), and therefore it seemed a natural progression for historical institutionalists to turn their attention to it. Historical institutionalists also attempt to explain change over time, including when and how it occurs and, alternatively, the conditions under which political circumstances become “locked-in” and resistant to change (Pierson 1993). Explaining how policies shape politics, with subsequent effects on public policy, necessarily requires analysis that is sensitive to historical developments transpiring over time. The formulation of policy feedback theory emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s in the writings of several historical institutionalist scholars (Hall 1986; Skocpol 1992; Steinmo, Thelen, and Longstreth 1992; Pierson 1993). The term was coined and received prominent attention in Theda Skocpol’s (1992) Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States, in which she advanced it as part of a “structured polity” approach to studying political change. Skocpol explained that policies created at “Time 1” could reshape both state capacities and social groups and their political goals and capabilities, in turn affecting policies created at “Time 2.” She demonstrated, for example, that Civil War veterans’ pensions prompted their recipients to organize to protect and expand benefits, an example of positive feedback.The pensions, which grew to be quite generous and widespread in the late nineteenth century, promulgated negative feedback as well, as policymakers came to associate them with corruption in patronage politics, which dampened policymakers’ willingness to embrace other types of social provision in the early twentieth century (Skocpol 1992, 57–60). These early articulations of the concept of policy feedback primarily summoned scholars to be attentive to how policies shape politics, and they exemplified such an approach in historical case studies. Paul Pierson’s (1993) “When Effect Becomes Cause” took the emergent theory to its next stage of development by setting forth a conceptual framework, one that could enable scholars to advance hypotheses. For Pierson, public policies, like other institutional innovations, have the potential to instigate a path-dependent process, whereby each step along a policy pathway makes it increasingly difficult to reverse course. In this seminal work Pierson explained that enacted policies can shape the political behaviors of government elites, organized interests, and mass publics through two primary pathways: interpretive effects, as policies serve as sources of information and meaning, thus affecting political learning and attitudes; and resource effects, providing means and incentives for political activity. These ideas prompted a turn to in-depth empirical research that aimed to test for these two fundamental effects and, where they were found, to identify the mechanisms at work. Pierson’s theory provided an intellectual bridge linking the logic of institutional development and path dependence to the study of individual political behavior. As a result, much of the subsequent feedback scholarship has

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Policy Feedback Theory  103 investigated policy feedback effects among mass publics. Political behavior scholars were poised to incorporate new ideas about policy feedback into well-developed approaches to understanding citizen engagement and participation and to test them empirically. Scholars have sought to identify more precisely the mechanisms at work as well as the circumstances under which feedback might be expected to occur and with what effects. Over the past quarter-century, studies of policy feedback have proliferated. They have become far more varied and wide-ranging in subject matter and methodological approach. For example, scholars have moved from investigating primarily social welfare policies to exploring other policy areas, such as criminal justice (e.g., Weaver and Lerman 2010; Walker 2020); from a focus on direct visible policies to a consideration of hidden ones, those in which government support is channeled through private organizations, market transactions, or the tax code (e.g., Mettler 2011; Morgan and Campbell 2011; SoRelle 2020); and from analyzing only Western nations to including non-Western countries as well (e.g., MacLean 2011; Hern 2017; De Micheli 2018). Empirical approaches have similarly become more diverse (see SoRelle and Michener 2021), incorporating rich qualitative and ethnographic studies (e.g., Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011; Michener 2018; Nuamah 2021), large-n panel and cross-sectional time series data (e.g., Morgan and Campbell 2011; Jacobs, Mettler, and Zhu 2022), and experimental and quasi-experimental research (e.g., Stokes 2016; Clinton and Sances 2018; SoRelle 2022). They have grown from a focus on actual effects to a consideration also of noneffects (e.g., Soss and Schram 2007; Hochschild and Weaver 2010). Rather than offering a comprehensive review of the literature (see Béland 2010; Campbell 2012), in this chapter our goal is to introduce readers more generally to the kinds of questions that policy feedback scholars pursue, the types of concepts they explore, and some of the obstacles and possibilities that have become evident in this area of research. In the next section we summarize the major streams of policy feedback research, each of which possesses considerable potential for future work.Then we delve more deeply into the recent advances in policy feedback scholarship that investigate the specific mechanisms through which policies affect political attitudes and behaviors and the potential for systematic moderators of those effects. Finally, we provide an overview of the challenges faced by policy feedback scholars and illuminate future directions for inquiry.

Major Streams of Policy Feedback Inquiry The analytical purview of policy feedback is poised to address a wide array of political dynamics. To date, scholars have focused their efforts on examining four major streams of inquiry, each composed of several tributaries (see Figure 3.1). First, policies affect political agendas and the definition of policy problems, with consequences for how issues are understood and which ones receive attention from policymakers. Second, policies affect governance

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104  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle Meaning of citizenship

Public policy (Time 1)

Form of governance Power of groups

Public policy (Time 2)

Political agendas and definition of policy problems

Figure 3.1 Streams of Policy Feedback Inquiry Source: Mettler and SoRelle (2018).

through their impact on institutional capacity and political learning by public officials. The third stream applies the logic of policy feedback to the study of organized interests, arguing that policies influence the power of groups. Policies affect what types of interest groups and membership associations emerge and when they do so, whether they expand or deteriorate over time, and how they define their goals. Finally, the fourth stream extends the logic of policy feedback to the study of individual political behavior by examining how policies shape the meaning of citizenship, which we define broadly as the reciprocal relationship between government and ordinary people under its domain. Policy Agendas and Problem Definition Policies created at earlier points affect, going forward, how social problems are understood, whether they are defined as matters worthy of public attention and government action, and whether they find a place on the political agenda. Once policies are created, they themselves populate the political agenda because they require maintenance and oversight if they are to continue to function as lawmakers intended. Policies may require regular reauthorization or, less formally, reforms from time to time as a means of upkeep. Existing policies may also shape how lawmakers view new policy issues. How issues are framed through policies influences their likelihood of engendering broader, enduring effects and the type of influence they bear on subsequent policy debates. In the United States, for example, advocates in many areas have struggled to convince policymakers and voters alike that certain issues, like childcare (Morgan 2006) and consumer financial protection (SoRelle 2020, 2022), are matters of public concern that belong on the policy agenda. The idea that childcare is a matter to be handled in the private realm is likely reinforced by the legacy of other employee-related benefits, which have been channeled through the workplace in policies that obscure government’s role, paired

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Policy Feedback Theory  105 with the equal rights frame of laws such as the Equal Pay Act, both described below. Similarly, the lack of government visibility in the transaction-based implementation of consumer financial regulations persuades borrowers that problems with financial products and services are private market issues requiring action to address them within the market rather than the political sphere. Relatedly, the existing system of employee health benefits presented an obstacle to health reform in the United States because it became easy for opponents to engender concern among those with such coverage that they would be worse off if policies changed (Hacker 2002, 122). President Bill Clinton’s health reform plans in 1994 easily stimulated such fears (Skocpol 1996). President Barack Obama learned from Clinton’s failure and instead advanced plans that built on existing policies, enjoyed the support of insurance companies and other major stakeholders, and made the preservation of existing policies more apparent (Blumenthal and Morone 2009). In addition, public policies can shape the future conflicts that emerge over them, including which groups are mobilized and whether coalitions or cleavages form within groups. Policies forged by a particular political party often become viewed as “owned” by that party, and subsequent action over such laws or related issues is likely to mobilize that party’s members as supporters and the other’s as opponents (Petrocik 1996). Not all issues become framed in partisan terms, however. Some, because of historical precedents, may mobilize support across partisan divisions, such as Social Security (Campbell 2003). Finally, the construction of target populations, groups at which policies are aimed, often affects the alternatives policymakers consider legitimate in future evaluations of policy programs (Schneider and Ingram 1993). New policies can also create new constituencies and organized interest coalitions that become major players in the policymaking process (Patashnik 2008). Both of these effects of policy design introduce path dependence into the policymaking process (Pierson 1993), and they are likely further reinforced by governance, a subject to which we now turn. Governance Some of the foundational literature on policy feedback suggested that policies, once established, may affect future governance: they may shape the policy alternatives that lawmakers select, the type of administrative arrangements assigned to new policies, and even the parameters—and limits—of government action. Such outcomes may emerge if new policies enable government to develop capacities it lacked previously, such as administrative arrangements and standard operating procedures, which can then be deployed for the delivery of policies developed subsequently. Policies may promote political learning by public officials, affecting how they view and respond to future situations (Heclo 1974). Once the Social Security Administration (SSA) gained a reputation for successful

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106  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle administration of retirement benefits, lawmakers created health benefits for beneficiaries and handed that new program, Medicare, to the SSA to run as well (Derthick 1979). This could be considered an example of positive feedback. By contrast, Skocpol (1992, 59–60) shows how the delivery of Civil War veterans’ pensions through the patronage system of the era engendered negative feedback effects as many reformers viewed the system as riddled with corruption and on that basis believed that “the United States could not administer any new social spending programs efficiently or honestly.” Existing policies may also shape what both public officials and the general public perceive to be the legitimate domain of government and, conversely, what belongs to the private sector. Jacob Hacker (1998) argues that in the United States, the chances for government to extend health benefits to working-age adults became slimmer once benefits that were channeled through the private sector, in the form of employee benefits, became more established. Although the government subsidized such benefits, its role was less than obvious, and therefore Americans became accustomed to thinking of health coverage as belonging to the private sphere. Policies also establish resource commitments and constraints. Today’s US federal budget contains vast commitments to existing programs, many of which are “mandatory,” given that benefits are owed by law to particular citizens, and numerous others, even if formally regarded as “discretionary,” that convey long-term standing commitments by government. Meanwhile, the nation has reduced tax rates for corporations and wealthy households over time. The resulting fiscal constraints present formidable challenges to new policy initiatives. Power of Groups Analysts most typically examine how organized groups and associations influence government and shape policy outcomes, but ample evidence shows that the relationship often works in reverse as well. Jack Walker, after investigating the origins and maintenance of 564 organizations existing in 1980, concluded that most groups established in the post–World War II period did not emerge solely from outside the political system but rather benefited from substantial “patronage” from government. Walker (1983, 403) observed that many groups “sprang up after the passage of dramatic new legislation that established the major outlines of public policy in their areas,” concluding that in such instances,“the formation of new groups was one of the consequences of major new legislation, not one of the causes of its passage.” As an example, Walker noted that out of forty-six organizations that represent senior citizens, more than half of them formed after 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed into law both Medicare and the Older Americans Act. Interest group activity cannot be explained simply as the function of changes in public opinion or entrepreneurial leaders, reasoned Walker; to the

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Policy Feedback Theory  107 contrary, several public policies influenced the likelihood of groups to form. These included: provisions of the tax code governing the ability of business firms to claim deductions for the expenses of lobbying, subsidies in the form of reduced postal rates for not-for-profit groups heavily dependent on direct mail solicitation, the availability of financial support from regulatory agencies for groups that wish to testify at administrative hearings, the rules concerning the registration of lobbyists and the financial disclosures they are required to make, legal restraints on the accessibility of foundations, and so forth. (Walker 1983, 404) Public officials routinely seek to mobilize their allies through the policies they promote, as evidenced by numerous policies adopted by the Johnson administration; conversely, they may also try to demobilize those who oppose them, as did the Reagan administration through budget cuts to Great Society programs, increases in postal rates, and challenges to the not-for-profit status of many organizations. Public policies themselves can also shape which kinds of groups form and grow and which fail to coalesce. In part, this is a function of the types of resources provided by policies, whether directly or through opportunities they may create. Beginning in the mid-twentieth century, many scholars challenged the prevailing pluralist view that individuals with shared interests will necessarily organize, fostering healthy competition between multiple groups. To the contrary, as Mancur Olson explained, public goods present a “free rider” problem because individuals can benefit equally whether or not they take action. By contrast, small groups in which the benefits of resources to each member are significant will be more likely to compel collective action, and thus they offer greater incentives to organize (Olson 1965). Olson’s theory, when paired with Walker’s observations, helps to explain why, in the wake of policy enactment, trade associations and other industry groups that stand to benefit substantially from the existence of public policies are more likely to mobilize and take political action than are ordinary citizens, whose interest in a given policy is more diffuse. These dynamics are evidenced in the case of higher education policy, in which those parties that profit from students exhibit much higher levels of political organization than do students and their families. In 1972, lawmakers amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to incentivize banks to make more loans at better terms to students. In the 1980s, as tuition costs soared ahead of inflation but the value of Pell grants for low-income students fell behind, students borrowed more and more in order to attend college. Profits for lenders soared. In turn, these businesses grew increasingly active in politics to protect the policies that benefited them so lucratively. Several additional organizations formed to represent lenders in the 1990s, and those already in

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108  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle existence channeled greater amounts than ever into lobbying and campaign contributions.Yet only two organizations at the time represented students, the US Student Association and the Public Interest Research Group, and both suffered from flagging membership rolls.This imbalance is not surprising given the likelihood of those with concentrated interests to organize and those with diffuse interests to refrain from doing so. Such dynamics led to policy feedback effects, as bank-based student lending—aided by policies favoring it—prevailed over the costly alternative, direct lending (Mettler 2014, 78–79, 82–83). In addition to resources, the visibility of the costs and benefits flowing from a public policy can shape the likelihood that groups will coalesce around it. Much of US social welfare policy is channeled through relatively hidden mechanisms that obscure government’s role.This includes government regulation and subsidization, through the tax code, of employee benefits for health and retirement and tax savings for homeowners who are paying mortgages. The existence of these policies has not been missed, however, by those industries that stand to make a profit from consumption of the goods and services the policies make more affordable for consumers, such as health care and real estate. Insurance companies and real estate organizations have invested considerable energy and resources in protecting the existing policies (Howard 1997; Hacker 2002). Whenever reformers propose changes that would scale back such benefits, these vested interests mobilize quickly to oppose them. For citizens generally, however, such policies obscure government’s role; the benefits appear to emanate from the private sector or individuals’ participation in the market, not from their shared participation as members of a political community. The invisibility of these arrangements as public policies makes them unlikely to stimulate organization among ordinary citizens who are or could be affected by them (Mettler 2011, chap. 2). Public policies may vary in the extent to which they stimulate social movement and associational activity on the part of ordinary citizens and the types of goals that such groups pursue. For example, Kristin Goss demonstrates in The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (2013) how labor, suffrage, and maternal health policies adopted in the early twentieth century translated to an expansion of women’s associational activity and lobbying across a broad range of issues, while the equal rights laws adopted in the 1960s and early 1970s were followed by a decline in women’s presence on Capitol Hill and the narrowing of the issues their organizations addressed to those regarded as “women’s issues.” In her exploration of the feedback effects of housing finance discrimination, Chloe Thurston (2018) illustrates how the denial of benefits can motivate those who are left out of new programmatic support to mobilize collectively on behalf of access to those benefits. Meaning of Citizenship Citizenship encompasses the rights, duties, and obligations imposed by government as well as citizens’ responses to them, including their political

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Policy Feedback Theory  109 attitudes and participation. Political behavior scholarship certainly fits within this stream of research, but it is joined by other types of inquiry as well, including historical analysis. First and foremost, public policies fundamentally affect membership in the political community. Certainly immigration and naturalization policies play a primary and obvious role in defining which individuals are included in the polity and the nature of their rights. This point is exemplified by Aristide Zolberg’s comprehensive history of US immigration policy, Nation by Design, which indicates that policymakers throughout American history selected the traits of the nation’s inhabitants, determining how many of which groups were to be included. As World War I began, for example, Congress overrode a veto by President Woodrow Wilson and made literacy a requirement for new entrants; this stipulation increased immigrant flows from Northern and Western Europe and limited those from the southern and eastern parts of the continent. Later, in 1965, the Hart-Celler Act, while eliminating the existing national origins quota system established in 1921, placed new quotas on the number of immigrants to be admitted from the Western Hemisphere, an approach that inadvertently led to higher rates of illegal immigration (Zolberg 2006). Such policies have in turn shaped politics. In Becoming a Citizen, Irene Bloemraad (2006) posits a policy feedback explanation for the differential political incorporation of immigrants across contexts. Focusing on a comparative case study of immigrants to Canada and the United States, Bloemraad contends that the context of their reception—specifically, the policies governing settlement and ethnic diversity in a country—can offer symbolic and material resources that incentivize citizenship and participation to varying degrees. She dubs this process “structured mobilization” and argues that Canadian public policy—which has a normative bias toward citizenship, offers greater public assistance to new immigrants, and promotes an official policy of multiculturalism—leads to greater political incorporation of immigrants than does policy in the United States, which largely focuses on border control and offers little settlement assistance to new immigrants. Beyond affecting membership in a polity, public policies also affect the status, or what Judith Shklar (1991) called “standing,” of those who are legal citizens of a political community. They can engender social stratification— for example, by extending political and civil rights to members of some groups and denying them to others—and through such means promote feedback effects. Historically, in the United States, some people have enjoyed the right to vote and others have not (Keyssar 2000). The United States granted manhood suffrage to white men, regardless of whether they owned property, by the 1830s; this form of inclusion simultaneously enforced exclusions on the bases of gender and race, and it meant that political cleavages in the United States occurred along those lines in the latter nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, unlike in Britain, where political rights tied to property and class divisions prevailed instead. As a result, according to Theda Skocpol (1992), American women acquired a gender identity as belonging

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110  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle to a separate, domestic sphere, but reformers ingeniously leveraged that identity in a manner that permitted them to be politically effective by claiming a distinct moral authority. On that basis, though women lacked suffrage and other political and civil rights, they nonetheless managed to influence policy developments and to forge the beginnings of a maternalist welfare state, contributing to the passage of protective labor laws, mothers’ pensions, and other provisions. More recently, soaring incarceration rates after 1980 paired with the prevalence of felon disenfranchisement laws meant that a large and growing segment of the population lacked voting rights, with consequences for the composition of the electorate and, potentially, electoral outcomes (Uggen and Manza 2002). The British sociologist T. H. Marshall ([1950] 1998, 94) drew attention additionally to social rights, meaning everything “from the right to a modicum of economic security and welfare to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society.” Social welfare, education, and other economic policies thus affected what Marshall termed “social citizenship,” which he viewed as essential for individuals’ free exercise of other rights on terms of equality with each other. A similar idea was articulated by the American political scientist Robert Dahl (2003, 152): In order to exercise the fundamental rights to which citizens in a democratic order are entitled—to vote, speak, publish, protest, assemble, organize, among others—citizens must also possess the minimal resources that are necessary in order to take advantage of the opportunities and to exercise their rights. These scholars, by arguing that policies guaranteeing social rights affect political participation, implied potential feedback effects. Several scholars have advanced ideas about how social rights affect citizens’ status in society. Gøsta Esping-Anderson argued that different nations structure social citizenship in different ways. He identified conservative, liberal, and social democratic variants, each of which features distinct constellations of public policies. Each of these policy regimes bears particular implications for the stratification of society and the status of distinct groups (EspingAndersen 1990). A crucial distinction, to Esping-Andersen, involved the presence or absence of public policies that insulated citizens from market forces, for example, in the case of illness or old age. Ann Orloff challenged this framework by taking greater account of gender roles and status; she pointed out that women’s status depended not only on being able to leave the labor market to fulfill parenting responsibilities but also on having the social supports—for example, through childcare policy—to be able to enter or remain in the workforce (Orloff 1993). Public policies can also influence identity. Steve Engel (2014, 683) conceptualizes citizenship less as a matter of rights or obligations and more as “a lens through which the regulatory authorities of the state define and

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Policy Feedback Theory  111 see the individual.” This is exemplified by public policies that effectively constructed homosexuality. Margot Canaday (2009, 4), in The Straight State, argues that “the state’s identification of certain sexual behavior, gender traits and emotional ties as ground for exclusion was a catalyst in the formation of homosexual identity.” Engel (2014) points out that political development contains multiple strands, some of which coexist simultaneously even if they appear contradictory. Therefore, for example, besides the state constructing homosexuality, several other forms of “state recognition” exist, embodied in regulatory policies: criminalization and exclusion; seeing the gay person as oppressed; decriminalizing homosexuality but privatizing same-sex relationships; and recognizing same-sex relationships. Such state activity in shaping identity has in turn affected social movement activity and the particular form it takes in a given polity. For example, in her study of the divergence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) policy trajectories in Canada and the United States, Miriam Smith (2008) argues that the legislative centralization of both political and legal authority for criminal and marriage law in Canada makes it easier for the party in power and its associated organized interests to advance their agenda. By contrast, the federated structure and separation of powers in the United States provide more points of access for both policy supporters and opponents to contest legislative initiatives.These differences result, Smith argues, in a much smoother pathway to passage for LGBT protections in Canada than in the United States. Public policies can also affect how citizens view themselves and others in the polity. For example, some policies convey messages to beneficiaries that they are deserving of the support they receive, whereas other policies are stigmatizing and imply lack of deservingness or second-class citizenship (Schneider and Ingram 1993; Soss 1999). Some have suggested that universal policies may help incorporate less-advantaged individuals as full members of the political community and also prompt others to see them as such, whereas targeted policies may accentuate their marginalized status (Skocpol 1991; Wilson 1991). Studies of European social service provision in particular have found that highly inclusive, or universal, social welfare policies engender mass support for a broader, cross-class definition of social citizenship. By contrast, policies that provide benefits to a select, often means-tested, group of recipients lead to zero-sum debates over the appropriate targets of redistribution (Korpi and Palme 1998; Rothstein 2002; Jordan 2013). Alternatively, the basis of eligibility for a policy may influence its impact on views of deservingness. Beneficiaries of Social Security may perceive themselves as benefitting from funds they themselves earned through workplace participation, even if they receive far more in benefits than they paid into the system. Conversely, public benefits that are understood to flow directly from taxpayer dollars, such as welfare benefits or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), may be more likely to be perceived as handouts (Skocpol and Williamson 2012, 60–61). Yet means testing alone does not make policies stigmatizing; Joe Soss (1999) finds, for example, that Head

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112  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle Start, a program for low-income children that engaged parents in democratic participation, yielded empowering effects. Public policies are also known to affect what might be considered active citizenship, or people’s degree of involvement in politics or other forms of civic engagement. Scholars have found that some policies, namely, Social Security, Medicare, and the GI Bill, promote active participation, making their beneficiaries more involved in public life than they would otherwise have been (Campbell 2003; Mettler 2005). Educational policies, for example, generally build civic capacity by endowing individuals with the skills, resources, and social networks that engender participation (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Conversely, other policies—such as those hidden in the tax code or channeled through private organizations, or what has been called the “submerged state”—fail to engender comparable rates of activity (Mettler 2011). Some policies, such as welfare and incarceration, appear to actually depress civic engagement, rendering those who experience them directly less likely to participate than they would have been in the absence of the policy experience (Soss 1999; Weaver and Lerman 2010). We probe the underlying mechanisms explaining these outcomes in the next section. Our discussion thus far indicates the broad array of ways in which policies can reshape the contours of politics and in time affect the next round of policymaking. Now we turn to a subject at the center of recent policy feedback scholarship: the specific mechanisms through which feedback dynamics may occur—particularly in the realm of individual political behavior.

Feedback Mechanisms among Mass Publics The final line of inquiry in the previous section—how policies affect the meaning of citizenship—is the central focus of much of the recent policy feedback research. Scholars are delving into the relationship between policies and mass political behavior to specify the mechanisms by which policies produce the political effects discussed above. Guided by the logic put forth by Pierson in 1993, these studies examine the ways in which policy design, implementation, and resource provision shape the political preferences and behaviors of ordinary citizens. Just as institutionalist scholars have “opened the black box” of governing institutions, policy feedback scholars have delved into what could also be termed the “black box” of public policy to discern how specific components of policies affect the political behavior of ordinary citizens. A model of how such features of policies affect civic engagement among mass publics appears in Figure 3.2 (Mettler 2002). This model builds on Pierson’s delineation of resource and interpretive effects. Many public policies offer citizens payments, goods, or services—or in the case of taxes, they may collect payments from them—and any of these experiences may engender resource effects, shaping participation. This dimension of the model draws on the Civic Voluntarism Model advanced by

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Policy Feedback Theory  113 Payments, goods, and services

Resource effects

Civic capacity

Rules and procedures

Interpretive effects

Civic predisposition

Civic engagement

Figure 3.2 Mechanisms of Policy Feedback for Mass Politics Source: Mettler and SoRelle (2018).

Sidney Verba, Kay Schlozman, and Henry Brady (1995), which indicates that resources—free time, money, and civic skills—each bear a positive relationship to civic engagement.When a policy provides an individual with benefits that have monetary value, those resources may help overcome the costs of participation. Similarly, when policies provide education benefits—another key predictor of civic and political engagement (Wolfinger and Rosenstone 1980)—participation may increase. Public policies also impose rules and procedures on citizens, features emanating from policy design and implementation, and these may be the source of interpretive effects, which could also be termed “cognitive” or “learning effects.” Interpretive effects refer to the ability of public policies to shape norms, values, and attitudes. This dimension of the policy feedback model draws in part on Anne Schneider and Helen Ingram’s theory of social construction and policy design (1993), elaborating how policies shape citizens’ subjective experiences of the meaning of citizenship and affect their status, identity, and role in the political community. In addition, the Civic Voluntarism Model implies that some resources may themselves also foster interpretive effects, for example, by promoting the psychological predisposition to be involved in public affairs. This might occur if resources facilitate enhanced political efficacy, meaning individuals’ understanding that government is responsive to people like them (external efficacy) or that they are personally capable of influencing government (internal efficacy). Alternatively, greater engagement might transpire as resources such as education inculcate a sense of civic duty or as policies that join people together by treating or regarding them similarly foster a sense of a fate linked to others (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). The interpretive effects of public policies may affect primarily those who experience them directly, such as beneficiaries of social welfare policies, or those bound by regulatory procedures. Alternatively, they may influence the attitudes of other citizens, by shaping their perceptions of members of a particular group in society to which they themselves do not belong. They may make them think of claimants of the home mortgage interest deduction as deserving, for example, and welfare recipients as undeserving. Or a policy may influence citizens’ views of their own standing in society, depending on government’s responsiveness to them or to people like them.These values are

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114  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle formed and transmitted through both the design of a specific policy and the experiences with its implementation. The following sections explore each of these dimensions—resource and interpretive effects—in greater depth and highlight related research findings. Resource Effects Scholars find that the actual fungible resources provided by social welfare policies have an impact on civic engagement. This was the case, for example, with the GI Bill’s education and training benefits, which provided veterans with access to education.Veterans who utilized the GI Bill, compared to veteran nonusers with similar background characteristics, participated in 50% more civic membership organizations and 30% more political activities in the immediate post–World War II era. This occurred in part because the policy provided them with resources, namely, education, which actively increased participation through the civic skills it gave them, the social networks they developed as students, and the increased income and job prospects they acquired as a result of their degrees. Resource effects were most pronounced among African American veterans, for whom access to the GI Bill provided educational opportunities not otherwise available. The skills, resources, and networks these beneficiaries gained led them to become involved particularly as leaders in the civil rights movement and in formal politics later on (Mettler 2005). Similarly, women who gained access to college in later decades by using federal student aid policies such as student loans and Pell grants became more engaged in politics than similarly situated individuals. In each case, the resources accrued through access to education disposed individuals to participate in public affairs to an extent not possible otherwise (Rose 2018). Policy benefits can also increase political participation by providing individuals and organizations with incentives to mobilize and advocate in their defense. This effect is most clearly captured by Campbell’s (2003) study of Social Security recipients, which finds that the resources provided by the program offer a powerful incentive for individuals to engage in political activity to maintain and strengthen their benefits.The economic self-interest generated by the benefits compels older adults, particularly low- and middleincome older adults, who rely most heavily on their monthly Social Security checks, to engage in a variety of political activities to encourage their representatives to protect those benefits. Similarly, Americans who received agricultural payments from the federal government were significantly more likely than others to vote in county elections, run for office, and win office (Siminovitz et al. 2021). Providing resources to beneficiaries may not boost turnout for all who receive benefits. In his study of the policy feedback effects of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) hurricane disaster aid in Florida, Jowei Chen (2013) finds that the effect of distributive aid on turnout depends on the partisan affiliation of voters and their relationship to the incumbent

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Policy Feedback Theory  115 party. Voters receiving FEMA aid who were affiliated with the incumbent party turned out at higher rates in the election following aid distribution. By contrast, voters who received aid but were affiliated with the opposition party exhibited reduced turnout. In both cases, according to Chen, the incumbent party was rewarded for providing distributive aid. Such results may occur because policy resources create an impetus for political mobilization by political parties and other organizations. Campbell’s study of participation patterns among low- and moderate-income Social Security recipients finds that the policy created a brand-new constituency group for political actors to mobilize. Both the Democratic Party and the AARP seized the opportunity (Campbell 2003). Such mobilization is also itself a powerful predictor of political participation (Rosenstone and Hansen 1993). Political actors are keenly aware of policy benefits’ capacity to alter participatory dynamics in such ways, and scholars are beginning to demonstrate how policymakers attempt to leverage feedbacks to enhance or to undermine support for government provision to suit their immediate political goals (e.g., Schneider and Ingram 2019). For example, Ursula Hackett (2020) draws on the example of educational voucher programs to show how policymakers strategically employ programmatic designs that funnel controversial initiatives through third-party organizations to minimize political and legal challenges. Interpretive Effects Interpretive effects of policies may be fostered through the impact of resources or directly through features of policy design and implementation. Any of these may convey messages to people about government or their relationship to it or the status of other citizens, and the resulting attitudinal responses may shape people’s subsequent participation. Indeed, Staffan Kumlin’s (2004) exploration of social welfare experience in Sweden finds evidence to suggest that personal experiences with welfare provision actually have a greater impact on political trust and ideology than do personal economic experiences. Living under a particular policy regime can affect the way people view their identities as citizens (Mettler and Soss 2004; Patashnik 2008). In some instances, this occurs deliberately as policymakers construct target groups to whom policies apply and the associated norms and benefits ascribed to those groups.The policy spells out who is a member of the identified group, on the basis of some shared characteristics, and who is not. By defining group membership, policymakers essentially offer a government endorsement of those individuals who are worthy of benefits, those who should endure punitive measures, and those whose behavior should change in some specified way (Schneider and Ingram 1993). In addition to designating recipients for a particular policy, the language and content of the policy can assign a social or political standing to the

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116  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle targeted population, whether intentionally or not (Mettler and Soss 2004). For example, some policies offer a full extension of benefits to those who have “earned” them, whereas others provide “welfare” support to beneficiaries who are forced to consistently prove their need. Constructed identities may be both normative and evaluative in nature, and they can ascribe a group with either positive or negative attributes. Frequently, these characterizations become imbedded in the public symbology associated with a particular group. As a result, the creation of target populations can influence how members see themselves and the relative value of their participation as well as how society, more broadly, construes a particular group’s identity (Schneider and Ingram 1993; Kreitzer et al. 2022). Terms like “welfare queen” or “illegal alien” enter the vernacular, and suddenly entire groups of people affected by a particular policy are viewed through that lens. Once created, these conceptions are perpetuated by media coverage and political discourse. The perceptions of beneficiaries engendered by certain policy designs have also been found to affect the willingness of businesses to participate in government programs. In her comparative exploration of British and Danish business implementation of labor market programs, Cathie Jo Martin (2004) finds that welfare policy designs can shape employers’ attitudes toward program beneficiaries and perceptions about the advantage of participation, thus affecting the willingness of those employers to implement programs. In addition to Martin, several other comparativists have undertaken studies of policy feedback effects. A significant focus of their scholarship is the degree to which social welfare policy designs affect political attitudes and support for the programs (Svallfors 1997; Andreß and Heien 2001; Larsen 2008; Jakobsen 2011). Following a logic similar to Campbell’s, these studies typically find that welfare programs that are universal in nature—providing benefits to the majority of citizens—garner greater popular support because they generate larger constituencies and shift “the focus of the welfare state away from redistribution and toward common market insecurities felt by both the middle and working classes” (Jordan 2013). By contrast, welfare programs providing means-tested benefits to the poor create a much smaller constituency and establish contentious relations between beneficiaries and contributors, ultimately generating hostility toward welfare expansion (Korpi and Palme 1998). As noted earlier, however, this distinction between universal and means-tested policies has been called into question in more recent work on the American case. Beyond the capacity of policy design to influence both elite and mass attitudes about the relative value of a particular group, the implementation of a policy can also affect people’s attitudes toward both government and their own personal political efficacy. For many targets of public policy, interactions with various disbursement or oversight agencies provide citizens with their primary, and sometimes their only, direct experience with government. It therefore comes as no surprise that these interactions can serve as a proxy for the whole of government, significantly affecting individual evaluations

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Policy Feedback Theory  117 of government capacity and the efficacy of participating in political activity (Soss 1999; Mettler 2011).The way a policy is implemented is not, of course, wholly unconnected to its design; in fact, legislation and subsequent bureaucratic rules usually determine the manner in which policy benefits are distributed. On some occasions, however, the process of policy disbursement produces distinctive effects, particularly when those engaged in service delivery retain a large measure of discretion or ability to interpret the law differently from how its creators intended or foresaw or when a distinct level of government, court, or nongovernmental agency retains the ability to determine some aspect of how the policy will actually be put into practice. Joe Soss (1999, 362) explains that “policy designs structure participant program experiences in ways that teach alternative lessons about the nature of government.” To test this claim, he conducted surveys of a number of recipients of two distinctive social policy programs: the now defunct Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Soss finds that recipients of AFDC, a means-tested program that he claims disempowered beneficiaries through constant casework and the need to prove eligibility, held more negative views of government and felt less participatory efficacy. By contrast, recipients of SSDI, a social insurance program in which recipients tend to initiate government contact and play a more empowered role in the process of obtaining benefits, felt more positively inclined toward government capacity and engagement. Individuals’ experiences with agencies functioned like microcosms of government for them, and they extrapolated from these experiences in considering their relationship to government as a whole. As a result, their experiences of policy receipt affected their sense of political efficacy and, in turn, their participation. Several other studies confirm Soss’s conclusion that the nature of individuals’ interaction with government agencies and institutions, as dictated by a particular policy design, can shape their views about government. Weaver and Lerman (2010, 4) find that “criminal justice contact weakens attachment to political process and heightens negative views about government.” They found that the more extensive citizens’ experience of the criminal justice system, the stronger its negative impact on their likelihood of voting; such experiences created “custodial citizenship.” Nuamah (2021), in an ethnographic study of citizen participation in the school closure process, similarly finds that negative experiences with school closure policy among black community members diminished their political efficacy and subsequent engagement. Moynihan and Herd (2010) expand on the mechanisms through which implementation gives rise to interpretive feedbacks, explaining that, as policies are implemented, citizens run up against cumulative red tape—the administrative procedures of implementation that are not directly necessary for the distribution of benefits—generated throughout the various stages of policymaking. These administrative burdens can impose (or loosen) barriers that citizens must overcome to access their political and social rights, and some citizens possess greater capacity to overcome those barriers. As a result,

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118  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle increasing administrative burden can have a deleterious effect on the experience of citizenship for already disadvantaged groups (Barnes and Henley 2018). Of course, not all policy beneficiaries have negative interactions with government programs. A number of studies find that those beneficiaries who have primarily positive encounters with policy disbursement agencies report positive attitudes toward government and about their own political efficacy. Individuals who gained access to health coverage through the Affordable Care Act experienced enhanced internal political efficacy, and in turn, they became more active in politics (Jacobs, Mettler, and Zhu 2022). Notably, the perception of positive policy provision may be context dependent. For example, Erin Hern (2017) finds evidence that in low-capacity African states, even incomplete service provision leads to enhanced political efficacy and engagement. Of course, even positive experiences with government may pose problems for evaluations of political efficacy. Patashnik’s (2008) study of policy reform cautions that when positive government reforms unravel, citizens may lose faith in the ability of government to solve problems. Although both positive and negative experiences with government agencies during policy disbursement have the power to shape people’s beliefs about their own political efficacy, scholars have shown that public policies administered without interaction with an obvious government presence can affect views of government capacity as well. A growing body of feedback scholarship examines citizens’ responses to policies administered through the relatively hidden policies of the “submerged state,” those that channel benefits to citizens through market institutions and the federal tax system (Mettler 2011, 7). Unlike benefits delivered directly through obvious government organizations, benefits provided by the submerged state are intentionally obscured, so many people only see the free market or private enterprise at work. The hidden nature of these policies not only makes it difficult for citizens to form and express preferences about them but also fosters a sense that the market, not government, is responsible for addressing public needs. Actual policy decisions themselves can also affect citizens’ sense of political efficacy, depending on whether or not their preferred policy outcome prevails. Focusing on the case of pro-gun groups and voters, for example, Lacombe (2021) finds evidence that policy losses can generate an increased sense of collective identity and subsequent boost in political engagement. In combination, a specific policy’s design and implementation can shape both the way that individuals and groups view the value of their citizenship and how they assess the efficacy of government agencies. These evaluations can in turn affect citizens’ decision to participate in politics (Mettler and Soss 2004). If, for example, an individual is part of a target population ascribed with negative characteristics, they may view their citizenship as worth less than that of others and be less likely to participate. Similarly, if an individual has negative experiences with government agencies, they may decide that participation is futile and choose not to engage. Because interpretive

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Policy Feedback Theory  119 effects engender political learning for political elites as well as for the mass public, policies have the ability to entrench and exacerbate participatory inequalities as specific designs and implementation schemes become path dependent. Taken together, these two types of interpretative effects can provide individuals with powerful incentives or disincentives for political engagement. In the past fifteen years, scholars have made perhaps the greatest headway in probing when interpretive effects occur and the mechanisms underlying them. Policies seem to generate distinct attitudinal responses depending on such factors as the terms of eligibility, the degree of visibility of government’s role, the means of financing, the scope of coverage, the degree of automaticity of benefit receipt, and the degree of discretion and intervention by government officials. We have yet to reach a comprehensive understanding of these topics, but scholars are building on each other’s work to refine our expectations about when and how policy feedback effects may or may not occur.

Moderating Effects in Policy Feedback Understanding more about the scope conditions of policy feedback effects— under what circumstances do they occur, for whom, and why—has become an emergent frontier in the literature. While scholars have done considerable work to untangle resource and interpretive mechanisms, a new wave of research considers broad, systemic factors that can serve to moderate their effects. We briefly explore three such moderators here: federalism, partisanship, and race. Federalism The multiple layers of policymaking authority that may exist within a state can give rise to variation in the presence and emergence of feedback effects for a given issue. Perhaps nowhere has this been more clearly articulated than in the context of US social welfare policy. The federal system that divides power between national, state, and local policymaking entities means that, for some welfare programs, policy experience and subsequent feedback effects may vary widely by location. For example, a study of TANF, the replacement for AFDC established by welfare reform in 1996, found that variation in the implementation of the same policy program across state and local jurisdictions produced different attitudes toward political efficacy (Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011). Similarly, Michener’s (2018) exploration of Medicaid policy finds that state variation in both benefits (resource effects) and beneficiary experience (interpretive effects) generates disparate outcomes for political participation among beneficiaries. At the local level, Trounstine (2018) demonstrates how variation in municipal land-use policies influenced subsequent patterns of racial segregation, partisan polarization, and future patterns of public goods provision.

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120  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle The differential patterns of policy provision across jurisdictions are often an artifact of strategic policy design intended to stratify benefits for political gain. For example, Mettler (1998) shows how men, particularly white men, were incorporated into New Deal social and labor policies that were to be administered at the national level—guaranteeing them access to more uniform, and often more generous, benefits. By contrast, most women and minority men were relegated to policies to be administered by the individual states, leaving them subject to the whims of local political interests. As a result, in the decades following, political action remained highly gendered and distinct, with men across the nation mobilized by unions in pursuit of improved federal policies and women left to fight battles in all fifty individual states in pursuit of improved protective labor laws. Cybelle Fox (2012) tells a similar story about race, immigration, and the choice to devolve meanstested New Deal welfare policies to the states, resulting in “three worlds of relief ” that granted generous inclusion to European immigrants, excluded African Americans, and subjected Mexicans seeking assistance to deportation. There is a great deal more work to be done to understand how federalism conditions the emergence and direction of policy feedback effects for the wide range of policies—both in the United States and other federated states—that are subject to divided governance. Partisanship Early studies of policy feedback paid little attention to the role of partisanship, but in recent years, as polarization has grown, scholars have taken it into account, particularly in a burgeoning literature on the effects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Several theorized that rising partisanship would likely weaken feedback effects, as citizens would stick with the views and participation habits of their fellow partisans rather than having them altered by their policy experiences (Patashnik and Zelizer 2013; Oberlander and Weaver 2015; Béland, Rocco, and Waddan 2018). Some early studies of the ACA bore this out, finding that rigid partisan assessments of the law overwhelmed its feedback effects, even among those who appreciated its benefits (e.g., McCabe 2016; Jacobs and Mettler 2018; but cf. Hosek 2019). Strong partisanship even kept many Republicans from enrolling in ACAprovided insurance plans (Lerman, Sadin, and Trachtman 2017). Yet contemporary polarization also begets backlash politics, as one party aims to terminate or undermine the other’s policy achievements (Patashnik, forthcoming). This raises the question of how a viable threat to an established law influences feedback, and whether it trumps partisanship. Earlier studies of policy feedback that considered the impact of threat focused on periods of low partisanship, such as when seniors’ support for Social Security escalated in the face of the Reagan Administration’s threat to benefits (Campbell 2003). Mettler, Jacobs, and Zhu (2023) argue that in the context of heightened partisanship, however, policy threats may spur salience, inducing people to notice or appreciate policies more than

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Policy Feedback Theory  121 they did previously, and loss aversion, as the prospect of losing benefits evokes a stronger reaction than did gaining them in the first place. They test these expectations drawing on five waves of panel data about the ACA. For years after President Barack Obama signed the ACA into law, Republican lawmakers campaigned on the promise that they would repeal it. In 2016, the GOP triumphed, winning control of the presidency and both chambers of Congress, and suddenly they held the power to make good on their promise. Between then and the 2018 midterms, the threat to the law raised its salience, grabbing the attention of low-income individuals and those who had not previously perceived its impact, strengthening the support of both groups for it, and weakening opposition among Republicans. These altered opinions influenced individual voting calculations in ways not anticipated by the GOP, mobilizing greater support for candidates who promised to defend it (Mettler, Jacobs, and Zhu 2023). Structural Inequality Finally, scholars are increasingly recognizing how systemic inequalities rooted in historically marginalized identity categories and socioeconomic positionality may condition policy feedback effects. In Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity (2019), Michener emphasizes how public policies often channel resources and structure implementation inequitably based on historical patterns of structural inequality in a specific polity.Yet feedback scholars have not always been attentive to this reality in their analyses. Focusing on the presence of disproportionality in distributional outcomes and decentralization in decision making authority, Michener offers a framework for scholars to address racialized feedback effects. This approach has been applied to a range of issues, for example, De Micheli’s (2018) study of racialized feedback effects in conditional cash transfers in Brazil and Rosenthal’s (2021) exploration of how race structures feedback effects for submerged policies in the United States. Considerable room remains, however, for feedback scholars to seriously engage with the ways in which different structural inequalities influence the scope of feedback effects across contexts.

New Challenges and New Frontiers in Policy Feedback Research Research conducted by scholars of policy feedback contributes innovative insight into the workings of the political process across multiple dimensions. As with many research agendas, however, work in the field of policy feedback effects faces obstacles and invites opportunities. Perhaps the most significant challenge to feedback research thus far emanates from methodological concerns and data limitations. While a full discussion of these issues and the empirical tools for addressing them can be found in the companion piece to this chapter, “Methods for Applying Policy Feedback Theory” (SoRelle and Michener 2021), we provide a brief overview here.

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122  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle One of the main critiques of feedback scholarship to date focuses on the problem of endogeneity, particularly that introduced by potential selfselection bias between recipients and nonrecipients of government benefits. The concern is that some preexisting characteristics affect who elects to utilize a particular program, and those same factors may determine later participatory or attitudinal differences between beneficiaries and nonbeneficiaries. If analysts lack the appropriate data or empirical tools to control for this possibility, they cannot with confidence specify the existence of policy feedback effects (Mead 2004). Work in the field of policy feedback is sensitive to this charge, and scholars are leveraging a variety of methodological tools to substantiate their causal claims. Some research has sought to address the issue of endogeneity with the use of panel data that allows for within-subject change to be captured in response to policy reforms (e.g., Weaver and Lerman 2010; Morgan and Campbell 2011; Jacobs, Mettler, and Zhu 2022; Mettler, Jacobs and Zhu, 2023). Statistical techniques including two-stage modeling with use of an instrumental variable (e.g., Mettler and Welch 2004; Rose 2018) and statistical matching (e.g., Weaver and Lerman 2010; Michener 2018; De Micheli 2018) have also been used to combat endogeneity. More recently, scholars are turning to experimental and quasi-experimental methods to make causal claims about feedback effects. For example, scholars are relying on survey experiments (e.g., SoRelle 2022; Faricy and Ellis 2021), discontinuity designs (e.g., Clinton and Sances 2018; Lerman 2019), and difference-in-difference approaches (e.g., Lu 2014) to demonstrate the presence of feedback effects. These strategies, while holding the potential to capture large-scale causal effects, are often less well suited to delving into the nuances and mechanisms of policy feedback; thus, they have been accompanied by a renewed wave of rich qualitative work that incorporates interviews (e.g., Barnes and Henley 2018; Michener 2018) and ethnographies (e.g., Soss, Fording, and Schram 2011; Nuamah 2021) to illuminate feedback processes with greater detail. Policy feedback theory is indispensable for scholars trying to understand how policies, once developed, reshape politics. Furthermore, today more than ever, the creation of new policies is deeply influenced by the existence of other policies, many of which reshape the political landscape in multiple and profound ways. The approach is also critical for those who want to understand how we can create better policies or assess existing policies with an eye toward promoting good governance, active civic engagement, and a fair playing field among groups and interests. For the past twenty years, scholars have done yeoman’s work in developing this area of research. Today, scholars are beginning to tackle a new wave of questions critical to the study of feedback effects. For example, with the bulk of the initial feedback work dedicated to studying single-policy cases (e.g., Soss 1999; Campbell 2003; Mettler 2005), scholars are beginning to systematically consider how multiple, overlapping policy experiences create feedback effects (e.g., Shanks-Booth and Mettler 2019; Rosenthal 2021). This is imperative if we are to understand how policy regimes overlap in people’s

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Policy Feedback Theory  123 everyday lives (see Michener, SoRelle, and Thurston 2022). Another avenue of expansion is the consideration of policy feedback as an intentional tool; when do policymakers explicitly rely on feedback to attain political ends (e.g., Hackett 2020), and what are the conditions under which feedbacks are likely to emerge or not (Patashnik and Zelizer 2013; Hertel-Fernandez 2018). In addition to developing these burgeoning agendas, there are other critically important questions for future feedback research to address: while we know a considerable amount about individual feedback effects, how might policies shape the conditions for collective action and social movement organizing? Skocpol’s (1992) work on the maternalist welfare state explores the potential for policies to shape collective identities; Mettler, Katzenstein, and Reese each offer considerations of feedback effects and collective action in an edited volume titled Routing the Opposition (Meyer, Jenness, and Ingram 2005); and SoRelle (2020) and Thurston (2018) address feedback effects for collective action around the politics of credit and debt. But there is ample opportunity to theorize more broadly about how policies create or undermine the conditions for collective action—an especially timely question as we witness the rise in both domestic and global protest movements. Another avenue for exploration includes the layering of feedback effects across policymaking jurisdictions and entities. For example, Goss, Barnes, and Rose (2019) explore the multi-level feedbacks created when policies “trickle down” through non-profit organizations to individuals, and Shanks and SoRelle (2021) explore a similar multi-level process whereby policy restrictions shape one level of organizational behavior—foundation giving— in ways that create second-order feedbacks for another level—recipient organizations. We might also ask how do citizens respond to policies and services that are channeled through nongovernmental organizations? Do citizen experiences with policies enacted by international lawmaking bodies produce different feedback effects than those implemented by national governments? The study of policy feedback represents an exciting and still relatively new direction in policy research, one ripe with possibilities for further inquiry. It engages scholars in the study of how policies, once created, reshape the political world in myriad ways. The past two decades have seen innovative new explorations in this domain and growing specification of mechanisms and dynamics. These accomplishments pave the way for future researchers to carry on.

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Policy Feedback Theory  127 Morgan, Kimberly J. 2006. Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Morgan, Kimberly J., and Andrea Louise Campbell. 2011. The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Moynihan, Donald, and Pamela Herd. 2010. “Red Tape and Democracy: How Rules Affect Citizenship Rights.” American Review of Public Administration 40 (6): 654–670. Nuamah, Sally A. 2021. “The Cost of Participating while Poor and Black: Toward a Theory of Collective Participatory Debt.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (4), 1115–1130. Oberlander, Jonathan and R. Kent Weaver. 2015. “Unraveling from Within: The Affordable Care Act and Self-Undermining Policy Feedbacks.” The Forum, 13 (1): 37–62. Olson, Mancur, Jr. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Orloff, Ann Shola. 1993. Gender and the Social Rights of Citizenship: The Comparative Analysis of Gender Relations and Welfare States. Madison: University of Wisconsin. Patashnik, Eric M. 2008. Reforms at Risk:What Happens After Major Policy Changes Are Enacted. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Patashnik, Eric M. Forthcoming. Countermobilization: Policy Feedback and Backlash in a Polarized Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Patashnik, Eric M., and Julian E. Zelizer. 2013. “The Struggle to Remake Politics: Liberal Reform and the Limits of Policy Feedback in the Contemporary American State.” Perspectives on Politics 11 (4): 1071–1087. Petrocik, J. R. 1996. “Issue Ownership in Presidential Elections, with a 1980 Case Study.” American Journal of Political Science 40 (3): 825–850. Pierson, Paul. 1993. “When Effect Becomes Cause: Policy Feedback and Political Change.” World Politics 45 (4): 595–628. Rose, Deondra. 2018. Citizens by Degree: Higher Education Policy and the Changing Gender Dynamics of American Citizenship. New York: Oxford University Press. Rosenstone, Steven J., and John Mark Hansen. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan. Rosenthal, Aaron. 2021. “Submerged for Some? Government Visibility, Race, and American Political Trust.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (4): 1098–1114. Rothstein, B. 2002. “The Universal Welfare State as Social Dilemma.” In Restructuring the Welfare State: Political Institutions and Policy Change, edited by B. Rothstein and S. Steinmo, 206–222. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Schattschneider, E. E. 1935. Politics, Pressure, and the Tariff. New York: Prentice Hall. Schneider,Anne, and Helen Ingram. 1993.“Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.” American Political Science Review 87: 334–347. . 2019.“Social Constructions,Anticipatory Feedback Strategies, and Deceptive Public Policy.” Policy Studies Journal 47 (2): 206–236. Shanks, Delphia, and Mallory SoRelle. 2021. “The Paradox of Policy Advocacy: Philanthropic Foundations, Public Interest Groups, and Second-Order Policy Feedback Effects.” Interest Groups & Advocacy 10 (2): 137–157. Shanks-Booth, Delphia, and Suzanne Mettler. 2019. “The Paradox of the Earned Income Tax Credit: Appreciating Benefits But Not Their Source.” Policy Studies Journal 47: 300–323. Shklar, Judith N. 1991. American Citizenship:The Quest for Inclusion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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128  Suzanne Mettler and Mallory E. SoRelle Siminovitz, Gabor, Neil Malhotra, Raymond Ye Lee, and Andrew Healey. 2021. “The Effect of Distributive Politics on Electoral Participation: Evidence from 70 Million Agricultural Payments.” Political Behavior 43: 737–750. Skocpol, Theda. 1991. “Targeting within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States.” In The Urban Underclass, edited by Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson, 411–436. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. . 1992. Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. . 1996. Boomerang: Clinton’s Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in U.S. Politics. New York: W. W. Norton. Skocpol, Theda, and Vanessa Williamson. 2012. The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, Miriam Catherine. 2008. Political Institutions and Lesbian and Gay Rights in the United States and Canada. New York: Routledge. SoRelle, Mallory E. 2020. Democracy Declined:The Failed Politics of Consumer Financial Protection. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. SoRelle, Mallory E. 2022. “Privatizing Financial Protection: Regulatory Feedback and the Politics of Financial Reform.” American Political Science Review, 1–19. SoRelle, Mallory and Jamila Michener. 2021.“Methods for Applying Policy Feedback Theory.” In Methods of the Policy Process, pp. 80–104. Routledge. Soss, Joe. 1999. “Lessons of Welfare: Policy Design, Political Learning, and Political Action.” American Political Science Review 93 (2): 363–380. Soss, Joe, Richard C. Fording, and Sanford Schram. 2011. Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Soss, Joe, and Sanford Schram. 2007. “A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback.” In Remaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality, edited by Joe Soss, Jacob S. Hacker, and Suzanne Mettler, 99–118. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Steinmo, Sven, Kathleen Ann Thelen, and Frank Longstreth. 1992. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stokes, Leah Cardamore. 2016. “Electoral Backlash against Climate Policy: A Natural Experiment on Retrospective Voting and Local Resistance to Public Policy.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 958–974. Svallfors, Stefan. 1997. “Worlds of Welfare and Attitudes to Redistribution: A Comparison of Eight Western Nations.” European Sociological Review 13 (3): 283–304. Thurston, Chloe N. 2018. At The Boundaries of Homeownership: Credit, Discrimination, and the American State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trounstine, Jessica. 2018. Segregation by Design: Local Politics and Inequality in American Cities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Uggen, Christopher, and Jeff Manza. 2002. “Democratic Contraction? The Political Consequences of Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States.” American Sociological Review 67 (6): 777. Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walker, Hannah L. 2020. Mobilized by Injustice: Criminal Justice Contact, Political Participation, and Race. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Policy Feedback Theory  129 Walker, Jack L. 1983. “The Origins and Maintenance of Interest Groups in America.” American Political Science Review 77 (2): 390–406. Weaver,Vesla M., and Amy E. Lerman. 2010. “Political Consequences of the Carceral State.” American Political Science Review 104 (4): 817–833. Wilson, William Julius. 1991. “Public Policy Research and the Truly Disadvantaged.” In The Urban Underclass, edited by Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson, 411– 436. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Wolfinger, Raymond E., and Steven J. Rosenstone. 1980. Who Votes? New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Zolberg, Aristide R. 2006. A Nation by Design: Immigration Policy in the Fashioning of America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

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The Advocacy Coalition Framework Progress and Emerging Areas Daniel Nohrstedt, Karin Ingold, Christopher M.Weible, Elizabeth A. Koebele, Kristin L. Olofsson, Keiichi Satoh, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith

Introduction The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) is a theoretical framework designed to describe and explain how people work together to make collective choices in public policy-making. Situated between macro- and micro-theories of the policy process, the ACF recognizes that the broader environment (institutions, geography, culture, etc.) affects individual and collective actors, particularly their beliefs and behaviors. In turn, the environment is affected by actors’ behaviors and the policies they pursue. The ACF brings attention to aspects of policy-making beyond elections and social movements, where individual and group efforts often go unnoticed by the news media, social media, and the general public. Yet, the dynamics highlighted by the ACF fundamentally affect policy processes and collective decisions at all levels of government. Borrowing from Easton (1965), Laudan (1978, 70–120), Lakatos (1970), and Ostrom (2005, 27–29), the ACF is a framework supporting multiple, overlapping theoretical foci. At the framework level, the ACF consists of assumptions and a description of its scope. Its concepts also provide a common vocabulary that fosters communication among researchers studying policy processes, thereby facilitating the accumulation of empirical investigations of the theoretical relationships among parts of the framework. It is important to note that key assumptions of the framework are often not directly testable; instead, in the ACF, these core assumptions provide the basis for formulating and testing hypotheses. The framework, in turn, supports multiple theories, which outline precise concepts and hypotheses that invite empirical testing. These theories consist of more precise definitions and falsifiable hypotheses subject to experimentation and modification. The main theories used under the ACF focus on patterns and behaviors of advocacy coalitions, the likelihood of learning and adaptation, and the forces leading to policy change and stasis.1 DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-6

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  131 The vibrancy of the ACF comes through its support from a diverse community of researchers, both new and experienced, global in representation, and wide-ranging in their methods and areas of concern.This research community continues to apply, test, and refine the ACF to understand and inform many of the world’s grand challenges, including hyperpolarization, growing inequality, threats from climate change, public health risks, and more. This chapter represents our attempt to describe the assumptions, fundamentals, theories, and knowledge in the ACF that are broadly accepted and serve to tie this research community together. We end this chapter with a research agenda and strategies for contributing to the ACF’s research community.

Assumptions As a framework, the ACF contains a set of assumptions about the policy process that provides a foundation for conducting empirical research. We list these assumptions in Appendix Table 4.1 and elaborate on them below. We begin with the term “policy subsystems,” which serves as the arena of political activity and the primary unit of analysis for research studies in the ACF. We define policy subsystems by their topic, geographical area, and the people (called “policy actors”) who directly or indirectly engage in them. A policy subsystem can exist for any substantive policy topic (e.g., education, energy, or health policy) but may also occupy a sub-specialization within a topic or overlap several topics. The geographical scope can be specific and concern one decision-making level (from local to global) or one delineated territory or jurisdiction (e.g., state or district). These topical and geographical elements inform research design and data gathering and create a subsystem boundary. Among many others, recent examples of policy subsystems researched under the ACF include: • • • •

Pesticide risk regulation in Uganda (Wiedemann and Ingold 2023), Birth control policy in China (Li and Wong 2019), Hydraulic fracturing politics in three US states (Weible et al. 2016), and Drug policies in Australia (Sommerville et al. 2022).

The policy subsystem brings attention and clarity to a complex layer of governance often oversimplified or overlooked in the study of politics (Redford 1969). Indeed, the ACF’s policy subsystem concept emerged from the need to broaden inquiry beyond a single administrative agency or program to grasp the panoply of government offices, agencies, policies, programs, and the diversity of non-government policy actors involved in the policy process (Sabatier 1987). It also builds on Heclo’s (1978) issue networks by broadening the “Iron Triangles” conceptualization that consisted of an administrative agency, legislative subcommittee, and interest group to portray the policy process with a more encompassing array of policy actors.2 Moreover, the boundaries of a policy subsystem are not firmly fixed nor clearly delineated but fuzzy and often contested as policy actors (re)define the

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132  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. policy issue, who is affected, and who has jurisdiction, often by expanding or contracting the scope of conflict (Schattschneider 1960). Even so, policy subsystems can persist and endure for decades. We call a policy subsystem “mature” when sufficient time has passed that policy actors learn enough about the issue to form and fortify their belief systems, access relevant decisionmaking venues (see below), mobilize and maintain coalitions, and support or oppose policies and programs. When a new issue arrives on the political agenda, it can either be absorbed by a mature policy subsystem or provoke the formation of a new “nascent” policy subsystem (Nohrstedt and Olofsson 2016a). Nascent subsystems may lack clear coalitions, venues, policies, or jurisdictions (Beverwijk et al. 2008; Bandelow and Kundolf 2011; Stritch 2015; Ingold et al. 2017; McGee and Jones 2019; Weible et al. 2020; Wiedemann and Ingold 2023). Nascent subsystems can provide insight into how policy actors initially engage and coordinate, often in unstable environments (Costie et al. 2018) and ones with ambiguous yet highly controversial issues (Dean 2021).3 In addition to policy subsystems, scholars study a secondary unit of analysis in policy venues (or forums) (Henry et al. 2022).4 The ACF defines a policy venue as a site of collective action or decision making that serves as the locus of discussion, usually involving a subset of subsystem actors with some authority to make policy decisions (e.g., a legislature) or recommend policy options (Leach and Sabatier 2005; Leach et al. 2013). Venuelevel applications help us understand how coalitions coordinate, learn from each other, negotiate, choose to participate in one venue over another (Vantaggiato and Lubell 2022), and pursue policy change. The existence of effective policy venues, where authoritative decisions can be influenced or made, is one of the key incentives for policy actors to form coalitions, coordinate, and expend resources to shape policy. As introduced above, policy actors include any person who regularly seeks to influence, directly or indirectly, subsystem affairs. Policy actors serve as agents of change and stasis in the policy subsystem by organizing into advocacy coalitions or filling other positions, such as “policy brokers” who mitigate conflict and help opponents reach agreements (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993; Ingold and Varone 2012). Policy actors may include an array of individuals and organizations, such as officials from any level of government, representatives from the private sector, members of nonprofit organizations, members of the news media, academic scientists and researchers, private consultants, and even members of courts. Of course, the extent and consistency of involvement and influence of these actors vary across policy subsystems. The ACF considers policy actors as boundedly rational, meaning that they are motivated instrumentally by goals but are often unclear about how to achieve those goals and are limited in their cognitive abilities to process stimuli, such as information and experience (Simon 1957, 1985). Given these bounds, subsystem actors simplify the world through their “belief system,” which encapsulates their perceived fundamental values and policy-related

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  133 beliefs. The ACF conceptualizes the belief system as the principal source of presuppositions through which actors filter and interpret the world and make decisions, potentially leading to biased assimilation of stimuli and political entrenchment (Munro and Ditto 1997; Munro et al. 2002). The ACF posits a three-tiered belief system model that roughly spans from the general to the specific. “Deep core beliefs” are fundamental normative values and ontological axioms, including the nature of human beings, norms for social justice, and the ordering of primary values (e.g., individual freedom and social equality). Deep core beliefs are not policy specific and, thus, can apply to multiple policy subsystems.5 Deep core beliefs shape and constrain “policy core beliefs,” which lie in the middle of the belief system and refer to general normative and empirical policyrelated beliefs bound to the policy subsystem. Normative policy core beliefs reflect one’s basic orientation and value priorities for the policy subsystem and may identify whose welfare is of significant concern. Empirical policy core beliefs include overall assessments of the seriousness of the problem, basic causes of the problem, and perceived impacts of policies. Finally, “secondary beliefs” are more narrowly focused, addressing elements such as the means for coalition coordination or the specific “policy instruments” appropriate for achieving outcomes identified in an actor’s policy core beliefs. Belief systems provide the raw material from which policy actors engage in argumentation, persuasion, narration, and framing through analytical debates. Therein, belief systems – especially understandings of the causes and severity of problems or the estimated impacts of policy solutions – entwine with scientific and technical information that becomes paramount in legitimizing and supporting one view or delegitimizing and discounting others. For example, policy actors may bolster their arguments about the seriousness of a problem by invoking science to back their claims. While the ACF does not overlook the importance of other sources of information, it elevates scientific and technical information as potent political fodder in the public discourse. The ACF assumes that policy actors in a subsystem can be aggregated into one or more advocacy coalitions based on shared policy core beliefs. Members of a coalition coordinate their political activities to translate their beliefs into public policies and block their opponents’ efforts to do the same. In this regard, public policies represent the political maneuvering and negotiations among coalitions and the effort to translate competing coalitions’ belief systems into policy (Pressman and Wildavsky 1973; Mazmanian and Sabatier 1983). Given its emphasis on conflict and collaboration among coalitions, the ACF highlights the relationships between allies and opponents in a subsystem. The foundation for such relationships comes from Prospect Theory’s proposition that people remember losses more readily than gains (Quattrone and Tversky 1988), contributing to the ACF’s “devil shift.” Initially coined by Paul Sabatier, the devil shift occurs when policy actors exaggerate the

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134  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. power and maliciousness of their opponents (Sabatier et al. 1987). Later, Leach and Sabatier (2005) coined the “angel shift” that occurs when policy actors exaggerate the power and virtue of their allies. Empirical research has shown that the devil shift is associated with beliefs and identity, policy actors who have extreme beliefs and protracted conflict, non-collaborative attitudes and mistrust, and obstructive behavior blocking policy solutions (Fischer et al. 2016; Katz 2018; Vogeler and Bandelow 2018; Nilsson et al. 2020; Gronow et al. 2022).6 Finally, the ACF encourages long-term time perspectives (e.g., a decade or more) for understanding policy processes. This assumption does not mean that applying the ACF requires ten years or more of data collection and analysis; this is too literal of an interpretation. However, it does mean that understanding public policy requires focusing on temporal processes that characterize policy making over time. Thus, ACF scholarship includes investigations focusing on shorter time frames, which are understood to be parts of a longer-term process.

General Conceptual Categories and Relations Based on the assumptions sketched above, Figure 4.1 presents the ACF’s flow diagram that summarizes the general relationships among its major concepts.The rectangle on the right shows a subsystem with two competing coalitions. The two coalitions use various strategies to influence decisions by government authorities that affect institutional rules, policy outputs, and outcomes.These decisions feed back into the policy subsystem and can affect external subsystem affairs. Stable parameters refer to the basic social, cultural, economic, physical, and institutional structures surrounding a policy subsystem. Some of these concepts are external to subsystem affairs, such as the basic constitutional structure of the political system, whereas others can be internal to the subsystem, such as physical and social conditions that underlie the substantive issue that is the focus of the subsystem. Next, dynamic external events include relevant developments that are external to the subsystem and prone to change. Examples include socioeconomic conditions, the state of subsystem-relevant technology, public opinion, the composition of governing coalitions, and spill-over effects from other subsystems. In between relatively stable parameters and the policy subsystem is a category of concepts concerning the nature of the long-term coalition opportunity structures that consider the degree of consensus needed for policy change, the openness of the political system, and overlapping societal cleavages. These structures shape the institutions through which policy actors interact (Fischer 2014; Koebele 2019). Between external events and policy subsystems are the short-term constraints and resources of subsystem actors, indicating that changes outside the subsystem provide short-term opportunities for coalitions to exploit.

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  135 Relatively Stable Parameters 1. Basic attributes of the problem area and distribution of natural resources 2. Fundamental sociocultural values and social structure 3. Basic constitutional structure

Long Term Coalition Opportunity Structures 1. Degree of consensus needed for major policy change 2. Openness of political system 3. Overlapping Societal Cleavages

Policy Subsystem Coalition A Beliefs Resources

Coalition B Beliefs Resources

Strategies

Strategies

Decisions by government authorities External Subsystem Events 1. Changes in socio-economic conditions 2. Changes in public opinion 3. Changes in systemic governing coalition 4. Changes in other policy subsystems

Short Term Constraints and Resources of Subsystem Actors

Institutional rules

Policy outputs

Policy impacts

Figure 4.1 ACF Flowchart Source: Jenkins-Smith et al. (2018).

The relationships and illustrated lists of concepts should be understood as an overview of how the ACF portrays the policy process. Others can exist. For example, Figure 4.1 lists two coalitions, but policy subsystems can have only one coalition or more than two. Some concepts are also not mentioned in Figure 4.1, such as policy brokers. Furthermore, the examples in some of the boxes are not exhaustive, such as the possibility of listing crises and disasters under dynamic external events. The spirit underlying Figure 4.1 is not to provide a comprehensive overview of the ACF but to communicate and spark imaginative applications by visualizing parts of the framework.

Theoretical Emphases The ACF is applied to study and explain phenomena associated with three theoretical foci – advocacy coalitions, policy-oriented learning, and policy change – and their interactions. The ACF posits hypotheses for each theoretical focus, which are listed in Appendix Table 4.2. Advocacy Coalitions The ACF specifies several conceptual building blocks of advocacy coalitions: policy actors, their belief systems, and coordination (Weible et al. 2020). From these building blocks, the ACF defines advocacy coalitions as groups of

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136  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. policy actors who share beliefs (most notably policy core beliefs) and engage in a non-trivial degree of coordination to advocate for common policy positions and push for or against policy change. Inevitable implications of this definition are that policy actors use resources and strategies as part of coalition coordination and exert their efforts over extended periods of time. In coalitions, policy actors coordinate their political behavior. Coordination denotes the informal or formal organized behaviors among policy actors within a coalition in pursuit of their shared goals, though “cross-coalition coordination” may also occur when members of opposing coalitions work together strategically (Koebele et al. 2020). “Strong coordination” occurs when policy actors deliberately plan and acknowledge their coordinated activities with allies. “Weak coordination” occurs when policy actors in a coalition might implicitly or unconsciously act based on their allies’ activities (Weible and Ingold 2018).7 As coalitions coordinate, they utilize resources.The ACF offers a typology of political resources used by policy actors and advocacy coalitions for influencing public policy. These include formal legal authority to make policy decisions, public opinion, information, mobilizable citizens or followers, financial resources, and skillful leadership (Sewell 2005; Sabatier and Weible 2007, 201). Policy actors vary in their function, positions, and roles in a policy subsystem. Consequently, the ACF offers conceptual categories that classify policy actors within policy subsystems to aid research and understanding. For example, some policy actors may be central or “principal” to the advocacy coalition, meaning they regularly and broadly engage with coalition members. In contrast, other actors are more “auxiliary,” meaning they engage intermittently and often serve as coordinators (or bridges) across coalitions or different subsystems. Similarly, advocacy coalitions vary in their influence and structure, and the framework has invested in refining its vocabulary to describe different types of advocacy coalitions. For example, the ACF distinguishes between minority and dominant coalitions.8 A dominant coalition consistently wins policy disputes or controls policy decisions in the policy subsystem. For example, Ingold (2011) categorized a coalition as dominant by measuring decisional power or network centrality. Other studies identify dominant coalitions by the strategic use of law-making mechanisms (Alvarez-Rosete and Hawkins 2022) or direct access to decision-makers and decision-making authorities (Scott 2021). Likewise, a minority coalition lacks power or influence over subsystem affairs over extended periods of time. The ACF’s theory of advocacy coalitions has received the most attention from researchers who seek to test ACF hypotheses (Appendix Table 4.2, Overview of ACF Hypotheses).We summarize what we have learned below. We see strong evidence supporting the stable lineup of allies and opponents in a subsystem; that is, advocacy coalitions tend to show stability (see Coalition Hypothesis 1). Many studies document the persistence of advocacy coalitions over time and the general stability of their associated

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  137 policy core beliefs (Koebele and Crow, 2023; Weible et al. 2022). However, studies also identify subtle changes and instances of instability, often when some coalition members defect and others join (Jenkins-Smith et al. 1991; Leifeld 2013; Satoh et al. 2021; Osei-Kojo, 2023), changes in intra-coalition cohesion (Lundmark et al. 2018), and shifts in cross-coalition coordination (Koebele 2020; Kammerer and Ingold 2021).9 However, there are inconsistent findings around whether policy core beliefs or secondary beliefs hold coalitions together (Coalition Hypotheses 2 and 3). Several recent studies found more agreement among coalition members on secondary rather than policy core beliefs (Malkamaki et al. 2021; Sommerville et al. 2022). However, this result is difficult to evaluate conclusively because the same belief may be considered a policy core belief in one subsystem or context and a secondary aspect in another (Weible et al. 2016), suggesting the need to refine the definitions of the levels of belief in the ACF. Researchers continue to employ social network analysis techniques to identify actors’ positions within coalitions by (a) depicting core-periphery structures, (b) identifying actors with key positions such as periphery connectors or central coordinators, and (c) examining patterns of coordination within and between coalitions (Angst et al. 2018; Malkamaki et al. 2021).This has contributed to building evidence documenting coordination among allies in advocacy coalitions (Zafonte and Sabatier 1998; Henry et al. 2021; Satoh et al. 2021; Ocelík et al. 2022). Most of this research ties policy actors together in a coalition through measures of information exchange (Leifeld and Schneider 2012; Fischer et al. 2017; Cairney et al. 2018) or coordination or collaboration (Koebele et al. 2020; Kammerer et al. 2021). One of the most established findings from ACF scholarship links shared beliefs and coordination, a phenomenon referred to as “belief homophily” (Ingold and Fischer 2014; Calanni et al. 2015; Henry et al. 2021; Satoh et al. 2021). The belief homophily hypothesis has been confirmed in many subsystems, and may be especially relevant when the shared beliefs in question are among the most divisive in the subsystem (Karimo et al., 2022). However, Pierce et al. (2017) and Calanni et al. (2015) are among several that find that belief homophily is more prevalent in adversarial policy subsystems than in collaborative ones, which suggests that perceived threats of opponents trigger policy actors to coalesce with like-minded others. The ACF also posits that different types of policy actors, specifically those from different sectors, will have different levels of influence on subsystem affairs (Coalition Hypotheses 4 and 5). However, research offers mixed evidence for such arguments.Wagner and Ylä-Anttila (2018) found that government officials and powerful economic representatives were more successful than other actor types in Irish climate policy. Meanwhile, Ocelík et al. (2019) showed that all actor types impacted decisions in Czech Republic coal phase-out, but what mattered was their centrality within their coalition and not their actor category. Interestingly, Aamodt (2018) found that the same coalition could be successful in influencing one type of subsystem

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138  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. (e.g., climate) while failing to influence another (e.g., energy). Recent studies have also identified international organizations as subsystem members in multi-level arrangements; these organizations seem to play a central role, especially in the Global South and in subsystems with less competition across coalitions (Kukkonen et al. 2018; Osei-Kojo et al. 2022). When comparing subsystems focused on the same substantive issue across different countries,Weible et al. (2016) compared seven countries on the same issue and found varying characteristics of coalitions. The finding suggests that risks and benefits emanating from the same issue can be perceived or experienced differently, depending on the context (Weible and Ingold 2018). ACF scholars, thus, face diverse portfolios of policy beliefs and secondary aspects when comparing subsystems focused on the same issues across the globe (Kammerer and Ingold 2021). These same dynamics also exist in policy venues where some issues attract policy actors with diverse beliefs, and others attract those with similar beliefs, reinforcing belief homophily (Herzog and Ingold 2019; Koebele 2019). Political resources are central to the strategies and influence of advocacy coalitions. For example, Albright (2011) and Ingold (2011) find that redistribution of political resources precedes policy change. Other studies underscore the varied effects of different kinds of resources in coalition influence, raising the possibility of a hierarchy of their importance (Nohrstedt 2011). Still others document access to government officials as important for coalition effectiveness and stability, particularly in authoritarian regimes (Aamodt and Stensdal 2017; Li and Weible 2019; Li and Wong 2019). Policy actors and their coalitions may be more likely to select strategies similar to those used by their allies or collaborators in an attempt to influence the policy subsystem (Wagner et al. 2023). Multiple approaches, methods, and empirical strategies can help identify coalitions (Henry et al. 2022). Satoh et al. (2021) developed an index to measure the degree of belief and coordination alliance within and between coalitions. This index identifies the decisive belief and coordination elements of coalition members. In any study of coalitions, we should consider broad conceptualizations and measures of weak and strong coordination, including political or technical information exchanges (Leifeld and Schneider 2012; Fischer et al. 2017), or sharing resources and engaging in joint strategies (Heikkila et al. 2018). Similarly, Koebele et al. (2020) organized actors into coalitions using coalition affiliation scores, which account for actors’ policy core beliefs and intentional interactions with other subsystem actors. Researchers may also study actors’ self-perceptions about coalition membership (Vogeler and Bandelow 2018) or their perceived threats as motivators for joining one coalition (Wiedemann and Ingold 2023; Weible and Ingold 2018). In sum, the existence of advocacy coalitions is well established, and the ACF’s portrayal of them, for the most part, holds in the face of a wide array of empirical evidence. However, there are nuances to their characteristics and dynamics as well as variations and inconsistencies in findings that continue

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  139 to offer opportunities and challenges for understanding coalitions. Some of their attributes, for example, depend on the context in which coalitions emerge, evolve, and develop. The degree of salience, threat, or trust among potential coalition members decisively impacts how actors activate their (deep core) beliefs and try to find the best solution to an upcoming problem (Weible and Ingold 2018). Depending on the context and institutions at play, different belief levels and coordination patterns become more or less relevant (Cairney et al. 2018; Koebele 2019). Thus, the next task for ACF scholars is to link findings more directly to subsystem contexts and focus on the nuances and exceptions rather than confirmations. Policy-Oriented Learning The ACF defines policy-oriented learning as “enduring alternations of thought or behavioral intentions that result from experience and which are concerned with the attainment or revision of the precepts of the belief system of individuals or of collectives” (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993, 42). Policy-oriented learning can pertain to any belief system component, such as policy preferences or perceptions of problem severity and causes. It can also refer to shifts in political strategies, such as reframing debates or altering coordination, for achieving objectives as advocacy coalitions seek influence in a policy subsystem (Milhorance et al. 2021). The ACF posits various factors and conditions affecting learning (see Appendix Table 4.2, Learning Hypotheses). First, the institutional arrangements (i.e., rules) of a decision-making venue – such as who can participate and who has authority – can affect learning opportunities (JenkinsSmith 1982). Second, analytically intractable phenomena – or those involving high uncertainty, low-quality data, and, hence, variation in interpretation and high levels of disagreement – can reduce the potential for learning as advocacy coalitions interpret and construct the stimuli to suit their political ends (Jenkins-Smith 1990). Third, the level of conflict between advocacy coalitions can affect the likelihood of learning, especially between opponents (Jenkins-Smith 1990; Weible 2008; Funke et al. 2021). For example, little cross-coalition learning occurs in low- and high-conflict situations as actors either ignore or forcefully defend their beliefs. In contrast, situations of intermediate conflict can cause opposing coalitions to threaten each other enough to attend to the issue and yet remain receptive to new information, thereby increasing the likelihood of cross-coalition learning. Finally, the attributes of policy actors affect learning; i.e., those with extreme beliefs are less likely to learn from opponents than those with moderate beliefs.We summarize what we know about learning and its theoretical arguments immediately below. Some arguments relate to the ACF’s Learning Hypotheses (Appendix Table 4.2) while others do not. Tied to ACF’s belief system, one expectation is that learning is more likely to occur in secondary beliefs than in policy core beliefs. However, the evidence for this claim is mixed. While some ACF applications confirm

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140  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. this expectation (e.g., Larsen et al. 2006; Ellison and Newmark 2010; Li and Weible 2019; Sommerville et al. 2022), others have documented learning at both secondary and policy core beliefs (Sabatier and Brasher 1993; Eberg 1997; Elliot and Schlaepfer 2001; Larsen et al. 2006). Part of the reason for the mixed results involves challenges in measuring ACF’s belief system (Henry et al. 2022). One of the most prevalent observed patterns is that policy actors rarely change their beliefs and, indeed, they tend to reinforce them (Meijerink 2005; Moyson 2014, 2017; Pattison 2018; Weible et al. 2022; Koebele and Crow, 2023). Weible et al. (2022) examine three waves of surveys spanning six years with panel and non-panel samples to find that belief reinforcement and stability are most common among policy actors involved in oil and gas development in Colorado, USA. This study is an exception in that it measures self-reported learning within a given year and changes or stability in beliefs across years. Among the few additional studies that focus on change over longer time frames are those that examine learning using non-panel data and often aggregate the results to the organizational or coalitional level (Weible and Sabatier 2009; Nykiforuk et al. 2019; Gronow et al. 2021; Henry et al. 2021). Thus, people tend to maintain or bolster their belief systems, but learning as belief change has been observed over extended periods in policy subsystems outside of non-panel samples. However, we need to temper such a claim given corresponding findings of the level of conflict and attributes of the policy venue, as detailed next. Strong evidence links intermediate conflict levels to learning (supporting parts of Learning Hypothesis 1) (Weible and Sabatier 2009; Weible et al. 2010; Koebele 2019; Funke et al. 2021; Gronow et al. 2021; Milhorance et al. 2021). Gronow et al. (2021) used survey data to find greater evidence of learning in forest-based policy subsystems in collaborative environments of Indonesia and Vietnam than in more conflictual environments of Brazil. Additionally, intermediate levels of conflict often coincide with conflictmitigating collaborative venues (see Koebele 2019). In a survey of participants in multi-stakeholder collaborative venues in the coastal United States, Leach et al. (2013) found the institutional arrangement (measured as perceptions of procedural fairness), attributes of the individual learner, and level of scientific certainty affected learning (measured by self-reported changes in beliefs and gains in knowledge). The findings above represent the most established research efforts and associated streams of knowledge related to ACF’s theory of learning. However, other research points to understudied or emerging areas related to learning. First, a few studies show limited learning when data are qualitative or subjective (Learning Hypothesis 3) (Weyant 1988; Elliot 2001; Kim 2003; Nedergaard 2008; Sotirov and Memmler 2012). Second, a growing area of recent scholarship analyzes the relationships between network structures and learning (Gronow et al. 2021; Henry et al. 2021). The rationale underlying this work involves the intuitive notion that policy actors’ connections in a network shape the flow of information and, hence, the likelihood of learning. Finally,

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  141 an ongoing and growing research area related to learning shifts attention to the role of experts and expert-based information. This research has found associations between academic disciplines and analytical techniques and belief systems, uses of expert-based information for policy change, links between the importance of experts by the level of conflict, and the political alliances of experts and advocacy coalitions (Heintz and Jenkins-Smith 1988; Barke and Jenkins-Smith 1993; Weible 2008; Weible et al. 2010; Ingold and Gschwend 2014; Kukkonen et al. 2017; Funke et al. 2021). To summarize, empirical evidence suggests that policy-oriented learning is more likely to reinforce one’s beliefs than change them substantially. Additionally, when learning occurs, it is more likely to impact one’s secondary beliefs than policy core beliefs, though with some exceptions. High levels of conflict, possibly associated with divergent networks of interactions and the absence of collaborative venues, most likely inhibit belief change beyond reinforcement. Intermediate levels of conflict are most likely related to collaborative venues, and more convergent networks may better facilitate cross-coalition learning. Despite these findings, additional research on learning is needed. In particular, the need for better and more standardized methods and measurements poses the most significant barrier to advancing knowledge in this area and is likely a major source of the mixed results described above. Policy Change One of the central objectives of the ACF is to contribute to the understanding of policy change and stability. Policy change can refer to any decision to adopt a public policy, including laws, regulations, programs, legal decrees, and executive orders that represent the goals of one or more of the coalitions within the subsystem. Similar to other literature on policy change (Nisbet 1972; Capano 2009; Howlett and Cashore 2009), the ACF distinguishes between minor and major policy changes based on the extent to which alterations deviate from previous public policy.10 Changes in the policy core aspects (e.g., the goals) pursued within the subsystem indicate “major policy change.” In contrast, changes in secondary aspects (e.g., change in means for achieving the goals as found in changes in administrative rules, budgetary allocations, statutory interpretations) indicate “minor policy change” (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999, 147–148). Since the belief system categories differ according to their susceptibility to change, minor policy change should not be as challenging to achieve as major policy change (Sabatier 1988). The ACF offers four conceptual pathways to policy change (see Appendix Table 4.2, Policy Change Hypothesis 1). The first involves external sources (e.g., as might be found in the categories of dynamic external events or even relatively stable parameters from Figure 4.1). External events are outside the control of subsystem participants and include changes or developments outside the subsystem’s territorial boundaries, such as shifts in socioeconomic

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142  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. conditions, regime change, impacts from other subsystems, and extreme events, such as some crises and disasters. External events can provide opportunities for policy change but require one or several enabling factors to be exploited by coalitions, including heightened public and political attention, agenda change, redistribution of coalition resources, and opening and closing of policy venues (Sabatier and Weible 2007, 198–199). Additionally, external events can empower the mobilization by minority coalitions to upend dominant coalitions, for instance, by engaging in the public discourse (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1999, 148; Nohrstedt 2008). Policy change can also result from internal events that occur within a policy subsystem’s territorial boundaries, are related to its topical area, or both, and are more likely to be affected by subsystem actors (Sabatier and Weible 2007; Nohrstedt and Weible 2010).Various internal events – such as crises, policy fiascoes, scandals, and policy failures – are likely to influence beliefs and heighten attention to certain governmental programs (Bovens and ‘t Hart 1996; Birkland 2006). Advocacy coalitions can engage in framing contests over such events and debate the severity of problems, their underlying causes, attribution of responsibility, and policy implications (Boin et al. 2009; Nohrstedt and Weible 2010). Given their direct association with a policy subsystem, internal events can confirm the policy core beliefs of minority coalitions and raise doubts about the policy core beliefs of the dominant coalition, bringing into question the effectiveness of their policies. Policy-oriented learning may also prompt policy change, but this is likely to involve minor policy change incrementally over time. Sabatier (1988) expects that learning through activities such as policy analysis seldom influences specific governmental decisions but often serves an “enlightenment function” by gradually altering the concepts and assumptions of subsystem participants (Weiss 1977). Though rarer, learning can also facilitate major policy change, for example, in the wake of crises (Nohrstedt 2005). Negotiated agreements between previously adversarial coalitions may also result in policy change, even in the absence of belief change, as coalitions make concessions and tradeoffs (Koebele and Crow, 2023; Metz et al. 2020; Sandström et al. 2020). Sabatier and Weible (2007, 205–206) identify nine prescriptions fostering negotiation: a hurting stalemate, broad representation, leadership, consensus decision rules, funding, a commitment by actors, the importance of empirical issues, trust, and lack of alternative venues. The essential condition instigating negotiations is a “hurting stalemate,” which occurs when adversarial coalitions perceive the status quo as unacceptable and do not have access to alternative decision-making venues for achieving their objectives (Weible and Nohrstedt 2012). The ACF’s second policy change hypothesis links policy change to a shift in coalition power (Heinmiller, 2023), which may occur as the result of an external or internal event, or to change imposed by a hierarchically superior jurisdiction, as might happen when macro-politics at the national level enforce changes on a policy subsystem (Pierce et al. 2020). Indeed, any

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  143 of the pathways to policy change may be necessary, but not sufficient to drive major change unless policy actors exploit them. The collection of ACF scholarship on policy change finds empirical support for the second policy change hypothesis along with all of the pathways to policy change described above, including the occurrence of more than one pathway in the same instance of change (e.g.,Yun 2019; Metz et al. 2020; Pierce et al. 2020; Sandström et al. 2020; von Malmborg 2021).The question is not whether one of the pathways might precede policy change but rather how they are coupled or sequenced and what mechanisms link the pathways together when combined with other subsystem factors (e.g., an exploitive coalition) leading to policy change. For example, in a review of 67 ACF studies published between 2007 and 2014 worldwide, Pierce et al. (2020) frequently identified the coupling of multiple pathways. Similarly, Bandelow et al. (2019) found that learning was a necessary condition for change combined with either open windows of opportunities or negotiated agreements when studying healthcare reforms in Austria, Belgium, France, and Germany. Similar coupling has been noted in the aftermath of crises (Nohrstedt 2005; Nohrstedt and Weible 2010). Like learning, policy change depends on context. This is recognized by the addition of long-term opportunity structures to the ACF, which highlight the role of consensus needed for policy change (Koebele, 2020; Fischer, 2014) (Figure 4.1). For example, comparative studies corroborate that subsystem type shapes policy change. In one study, Rinscheid (2015) compared the impact of the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster on Japan’s unitary nuclear power policy subsystem (with a single dominant coalition) and Germany’s adversarial nuclear power policy subsystem (with two competing coalitions). Rinscheid (2015) argued that policy change driven by minority coalitions was more effective in Germany than in Japan because the latter lacked pressure on incumbents. In sum, while research overwhelmingly supports the ACF’s policy change arguments, this finding comes with important caveats and questions. Most noteworthy, studies by Nohrstedt et al. (2021; 2022) found no statistical relationship between disasters (i.e., external events) and changes in policies for disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation around the world; in other words, although these events often happen before policy change, their occurrence does not necessarily lead to policy change. When studying policy change, researchers need to bring greater attention to the conceptual distinctions between major and minor policy change, examine the interplay among coalitions and the policy subsystem settings, explore the coupling and sequencing of pathways, and measure the impacts of shifts in coalition power or impositions from hierarchically superior jurisdictions.

Emerging Areas and Continued Development The evolution of the ACF depends on empirical applications spanning different cases and contexts. Further progress hinges on additional innovation

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144  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. and experimentation by scholars to extend the ACF’s explanatory reach. In contrast to what Lakatos (1970) calls “regressive amendments” (i.e., adjustments that do not add new theoretical content or serve more to protect a theory than advance it),“progressive” adjustments occur with additions that address counterevidence and extend the theory’s reach (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018). Since we do not know a priori what adjustments will occur, scholars are encouraged to think creatively about conceptual and theoretical innovation, experimentation, and exploration to extend the ACF’s explanatory power. This may include testing the ACF’s traditional hypotheses, developing and testing new hypotheses, and inductively exploring and developing new questions in understudied contexts. In 2018, we offered a research agenda to investigate gaps in the ACF (Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018). Researchers have at least partially addressed some of these gaps. Recent work, for instance, has promoted standard methods (Pierce et al. 2020; Satoh et al. 2021; Henry et al. 2022), explored theoretical refinement based on empirical applications outside Western Democracies (Ma et al. 2020; Li and Weible 2019; Osei-Kojo et al. 2022), examined policy venues (Koebele 2020; Angst and Brandenberger 2022), applied the ACF comparatively (Heikkila et al. 2018; Gronow et al. 2021), and specified the concept of coalition resources (Weible et al. 2020). However, other areas highlighted in 2018 have attracted less attention. For example, we are unaware of recent studies seeking to better articulate and measure ACF’s belief systems. While the research agenda outlined in 2018 remains relevant today, we emphasize five areas ripe for innovation, clarification, and continued development. Revisiting ACF’s belief systems. As emphasized by Jenkins-Smith et al. (2018), Weible et al. (2020), and Henry et al. (2022), we need to address challenges in conceptualizing and measuring the ACF’s belief systems, especially in conducting comparative research designs. Many of the inconsistent findings associated with the ACF’s hypotheses emerge because of varying interpretations and measurements of the ACF’s belief system. Elevating subsystem typology. The ACF offers a policy subsystem typology (collaborative, adversarial, and unitary) that essentially lies on a low-to-high conflict spectrum (Weible 2008; Koebele 2019, 2020; Weible et al. 2020). Collaborative subsystems have intermediate to low levels of conflict and cooperative coalitions (Calanni et al. 2015; Koebele et al. 2020), adversarial subsystems have high levels of conflict and competitive coalitions (Ingold and Fischer 2014), and unitary subsystems have low conflict and a dominant coalition often without any opposition (Rinscheid 2015; Heinmiller et al. 2021). While researchers continue to incorporate this typology into their research designs with promising theoretical implications, more attention is needed to demonstrate how these differences may influence patterns of policy-making. Deepening and broadening policy actor typologies. The ACF’s main policy actor types include principal and auxiliary coalition members and brokers. Advances remain in deepening understanding of the subset of policy actors without long-term affiliations to coalitions (though they might be

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  145 temporary or intermittent coalition allies). For example, policy brokers, who prioritize the preservation of the policy subsystem, remain theoretically and practically important but insufficiently studied (Ingold and Varone 2012). Similarly, policy entrepreneurs have long been part of the ACF (Mintrom and Vergari 1996), yet the category is still underdeveloped (Petridou and Mintrom 2021). One of the emerging yet unexplored aspects of entrepreneurship is those who cross policy subsystems (De Vries and Hobolt 2020). These cross-boundary entrepreneurs might bridge or divide existing coalitions by introducing innovative strategies and narratives (Riker 1986; Peterson and Jones 2016). Furthermore, some policy analysts have been coined “objective technicians” for prioritizing more technocratic decisionmaking through the “policy analysis paradigm” (Jenkins-Smith 1982, 1990). We can further broaden our policy actor typology by examining proponents of instruments or analytical approaches, dubbed “instrument constituencies” (Béland et al. 2018;Weible 2018).Through better policy actor typologies, we can gain traction around the influence and effects of a broader range of policy actors. Exploring coalition power and representation. Extreme social and political inequities within and between countries shape policy processes and are shaped by policy outputs. To date, different institutional settings, including pluralist and corporatist systems or the openness of the policy process, have been found to influence actor diversity within policy subsystems (Heikkila et al. 2018). In authoritarian systems, the most restrictive setting for participation, studies (Ertan 2020; Li and Weible 2019) have found that bottom-up and grassroots organizations are often prevalent actors in policy subsystems. Despite these observations, we envision that ACF has more to offer in advancing insights about political representation and influence, prompting a new generation of questions, including: (1) which societal stakeholders are represented by coalitions and which are not? (2) within coalitions, who is more or less influential, and how does the distribution of influence change over time? (3) how do coalitions’ behaviors and strategies affect social and political inequities, and what are the implications for governance more broadly? Conducting more comparative research. Nohrstedt et al. (2021) found that comparative research designs within and between countries have offered significant advances to the ACF, an argument also backed by Jang et al. (2016), Nohrstedt and Olofsson (2016b), Nwalie (2019), and Ohno et al. (2022). International comparisons heighten the importance of studying coalition opportunity structures and other environmental factors in testing and refining ACF theories and hypotheses. We see a need to deepen collaboration within the research program to promote the development and use of common methods for data collection and analysis (Henry et al. 2022) and deeper engagement in comparative studies.

Advice for Contributing to the ACF Research Program The ACF is supported by an evolving and diverse community of scholars who emphasize critical and constructive communications based on transparency.

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146  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. Such transparency ensures productive exchanges among scholars and enhances precision in describing and explaining phenomena. Sabatier’s (1999, 5) charge to “be clear enough to be proven wrong” underscores the need for welldefined concepts and hypotheses that enable empirical testing and, in turn, learning among scholars from both successes and failures. Moreover, transparency ensures the exchange of experiences and “best practices” among scholars, which is crucial for methodological development. Thus, striving for transparency in conceptualization and measurement is essential for any research program to enable constructive debate and collaboration. Diversity constitutes another key characteristic of the ACF research program. The current state of knowledge offered by the ACF is the product of diverse approaches to conceptualization, theory, methods, and data, thanks to the scholars who bring their own unique set of experiences, trainings, and perspectives. The development of the ACF benefits from methodological pluralism (Henry et al. 2022). Different data collection and analysis methods are required to address innovative questions within each area of theoretical emphasis. In addition, exploring alternative methods to test some of the ACF’s hypotheses empirically is helpful, enabling scholars to compare and contrast findings based on different approaches. In embracing diversity, we inevitably accept some reflexivity in applying the ACF. This is not about sacrificing reliability for validity or vice versa. Instead, it is about supporting the richness of experience each of us brings to our research as individuals. Diversity in the research program shapes the questions we ask, the choice of methods, and how we utilize those methods. It can affect how we interpret the emergent patterns in our data and draw implications in our conclusions. However, diversity also means doubling down on transparency in reporting how we conduct our research and sharing it with others. And – to pursue cumulative growth in knowledge within the ACF community – successfully adopting methodological pluralism requires that the investigator maintains a commitment to clarity and progressive adjustment of hypotheses. The ACF research program involves conducting theory-driven research while also recognizing context. A common misconception of research conducted under a framework or theory is that context is ignored. It isn’t. A framework provides a basic set of concepts and interrelations that its theories specify. We use the ACF as a “lens” to suggest what to focus on as potentially meaningful based on prior research, often conducted elsewhere. However, we do not ignore important contextual factors that the framework might not specify a priori. All frameworks and theories simplify the world and will inevitably omit something important. Our job as researchers is to utilize our frameworks and theories but not let them shackle our observations. For example, if we are theoretically interested in the role of resource dependency in the formation of advocacy coalitions, it behooves us to explore this finding further.The future development of the ACF depends on careful consideration of these contextual attributes. Consequently, the ACF research program updates and revises the framework and theories based on empirical findings through confirmations,

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Advocacy Coalition Framework  147 refutations, and discoveries while welcoming generalizing and localizing knowledge objectives. For research that aims to generalize the results, the audience tends to be academics with outlets in academic journals with goals of contributing to knowledge about policy processes. For research that aims to localize the results, the audience tends to be those engaged, involved, or interested in the policy subsystem. For example, the outlet might be selfpublished reports shared with a community. The same ACF-guided research program can contribute both generalized and localized knowledge. More importantly, the ACF research program supports doing either one or both simultaneously. The ACF research community is also committed to rigorous empirical evaluations of the framework’s internal consistency and descriptive and explanatory validity. Single and comparative case studies and literature reviews are critical steps to this end. Such applications help sharpen theory around policy process phenomena and serve as feedback to refine the broader framework (Weible et al. 2009, 2016; Sotirov and Memmler 2012: Aamodt and Stensdal 2017; Pierce et al. 2017).Whereas the ACF has evolved, none of the core principles have been altered or abandoned. At the same time, studies from around the world have corroborated the general validity of these principles. Any empirical ACF study should ask whether its findings contribute to the constructive specification of concepts and assumptions, which may enable us to explain more within the bounds of the framework’s core principles, or may suggest alternative concepts and assumptions. Both are welcome by the ACF community. This collective approach allows for continuous evaluation of the framework in light of empirical evidence, including the potential for amendments that remain consistent with its fundamental principles while being inclusive of new and diverse contexts. Indeed, many crucial questions remain about the applicability of the ACF’s concepts and assumptions to describe and explain phenomena in different contexts. The continued progression of the ACF research program is an ongoing and collective effort that depends on these empirical applications and creative conceptual and theoretical experimentation and innovation. If you have questions about the ACF, reach out to the authors of this chapter or any of the ACF scholars cited – it is a community willing to offer support and explore challenges to improve the framework.

Conclusion This chapter provides an overview of concepts, assumptions, theoretical foci, recent applications and advancements, and potential future areas of development of the ACF. For many, reading a chapter on the ACF prompts questions about why it matters and how it can help them achieve their goals or contribute to the world. We end this chapter with a reminder that policy processes worldwide must address an array of grand challenges ranging from local to global. The stakes are extraordinarily high. These challenges include addressing extreme social and political inequities, transforming energy and

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148  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. food systems, digitalizing the public and private sphere, finding pathways to a carbon net-zero society, and more. In understanding and responding to these grand challenges, sometimes our attention gravitates to elections or social movements, which can offer important lessons and insights. However, an entire world of politics and resulting impacts occur in policy processes beyond elections and social movements. The ACF brings attention to how, within these policy processes, policy actors mobilize and coordinate their behavior in coalitions to learn and adapt to their surroundings and affect changes in policy subsystems that, in turn, affect the broader society. Policy subsystems – including their overlapping and nested qualities – serve as the arenas of all kinds of political activities that decide if and how we address the grand challenges of our time. We encourage readers to look to the ACF for insights into these phenomena, whether from the perspective of policy scholars or subsystem actors. In the spirit of learning and bettering our world, we invite new and experienced policy actors and policy scholars across the globe to think creatively about innovative ways to explore the validity of ACF’s core concepts and assumptions in different contexts with diverse methods.The ability of the ACF to contribute to the understanding of how grand challenges are (or can be) addressed will depend on the insights it provides for policy actors.The richness and applicability of those insights, in turn, depend on ACF scholars’ ongoing experimentation and innovation related to conceptualization, measurement, and theory.

Notes 1 The ACF’s Framework-Theory distinction was introduced at a workshop in September 2010 at the University of California Davis to help organize and structure the ACF to adapt and grow, given the increasing number of applications and the need to provide some stabilization at the “framework” level while allowing adaptation at the “theory” level. However, though less distinctly delineated, the three theoretical emphases (policy change, learning, and coalitions) date to the ACF’s origins (see elaborations in Koebele 2019). 2 A subset of ACF research also exists at the global scale and, thus, lies outside the confines of a single governing system (Farquharson 2003). See also work on foreign policy change (Haar and Pierce 2021). While not elaborated on in this chapter, we encourage and welcome such research. 3 Nascent policy subsystems may also share characteristics with mature yet lowsalience subsystems (Giordono 2020). 4 The ACF uses forums and venues, which tend to be used interchangeably. Forums have been described as the “locus of discussion,” especially in analytical debates (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993, 53; see also Jenkins-Smith 1990 and Sabatier and Weible 2007). Forums also come with various descriptions, including open, closed, or professionalized.Venues in policy process research vary in interpretations and use, from discourse venues (e.g., Twitter, basically an open forum) to decision-making venues (e.g., a legislature). For the purposes herein, we use policy venues as an umbrella concept to capture these collective action settings in which policy actors engage in debates and make decisions. We also sometimes add descriptors to describe the characteristic of the policy venue; for

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5 6 7 8

9

10

example, a collaborative venue typically refers to one involving diverse policy actors from competing coalitions engaged in consensus-based negotiations (e.g., see Leach and Sabatier 2005; Koebele 2019). Ripberger et al. (2014) provide a standard metric for measuring deep core beliefs through cultural theory. See also Jenkins-Smith et al. (2014). The devil and angel shifts also serve as one of the mechanisms enabling policy actors to overcome threats to collective action (see Schlager 1995; Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018, 150). We hypothesize that weak coordination can be conscious or subconscious; it can also be discouraged or encouraged by the pressures imposed by the venues and subsystems (see, for example, Koebele 2020). In the earliest versions of the ACF (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith 1993), dominant coalitions were seen as the ones who impacted policy outputs, change, or stasis considerably. For elaborations, see also Nohrstedt (2011), Olofsson et al. (2018), Weible et al. (2020), and Sommerville et al. (2022). Substantial progress has been made in research measuring coalition belief systems, mainly using text and discourse analysis methods (Leifeld 2013; Koebele et al. 2020; Satoh et al. 2021; Nam et al. 2022). Emergent in this niche has been the development of replicable and systematic approaches for textual extraction and analysis, often conducted comparatively (see Heikkila et al. 2018). Policy change is often associated with “public programs” or the means by which public service is delivered under a policy directive. In this respect, a public program is a concrete application of a public policy, may operate under one or more policies, and may vary across locations.

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158  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. Weible, Christopher M., Karin Ingold, Daniel Nohrstedt, Adam Henry, and Hank C. Jenkins-Smith. 2020. “Sharpening Advocacy Coalitions.” Policy Studies Journal 48(4): 1054–1081. Weible, Christopher M., and Daniel Nohrstedt. 2012. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Coalitions, Learning, and Policy Change.” In E. Araral, S. Fritzen, M. Howlett, M. Ramesh, and X. Wu (eds.), Handbook of Public Policy, pp. 125–137. New York: Routledge. Weible, Christopher M., Kristin L. Olofsson, and Tanya Heikkila, 2022. “Advocacy Coalitions, Beliefs, and Learning: An Analysis of Stability, Change, and Reinforcement.” Policy Studies Journal 51(1): 209–229. Weible, Christopher M., Andrew Pattison, and Paul A. Sabatier. 2010. “Harnessing Expert-Based Information for Learning and the Sustainable Management of Complex Socio-Ecological Systems.” Environmental Science & Policy 13(6): 522–534. Weible, Christopher M., and Paul A. Sabatier. 2009. “Coalitions, Science, and Belief Change: Comparing Adversarial and Collaborative Policy Subsystems.” Policy Studies Journal 37(2): 195–212. Weible, Christopher M., Paul A. Sabatier, and Kelly McQueen. 2009. “Themes and Variations: Taking Stock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework.” Policy Studies Journal 37(1): 121–140. Weible, Christopher M., and Samuel Workman. 2022. Methods of the Policy Process. London: Routledge. Weiss, Carol. 1977. “Research for Policy’s Sake: The Enlightenment Function of Social Research.” Policy Analysis 3(Fall): 531–545. Weyant, John P. 1988. “Is there Policy-Oriented Learning in the Analysis of Natural Gas Issues?” Policy Sciences 21: 239–261. Wiedemann, Ruth, and Karin Ingold. 2023. “Building Coalitions in a Nascent Subsystem: Investigating Beliefs and Policy Preferences in Ugandan Pesticide Policy.” Review of Political Research, https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12540. Yun, Changgeun 2019. “External Shocks and Policy Change in Different Coalition Opportunity Structures.” International Review of Public Administration 24(1): 17–35. Zafonte, Matthew and Paul A. Sabatier. 1998. “Shared Beliefs and Imposed Interdependencies as Determinants of Ally Networks in Overlapping Subsystems.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 10 (4): 473–505.

Appendix

Appendix Table 4.1 Overview of ACF Assumptions Framework Aspect and Concept

Assumption

Policy subsystem

The policy subsystem is the primary unit of analysis for understanding policy processes. The set of relevant subsystem actors include any person regularly attempting to influence subsystem affairs. Individuals are boundedly rational with limited ability to process stimuli, motivated by belief systems, and prone to experience the “devil shift.” Actors have a three-tiered belief system structure: deep core beliefs, policy core beliefs, and secondary aspects. Subsystems are simplified by aggregating actors with shared policy core beliefs into one or more coalitions; actors coordinating within a coalition to translate their shared beliefs into policy. Policies and programs incorporate implicit theories reflecting the translated beliefs of one or more coalitions. Scientific and technical information is important for understanding subsystem affairs. Researchers should adopt a long-term time perspective (e.g., ten years or more) to understand policy processes and change.

Actors Model of the individual

Belief systems Advocacy coalitions

Policy and programs Scientific information Time perspective

Source: Jenkins-Smith et al. (2018).

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160  Daniel Nohrstedt et al. Appendix Table 4.2 Overview of ACF Hypotheses Advocacy Coalitions Coalition On major controversies within a policy subsystem when policy core beliefs Hypothesis 1 are in dispute, the lineup of allies and opponents tends to be rather stable over periods of a decade or so. Coalition Actors within an advocacy coalition will show substantial consensus on Hypothesis 2 issues pertaining to the policy core, although less so on secondary aspects. Coalition Actors (or coalitions) will give up secondary aspects of their belief systems Hypothesis 3 before acknowledging weaknesses in the policy core. Coalition Within a coalition, administrative agencies will usually advocate more Hypothesis 4 moderate positions than their interest-group allies. Coalition Actors within purposive groups are more constrained in their expression of Hypothesis 5 beliefs and policy positions than actors from material groups. Policy-Oriented Learning Learning Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there is Hypothesis 1 an intermediate level of informed conflict between the two coalitions. This requires that: (a) each has the technical resources to engage in such a debate and (b) the conflict be between secondary aspects of one belief system and core elements of the other or, alternatively, between important secondary aspects of the two belief systems. Learning Policy-oriented learning across belief systems is most likely when there Hypothesis 2 exists a forum which is: (a) prestigious enough to force professionals from different coalitions to participate and (b) dominated by professional norms. Learning Problems for which accepted quantitative data and theory exist are more Hypothesis 3 conducive to policy-oriented learning across belief systems than those in which data and theory are generally qualitative, quite subjective, or altogether lacking. Learning Problems involving natural systems are more conducive to policy-oriented Hypothesis 4 learning across belief systems than those involving purely social or political systems because in the former many of the critical variables are not themselves active strategists and because controlled experimentation is more feasible. Learning Even when the accumulation of technical information does not change the Hypothesis 5 views of the opposing coalition, it can have important impacts on policy – at least in the short run – by altering the views of policy brokers. Policy Change Policy Change Significant perturbations external to the subsystem, a significant perturbation Hypothesis 1 internal to the subsystem, policy-oriented learning, negotiated agreement, or some combination thereof are necessary, but not sufficient, source of change in the policy core attributes of a governmental program. Policy Change The policy core attributes of a government program in a specific Hypothesis 2 jurisdiction will not be significantly revised as long as the subsystem advocacy coalition that instated the program remains in power within that jurisdiction – except when the change is imposed by a hierarchically superior jurisdiction.

5

The Narrative Policy Framework Michael D. Jones, Aaron Smith-Walter, Mark K. McBeth, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan

Introduction1 The centrality of narrative to public policy has become more apparent since publication of the previous edition of Theories of the Policy Process (TotPP) (Shanahan et al. 2018). In the post-2016 world, we have witnessed the rise of authoritarianism, populism, and nationalism, such as that following the 2016 election in the USA and seen elsewhere in the world (Carothers and O’Donohue 2019).We have seen actual and narrative assaults on democratic political institutions and science (Jones and McBeth 2020). Throughout the world, polarizing political narratives are seemingly moving in lock-step with an ever-mobilizing threat that undermines liberal democracies. Narrative battles erupt where we least expect and are least prepared, such as over the reality of the global pandemic of 2020–2022 (Mintrom and O’Connor 2020; Mintrom et al. 2021; Suswanta et al. 2021). To date, nearly 518 million people have been infected, more than 6.25 million have died (World Health Organization 2022), millions more have been hospitalized, and yet narratives espousing merits of individual freedom are largely unmoved by these devastating numbers. Given the stakes, “narratives are the lifeblood of politics” continues to be our refrain (Shanahan et al. 2018, 173) because in public policy theory the need to understand the power of narrative (Sievers and Jones 2020) is essential to protecting democracy and science. We do not believe it is an overreach to argue that such an understanding has become an existential concern. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) is an approach to the study of the policy process whose central question queries the power of narrative by asking whether or not policy narratives play an important role in the policy process. Our increasingly scientific conjecture is that they do. Our reasons for studying narratives include the fact that policy debates are necessarily waged through battles of competing narratives, taking place within formal institutional venues (e.g., congressional floor debates) and informal venues (e.g., interest group websites, Twitter, YouTube). Additionally, narratives are influential at different points of the policy process—problem

DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-7

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162  Michael D. Jones et al. definition, legislation, bureaucratic rules, media outreach, policy evaluations, expert testimonies, public comments, etc. (Crow and Jones 2018, 225–230). Thus, the NPF contends that understanding the role of narratives is critical to understanding the policy process in different venues and at multiple junctures within said process. While the empirical study of narrative was slow to be established in public policy, it is found in many disciplines, including psychology (e.g., Green and Brock 2005), marketing (e.g., van den Hende et al. 2012), health care (e.g., Hinyard and Kreuter 2007), and neuroscience (Armstrong 2020), among others. Informed by the work in these academic disciplines, the NPF developed iteratively as an empirical, scientific, and theoretical approach to understanding the role of policy narratives in the policy process that is also epistemologically and ontologically inclusive of alternative approaches to science (see Gray and Jones 2016; Jones and Radaelli 2015). Like the previous two chapters in TotPP, this chapter serves to both detail and update the NPF (see Appendix Table 5.1 for an accounting of changes). We owe much of the improvement to the diligent empirical and theoretical work of NPF scholars around the globe.

NPF Core Assumptions Every scientific approach starts with a set of core, largely untested, assumptions (Lakatos 1970). Below are the NPF’s five core assumptions. I Social Construction: Although it is true that there is a reality populated by objects and processes (social, political, etc.) that are independent of human perceptions, it is also true that human perceptions of those objects and processes vary. Social construction in this context refers to the variable meanings that individuals or groups assign to objects or processes associated with public policy. II Bounded Relativity: Social constructions of policy-related objects and processes vary to create different policy realities; however, this variation is bounded (e.g., by belief systems, ideologies, norms, normative axioms) and thus not random. III Generalizable Structural Elements: The NPF takes a structuralist stance on narrative, where narratives are objects in the world (Shenhav 2015) defined as having specific generalizable structures and substructures that can be identified across contexts. IV Three Levels of Analysis: For purposes of analyses, the NPF divides policy narratives into three interacting and simultaneously operative theoretical levels: micro (individual), meso (group and coalition), and macro (cultural and institutional). V Homo Narrans: Narrative is assumed to play a central role in how individuals process information, communicate, and reason.2

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Narrative Policy Framework  163 Three of the NPF’s assumptions are derived from long-standing academic approaches (I, II, and III); one is assumed for practical reasons (IV); one is rooted in developing empirical research (V).

Policy Narratives The definition of a policy narrative is foundational to understanding the NPF. A good place to begin is by addressing what a policy narrative is not. First, those coming from a literary perspective often take issue with the apparent paucity of the NPF’s policy narrative conception vis-à-vis more intricate understandings of narratives mined from great works of literature. In other words, tweets about climate change do not reach the same literary heights of Kafka. We agree. Indeed, policy narratives are not often written by individuals trained in literary theory or writing. Just as a songwriter can write music without reading music (neither John Lennon nor Paul McCartney could read music), so too can a person tell a story without formal training. Elected officials, interest groups, the media, and others construct policy narratives to influence others to attract attention, persuade, or manipulate, not to create art. They usually do so in elementary ways as they intuit that simple narratives are more likely to be understood in the way intended by the audiences they covet. Second, NPF’s policy narrative is not synonymous with analogous concepts, such as memes, frames, discourses, and the like. Rather, the NPF has clear definitional parameters distinct from these superficially similar concepts, and even other approaches to narrative in public policy.3 For the NPF, policy narratives speak to policy problems (e.g.,Yabar 2021) and are always about “how we know there is a disparity between social goals and the current situation” (Stone 2012, 13). These problems exist in policy contexts where information is plentiful yet uncertain, creating an ambiguous information environment where many plausible explanations are available (Zahariadis 2003).These plausible explanations come in the form of narratives. Thus public policy problem definitions can be disaggregated into distinct policy narrative components and elements, understood in the NPF as policy narratives. The context of a problem is the narrative’s spatial, temporal, and ideational setting. Policy problems always contain some form of harm or the potential of harm. The recipient of that harm is the victim. The source of the harm is the villain. The entity lessening or removing the harm is the hero. The plot situates these characters within the setting, across time, and establishes action and relational linkages between them. Either explicitly or implicitly, this is the structure of a policy narrative. Drawing on a classical structuralist distinction in narratology (Herman 2009, 23–26) embodied in NPF’s assumption III, the NPF defines policy narratives by identifying two components: policy narrative form and policy narrative content. As Figure 5.1 illustrates, narrative content and narrative form are distinct components populated by distinct narrative elements. However,

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164  Michael D. Jones et al. Narrative Content

Narrativity

+

Policy Solutions, Call to Action, Moral Lesson

Strategies Belief Systems

Action, Relationships between Characters & Context

Moral

Strategies Belief Systems

Time & Location, Socio-Cultural Context, Focusing Events

Strategies Belief Systems

Setting

Narrative Form

Character

-

Character Types

Strategies Belief Systems

Plot

Figure 5.1 NPF’s Policy Narrative: Form and Content Source: Created by the authors.

the two components and their constituent elements are also inextricably interrelated. Policy Narrative Form: Structural Elements The NPF has traditionally identified four core structural policy narrative elements theorized to be generalizable across contexts (Figure 5.1): 1 Characters:4 Policy narratives contain victims who are harmed, villains who create the harm, and heroes who offer relief from the harm and presume to solve the problem (Jones and McBeth 2010). Recent NPF studies have explored additional character types, including beneficiaries (Weible et al. 2016), allies, opponents (Merry 2016), entrepreneurs, charismatic experts (Lawton and Rudd 2014), and shadow characters (O’Leary et al. 2017). 2 Setting: Policy narrative settings are policy contexts consisting of policy phenomena such as legal and constitutional parameters (Boscarino 2018), geography (Knackmuhs, Farmer, and Knapp 2019), evidence (Schlaufer 2018), resources (Mosley and Gibson 2017), when policy narratives take place (Shanahan, Raile, et al. 2018), focusing events (McBeth and Lybecker 2018; Smith-Walter, Fritz, and O’Doherty 2022), and/or other features that some non-trivial amount of policy actors agree or assert are consequential to the policy area. Most recently, spatial characteristics such as proximity (Lawlor and Crow 2018; Merry 2018) and ideational features such as issue frames (Shanahan, Raile, et al. 2018) have been incorporated into NPF settings.

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Narrative Policy Framework  165 3 Plot: Plots establish relationships between characters and the setting, sequence narrated events5 (e.g., Boscarino 2020), specify actions taken by characters, establish conflicts between them, and establish motives (e.g., Crow et al. 2017). NPF research most often operationalizes plots with Stone’s (2012) narrative plots (see Jones et al. 2022). However, we would like to draw attention to two recent methodological and theoretical plot innovations. The first, Ruff et al. (2022) integrates Stones’ (2012) plots, past and future time, policy impacts, and interaction between heroes and villains. The second, Kuhlman and Blum (2021) operationalizes Lowi’s (1972) famous policy typology (regulatory, distributive, and redistributive) as plots. 4 Moral: The moral of a policy narrative is typically a policy solution (e.g., Ertas and McKnight 2020), moral lesson (Schwartz 2019), or call to action (Beck 2018). For example, McBeth and Lybecker (2018) show how the moral “sanctuary cities are dangerous to public safety” was tied to a specific focusing event, despite little evidence that sanctuary cities were public safety risks. Policy Narrative Content: Beliefs and Strategies Policy narrative form consists of narrative elements that define narrative structure, irrespective of content. However, what a narrative is about—its content—is essential. Generalizing content is difficult. Some scholars (e.g., Dodge 2015) convincingly argue that narratives are sui generis because when narrative content is delivered, who it is delivered by and to whom, and a myriad of other contextual features converge to create moments that are unique. For example, consider the different contexts between fracking in the USA (Gottlieb, Oehninger, and Arnold 2018) and fracking in Scotland (Stephan 2020). The policy issue is generically the same. However, the stakeholders are different. The landscapes are different. The governance systems are different. The political culture is different. Then, all of these differences interact with potential narrators, audiences, and even the timing of the delivery of the narrative. In the NPF, we refer to this phenomenon as the problem of narrative relativity (Jones, McBeth, and Shanahan 2014, 4–5). While it does present challenges to generalizability that can never be fully resolved, the NPF does offer two possible means to moderate this problem. The first means of addressing narrative relativity is through belief systems (Figure 5.1) such as ideology or cultures that people within groups use to help understand the world around them. These belief systems provide a systemized means of capturing what certain socially constructed objects likely mean to specific categories of people. For example, a Confederate flag in the USA is likely to carry quite different meanings for liberals from the West coast (e.g., slavery) than conservatives from the deep South within the USA (e.g., states’ rights), as will specific characters, policy solutions, and the like. In short, if you understand the operative belief systems working to

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166  Michael D. Jones et al. help relevant categories of people make sense of a policy issue, then you have considerable traction on determining the variable meaning-making of policy narrative content associated with that policy issue. The NPF identifies operational measures of policy beliefs through narrative elements such as characters (e.g., Shanahan, Jones, and McBeth 2011; Shanahan et al. 2013) and other symbolic, metaphorical, or contextual means by which collective understandings of the policy are generated. Importantly, the identification of policy beliefs must be theoretically grounded, for example, in Cultural Theory (Jones 2014b) or political ideology (Lakoff 2002). While belief systems help systematically capture the ways in which socially constructed policy objects or processes are imbued with meaning, narrative strategies connect meaning-imbued content to narrative form elements (Figure 5.1). Narrative strategies focus on how and to what end narrative objects or processes are manipulated and organized, with an eye toward generalizing those strategic permutations. Referring back to our USA and Scotland fracking comparison, narrative strategies used in different policy contexts might reveal that proponents and opponents of fracking are similarly portraying their narrative as being in the broad public interest, whereas the opponent’s narrative is portrayed as more narrowly self-interested. Although there may be additional narrative strategies operationalized in the future, current NPF scholarship has focused on the following three strategies: scope of conflict, narrative causal strategies, and the devil-angel-solidarity (DAS) shifts. 1

2

3

Scope of conflict: Influenced by E.E. Schattschneider (1960), NPF scholars have studied the strategic deployment of policy narrative elements to either expand or contain involvement in a policy issue (e.g., Crow and Lawlor 2016; Gupta, Ripberger, and Collins 2014; McBeth et al. 2010; Shanahan et al. 2013). Traditionally, scope of conflict has been assessed in terms of whether a narrator portrays themselves as winning or losing (McBeth et al. 2007), but this approach has been called into question by several recent studies (Gottlieb, Oehninger, and Arnold 2018; Merry 2018; Stephan 2020). Narrative Causal Strategies: Formally referred to as causal mechanisms,6 we now refer to this concept as narrative causal strategies, which captures the strategic arrangement of narrative elements by policy actors to assign responsibility and blame for a policy problem. Responsibility and blame ascriptions can be thought of as explanations within a policy narrative of why and how one or more particular factors (e.g., income disparities) lead to another (e.g., political unrest) in public policy.To date, NPF narrative causal strategies have been based on Stone (2012), who defines four causal theories: intentional, inadvertent, accidental, and mechanical. Devil-Angel-Solidarity (DAS-Shifts): The DAS-Shifts refers to strategies whereby policy actors or groups emphasize a particular character portrayal. The devil shift focuses on villainizing and blaming opponents

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Narrative Policy Framework  167 (Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen 2009), the angel shift emphasizes heroes and their ability to solve problems (Shanahan et al. 2013), while the solidarity shift emphasizes victims and the harm caused to them (Smith-Walter, Fritz, and O’Doherty 2022).These strategies are referred to as DAS-Shifts because a shift is typically calculated as a ratio, where character portrayals are understood in relation to one another. Minimal Policy Narrative Definition To date, NPF scholarship has maintained an operational minimal definition of a policy narrative as featuring at least one character and containing some public policy referent (Shanahan et al. 2013, 457). We acknowledge that other policy scholars (e.g., Shenhav 2015) define narrative with different parameters. Although we do not outright reject alternative definitions, should an alternative definition be invoked, scholars must be clear about which definition they adhere to and why. Additionally, if the definition were to fall under the umbrella of the NPF, it must comply with NPF assumptions and also provide additional theoretical and empirical traction. Narrativity Beyond the minimum definition of a policy narrative, policy narratives have more or less form and content elements. Since McBeth et al.’s (2012) initial measurement of narrativity in YouTube visual narratives, several NPF studies have followed suit (Crow and Berggren 2014; Merry 2016), with many using a narrativity index. The index assesses how complete or incomplete a policy narrative is (Boscarino 2020; Brewer 2020; Crow and Lawlor 2016; Huda 2018; Shanahan, Raile, et al. 2018).

Narrator and Audience Who produces and who consumes policy narratives matter (Colville and Merry 2022). It also matters how audiences and narrators interact and perceive one another. From these premised relationships, many potential questions emanate, such as narrator congruence with the audience, independent narrator effects, similar narratives applied to different audiences, and so on. Despite the fact that the narrators and audiences are somewhat under-theorized within the NPF, there is an emerging literature. For example, Petridou and Mintrom (2021) provide a call for the study of policy entrepreneurs and in particular leverage the NPF in how policy entrepreneurs are narrators, who use narrative to socially construct problems and focusing events. Such a research line also provides an NPF synthesis with the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) (Zahariadis 2014) as policy entrepreneurs also strategically use narrative to couple MSA streams (McBeth and Lybecker 2018). Additionally, Brewer (2019) recently introduced the “impotent shift” where a narrator avoids constructing themselves as a victim (theorized because such

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168  Michael D. Jones et al. a narrative stance reflects a lack of power). Other studies exploring these relationships include Lybecker, McBeth, and Elizabeth Kusko (2013) and McBeth, Lybecker, and Husmann (2014) who examined how narrative congruence affects the appeal of different narratives to different political ideologies; and Lybecker, McBeth, and Sargent (2022) and McBeth, Lybecker, and Sargent (2022) who examined the power of narrators in climate change narratives.

Narrative Mechanisms of Policy Change: Persuasion, Manipulation, and Attention The NPF has been accurately critiqued (Lindquist and Wellstead 2019) for failing to clearly specify narrative mechanisms of policy change. Addressing this criticism, we propose narrative mechanisms of policy change that follow two pathways associated with policy narrative variation: narrative persuasion and/or manipulation and narrative attention.7 These narrative mechanisms are posited to operate at all levels of analysis. Figure 5.2 depicts the NPF’s two major policy narrative components of form (setting, characters, plot, and moral) and content (beliefs and strategies) and theorizes that the narrative elements within each are mechanisms that solicit affective responses from policy actors. We center affect within the NPF’s understanding of policy change because affect is foundational to the homo narrans model of the individual (discussed in more detail in a subsequent section). Affective responses to policy narratives precede cognitions (Lodge and Taber 2007) and help individuals access and situate relevant cognitive heuristics. Several existing NPF studies support this notion of the centrality of affect. Hero characters tend to be imbued by respondents with positive affect, leading respondents to be more willing to support positions or adopt behaviors suggested in policy narratives (Jones 2014a, 2014b; Raile et al. 2021; Shanahan et al. 2019). At the meso-level, there are corroborating findings that identify an association between hero usage and winning (Shanahan et al. 2013). From affect, we deduce two pathways to induce policy change. The first, persuasion and/or manipulation, is the notion that policy change occurs because people willingly embrace the tenets of a policy narrative and act

Narrative Content* Narrative Form

Narrative Affect

Persuasion Manipulation

Attention

Figure 5.2 Narrative Mechanisms of Policy Change Source: Created by the authors.

Learning: Traditional Narrative

Mobilization

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Narrative Policy Framework  169 accordingly because the narrative is in their interest (persuasion) or at least they think it is (manipulation).8 As Peterson (2018) observes, the vast majority of NPF research focuses on narrative persuasion (micro-level) or assumes narrative persuasion effects (meso- and macro-levels). When persuasion or manipulation has occurred, we can characterize this type of policy change as driven by policy learning. Traditional policy learning (see Jenkins-Smith et al. 2018, 151–154) is understood as change instituted by the introduction of new information. Policy narrative learning is such that a new policy narrative permutation is embraced (e.g., a new villain or victim), but many of the other elements (such as scientific evidence) may remain the same (Shanahan, Jones, and McBeth 2011, 548–549). Narrative mechanisms may also have a second pathway to policy change from affect through attention. Attention is different from persuasion and manipulation, as it is not aimed at changing one’s mind; rather, attention mobilizes existing biases to provoke the prioritization of a policy narrative’s message and prompt action. Several studies help illuminate the role of attention in understanding policy narratives (McBeth and Lybecker 2018; Peterson 2018, 2021), supporting Peterson’s (2018) theory that attention drives policy change. For starters, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) (Baumgartner, Jones, and Mortensen 2018) is a highly successful policy process framework built upon this very notion. The NPF has made similar connections. At the meso-level Peterson (2021) merges the NPF and PET through what she refers to as “narrative policy image.” By way of attention, she observes that entry of a new narrative policy image into a policy subsystem may lead to policy change, whereas the lack of new narrative policy images may lead to policy stasis.

Three Levels of Analysis The NPF assumes that policy narratives operate at three levels of analysis (assumption IV).9 These demarcations are drawn largely for purposes of determining scope and offering direction related to the units of analyses in which the researcher is interested. At the micro-level the researcher is concerned with how individuals both inform and are informed by policy narratives. At the meso-level, the focus is on the policy narratives that policy actors who compose groups and coalitions strategically deploy over time within a policy subsystem. Finally, at the macro-level, the researcher is interested in how policy narratives embedded in cultures and institutions shape public policy. Micro-Level NPF: Homo Narrans Homo narrans, the NPF’s model of the individual, is best understood as an evolving psychological model of the individual that acknowledges and tests the primacy of affect and narration in human decision-making and cognitive processes.10

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170  Michael D. Jones et al. Foundation of Homo Narrans Taken in total, these are the ten postulates that form the foundation of homo narrans, which constitute NPF’s assumption V. 1 Bounded Rationality: The NPF understands individuals to make decisions under conditions of limited time and limited information, where individuals satisfice (Simon 1947). 2 Heuristics: Given bounded rationality, individuals rely on information shortcuts (heuristics) such as availability, past experience, expertise, and biological biases to process information and make decisions (Jones 2001, 71–75; Kahneman 2011, 109–255). 3 Primacy of affect: Affect precedes reason (Lodge and Taber 2007) and is critical in focusing attention in human cognition by “highlighting what is important and setting priorities” (Jones 2001, 73–74). 4 Two kinds of cognition: The NPF understands cognition as operating within two systems (Kahneman 2011, 20–23). System 1, the default system of cognition, refers to unconscious and involuntary thought processes that we are either born with (e.g., noticing sudden movement) or learn through practice (e.g., 2 + 2). System 2 cognition occurs when System 1 directs attention through affective cues (e.g., fear, anger) to cognitively cumbersome tasks that are beyond the capacity of System 1, such as solving a complex math equation or determining if somebody is telling the truth. Although System 2 can update System 1, System 1 changes are difficult. 5 Hot cognition: Whether activating an existing mental impression or creating a new one (see Redlawsk 2002, 1023), in public policy all social and political concepts are affect laden (Lodge and Taber 2005), or potentially so. If a concept is unfamiliar, individuals will assign affect through their existing understanding of the world. 6 Confirmation and disconfirmation bias: Individuals engage in confirmation bias when they treat congruent evidence that agrees with their priors (beliefs, knowledge, etc.) as stronger than incongruent evidence (Taber and Lodge 2006) and process congruent stimuli more quickly than incongruent stimuli (Lodge and Taber 2005).With disconfirmation bias, evidence is resisted when incongruent with priors (Taber and Lodge 2006) and takes longer to process than congruent evidence (Lodge and Taber 2005). 7 Selective exposure: Individuals select sources and information that are congruent with what they already believe (Taber and Lodge 2006). 8 Identity-protective cognition: Selective exposure, confirmation bias, and disconfirmation bias are conditioned by knowledge and prior beliefs and are leveraged by individuals to protect their existing identities (e.g., Kahan et al. 2007), especially those with higher levels of knowledge and political sophistication (Taber and Lodge 2006). 9 Primacy of groups and networks: Individuals rely upon their social, professional, familial, and cultural networks and groups in which they

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Narrative Policy Framework  171 reside to help assign affect to social and political concepts (e.g., Kurzban 2010). Narrative cognition: The above nine postulates culminate in the idea that 10 narratives are the primary means by which human beings make sense of the world (Polkinghorne 1988). External to individuals, narratives are theorized as the primary form of communication within and across groups; internally to individuals, narratives are theorized as the preferred means for organizing thoughts, memories, affect, and other cognitions (Jones and Song 2014). In plain language, people tell and remember narratives. Micro Level NPF Applications Congruence and incongruence. As audience perception of congruence with their belief systems increases, the more likely they are to be persuaded by the narrative. Several NPF studies reveal that incongruent narratives move individuals away from priors and toward preferences and beliefs within narratives (Ertas 2015; Husmann 2015; McBeth, Lybecker, and Stoutenborough 2016; Shanahan et al. 2014; Shanahan, McBeth, and Hathaway 2011); similarly, congruent narratives intensify individual policy stances and beliefs and are more persuasive than incongruent narratives (Husmann 2015; Lybecker, McBeth, and Kusko 2013; McBeth, Lybecker, and Garner 2010; McBeth, Lybecker, and Husmann 2014; Niederdeppe, Roh, and Shapiro 2015). Some findings in this stream of NPF research point to the need to understand this hypothesis with a greater degree of nuance. For example, Jones and Song (2014) found that respondents exposed to climate change narratives were more likely to cognitively mirror the organization of the narrative presented to them if the narrative was congruent. Testing Lakoff ’s (2002) conservative and liberal parenting metaphors, Clemons, McBeth, and Kusko (2012) found that views of parenting were only partially congruent with their choice of obesity policy narratives. Clemons et al. (2019) show that even when a narrative is congruent with the cultural beliefs of a group, that narrative might not move pre-existing beliefs. Similarly, Winett et al. (2021) found that narrative messages can result in a “backfire effect” among policy makers, pointing to the need to potentially model the general public and decision makers differently. Narrative Breach. On the basis of an individual’s expectations, as a narrative’s level of breach increases, the more likely an individual exposed to the narrative will be persuaded. A close cousin to the congruence and incongruence hypothesis, narrative breach focuses on audience expectations, as opposed to beliefs. Ertas (2015) found breaching policy narratives to significantly influence opinion.

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172  Michael D. Jones et al. Lybecker, McBeth, and Stoutenborough (2016) and McBeth, Lybecker, and Stoutenborough (2016) find that breaching and congruency are not necessarily mutually exclusive, as policy preferences can be breached by the narrative positioning of characters congruent with the audience’s beliefs. Narrative transportation. As narrative transportation increases, the more likely an individual exposed to that narrative is to be persuaded. Narrative transportation “is related to a narrative’s ability to mentally transport the reader into the world created by the narrative” (Jones 2014a, 648; also see Green and Brock 2005). A book, movie, or even campaign speech is often determined to be good by the extent to which individuals can imagine themselves surrounded by the scene and embroiled in the plot alongside the characters. Jones (2014a) conducted an experiment and found that the more a person is able to picture a story, the more positively that person responds to the hero of the story, which in turn leads to a higher willingness to accept arguments and solutions argued for in the policy narrative. Narrator trust. As narrator trust increases, the more likely an individual is to be persuaded by the narrative. Ertas (2015) finds that increases in narrator trust are associated with increased support for policy preferences presented in narratives and occur to a greater extent when coupled with congruence. Lybecker, McBeth, and Sargent (2022), in their experimental study of working-class climate change narratives, find that respondents who agree that climate change is occurring and human caused surprisingly trusted ideologically contrasting narrators equally when both told a pro-climate change narrative. This finding points to the power of narrative over the power of narrators and suggests a new research line asking whether individuals trust narrators or narratives. The power of characters. The portrayal of policy narrative characters has higher levels of influence on opinion and preferences of individuals than scientific or technical information. Characters play an influential role in shaping individual preferences. Jones (2014b, 2010) found that the hero character is a primary driver of narrative persuasion. Conducting an experimental study examining the role of cultural narratives in shaping policy preferences related to climate change, Jones found that respondents tended to have more positive affect for hero characters, as positive affect for the hero character increased, so too did respondent willingness to accept assumptions and arguments embedded in the narrative. Similar results were found by Jones, Fløttum, and Gjerstad (2017) when examining the impact of climate change policy narratives on Norwegian citizens. Relatedly, Shanahan et al. (2019), in a study of flood risk,

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Narrative Policy Framework  173 found that narrative science messages as opposed to conventional science messages are associated with larger variance in affective responses, where hero and victim-to-hero characters produce positive affective responses and victim characters produce negative responses. Pushing against the power of characters, Zanocco, Song, and Jones (2018), in an experimental study of hydraulic fracturing preferences, found that character influence on preferences was indirect, statistically significant, centered on villains, but nominally unimportant to overall preferences. Narrator strategic selection of narrative based on audience. Narrators will analyze their audience and present a narrative to the audience based on how the narrator perceives the audience’s attributes. Recent micro-level research has begun to explore how individuals (as opposed to groups) produce narratives (e.g., Colville and Merry 2022; SmithWalter et al. 2020). The largest block of NPF research in this new vein has moved toward an understanding of how individual narrators make strategic choices about narrative use. The key attribute of this micro-level research is that the NPF is studying how and why individual narrators strategically produce narratives whereas other micro-level hypotheses focus on how individuals consume narratives. For example, a series of micro-level studies on congruency/incongruency and breach have shown that making a narrative congruent with an audience’s political beliefs increases support for policies (Lybecker, McBeth, and Kusko 2013; McBeth, Lybecker, and Garner 2010). Subsequent micro-level research, however, examined how and why individual narrators make narrative choices. McBeth, Lybecker, and Husmann (2014) first found that recycling experts largely chose narratives based on what narrative they believed would appeal to the largest audience and not the narrative they necessarily agreed with. Then, a series of studies (Kirkpatrick and Stoutenborough 2018; Lybecker, McBeth, and Stoutenborough 2016; McBeth, Lybecker, and Stoutenborough 2016; McBeth et al. 2017) using the same database found that individual stakeholders often make strategic choices of what narratives to use when talking to the larger public. Relatedly, Laufer and Jones (2021) found that funding proposals possess narrative elements and strategies that likely lead to some proposals being more successful than others with the implication being that grant writers (narrators) might strategically use narrative to improve grant writing success. In another study, Huda (2021) found strategic use of narrative where supporters of genetically modified plants de-emphasize risks and instead focus only on benefits, where opponents use a multidimensional risk strategy. Our reasons for doing micro-foundational analysis are straightforward. If we are to understand how, when, and why policy narratives shape public policy at the larger meso- and macro-scales, we need an accurate and refined understanding of how narrative works at an individual level in order to make valid assumptions at larger scales of analyses.

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174  Michael D. Jones et al. Meso-Level NPF: Agora Narrans In ancient Greece, the agora was the public space where citizens reflected upon and debated policy problems, principally through reasoned and impassioned narratives. The agora narrans is NPF’s meso-level examination of the strategic use of policy narratives by policy actors organized in various ways, within policy subsystems. At the meso-level, policy actors derive from institutions or organizations (e.g., a member of the media or parliament), play different roles (e.g., citizen or politician), and organize in networks (e.g., advocacy coalitions or interest groups). These policy actors develop or adopt policy narratives that reflect their policy preferences. Competing policy actors have divergent policy narratives composed of some combination of narrative elements and strategies intended to influence policy outputs.The meso-level NPF contribution comes in the analysis of how policy narratives are deployed and to what end. NPF scholarship studies public policymaking within and across policy subsystems either dominated by one constellation of policy actors or contested by many. Policy subsystems consist of a variety of actors (e.g., elected officials, interest groups, experts, judicial actors, media) who vie to control a policy issue (Figure 5.3). Meso-Level Applications Testing Established NPF Hypotheses Issue expansion and containment (version 1). Policy actors who are portraying themselves as losing on a policy issue will use narrative elements to expand the policy issue to increase the size of their coalition.

Policy Actors B

Developed using some combination of narrative components to advocate for policy actors’ policy preferences

Have Policy Preference B

Narrative Form Elements

Narrative Content Elements

The External Context

Policy Outputs

Have Policy Preference A

Policy Narratives

Persuasion Manipulation

Policy Actors A

Attention

Narrative Components

(e.g., legal constraints; cultural norms; political, social, and economic contexts; information; public opinion)

Figure 5.3 NPF’s Meso-Level Model Source: Adapted from Shanahan et al. (2018, 188).

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Narrative Policy Framework  175 Policy actors who are portraying themselves as winning on a policy issue will use narrative elements to contain the policy issue to maintain the coalitional status quo. This hypothesis emerged from Schattschneider’s (1960) work, and is typically tested as one hypothesis, although at times scholars focus on expansion or contraction separately. Initially, work testing this hypothesis found a link between how narrators chose to portray themselves and the expansion or containment of issues by diffusing costs and concentrating benefits of the opposing policy. A losing narrative contains many victims who pay the “cost” of the opposing policy, whereas the elite few (typically villains) benefit. In contrast, a winning group produces narratives designed to contain a policy issue by concentrating costs and diffusing benefits when describing their preferred policy solution. Several NPF studies support this hypothesis (Gupta, Ripberger and Collins 2014; McBeth et al. 2007; Schaub 2021; Shanahan et al. 2013). However, results of several recent studies have failed to find strong support that actors that are portraying themselves as losing on a policy issue will seek to expand the coalition through the use of narrative elements (Chang and Koebele 2020; Schlaufer, Gafurova, et al. 2021; Schlaufer, Khaynatskaya, et al. 2021; Stephan 2020). Similarly, these studies have also not found that the winning coalition uses narrative elements to maintain the size of the coalition. In a more specialized case, Crow and Wolton (2020) did not find that electoral policy narratives with higher levels of narrativity were associated with winning campaigns. Issue expansion and containment (version 2). Policy actors who are seeking status quo on a policy issue (may be pro or anti stance) will use narrative elements to contain the policy issue. Policy actors who are seeking policy change (may be pro or anti stance) will use narrative elements to expand the policy issue. Given the uncertainty surrounding effects of the winning and losing operationalization of expansion and containment, Gottlieb, Oehninger, and Arnold (2018) propose an alternate hypothesis. These authors test narrative strategies around a coalition’s orientation toward the status quo as being more clearly associated with particular narrative elements. For instance, Chang and Koebele (2020) found that the coalition in support of education vouchers displayed an angel shift throughout the debate, even as the anti-voucher group’s use of the devil shift increased and their position went from losing to winning. Several studies have emerged supporting the status quo understanding of expansion and containment, as opposed to the winning and losing understanding (Schlaufer, Gafurova, et al. 2021; Schlaufer, Khaynatskaya, et al. 2021). Heresthetics. Policy actors will heresthetically employ policy narratives to manipulate the composition of political coalitions for their strategic benefit.

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176  Michael D. Jones et al. Riker (1986) developed the idea of a heresthetic approach whereby political actors essentially manipulate parts of decision-making processes in order to win. Policy actors engage in heresthetics through political strategies such as logrolling and rhetorical strategies such as adding or removing policy alternatives to control the agenda. The NPF builds on Riker’s heresthetics through the deployment of a narrative strategy to build or contain coalitions through policy narratives.While intriguing, at this time, no NPF studies have tested this hypothesis. Devil-angel shift. Higher incidence of the devil shift in policy subsystems is associated with policy intractability. Many studies have examined the devil and angel shifts, and this narrative strategy remains highly interesting to NPF scholars because results of this strategy’s use and effect are inconsistent. For instance, in early NPF work, Shanahan et al. (2013) found a narrative arc in the winning coalition from devil shift to angel shift. Similarly, Schlaufer (2018) found the winning coalition employing the angel shift at statistically higher rates than did the losing coalition. However, other studies (Crow and Berggren 2014; Heikkila,Weible, and Pierce 2014) found no statistical association between winning and losing groups and the use of this strategy in their policy debates. Moreover, contrary findings in other studies suggest that the previous framing around winning and losing coalitions needs to be reexamined. For example, Merry (2015) found that when averaging individual tweets, both the Brady Campaign and the National Rifle Association (NRA) leaned toward the angel shift, whereas Smith-Walter et al. (2016) found that NRA narratives featured in their magazine American Rifleman displayed a very strong devil shift and the Brady Campaign’s internal newsletter did not. Additionally, Leong (2015) found the winning coalition used the devil shift, not the angel shift, directly contrasting Shanahan et al.’s (2013) findings. Indeed, a recent study by Tosun and Schaub (2021) on European Citizen Initiatives (ECIs) found that 58% of the ECIs demonstrated a devil shift, with only 10% displaying an angel shift, supporting the notion that those who portray themselves as losing will be more likely to devil shift. However, this finding should be interpreted in light of the fact that the majority of the initiatives were seeking reform, with just five of them seeking to maintain the status quo (2021, 355). Chang and Koebele’s (2020) study of education vouchers in Nevada’s Legislature found that coalitions interested in reforms (pro-voucher) used more heroes (as a percentage) than coalitions supporting the status quo (anti-voucher), which deployed more villains. However, when calculating devil-angel shifts, the coalition supporting education vouchers displayed an angel shift throughout the debate, even as the anti-voucher group’s use of the devil shift increased despite their position changing from losing to winning. This brings us back to the need to reframe this meso-level hypothesis. Indeed, as Gottlieb, Oehninger, and Arnold (2018) note, “Narrative strategy

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Narrative Policy Framework  177 use may depend more on the side of the issue a narrator is on than on whether the narrator represents a winning or losing coalition” (2018, 806– 807). While we are convinced that reframing the issue expansion and containment hypothesis around a pro- and anti-status quo approach (instead of the winning/losing distinction) is appropriate given the accumulated research, we believe more work is warranted before explicit claims are made regarding the devil-angel shift. For example, Stephan’s (2020) findings did not mirror those from Gottlieb et al. (2018). His work did not find that profracking groups were associated with the angel shift, or that the devil shift was found in narratives from the anti-fracking coalition. Coalitional glue and policy beliefs. Advocacy coalitions with policy narratives that contain higher levels of coalitional glue (coalition stability, strength, and intra-coalition cohesion) will more likely influence policy outcomes. NPF scholarship has consistently found statistically significant differences between opposing interest groups and coalitional use of policy beliefs (e.g., McBeth, Lybecker, and Garner 2010; McBeth, Shanahan, and Jones 2005; Shanahan et al. 2013). These same measures (i.e., coalition stability, strength, and cohesion over time) can also be used to assess intra- and inter-coalition behavior and dynamics (Shanahan, Jones, and McBeth 2011, 546–548). For example, Shanahan et al. (2013) found that intra-coalition diversity of policy beliefs may be a way to expand coalition membership.Work by Kusko (2013) in her study of 1980s US foreign policy toward El Salvador demonstrated that the religious right coalition in the USA had greater stability, strength, and cohesion and that this might have accounted for the coalition’s greater policy success compared to that of a more progressive religious coalition. Shanahan et al. (2013) content-analyzed policy narratives of policy actors involved in a wind energy controversy to discover that the two coalitions had high levels of cohesion on two of three policy beliefs. Finally, McBeth et al. (2010) showed that the wildlife activist group Buffalo Field Campaign was consistent in two of its three identified policy beliefs over a ten-year period. Narrative Policy Learning. Sustained reconfigurations of narrative elements within dominant policy narratives lead to policy change. As defined in this chapter, policy learning occurs when new information generates sustained alternate behaviors or preferences. First posited by Shanahan, Jones, and McBeth (2011), narrative learning is similarly construed, but understood as the acceptance of a new policy narrative, which could have other dimensions such as scientific evidence held constant. For example, a new victim or villain could be introduced into a policy narrative, which when adopted by policy actors leads to enduring change. This hypothesis is untested; however, given the introduction of narrative causal mechanisms

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178  Michael D. Jones et al. within this iteration of the NPF, we expect that this will become a popular hypothesis. Media and coalition membership. The media are a contributor (a policy actor) in policy debates. Shanahan et al. (2008) explore the role of the media as conduit of policy stakeholders or as a contributor in policy debates. This study helped determine that the media do contribute to policy debates. Given the ability of media to disseminate messages to a wide audience, this finding has been important in identifying an important policy actor and set of policy narrative data in policy subsystems. Subsequent studies have confirmed this hypothesis (Crow and Lawlor 2016; Peltomaa, Hilden, and Huttunen 2016). Role of narrative elements in policy communication. Policy actors using narrative strategies to a greater degree are more likely to prevail in policy debates than those using technical or scientific communication. (Crow and Lawlor 2016) Several studies have found an association with narrativity and policy success (Crow and Berggren 2014; McBeth et al. 2012). In a recent exploration of the applicability of the NPF to political campaign narratives, Crow and Wolton (2020) found significant differences in character usage between the Democrats and Republicans, and between winners and losers. Sentiment analysis showed that Democrats portrayed villains more negatively and had a more varied cast of villains than did Republicans. Victims were also constructed in a more positive way in web-based electoral communications from Democrats. Importantly, Crow and Wolton did not find that electoral policy narratives with higher levels of narrativity were associated with winning campaigns. Role of framing. Policy actors using thematic framing of policy problems are more likely to sway public opinion in favor of their articulated problem and solution than policy actors that employ episodic frames or other human interest frames, leading to higher success passing their proposed solutions. Rooted in early framing scholarship (Iyengar 1990), Crow and Lawlor (2016) articulated a hypothesis predicting greater effectiveness of the use of thematic framing in the policy process. Shanahan et al. (2008) are early explorers of the use of these framing techniques in media narratives, finding that both national and local media outlets employed thematic frames in their narrative, but local coverage used thematic framing at a statistically higher rate than the national media did. Recent work by Brekken and Fenley (2021) explores the use of generic frames (as opposed to issue frames or thematic frames) in

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Narrative Policy Framework  179 the marijuana policy debate in the USA, finding conflict frames to be more prevalent in Massachusetts and Colorado than Oregon. Macro-Level NPF: Grand Policy Narratives The NPF has defined macro-level narratives as consisting of the same policy narrative components and elements as micro- and meso-narratives, characterizing these grand narratives similarly to Lyotard’s (1984) metanarratives. They were posited as manifesting within institutions and cultures (McBeth, Lybecker, and Husmann 2014), spanning large periods of time, and occurring across multiple policy subsystems (Jones, McBeth, and Shanahan 2014, 19). Shanahan et al. (2018) further defined macro-level policy narratives by invoking Danforth, describing them as “communal, historical narratives that are expansive enough to explain a variety of human events across time and place” (Danforth 2016, 584). They were argued to be relatively stable compared to narratives at the micro- and meso-levels, which were theorized to be contained within and be bound by grand institutional and cultural narratives. For example, a macro-level narrative containing the notion that “progress is good” would provide narrative parameters for meso-level policy debates such as “let the market dictate progress” vs. “the government needs to regulate to ensure progress.” While research at this level has been slow to materialize, several studies have emerged over the years. In our assessment, and with few exceptions (e.g., Knox 2013), these studies have largely conformed to the initial institutional and cultural categorizations, and in turn have produced viable alternatives to understanding and approaching the NPF’s macro-level. The first approach centers institutions as the locus for macro-narratives. Perhaps best exemplified by Peterson’s work (Peterson 2018, 2019, 2021), this approach builds a narrative attention mechanism of policy change and, as such, leans heavily into Punctuated Equilibrium Theory’s (PET) conception of both attention and institutions (Baumgartner, Jones, and Mortensen 2018). Borrowing from PET, Peterson conceives of the macro-level as the national institutions of government, such as the US Presidency and the US Congress (Peterson 2021). Presumably this conception would extend to transnational institutions such as the United Nations or European Union governing bodies, but precisely where meso and macro begin and end is unclear. Despite this ambiguity, the findings from this approach are impressive. Leveraging this macro-institutional perspective, Peterson (2019. 2021) is able to quantitatively track and assess the migration of policy narratives from a macro-national executive (US President) to a macro-legislative body (US Congress), over time. The second approach to the macro-level centers culture (Ney 2014; Schwartz 2022; Williams and Kuzma 2022). An exemplar study in this vein can be found in a recent study by Williams and Kuzma (2022). In their case study, the researchers leverage Cultural Theory and content analysis to

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180  Michael D. Jones et al. explore policy narratives surrounding the adoption of genetically modified salmon in Canada. This research connects policy narratives which existed among interest groups operating at the meso-level to particular cultural worldviews (i.e., belief systems) contained within the narratives and assesses their continued presence in policy statements adopted by governing institutions (Canadian Parliament) to identify the macro-level. The authors identified associations between cultural worldview variation and the propensity to adopt legalizing the consumption of genetically modified salmon, as well as usage of science within the policy narratives. A recent study by Stauffer (2022) offers what we believe is the most holistic of approaches recently implemented to operationalize the NPF’s macrolevel, as it contains conceptions of both institutions and culture. In this study, Stauffer develops a model establishing a connection between macrolevel narratives and the concept of a policy paradigm to explore debates surrounding protective policies for children and adults in Switzerland. Stauffer makes a strong case that policy paradigms are ideal to structure macro, NPFbased research (2022, 3), arguing that they work to create the scaffolding of macro-level policy narratives. She theorizes that three narrative categories can be derived from policy paradigms: cultural, institutional, and paradigm narratives, which can be identified using appropriate macro-level key terms, relating to the policy area under study. Her findings are promising as they demonstrate that meso-level narratives are conditioned upon the prevailing trifecta of macro-level narrative categories.

Emerging Trends and Future Directions of the NPF International Applications and Comparative Analysis and the NPF The NPF was born in the USA but has traveled across geographies well. Many recent applications are being applied around the world, with recent research examining Europe (Esposito et al. 2021; Goldberg-Miller and Skaggs 2021; Kuenzler 2021; Kuhlmann and Blum 2021; Rychlik, Hornung, and Bandelow 2021; Valero 2021), Russia (Schlaufer, Gafurova, et al. 2021; Schlaufer, Khaynatskaya, et al. 2021; Uldanov et al. 2021), India (Huda 2018, 2019, 2021), and Indonesia (Habibie et al. 2021), among other locations. NPF international works also include transnational applications examining the United Nations (Soremi 2019) and the European Union (Florin and Pichault 2021; Palm et al. 2022; Vogeler et al. 2021). In the last edition of TotPP (Shanahan, Jones, et al. 2018), we made the argument that the NPF is a viable framework for comparative analyses (198).11 Since then, two publications have elaborated that argument and documented the progression of comparative NPF (Schlaufer et al. 2022; Smith-Walter and Jones 2020), while individual applications have illustrated it. In some form or another, comparative public policy compares policy processes, outputs, and outcomes (Gupta 2012). The NPF augments

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Narrative Policy Framework  181 comparative approaches by adding the components of policy narrative form and content, which contain generalizable narrative elements, which, in turn, provide ripe categories for comparison across contexts. The NPF has been used to compare policy narratives in European countries with strong democratic institutions (Dunlop et al. 2021), the European Parliament (Radaelli, Dunlop, and Fritsch 2013; Vogeler et al. 2021), democratic nations in non-European contexts, like India (Huda 2018, 2019, 2021; Weible et al. 2016), and Korea (Park 2014), and between the United Kingdom and the USA (O’Bryan, Dunlop, and Radaelli 2014). More specifically, recent studies such as (O’Leary et al. 2017) compared e-cigarette policies across the USA, European Union, Canada, and Australia, while hydraulic fracturing policy in Scotland has been compared to that in the USA (Stephan 2020). Additionally, comparative NPF studies of US states (subnational policy) have examined several policy areas, including hydraulic fracturing (Gottlieb, Oehninger, and Arnold 2018; Heikkila et al. 2014), cannabis policy (Brekken and Fenley 2021), and COVID-19 responses (Mintrom and O’Connor 2020). One intriguing development has been the ability of the NPF to produce interesting policy insights in non-democratic political contexts, which differ in important ways from the USA. For instance, the NPF has been productively applied to nations with non-democratic governments like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand (Lebel and Lebel 2018) with respect to water, food, and energy policy. Indeed, recent work has also applied the NPF to non-democratic contexts like Russia (Schlaufer, Gafurova, et al. 2021; Schlaufer, Khaynatskaya, et al. 2021). Normative NPF: Pro-Science and Pro-Democracy Normatively, the NPF has always been committed to science over relativism.12 Its genesis (see McBeth 2014) and naming (Jones and McBeth 2010) signify as much. Early in the NPF’s history, in 2014, Shanahan, McBeth, and Jones began to address some of the normative implications of NPF research. Tackling the question of whether a scientific approach to narrative in the policy process—an approach that aspires to describe, explain, and predict— could likewise be used to manipulate and control, Shanahan et al. argued that while we appreciate this concern, ultimately “science provides knowledge and knowledge is power” (Shanahan, Jones, and McBeth 2015, 258). While we have always aspired to be inclusive of other ways of understanding policy phenomena (see Jones and Radaelli 2015), we never wavered in our commitment to science. Most recently, the NPF has normatively stressed not only its commitment to science but also a commitment to liberal democracy and democratic institutions. In 2020 Jones and McBeth published an analysis of the NPF and its future. Situating the NPF in a seemingly postmodern world where facts were now always in question, where positions could be neither correct nor incorrect, but simply points of view, in a world increasingly dominated by

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182  Michael D. Jones et al. authoritarian populism, the authors harkened back to the 2014 sentiment described above and posited the NPF’s future. They wrote: In making our case two not so radical normative premises serve as a foundation for the arguments presented in this article. First, we preference science and evidence over falsehoods. Second, democratic institutions and norms matter. Consequently, relativity is a problem for both science and democracy and we believe the NPF can help researchers do something about that. From these two premises we further argue that the NPF can be leveraged to diagnose the problem and perhaps even provide prescriptions for the relativism threat to our scientific and democratic institutions. (2020, 14) Perhaps someday we will write a philosophical defense of our commitments, but not today. For now we simply put forth the notion that science and liberal democracy are worth defending, the NPF should not remain neutral on those positions, and thus in the coming years we call for additional studies that incorporate liberal democratic norms into the NPF’s long-standing commitment to science. As narratives play a major role in authoritarian populism’s rise and liberal democracy’s decline, better understanding of how authoritarian populists appeal to the working class and how liberal democracy can better utilize narrative in the service of democracy seems essential. Diversity and Inclusion Recent scholarship points to a systemic and persistent bias in citation practices in scholarship in the social sciences, with women and scholars of color being persistently under-cited in the literature (Dion, Sumner, and Mitchell 2018). This pattern is troubling, especially since academic work often builds on previous work, and an earlier reliance on a body of literature authored by predominantly white, male scholars can establish patterns of citation which perpetually disadvantage women and scholars of color. Although the NPF is still a relatively young framework, we do see evidence of NPF research being increasingly authored by women. Drawing data about NPF applications from Jones et al. (2022) we used Sumner’s Gender-Based Analysis Tool (GBAT) (Sumner 2018), to estimate the number of women who authored NPF articles over the past six years. We found that the percentage of women publishing articles using the NPF increased from a 2016 baseline of 26.2% of authors to 43.76% of the authors of NPF articles in 2021. Importantly, except for 2019, when the percentage remained flat, we see a pattern of growth in each year. Patterns for non-white authors are less clear, but the GBAT (which allows for the estimation of the race of the author) indicates that the racial diversity of authors of NPF works published in the past six years fluctuates from year to year. While a pattern which indicates increasing diversification does not

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Narrative Policy Framework  183 seem to be emerging, the overall percentage of NPF authors who were identified as scholars of color (between a low of 27.44% in 2019 and a high of 40.6% in 2017) seems to be relatively in line with the 24% of faculty in US institutions of higher education who were non-white (Davis and Fry 2019). This suggests that the NPF is being applied by scholars of color and that their percentage of authors of NPF studies is likely to grow as their numbers in academia expand.13 Big Data The NPF originated with, and still largely relies on, researcher-developed databases, with a commonality that almost all NPF narrative coding is done directly by humans. This has meant that most databases are small, relative to the size they could be given the readily available data sources. Increasingly, however, researchers in a wide variety of disciplines have taken advantage of advances in information and communication technologies to leverage “big data” derived from digital devices (e.g., cellular data), online platforms (e.g., Twitter), and other sources. These big data analyses include collection, management, and analysis of large amounts of data, which have traditionally fallen outside of the scope of the very labor intensive NPF coding demands (see Jones et al., 2022). However, there are now NPF researchers (Crow and Wolton 2020; Merry 2020; Pattison, Cipolli, and Marichal 2022) engaging in big data research that includes automated coding. Keeping in mind the difficulties of good big data analysis (particularly involving narrative), NPF researchers now have several possibilities to explore big data, including the use of dictionaries (Crow and Wolton 2020) and Discourse Network Analysis (Leifeld 2020;Vogeler et al. 2021).

Conclusion: The Continuing Advancement of the NPF Our overview of the current state of the NPF shows that the framework continues to be a popular platform to seek answers to questions about the role of policy narratives in the policy process. As such, the framework offers theoretical tools (i.e., narrative form and content) that easily translate into empirical measures of policy narratives, which in turn facilitate hypothesis and proposition testing, as well as ample theorizing. In our assessment, the sum total of NPF scholarship is showing considerable movement toward better explanations of policy processes and outcomes, perhaps someday even facilitating predictive models. This growth demonstrates that the NPF is not a static policy process theory; rather, the framework is truly dynamic, with changes driven by academic criticism and research produced by the NPF community. It has now been over twenty years since the origins of the NPF, and twelve years since the official naming of the framework.We are most excited by the continuing surge of policy scholars joining the NPF community. NPF scholars have tested NPF hypotheses in different policy contexts

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184  Michael D. Jones et al. (e.g., international, across substantive policy areas), explored new methodologies and statistics, linked levels of analysis, combined the NPF with other theories, and sought practical applications. It is indeed the NPF community that drives changes to the framework. In this chapter we have sought to lay out important directions and possibilities for NPF research over the next half decade. We continue to invite policy scholars to join the increasingly diverse and international NPF community, to participate in and direct their own NPF studies, and to continue to levy academic critiques, all of which advances the framework. As the NPF continues to mature, the framework remains committed to the social construction view of ontology while also committing to the idea that science demands clarity, testability, evidence, and explanation. In other words, the NPF continues to aspire to be “clear enough to be wrong.”

Notes  

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Narrative Policy Framework  193 Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Mark K. McBeth, and Paul L. Hathaway. 2011. “Narrative Policy Framework:The Influence of Media Policy Narratives on Public Opinion.” Politics & Policy 39(3): 373–400. Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Mark K. McBeth, Paul L. Hathaway, and Ruth J. Arnell. 2008. “Conduit or Contributor? The Role of Media in Policy Change Theory.” Policy Sciences 41(2): 115. Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Eric D. Raile, Kate A. French, and Jamie McEvoy. 2018. “Bounded Stories.” Policy Studies Journal 46(4): 922–948. Shanahan, Elizabeth A. et al. 2019. “Characters Matter: How Narratives Shape Affective Responses to Risk Communication.” PLOS One 14(12): e0225968. Shenhav, Shaul R. 2015. Analyzing Social Narratives. New York: Routledge. Sievers, Tjorven, and Michael D. Jones. 2020. “Can Power Be Made an Empirically Viable Concept in Policy Process Theory? Exploring the Power Potential of the Narrative Policy Framework.” International Review of Public Policy 2(1): 90–114. Simon, Herbert A. 1947. Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. New York: Macmillan. Smith-Walter, Aaron, Emily Fritz, and Shannon O’Doherty. 2022. “Sanctuary Cities, Focusing Events, and the Solidarity Shift: A Standard Measurement of the Prevalence of Victims for the Narrative Policy Framework.” In Narratives and the Policy Process: Application of the Narrative Policy Framework, eds. Michael D. Jones, Elizabeth A. Shanahan, and Mark K. McBeth. Bozeman, MT: Montana State Library. https://doi.org/10.15788/npf7. Smith-Walter, Aaron, and Michael D. Jones. 2020. “Using the Narrative Policy Framework in Comparative Policy Analysis.” In Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Comparative Policy Analysis, Handbooks of Research Methods and Applications, eds. B. Guy Peters and Guillaume Fontaine. Edward Elgar, 348–365. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788111195. Smith-Walter, Aaron, Michael D. Jones, Elizabeth A. Shanahan, and Holly Peterson. 2020. “The Stories Groups Tell: Campaign Finance Reform and the Narrative Networks of Cultural Cognition.” Quality & Quantity 54(2): 645–684. Smith-Walter, Aaron, Holly L. Peterson, Michael D. Jones, and Ashley Reynolds. 2016. “Gun Stories: How Evidence Shapes Firearm Policy in the United States.” Politics & Policy 44(6): 1053–1088. Soremi,Titilayo. 2019. “Storytelling and Policy Transfer.” International Review of Public Policy 1(2): 194–217. Stauffer, Bettina. 2022. “What’s the Grand Story? A Macro-Narrative Analytical Model and the Case of Swiss Child and Adult Protection Policy.” Policy Studies Journal 51(1): 33–52. Stephan, Hannes R. 2020. “Shaping the Scope of Conflict in Scotland’s Fracking Debate: Conflict Management and the Narrative Policy Framework.” Review of Policy Research 37(1): 64–91. Stone, Deborah. 2012. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: W.W. Norton. Sumner, Jane Lawrence. 2018. “The Gender Balance Assessment Tool (GBAT): A Web-Based Tool for Estimating Gender Balance in Syllabi and Bibliographies.” PS: Political Science & Politics 51(2): 396–400. Suswanta, Danang Kurniawan, Achmad Nurmandi, and Salahudin. 2021. “Analysis of the Consistency Policy Indonesia’s Capital Relocation in the Pandemic Era.” Jurnal Studi Sosial dan Politik 5(1): 35–48. Taber, Charles S., and Martin Lodge. 2006. “Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs.” American Journal of Political Science 50(3): 755–69.

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194  Michael D. Jones et al. Tosun, Jale, and Simon Schaub. 2021. “Constructing Policy Narratives for Transnational Mobilization: Insights from European Citizens’ Initiatives.” European Policy Analysis 7(S2): 344–364. Tu, Carmen, and Steven Brown. 2020. “Character Mediation of Plot Structure: Toward an Embodied Model of Narrative.”  Frontiers of Narrative Studies  6(1): 77–112. Uldanov, Artem, Tatiana Gabriichuk, Dmitry Karateev, and Maria Makhmutova. 2021. “Narratives in an Authoritarian Environment: Narrative Strategies, Plots, and Characters in Moscow’s Public Transport Reforms Debate.” European Policy Analysis 4: 433–450. van den Hende, Ellis A., Darren W. Dahl, Jan P. L. Schoormans, and Dirk Snelders. 2012. “Narrative Transportation in Concept Tests for Really New Products: The Moderating Effect of Reader-Protagonist Similarity Narrative Transportation in Concept Tests for Really New Products: The Moderating Effect of Reader Protagonist Similarity.” Journal of Product Management 29: 157–170. Valero, Diana E. 2021. “From Brexit to VOX: Populist Policy Narratives about Rurality in Europe and the Populist Challenges for the Rural-Urban Divide.” Rural Sociology 87(S1): 758–783. Vogeler, Colette S., Sandra Schwindenhammer, Denise Gonglach, and Nils C. Bandelow. 2021. “Agri-Food Technology Politics: Exploring Policy Narratives in the European Parliament.” European Policy Analysis 7(S2): 324–343. Weible, Christopher M., Paul A. Sabatier, and Kelly McQueen. 2009. “Themes and Variations: Taking Stock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework.” Policy Studies Journal 37(1): 121–140. Weible, Christopher M. et al. 2016. “Enhancing Precision and Clarity in the Study of Policy Narratives: An Analysis of Climate and Air Issues in Delhi, India.” Review of Policy Research 33(4): 420–441. Williams, Teshanee T., and Jennifer Kuzma. 2022. “Narrative Policy Framework at the Macro Level - Cultural Theory-Based Beliefs, Science-Based Narrative Strategies, and Their Uptake in the Canadian Policy Process for Genetically Modified Salmon.” Public Policy and Administration 37(4): 480–515. Winett, Liana B. et al. 2021. “When ‘Tried and True’ Advocacy Strategies Backfire: Narrative Messages Can Undermine State Legislator Support for Early Childcare Policies.” Journal of Public Interest Communications 5(1): 45–77. World Health Organization. 2022. “WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard.” WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who. int/#:~:text=Globally%2C%20as%20of%203%3A39pm, 6%2C261%2C708%20 deaths%2C%20reported%20to%20WHO. Yabar, Mauricio P. 2021. “Narratives in Sex Offender Management Laws: How Stories About a Label Shape Policymaking.” Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare 48(1): 33–56. Zahariadis, Nikolaos. 2003. Ambiguity and Choice in Public Policy: Political Decision Making in Modern Democracies. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. . 2014. “Ambiguity and Multiple Streams.” In Theories of the Policy Process, eds. Paul A. Sabatier and Christopher M.Weible. Boulder, CO:Westview Press, 25–58. Zanocco, Chad, Geoboo Song, and Michael Jones. 2018. “Fracking Bad Guys: The Role of Narrative Character Affect in Shaping Hydraulic Fracturing Policy Preferences: Fracking Bad Guys.” Policy Studies Journal 46(4): 978–99.

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Appendix

Table 5.1 Summary of TotPP Five Major Changes to the NPF NPF Section

Change

Policy Narratives

Introduction of new conceptual figure for narrative form and content (Figure 5.1) Characters moved to the top of the list of NPF structural elements; Setting now includes reference to time and issue frames Strategies: Causal mechanisms renamed Narrative Causal Strategies; Devil-Angel shift changed to Devil-Angel-Solidarity shift (DAS-Shift) A new section that documents several studies focusing on the power of narrators. Incorporates policy entrepreneurs into the NPF A new section accounting for NPF’s failure to fully specify causal mechanisms. Identifies two pathways to change, both via affect: (1) persuasion/manipulation and (2) attention Provided footnote clarifying distinctions between levels of analysis, units of analysis, and levels of government Added Narrator Strategic Selection of Narrative based on Audience hypotheses. Updated figure; Combined Issue containment and expansion; Added Issue Expansion and Containment (version 2) hypothesis; removed Role of Story Frames and Role of Media Actors hypotheses Discussed NPF’s normative commitments to democracy and science; first steps to track NPF’s diversity and inclusiveness

Policy Narrative Form Policy Narrative Content

Narrator and Audience

Narrative Mechanisms of Policy Change Levels of Analysis Micro-Level Applications Meso-Level Applications

Future Directions

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6

The IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas1

Introduction The Institutional Analysis and Development framework provides policy analysts with concepts and variables, a meta-theoretical language, and diagnostic and empirical tools to analyze all types of institutional arrangements. Institutional arrangements, according to Crawford and Ostrom (1995:582), are “enduring regularities of human action in situations structured by rules, norms, and shared strategies, as well as by the physical world.” In the public policy context, regulatory frameworks, subsidy programs, or participatory processes can be understood as institutional arrangements.The IAD supports analysts not only in systematically describing policies operating at different scales and levels of detail but also in developing explanations (i.e., theories and models) of their “logic, design and performance” (Ostrom et al. 2014:269). As Ostrom (2005:29) emphasized, “without the capacity to undertake systematic, comparative institutional assessments, recommendations of reform may be based on naïve ideas about which kinds of institutions are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and not on an analysis of performance.” The IAD framework allows analysts to systematically explore and evaluate policy-making processes, outputs, and outcomes as well as build theory that transcends specific policy contexts and even policy as such (policies are one manifestation of institutional arrangements after all). IAD scholars are keen on the distinction between frameworks and theories. A framework is distinct from a theory, even though the two terms are often used interchangeably. Whereas a framework provides a “shared orientation for studying, explaining, and understanding phenomena of interest” (Ostrom et al. 2014:269), a “theory consists of many variables and the relations among them that are used to explain and predict processes and outcomes” (Ostrom et al. 2014:269). Frameworks provide structure for theories by identifying the key concepts and variables that scholars draw upon for theory testing and development.Theories most compatible with the IAD framework are those that seek to explain how actors’ behavior is guided and constrained by institutions, and how, in turn, human behavior and collective choices shape and form institutional arrangements. Besides the theories that DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-8

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  197 were intentionally developed using the IAD, i.e., local public economy and common-pool resource theories, the framework is compatible with others, such as covenantal theory (Lutz 1988; Allen 2005), federalism theory (V. Ostrom 1987, 1997, 2008), transactions cost theory (Williamson 1985), and game theory, among others.2 More broadly, any theory that recognizes the influence of institutions on behavior (without necessarily aiming at testing it) is potentially compatible with the IAD (see the section below on the SES tool). In this chapter, we depart from the IAD framework chapters of previous editions in two important ways. First, we provide a brief overview of the framework rather than taking a deeper dive into each of its epistemological groundings (for readers who want a detailed description of the IAD framework, we encourage you to consult a prior volume). Second, we devote the bulk of the chapter to describing and illustrating the tools that the IAD framework provides analysts for systematically examining different dimensions of institutional arrangements. By tools, we mean analytical devices that allow policy scholars to systematically collect and organize information (e.g., on institutions and related aspects). We do this in order to provide a more applied version of the framework, with the intention of making it more accessible to (e.g., policy) scholars. The “tools” also reflect the evolution of the framework as it has been expanded over the years to tackle different empirical puzzles and methodological challenges. The tools can be used in a variety of settings and to further develop the institutional dimensions of non-IAD related theories, such as the Advocacy Coalitions Theory or the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory, without having to embrace the entire IAD framework. The tools are portable and applicable outside of the IAD framework. The institutional tools we examine include the rule and the property rights typologies, the grammar of institutions, the network of action situations, and the SES “framework.”3 We begin by providing a general sketch of the IAD framework before engaging with the tools.

Introducing the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework The purpose of the IAD framework is to allow scholars to explore and develop explanations of how people use institutional arrangements to address shared problems and to understand the logic of institutional designs (V. Ostrom 1987). That is, the IAD framework has a problem-solving orientation. A problem-solving orientation distinguishes it from other major frameworks and theories of the policy-making process. Whereas the ACF focuses on coalitions and coalition activity, and the PET focuses on explaining patterns of policy activities and outputs, the IAD enables diagnostic and prescriptive inquiry. A starting point in applying the IAD framework is usually a public problem, which in typical applications of the framework is understood

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198  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas as a collective action problem, or social dilemma. Many public problems (e.g., public service congestion, environmental degradation, financial crises) emerge as a result of the uncoordinated decisions of governments, firms, and/or citizen organizations. The outcome one actor realizes depends not only on the actor’s choices and actions but also on the choices and actions of the other actors in the situation. This interdependence, both in actions and in outcomes, means that for actors to solve problems and achieve desired outcomes, they must take one another into account and cooperate or coordinate their actions and choices. Cooperation and coordination, however, cannot be taken for granted. Rather, individual and collective interests often diverge creating social dilemmas. These dilemmas are the core of collective action problems and institutional arrangements are a means of aligning the two. An Action Situation In the IAD framework, an action arena consists of an action situation and the actors interacting within the action situation. The term “action arena” has largely fallen out of use, as it is implicitly understood that action situations include actors. Action situations capture interdependence among actors and the opportunities and challenges interdependence poses. Thus, the initial step in analyzing a collective action problem is to identify an action situation. According to Ostrom (2005:32), action situations are characterized by two or more individuals who face “a set of potential actions that jointly produce outcomes.” In most research projects using the IAD framework, multiple action situations are identified and compared. For example, in one of the early applications of the IAD to natural resource management, Tang (1994) identified forty-seven cases of irrigation systems and analyzed water allocation action situations, collective choice action situations, and monitoring action situations in each of them. Also, an action situation can bound one or more collective action problem or resolved problem. An action situation can be applied to any setting in which the actors are interdependent, whether that is farmers withdrawing water from a shared basin, congresswomen approving new laws in a national congress, neighbors producing neighborhood security, social movement representatives and politicians contesting positive discrimination policies, or students, administration staff, and professors producing education in a university. Action situations consist of participants who hold positions and who take actions in light of information they have available to them. Outcomes are a function of those actions and the level of control each actor has over an action or choice. Furthermore, costs and benefits are assigned to actions and outcomes, which also affect choices (see Figures 6.1 and 6.3).4 To more fully develop an action situation so as to analyze the choices, actions, and outcomes of actors, analysts should address questions corresponding to the parts of an action situation. For instance, who and how

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Figure 6.1 A Framework for Institutional Analysis Source: Adapted from E. Ostrom, Gardner, and Walker (1994, p. 37).

many participants are engaged in the action situation? What types of roles or positions do people hold? What types of actions may, must, or must not be taken by holding different positions? What types of information about the situation do participants have and how do they share it? What are the benefits and costs of actions and outcomes? How are actors’ actions linked together to produce outcomes? These types of questions form code books used by IAD scholars to systematically describe action situations.5 The Actor:Theories and Models of the Individual Actors animate action situations; it is their choices and actions that produce outcomes. Consequently, an analyst must make explicit assumptions about (1) how and what participants value, (2) what their information-processing capabilities are, and (3) what internal mechanisms they use to decide upon strategies (Ostrom 2005).A more complete explanation of each category may be found in E. Ostrom (2005, chapter 4 “Animating Institutional Analysis”). How and what participants value refers to preferences and can range from utility maximizing to other regarding (Bowles 2008). Information processing focuses on the mental models of actors and the vividness and saliency of available information (Ostrom 2005:109). Internal mechanisms used by actors to make decisions refer to the use of heuristics. This approach to individual decision-making provides flexibility for analysts to adjust assumptions about how actors make decisions to the situations analyzed. Fully rational human decision-making models are appropriate to study competitive market settings (Ostrom 2005), whereas bounded rationality models are more appropriate for other types of settings, typically those involving the provision of public goods or common-pool resources.

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200  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas By using models of choice appropriate for the settings to be explained, not only productive theories may be developed, but more effective policies may be devised. In the local natural resource management context, for example, E. Ostrom (1990, 1999, 2005) repeatedly noted that the policies derived from the tragedy of the commons model were not only incomplete but possibly harmful. Assuming that actors are fully rational and cannot or will not cooperate justified the imposition of private or state property systems, often undermining locally devised governing arrangements (Lansing and Kremer 1993) and ultimately affecting resource user’s preferences in socially undesirable ways (see Agrawal et al. 2015 or Hayes 2012). Factors Structuring Action Situations Action situations are shaped by three types of contextual factors, including physical and material conditions, rules (in use), and community characteristics. Different dimensions, or qualities, of the three factors affect the types of collective action problems that actors experience, as well as the feasibility and performance of different types of institutional designs adopted to resolve the dilemmas. Physical and Material Conditions In 1977, the Ostroms published a book chapter that remains foundational for describing physical and material conditions and how they affect public problems. The chapter, entitled “Public Goods and Public Choices,” presents a two-by-two typology of goods based on the costliness of excluding actors from a good, and the subtractability or rivalrousness of the use of the good. By far, IAD scholars have paid most attention to common-pool resources and public goods, and much less to private goods and toll goods (although see Potoski and Prakash 2013 for an exception). The costliness of exclusion and subtractability lays the groundwork for collective action problems, and consequently, the concepts suggest important policy implications. Collective action problems arise because of the tension between the interests of individual actors and those of the group in interdependent situations. Inadequately addressing exclusion raises the specter of freeriding off of the efforts of others to provide shared benefits. This is quite evident in the natural resource management context. If controlling access to a common-pool resource, such as a groundwater basin, is not addressed, those outside of the community of users may access it and pump water that members of the user community stored. Even if exclusion is adequately realized, users within the group still face the issue of interfering with each other’s use. These exclusion and subtraction problems also occur outside the natural resource context. In the IT context, technological innovation may be hindered if access to it is not controlled, and in the public health context, an irresponsible use of primary care services by patients or of infrastructure

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  201 by physicians may lead to congestion and/or a decrease in the quality of services. Attributes of the Community The category of concepts and variables that originally received less attention relative to the others is what has consistently been labeled “attributes of the community.” E. Ostrom variously points to “norms,” “culture,” and “world views” as constituting aspects of the community (E. Ostrom 1999, 2005). Most empirical work on this topic focuses on different attributes of groups of actors. Important attributes of the group that have been examined for their effects on outcomes in action situations have included various types of heterogeneities (e.g., cultural or economic), socioeconomic status, dependence on a shared resource, group size, the presence of accountable leadership, and levels of social capital (Cox et al. 2016). Agrawal (2003) has also argued for attention to levels of poverty, and Clement (2010) has proposed incorporating discourses and attention to power. Although the category has received more limited attention than the others, it is well represented by numerous empirical articles and lively debates around the effects of group characteristics on collective action and outcomes (e.g., in the natural resource management context see Agrawal 2002 and Poteete et al. 2010). The Concept of Rules In the IAD, institutions are understood as rules that guide, constrain, and direct people’s choices and actions. Rules, if followed, support cooperation and allow people to coordinate their actions to realize valued outcomes that they could not otherwise achieve acting individually. Rules in Use and in Form. Many applications of the IAD framework involve identifying rules in use. Rules in use are the prescriptions that people follow in practice and which are often not written down. Rules in use may be distinct from rules in form, which are the rules adopted through official collective choice venues and which are often written down. Rules in use are identified by interviewing people and engaging in participant observation (Basurto 2005; Gibson et al. 2005; Coleman and Steed 2009; McCord et al. 2016). As E. Ostrom (2007a:39) explained, rules in use are often understood implicitly by actors consequently “obtaining information about rules-in-use requires spending time at a site and learning how to ask nonthreatening, context-specific questions about rule configurations.” In contrast, rules in form are typically identified through official texts, such as legislation or regulation, or executive orders. The distinction between rules in use and rules in form has important theoretical and policy implications, allowing scholars to explore how people’s actions are structured by both types of rules and their overlap. Policy implementation can be understood as the process through which formal rules

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202  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas are converted into rules in use. By the same token, top-down policy implementation failures can be understood as issues of misfit between rules in form (policies) and rules in use (e.g., administrative ways of doing and local practices and/or expectations). By recognizing and encouraging the study of rules in use, IAD scholars have extended the study of policy beyond the study of government and “the state” to include the often “invisible” practices of people collectively solving problems and providing shared benefits. The Three Worlds of Action (levels of analysis). Where do rules in use and rules in form come from? As E. Ostrom (2007a:44) explained, “All rules are nested in another set of rules that define how the first set of rules can be changed.” Kiser and Ostrom (1982) called this nesting of rules and rule making the three worlds of action, and what currently are called levels of analysis. The levels of analysis link action situations through the creation and application of rules. The operational level of action (situation) consists of the day-to-day activities engaged in by people, such as harvesting timber, teaching a class, or driving an Uber.The day-to-day activities are guided and constrained by operational level rules. Operational level rules emerge from collective choice and/or constitutional choice levels of action (situations). Collective and constitutional choice levels of action entail activities related to rule making, rule following, and rule enforcing, as illustrated in Figure 6.2. Collective choice rules, which guide and constrain action at the collective choice level, define how operational level rules are devised and adopted, how monitoring of operational level actions is to occur, and so forth. Constitutional choice rules, which guide and constrain action at the constitutional choice level, define how collective choice rules are devised and adopted and how collective choice activities are monitored and enforced. Levels of analysis are among the most difficult of the IAD concepts to work with and have led to considerable confusion. Part of the confusion stems from attempting to equate a level of government (or scale of government) to a level of action, which is an incorrect application. Members of a local school board can engage in collective choice and constitutional choice activities. Also, levels of action do not only apply to public organizations. People within non-governmental and private organizations engage in different levels of action too. Evaluating Outcomes of Action Situations in Context The processes of interaction within an action situation as well as the outcomes produced may be evaluated using criteria similar to those used in many public policy analyses (Stone 2012; Weimer and Vining 2016), such as effectiveness, efficiency, equity, and accountability. As Stone (2012) explains, each criterion has multiple definitions. For instance, equity may mean that all actors in an action situation receive equal amounts of a good, or it may mean that amounts received are a function of levels of investment in providing a good, or amounts received may be based on level of need (Stone 2012). The type of “equity” chosen by policy makers has implications for

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  203

Figure 6.2 Levels of Analysis and Outcomes Source: E. Ostrom (2018, p. 232).

who gets what and how, for institutional design, and for people’s choices and actions. Thus, institutional arrangements support not only the realization of instrumental values, for instance, resolving collective action problems in an efficient manner, but also normative values, such as equity or security.

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204  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas The use of evaluative criteria in the IAD framework is congruent with Stone’s (2012) argument. For IAD scholars, the criteria are defined by the context, as well as the actors engaged in rule making, revising, and implementation activities. This has several implications for policy analysts. One is identifying appropriate measures for the setting being analyzed. Rather than assuming collective action problems take the same form, it is important to empirically identify the problems (Ostrom 1990; Ostrom et al. 1994). In addition, the design of institutional arrangements is how actors attempt to realize desired outcomes (e.g., effectiveness) and desired values (e.g., accountability, equity, efficiency). Consequently, theories of institutional design draw on knowledge about the relations between evaluative criteria and institutional arrangements, allowing policy analysts to diagnose problems and prescribe solutions. Applying the “Box and Arrows”Version of the IAD The “box and arrows” figure (see Figure 6.1) is probably the most wellknown representation of the IAD and has been the basis for a number of applications of the framework. Between 2014 and 2022 nine special issues of journals grounded in or closely related to the IAD framework were published.6 Of those, two focus on Elinor and Vincent Ostrom’s scholarly contributions to the non-profit sector (Bushouse et al. 2016) and federalism studies (Kincaid 2014). Three others focus on social dilemma experiments (Coleman and Wilson 2016), laboratory behavioral experiments (Janssen et al. 2015), and field experiments (Muradian and Cardenas 2015). Two others focus on document coding and using the data to test common-pool resource theory, with one examining historic commons (Laborda-Peman and de Moor 2016) and the other contemporary common-pool resource settings (Schlager 2016). Finally, the most recent issue focuses on polycentricity (Heikkila et al. 2018). Several themes and arguments emerge from the special issues. First, polycentricity, and the contributions of V. Ostrom and E. Ostrom to its conceptualization and development, is motivating a new wave of empirical work around multilevel governance of traditional common-pool resources, such as forestry (Libman and Obydenkova 2014), water (Baldwin et al. 2018; Mewhirter et al. 2018; Schroder 2018), and fisheries (Gruby and Basurto 2014; Carlisle and Gruby 2017) as well as new policy issues like fracking (Arnold and Holahan 2014; Heikkila and Weible 2018) or the water-energy nexus (Villamayor-Tomas 2018). Second, formal modeling and experiments on social dilemmas and common-pool resource dilemmas continues to be a vibrant and expanding line of research. Topics explored range from examining the roles of norms, such as trust, in supporting cooperation, to the role of shame as a form of punishment, to the influence of different forms of communication, including intergenerational transmission of information, to variations in the dynamics of the common-pool resource system, such as different levels of scarcity, and the effects on cooperation. Third, systematic

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  205 coding of case studies remains an important source of data for studying common-pool resources. The two special issues in the International Journal of the Commons provide advice on coding best practices, data sets, and examples of how to analyze the data. The manuscripts appearing in the nine special issues provide a broad overview of the IAD framework, numerous empirical applications, and a good sense of ongoing research programs. A review of the last five years of the IAD literature also reveals some application patterns.7 Geographically, there is a wide diversity of countries covering all continents. Regionally, South East Asia stands out as the focus for many studies, especially China and Indonesia. Europe, Latin America, and North America also provide the context for a number of empirical studies. The diversity of topics/sectors is also wide and reflects the coverage of the framework beyond environmental concerns. Although water and forest management and conservation are still important sectors (e.g., Barton et al. 2017; Nigussie et al. 2018), they are not dominant. Other important policy sectors include the energy (e.g., Grossman 2019), food systems/farming (e.g., Quiñones-Ruiz et al. 2020), rural development (e.g., Omori and Tesorero 2020), and digital economy (e.g., Lewis and Moorkens 2020) sectors. Other minor but still revealing topics/sectors include the governance of public health and the management of the COVID crisis (Faridah et al. 2020; Witkowski et al. 2021), the governance of military forces (Bang et al. 2018), recycling (Oh and Hettiarachchi 2020), knowledge and education (Kuzma et al. 2017; Wang 2020), cultural heritage (Bertacchini and Gould 2021), and petty trade and urban street vendors. The IAD has provided the foundation for multiple research projects for the last forty years, including E. Ostrom’s research program on commonpool resources for which she received a Nobel Prize in Economics. The framework organizes inquiry around collective choice problems, allowing scholars to empirically explore and explain the emergence and persistence of collective action in its many forms.The framework also provides analytical tools for systematically examining institutional arrangements. These tools can be used and applied separately from the framework and we describe them and some recent applications next.

IAD Family of Tools and Applications The IAD has evolved over time and it has done so modularly. Different IAD tools put the focus on different components of the framework and have evolved through distinct, but interconnected research programs. Some of the tools allows policy analysts/scholars to systematically examine and compare policies and the institutions they are composed of at different levels of granularity. These range from components of institutional statements (the institutional grammar tool), to institutional statements (the rule typology tool), or configurations of institutional statements (property rights typology tool). Other tools are keener on the systemic approach of the IAD to policy and put the focus on how action situations affect each other (Networks of

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206  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Action Situations tool) and the variety of social and ecological conditions that mediate the performance of policies and institutional arrangements (SES tool). The tools can be used to map out institutional designs, engage in comparative institutional analysis, and explore patterns of actor-institutional relations. The tools can be applied independently from each other, allowing scholars working from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and theoretical approaches to engage with institutional and policy analysis. It is not necessary that scholars adopt the full theoretical baggage (Part I) of the IAD, e.g., the focus on interdependence and social dilemmas, to use any of the IAD tools. Still, we recommend that scholars are at least familiar with those groundings. Rule Typology The rule typology was part of the IAD since shortly after its inception (Ostrom 2005:175). The typology allows policy analysts and scholars of institutions to zoom in on institutional statements, and examine their function and their content, individually and configurally. Within the framework, the typology is used to classify rules by the components of the action situation they most directly affect (see Figure 6.3; Kiser and Ostrom 1982). This functional classification of institutional statements helps to bring order to what would otherwise be a very disorderly and messy reality (Crawford and Ostrom 1995). Grounding the rule typology in the parts of an action situation (see Figure 6.3) is a reminder that rules are configural, and they operate jointly and collectively in specific contexts. Those contexts include material and physical conditions, community characteristics, and, importantly, other rules. The impact of a monitoring system on rule compliance will at a minimum be a function of the combination of information rules (i.e., what types of information is shared), choice rules (how may that information be acted on), and payoff rules (the distribution of benefits and costs of providing monitoring). Information rules alone do not define monitoring systems. In water or air pollution policy, for example, rules prescribing the disclosure of emissions by polluters require definitions of who the polluters are (boundary rules) and whether and how they may be punished if they do not comply with the information rules (payoff rules). Relatedly, rules may have indirect effects on other components of an action situation. For instance, a choice rule may authorize a drinking water utility to bring a polluting firm to court or to demonstrate against the firm. Such a choice rule also affects the information that actors possess about one another, as the polluting firm is likely to observe the utility’s actions. The configural nature of rules means that it is unlikely in many situations that changing a single rule will change the outcomes; conversely, it will be rare to identify a single rule that leads to a particular outcome. Relatedly, rules do not determine behavior; rather they guide, direct, and shape behavior. They provide a lattice of prescriptions, some required, some permitted, and some forbidden, but within that lattice, a wide variety of

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  207 Aggregation Rules

Information Rules

Boundary Rules

PARTICIPANTS

CONTROL over

INFORMATION about

assigned to Position Rules

POSITIONS assigned to

Choice Rules

ACTIONS

LINKED to

POTENTIAL OUTCOMES

Scope Rules

NET COSTS AND BENEFITS assigned to

Payoff Rules

Figure 6.3 Rules as Exogenous Variables Directly Affecting the Elements of an Action Situation Source: E. Ostrom (2005, p. 189). Used with permission from Princeton University Press.

behaviors may take place, only some of which can be traced back to specific rules. An iconic example is the game of chess, composed of a relatively simple set of rules that bounds the game, but that allows for an almost infinite combination of interactions among the pieces. While the rule typology was the initial tool developed as part of the IAD, it can be used independently of the IAD because it potentially provides a universal classification system for institutional statements.Thus, scholars from a range of disciplines can use the typology to systematically classify institutional statements, and “to know when they are talking about the same ‘variety’ of a rule” (Ostrom 2005:182). Applications Applications of the rule typology focus on rules in use, as well as rules in form, typically when combined with the Grammar of Institutions tool (see applications of the IGT below). Here we focus on manuscripts that highlight the rule typology and that have been published in the past five years.8 In general, the applications center on environmental and common-pool resource settings and topics, such as payment for ecosystem services (Barton et al. 2017), coastal fisheries (Nakandakari et al. 2017), and flooding (Vitale et al. 2021). A few applications explore governance issues, such as community engagement in planning (Theesfeld et al. 2017) and consultation procedures (Dunlop et al. 2020). The contexts for these studies center on the Americas, Europe, and Asia, demonstrating the general applicability of the tool.

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208  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Specific applications of the rule typology explore the effects of differences in one or a few rule types for variations in outcomes among action situations. Position and boundary rules allow analysts to explore a variety of questions, such as whether the diversity of participants affects the choices and actions people take and outcomes that are realized. Cook et al. (2019) conducted field experiments examining the effect of gender quotas on participants in forestry-based payment for ecosystem services programs.They find that groups consisting of at least 50% women conserve more trees and share benefits among group members more equitably compared to groups with fewer than 50% female participants. Aggregation rules allow analysts to examine how collaboration and joint decision-making among actors is structured. For instance, Schlager et al. (2021) find that the aggregation rules related to the provision of highly salient public goods are stricter, that is, define voting rules, whereas aggregation rules related to the provision of less salient public goods are less strict, requiring different forms of consultation, but no voting. Information rules define who is prescribed to share what types of information with whom. Weible et al. (2017) examine how information rules structure information sharing regarding the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas. Choice rules can shed light on the discretion of actors to diverge from collectively desirable outcomes. Basurto (2005), for example, uses the distinction between boundary and choice rules to characterize two small-scale fishing communities in Mexico and show the extent to which they reflect power struggles between the intent of fishing cooperatives to restrict access and harvest and that of capital owners, or patrons, to open access and loosen harvest rules. Finally, payoff rules can be observed to assess compliance and policy effectiveness.Villamayor-Tomas et al. (2019), for example, illustrate how incentive-based and participatory instruments translate into payoff and scope/aggregation rules, respectively, and can be particularly useful in combination to cope with water issues that involve local collective action problems. Grammar of Institutions A major theoretical and methodological leap in the study of rules occurred with the development of the grammar of institutions by Crawford and Ostrom (1995). The grammar provides a “theory that generates structural descriptions of institutional statements” (Crawford and Ostrom 1995:583). It consists of several components that identify specific types of policy-related content contained within institutional statements, allowing them to be systematically identified and compared. Within the grammar components, the attribute identifies the doer of the action, the actor to whom the institutional statement applies; the deontic identifies whether the action is required, permitted, or forbidden; the aim identifies the action of the attribute; the condition defines what, when, where, and how of the action or outcome; and the “or else” identifies a sanction if the institutional statement is violated. The first four components identify a norm, whereas all five components identify

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  209 a rule. Later, an object category was added, which is the receiver of the action identified in the aim (Siddiki et al. 2011). Crawford and Ostrom (1995) viewed the grammar as a tool that allows analysts to consistently differentiate among rules, norms, and strategies. As Crawford and Ostrom (2005:138) note, policy analysts need to be able to identify rules as they are often asked to “analyze the impact of some change in rules—either a change that has already occurred, or the possible impacts of a proposed change.” In addition, the grammar assists analysts in drafting rules (as opposed to norms). Beyond the practicality of the grammar tool, Crawford and Ostrom (2005:152) envisioned the grammar as an aid in developing game theoretic analyses, by providing a consistent language for comparing institutions, and for engaging in empirical analyses and syntheses of institutional arrangements both at particular points in time and over time. Applications Applications of the grammar have recently expanded once a team of researchers led by Chris Weible operationalized the grammar, coding rules in form and analyzing the content and structure of laws and regulations (Basurto et al. 2010; Siddiki et al. 2011). Since 2010, empirical applications of the grammar have been diverse in terms of geographical setting, policy sector examined, and research questions addressed.9 Applications’ empirical settings cluster in the USA, Europe, and Latin America. The policy sectors studied are diverse, with no discernible pattern, including education, social security, tobacco, biodiversity, soil and landscape conservation, transportation infrastructure, knowledge systems, or human migration. Research topics, however, largely focus on comparing the design and performance of different types of institutional arrangements. Dunajevas and Skučienė (2016), for example, compare the institutional details of mandatory pension systems of the Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia (e.g., who is entitled to what, minimum conditions), and then compare levels of income redistribution produced by each system. Federal laws are not the only foci for comparative analysis. US states’ policies and organizations’ practices have also been analyzed. Siddiki (2014) and Siddiki et al. (2012) compare the design of several states’ aquaculture policies and people’s perceptions of compliance, legitimacy, and coerciveness. Roditis et al. (2015) compared the design of tobacco policies of the campuses in the University of California system against the model policy proposed by the American Campus Health Association, noting areas not addressed, missing enforcement mechanisms, and failure to identify responsible parties. In all the above examples, and the majority of applications, the grammar is used for institutional measuring purposes; however, there are also applications that use it to classify institutional statements. Ostrom and Basurto (2011) propose using the grammar to assess institutional change, understood as the evolution of strategies into norms and norms into rules, and test their approach with a case of small-scale fisheries in Mexico. Heikkila and Weible (2018)

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210  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas apply a semiautomated approach to dissect and classify statements from eleven oil and gas regulations in Colorado, USA, and illustrate the extent to which different actors of the policy sector vary in their associations to rules and imperatives (i.e., deontics). Bundles of Property Rights Like the institutional grammar and the rule typology, the property rights typology, first introduced by Schlager and Ostrom (1992), was created to systematically distinguish among different bundles, or groupings, of institutions, in this case property rights. Prior to the typology, most policy analyses distinguished between private property and open access, or private property and government property (Demsetz 1968; Hardin 1968). Such blunt categories of property rights systems missed the variety of arrangements adopted by common-pool resource users, and limited the ability of policy analysts to identify and analyze the effectiveness of different types of regimes across categories of common-pool resources or the robustness of such regimes to external shocks (Schlager and Ostrom 1992:260). Property rights refer to authorized actions, whereas rules are prescriptions that create authorizations (Schlager and Ostrom 1992:250). The property rights typology highlights that the property rights actors hold and exercise are nuanced, and consist of bundles, or combinations, of specific types of rights. In accordance with the IAD framework, individual types of rights may be operational level rights or collective choice rights.10 Operational level rights are access and withdrawal, and authorize actors to enter a space and make use of it. Operational level rules prescribe how these rights may be exercised. Collective choice rights are management, exclusion, and alienation (see Figure 6.4). They authorize holders of the individual rights to participate in defining future rights to be exercised (Schlager and Ostrom 1992, 251). The right of management, for instance, provides actors with “the right to regulate internal use patterns and transform the resource by making improvements” (Schlager and Ostrom 1992:251). Holders of a right of management define operational level withdrawal rights, whereas holders of a right of exclusion define operational level access rights. One of the strengths of the property rights typology is that it allows policy analysts to systematically identify and study relatively complex property systems governing a given setting. Individual property rights may be bundled together in a variety of ways, and different actors may hold different bundles of rights in the same setting. For instance, officials representing a city may hold the full bundle of rights to a park. They may provide city residents rights of access and withdrawal, and they may share the rights of management and exclusion with the members of a neighborhood association whose jurisdiction includes the park. Thus, the city and the neighborhood association are authorized to make rules and regulations regarding access and use of the park, and city residents are authorized to use the park in ways that comply with the rules.

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  211 Full owner Access Withdrawal Management Exclusion Aliena on

X X X X X

Proprietor X X X X

Authorized claimant X X X

Authorized user X X

Authorized entrant X

Figure 6.4 Bundles of Rights Associated with Positions Source: Schlager, E. Ostrom, E. “Property-Rights Regimes and Natural Resources” Land Economics vol. 68 no. 3 © 1992 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. Reprinted courtesy of the University of Wisconsin Press.

Applications The property rights typology has been widely used to specify and compare the design and performance of different types of property rights systems in a wide range of settings around the world over more than twenty years. In the past five years, scholars have applied the typology to iconic local natural resource management contexts, such as forests (Pulhin et al. 2021), groundwater (Rouillard et al. 2021), and fisheries (Taufa et al. 2018), as well as to less conventional policy and management contexts, such as industrial waste (Steenmans 2021), genetic resources (Allaire et al. 2018), and remotely sensed data management (Alvarez and Gleason 2017). Scholars have applied the typology in the EU countries, south and southeast Asia, and island nations in the Pacific. Research questions primarily center on comparative analyses of property rights bundles and the actors exercising the rights. Steenmans (2021), for example, examines whether different property rights systems facilitate or provide barriers to exchanges of resources among firms. Specifically, Steenmans (2021) finds that property rights systems in Denmark, the UK, and the Netherlands are distinct; they all serve to facilitate the exchange of wastes and byproducts among firms engaged in industrial symbiosis programs. In the Pacific Island nations of Tonga and Tanuatu, Foster et al. (2021) find that household-controlled rainwater tanks are more likely to provide year-round drinking water supplies than are village-controlled rainwater tanks, even though both types of actors hold similar bundles of property rights. In contrast, Taufa et al. (2018) compare the different bundles of property rights assigned to three Special Management Areas for managing coastal resources and hypothesize how differences in property rights, although exercised by the same actor type, i.e., government officials, may produce different outcomes. The rule typology, grammar of institutions, and property rights typology provide tools that allow policy analysts and scholars to move beyond the use of slogan words, like decentralization, or privatization, and instead provide careful analyses of institutions. Paraphrasing Ostrom (2005:181), institutional analysts need to be able to identify the rules and/or the property rights that constitute privatization or decentralization and the incentives those rules and

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212  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas property rights provide for shaping behavior.Without a disciplined language, policy analysts struggle to diagnose institutional arrangements and their performance and prescribe workable alternatives. Linked Action Situations Many policy contexts and applications of the IAD framework explicitly or implicitly involve more than one action situation that is linked with each other (McGinnis 2011). Action situations typically link through the outcomes of one situation directly affecting one or more of the components of another action situation. For instance, many studies of irrigation systems focus on three linked action situations – the production and maintenance of infrastructure (diversion dams, irrigation canals, etc.), the allocation of water, and the monitoring of rules (Lam 1998; Anderies and Janssen 2013). In the government policy context, the agenda, formulation, and implementation stages can also be understood as linked action situations (Schulze et al. 2022); and the three worlds of action (see above) are also a collection of linked action situations. The idea of Networks of Action Situations (NAS) puts the focus on the structures that emerge as we look at ensembles of action situations, and the institutions, actors, physical outcomes, or information that connect them. Institutional linkages from higher levels of action (constitutional, collective choice) to lower levels of action (operational) or from venues operating at larger scales to those operating at lower scales are the most evident (e.g., national laws affect national policies and/or local operations). Physical linkages are also quite evident. The dependence of irrigation water distribution on infrastructure maintenance, for example, reflects a physical linkage (water leakages in badly maintained canals hamper water distribution). The same goes for the stages within a value chain which can be understood as situations linked by input-output dynamics (Villamayor-Tomas et al. 2015; Carlson and Bitsch 2018). Actor and information linkages are a bit more difficult to disentangle and have so far received less focus than the other types of linkages (Figure 6.5). Although the methods to identify NAS, e.g., their boundaries and linkages, are still emerging, the literature is progressing quite quickly (Kimmich et al. 2022). Well established is the practice of building the networks around a “focal action situation,” the dynamics of which are affected by the outcomes from other situations. Less practiced but still relatively frequent is the presentation of action situations from a game-theoretic perspective, i.e., by looking at the involved actors, their incentives, and the coordination problems/ dilemmas they confront (Kimmich 2013). So far, the NAS tool has been recognized for assisting policy analysis in two ways: first, through improved diagnosis of policy implementation or compliance problems. Studies have, for example, shed new light on how failures in top-down policy implementation depend on decisions made in the early stages (i.e., situations) of the policy process (Schultz et al. 2022)

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  213 Key Actors:

Dispute Beneficiaries Resolution: Interest Groups/ Other Citizens Legal Courts

Rule-Making and Coordination Key Actors: Elected Officials (laws) Bureaucrats(regulations) Outcomes: Funding levels Application costs

Outcomes: Constitutional Limits

Public Provision Financing, and Monitoring

Key Actors: Secular Professionals Bureaucrats (funding) Outcomes: Number, size of programs

Production and Consumption Key Actors: Secular Professionals Beneficiaries Outcomes: Effectiveness Financial costs

Key Actors:

Dispute Outcomes: Elected Officials Resolution: Interest Groups/ Executive orders Partisan gains Other Citizens Political Beneficiaries

Figure 6.5 Stylized Representation of NAS for Governmental Welfare Service Provision Source: Adapted from McGinnis (2011, p. 72). Used with permission from Wiley.

or on combinations of incentive misalignments, infrastructure maintenance traps, and deficient monitoring along value chains (Cazcarro and VillamayorTomas 2022). Second, NAS has been used to assist ex ante policy evaluations, i.e., by speculating about how hypothetical or actual policy solutions to problems would play out (their impact on the focal situation as well as cascading effects of other situations) given an NAS (Kimmich and VillamayorTomas 2019, Cazcarro and Villamayor-Tomas 2022). Applications Most of the NAS applications have been carried out in Europe, followed by the USA, and India and are within the social-environmental sciences. Studies of water and/or energy management are particularly prominent, and include inquiries around energy infrastructure maintenance (Kimmich 2013; Gritsenko 2018; Kimmich and Sagebiel 2018), the installation and long-term sustainability of renewables (Grundmann et al. 2016), river basin planning (Sendzimir et al. 2010; Schulze et al. 2022), compliance with water pollution and treatment regulations (Cazcarro and Villamayor-Tomas 2022), and the impact of irrigation-efficient technologies on irrigation systems (e.g., Hoffmann and Villamayor-Tomas 2022). Other studies have covered tourism management (Ruiz-Ballesteros and Brondizio 2013), recreational forests in urban areas (Wilkes-Allemann et al. 2015), or organic food production (Carter et al. 2015). The NAS has also enabled moving beyond single-sector, local studies and exploring cross-sectoral issues like the water-energy nexus

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214  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas (e.g.,Villamayor-Tomas et al. 2015), telecoupling (e.g., Oberlack et al. 2018), or landscape management (Boillat et al. 2018). Likewise, NAS has found a natural niche in polycentricity studies (Thiel et al. 2019). Polycentricity puts the focus on the capacity of multiple decision-making centers to coordinate with each other within and across policy subsystems. Here, NAS has been used to either feature those decision-making centers and their connections and/or highlight coordination venues they create to coordinate and make collective decisions (Dennis and Brondizio 2020). The way AS are conceptualized varies. As hinted at above, local resource management studies have tended to follow the IAD tradition and distinguish resource allocation from monitoring or maintenance (Villamayor-Tomas and Kimmich 2019; Cazcarro et al. 2022). In a study of waste water treatment in Spain, Cazcarro et al. (2022), for example, illustrate how the lack of compliance of polluters with existing regulations has to do not only with incentive misalignments in the emissions monitoring situation but also with similar issues in the (wastewater) infrastructure building and maintenance situation. Other studies have taken a more contextualized approach. Through a case of a transnational biofuel investment project in Sierra Leone, Oberlack et al. (2018) illustrate connections between the “project implementation,” “land deal set up and consultation processes,” “community-based resistance,” and “translational regulatory venues,” among other situations, to highlight drivers of tele-coupling sustainability problems and potential solutions. Recent studies have also used the NAS to further over-time analysis (i.e., by exploring the layering of action situations as they emerge and disappear) and socio-ecological system research (e.g., by formalizing social and ecological processes as social, ecological, and socio-ecological action situations, Schluter et al. 2019). The SES Framework Comparative institutional analyses require careful consideration of the settings to be compared and the evaluative criteria to be used. One of the challenges in comparative institutional analysis is to allow for comparability while leaving room for discovering new and important variables. Much of the early policy lessons around the tragedy of the commons in the natural resource management context emerged from a careful comparison of case study data. This comparison was possible, thanks to a series of IAD-inspired case study data collection protocols purposively designed to capture idiosyncratic features of specific case studies, allowing for comparison and generalization (Cox et al. 2020). Building on that experience, Ostrom (2007b, 2009) introduced a novel framework that she labeled the social-ecological system framework (SESF).11 The SES framework represents an important diversion from the IAD tradition. It was the first tool that did not pivot around rules or the action situation, and focused instead on the biophysical properties (i.e., in addition to social and institutional properties) of policy contexts.The SESF represents an

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  215 SES as consisting of four components: governance systems, actors, resource systems, and resource units.The framework includes three other components as well: (1) social, economic, and political settings; (2) related ecosystems; and (3) interactions, although thus far these have received much less attention in the literature employing the framework. Describing these components as constituting the first “tier,” the framework then associates each of them with a set of objects, which Ostrom labeled the second tier in a multi-tiered framework. We use the term “objects” here with respect to the second tier of the SES framework because in our opinion the second-tier elements are not readily interpretable as variables, although they are frequently referred to as such (see Table 6.1 for the second tier).The tiering of objects is an important feature of the SESF. To diagnose a problem or system is to determine which variables are needed based on some series of questions, measure these, and then explore relevant patterns of association to uncover important causal processes.The tiered structure of the SESF supports scholars in that process because it allows them to unpack objects and variables depending on their needs for contextualization without giving up on the possibility of systematic comparisons at higher levels of abstraction (Schlager and Cox 2018). Arguably, this SES diagnostic feature explains why the SESF has become quite popular among socio-environmental scientists interested in working in the interface of ecology and governance. Here we refer to the SESF as a tool because it cannot by itself replace the IAD framework, but requires being interpreted and used in conjunction with it. In our understanding, the SESF can be seen as an extension of the “box and arrows” diagram, with an emphasis on the external conditions (see connections between the biophysical, community, and rule attributes of the diagram and the resource system/unit, actor, and governance components of the SESF). Using the SESF without knowing much about the IAD is probably fine, but would miss, in our view, its full analytical potential. It is symptomatic, indeed, that many applications of the SESF have erred on the descriptive side (Villamayor-Tomas et al. 2020), which is, in our view, due to missing the analytical power of the IAD. Applications A review of the last five years of the SES framework literature reveals some patterns.12 Just like with the IAD framework the geographical coverage of applications is considerably wide. All continents are well represented. Most well-represented countries include China, the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. In terms of sectors/problems there are an outstanding number of applications to conservation policy (mostly in the context of marine and forest protected areas and wildlife conservation programs); small-scale fisheries management; timber as well as non-timber forest products; fire management; and irrigation water management (water allocation as well as pollution).

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216  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Table 6.1 The Second-Tier Objects of the SES Framework Social, economic, and political settings (S) S1 Economic development. S2 Demographic trends. S3 Political stability. S4 Government resource policies. S5 Market incentives. S6 Media organization. Resource systems (RS)

Governance systems (GS)

RS1 Sector (e.g., water, forests, pasture, fish) RS2 Clarity of system boundaries RS3 Size of resource system* RS4 Human-constructed facilities RS5 Productivity of system* RS6 Equilibrium properties RS7 Predictability of system dynamics* RS8 Storage characteristics RS9 Location

GS1 Government organizations GS2 Nongovernment organizations GS3 Network structure GS4 Property-rights systems GS5 Operational rules GS6 Collective-choice rules* GS7 Constitutional rules GS8 Monitoring and sanctioning processes

Resource units (RU)

Users (U)

RU1 Resource unit mobility* RU2 Growth or replacement rate RU3 Interaction among resource units RU4 Economic value RU5 Number of units RU6 Distinctive markings RU7 Spatial and temporal distribution

U1 Number of users* U2 Socioeconomic attributes of users U3 History of use U4 Location U5 Leadership/entrepreneurship* U6 Norms/social capital* U7 Knowledge of SES/mental models* U8 Importance of resource* U9 Technology used

Interactions (I) → Outcomes (O) I1 Harvesting levels of diverse users I2 Information sharing among users I3 Deliberation processes I4 Conflicts among users I5 Investment activities I6 Lobbying activities I7 Self-organizing activities I8 Networking activities

O1 Social performance measures (e.g., efficiency, equity, accountability, sustainability) O2 Ecological performance measures (e.g., overharvested, resilience, biodiversity, sustainability) O3 Externalities to other SESs

Related ecosystems (ECO) ECO1 Climate patterns. ECO2 Pollution patterns. ECO3 Flows into and out of focal SES. *Subset of variables found to be associated with self-organization. Source: E. Ostrom (2009, p. 421).

Most of the studies are empirical, including single, comparative, and review studies for the most part. In many of the single-case and review studies, the framework is used as a heuristic to develop a comprehensive socio-ecological characterization of a context. This is particularly clear in relatively new contexts like urban forests, beekeeping management,

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  217 soil carbon management, marine aquaculture, wildlife conservation, or distributed energy management. Here, the authors tend to use the SESF to unveil previously unexplored complexities or to assess specific policies. For example, Patel et al. (2020) use the SESF to feature the main socioecological components and variables of beekeeping in Western Australia and establish how they interact forming a system; and Brehony et al. (2020) use it to explore how different combinations of first- and second-tier variables created barriers to the implementation of wildlife conservation in Kenya. In the comparative studies, however, the SESF is used to ensure comparability and illustrate how different configurations of first- or second-tier variables lead to similar or different outcomes. For example, Gong et al. (2021) compare thirty-two cases of land consolidation in China and synthesize commonalities into six types of cases; and Le Gouill and Popeau (2020) study the actions of a mining company in Arizona, the USA, and Peru to assess the influence of different policy contexts on mining operations and impact. A common denominator across single and comparative studies is to use the second-tier concepts as a “checklist” of concepts for the sake of the case descriptions or comparisons. The overwhelming trend is to select from the list of second-tier concepts a subset that authors found, or expected, to be more important for their particular analysis. The review studies share a common interest in evaluating and improving how the framework has been used, which shows the momentum gained around its actual usability (Thiel et al. 2015; Partelow 2018;Villamayor-Tomas et al. 2020). Challenges Ahead for Using the Tools The different tools presented here have emerged as solutions to analytical problems of their time and continue to evolve as new scholars use them across different empirical settings. Operationalizations of the rule typology in different contexts have contributed to an improved understanding of what each type actually means in practice. Important innovations in the IGT include the addition of the “object” component (Siddiki et al. 2011) and illustrations about how to aggregate rules across levels of action (Carter et al. 2015; Dunlop et al. 2020).The NAS has benefited from efforts to operationalize linkages in specific contexts and propositions about how to draw the boundaries of the networks (e.g., Hofffman and Villamayor-Tomas 2022). And the SESF has also benefited from characterizations in a variety of policy contexts (see corresponding section) and integration with other tools like the bundles of property rights (Coleman 2011) or rule typology (Gritsenko 2018). But methodological challenges remain. Issues around the NAS concern methodological gaps about how to delineate action situations and strategies to analyze the resulting data (Kimmich et al. 2022). The IGT and rule typology could also benefit from more guidance about how to integrate rules in form and rules in use.The bundles of property rights could also benefit from efforts to aggregate bundles for different goods (e.g., timber and non-timber

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218  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas forest products, or ecosystem services or urban services) (Galik and Jagger 2015). Last but not least, important challenges in applying the SESF include clarifying the logic through which variables are tiered (e.g., level of empirical detail vs. conceptual distinctions) (see Schlager and Cox 2018), or the usability of the “interactions” component (Partelow 2018;Villamayor-Tomas et al. 2020).

Conclusion The concept of framework is not widely recognized or used in the policy sciences. While most scholars and analysts are comfortable with theories and models, organizing knowledge at a more general level is rarely pursued. Its value, however, can be substantial, as demonstrated by the IAD frameworks and accompanying tools. A framework provides a general conceptualization of a segment or facet of reality, in this case, institutions in context; a common language; and analytical tools to identify, measure, and analyze it. As E. Ostrom (1990, 1998, 2005) repeatedly stated, the value of such an undertaking is to develop sound explanations that lead to more appropriate institutional arrangements for specific settings and contexts. The IAD allows scholars to question what policy is and who is entitled to policy-making. In contrast to some theories of the policy process and policy generally (even those warning us about the “hollow state”), the IAD does not take for granted that government is at the center of policy-making. Governments are highly heterogeneous entities that engage with a variety of non-governmental actors in multiple endeavors; all kinds of producer, consumer, and social organizations have indeed a great deal of room and initiative for policy-making to solve problems within their jurisdictions. If we take these facts seriously, the line separating policies from other institutions becomes blurry. Policies are, after all, bundles of both formal and informal institutions that originate both by design and through convention. In this chapter, we have tried to illustrate how the IAD can be used to study both government-centered policy-making and the policy-making developed by other actors, as well as broader governance contexts. The framework will continue to provide the infrastructure for research and policy-making into the future. The IAD is not only well established and used among analysts globally, but also keeps expanding through the tools. The continued development of the tools through distinct programs, in particular the IGT and rule typology, the SESF, and the NAS, will keep the IAD vibrant and the community of scholars using the tools growing. Notable in this regard is the institutional grammar tool and the rule typology. Over the last twelve years the use of the IGT has substantially expanded, primarily in the study of rules in form, such as laws and regulations (see Pieper et al. 2022). This expansion is being driven by Saba Siddiki and colleagues through the Institutional Grammar Research Initiative (IGRI, see www. institutionalgrammar.org). IGRI consists of a global network of scholars who are focused on extending the IGT by developing (1) software for the

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  219 machine coding of the grammar, (2) a library of variables grounded in IGT generated data, and (3) applications combining behavioral data and IGT data to explore the interplay of institutions, choices, and outcomes. In addition, Frantz and Siddiki (2021) developed IG 2.0, substantially expanding the grammar of institutions originally developed by Crawford and Ostrom (1995). It provides a grammar for coding constitutive statements, as well as multiple versions of the grammar that allow for different levels of “expressiveness” appropriate for a variety of analytical needs. IG 2.0 will be used by computer scientists and linguists, among other disciplines, expanding its reach and applications. We also expect the SESF program to continue expanding to new policy contexts and consolidating characterizations in well-studied ones. The SESF is much more versatile than the other tools and therefore more prone for broader applications; however, the SESF community is disciplinarily and theoretically diverse and thus faces important coordination problems if the goal is to standardize applications and cumulate knowledge (Schlager and Cox 2018, Cox et al. 2020). Similarly to the SESF, we expect the NAS program to continue expanding to a variety of policy contexts (see the recent special issue in Kimmich et al. 2022) and to consolidate common understandings and practices around the setting of the boundaries of action situations and networks and the measurement of linkages. Also, we expect the connection between NAS and polycentricity studies (e.g., Thiel et al. 2022) to continue growing in both NAS applications and theoretical insights (e.g., Thiel et al. 2022). As a final reflection, it is worth noting again the modularity of the IAD family of tools (Part II of this chapter). Each tool requires its own choices but they all share a common grounding in the IAD (Part I). Scholars do not need to be experts or even familiar with all tools to engage with one of them; however, we highly recommend becoming acquainted with the IAD fundamentals. Only then, in our view, can scholars take advantage of the full potential of the tools, and the analyses conducted by a large and growing community of policy analysts.

Notes 1 While this chapter does not include Elinor Ostrom as an author, it is inspired by her life and her life’s work. As we noted last time, the IAD framework is more than a tool for engaging in policy analysis, it also represents how the Ostroms and their many colleagues at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis approach the world and conduct science.We were blessed to have Elinor Ostrom as a mentor and friend, and we will continue to be guided by her spirit and vision. 2 Compatibility means that these theories use variables representing different dimensions of the six components making up the framework to explain the interactions between institutional arrangements and human behavior. 3 It is our contention that the SES framework is a tool of the IAD framework. As further developed in this chapter, the SES framework offers a means for zooming

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4 5 6 7

8

9 10 11

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into some of the components of the IAD and, as such, allows analysts to systematically examine social and ecological details of institutional realities not otherwise possible with the standard IAD framework. Still, the logic of the SESF and the prominence given to actors and institutions and the interest in how the latter shape the former are to be understood within the IAD. These are the common elements used in game theory to construct formal game models. For a fully developed set of coding forms and code books that guide analysts through the process of identifying action situations and operationalizing the components see the SES Library (https://seslibrary.asu.edu/). Note that here we include only IAD special issues at large. Special issues devoted to specific tools are referred in other parts of the chapter. For overviews of the literature in previous years check Schlager and Cox (2018). Here the review is based on a search in Scopus via the keywords “IAD framework” in the title, abstract, and keywords from 2017 to 2022.The search resulted in 109 hits, eleven of which were either totally unrelated to the framework, conference papers, or focused on any of the IAD tools.The review was based on the title and abstract. These insights are based on an exploratory overview of twenty articles published between 2017 and 2022. Ten of the articles were identified by using the search terms “rules in use” and “rule typology”. Six were identified when searching for applications of the IGT, and four were known to the authors. Journal articles from Pieper, Leah, Santiago Ruiz, Edella Schlager, and Charlie Schweik. 2022. “The Use of the Institutional Grammar 1.0 for Policy Studies: A Literature Review.” Working Paper. Similar to rules, bundles of property rights may be de facto (i.e., in use) or de jure (i.e., in form). De facto rights in many settings are as important to attend to as de jure rights. Another reason likely motivating the SES framework was the intent to move existing theory on sustainable local natural resource management from the identification of factors to an understanding of the conditions under which different factors are more or less relevant (Agrawal 2002). For overviews of the literature in previous years, check Schlager and Cox (2018). Here the review is based on a search in Scopus via the keywords “SES framework” in the title, abstract, and keywords from 2017 to 2022.The search resulted in ninety-six hits, seven of which were either totally unrelated to the framework, relied on a different SES framework, or conference papers.The review was based on the title and abstract.

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  223 Crawford, Sue E.S., and Elinor Ostrom. 2005. “A Grammar of Institutions.” In Elinor Ostrom, ed., Understanding Institutional Diversity, pp. 137–174. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Originally published in American Political Science Review 89(3) (1995):582–600. Demsetz, Harold. 1968. “Toward a Theory of Property Rights.” American Economic Review 62:347–359. Dennis, E. M., and E. Brondizio. 2020. “Problem Framing Influences Linkages Among Networks of Collective Action Situations for Water Provision,Wastewater, and Water Conservation in a Metropolitan Region.”  International Journal of the Commons, 14(1). Dunajevas, Eugenijus, and Daiva Skučiene. 2016. “Mandatory Pension System and Redistribution: The Comparative Analysis of Institutions in Baltic States.” Central European Journal of Public Policy 10(2):16–29. https://doi.org/10.1515/ CEJPP-2016-0025. Dunlop, Claire A., Jonathan Kamkhaji, Claudio M. Radaelli, Gaia Taffoni, and Claudius Wagemann. 2020. “Does Consultation Count for Corruption? The Causal Relations in the EU-28.” Journal of European Public Policy 27(11):1718– 1741. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2020.1784984. Faridah, Lia, Fedri Ruluwedrata Rinawan, Nisa Fauziah, Wulan Mayasari, Angga Dwiartama, and Kozo Watanabe. 2020. “Evaluation of Health Information System (HIS) in the Surveillance of Dengue in Indonesia: Lessons from Case in Bandung, West Java.” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17(5):1795. https://doi.org/10.3390/IJERPH17051795. Foster Tim, Emily C. Rand, Krishna K. Kotra, Erie Sami E, and Juliet Willetts. 2021. “Contending With Water Shortages in the Pacific: Performance of Private Rainwater Tanks Versus Communal Rainwater Tanks in Rural Vanuatu.” Water Resources Research 57(11):e2021WR030350 Frantz, Christopher K., and Saba Siddiki. 2021. “Institutional Grammar 2.0: A Specification for Encoding and Analyzing Institutional Design.” Public Administration 99(2):222–247. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12719. Galik, Christopher S., and Pamela Jagger. 2015. “Bundles, Duties, and Rights: A Revised Framework for Analysis of Natural Resource Property Rights Regimes.” Land Economics 91(1):76–90. https://doi.org/10.3368/le.91.1.76. Gibson, Clark, John Williams, and Elinor Ostrom. 2005. “Local Enforcement and Better Forests.” World Development 33(2):273–284. Gong, Yanqing, and Rong Tan. 2021. “Emergence of Local Collective Action for Land Adjustment in Land Consolidation in China: An Archetype Analysis.” Landscape and Urban Planning 214(October):104160. https://doi.org/10.1016/J. LANDURBPLAN.2021.104160. Gouill, Claude Le, and Franck Poupeau. 2020. “A Framework to Assess Mining within Social-Ecological Systems.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 44(June):67–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.COSUST.2020.06.001. Gritsenko, Daria. 2018. “Explaining Choices in Energy Infrastructure Development as a Network of Adjacent Action Situations: The Case of LNG in the Baltic Sea Region.” Energy Policy 112(January):74–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/J. ENPOL.2017.10.014. Grossman, Peter Z. 2019.“Utilizing Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development Framework toward an Understanding of Crisis-Driven Policy.” Policy Sciences 52(1):3–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11077-018-9331-7/TABLES/2.

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226  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Omori, Sawa, and Bartolome S. Tesorero. 2020. “Why Does Polycentric Governance Work for Some Project Sites and Not Others? Explaining the Sustainability of Tramline Projects in the Philippines.” Policy Studies Journal 48(3):833–860. https://doi.org/10.1111/PSJ.12299. Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons:The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. “A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action.” American Political Science Review 92(1):1–22. Ostrom, Elinor. 1999. “Coping with the Tragedy of the Commons.” Annual Review of Political Science 2:493–535. Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. Understanding Institutional Diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 2007a. “Institutional Rational Choice: An Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework.” In Paul Sabatier, ed., Theories of the Policy Process, pp. 21–64. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ostrom, Elinor. 2007b. “A Diagnostic Approach for Going beyond Panaceas.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(39):15181–15187. https://doi. org/10.1073/pnas.0702288104. Ostrom, Elinor. 2009. “A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of SocialEcological Systems.” Science 325(5939):419–422. https://doi.org/10.1126/ science.1172133. Ostrom, Elinor and Xavier Basurto. 2011. “Crafting Analytical Tools to Study Institutional Change.” Journal of Institutional Economics 7(3):317–343. Ostrom, Elinor, Roy Gardner, and James Walker. 1994. Rules, Games, and CommonPool Resources. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ostrom, Elinor, Cox Michael, and Edella Schlager. 2014. “An Assessment of the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and Introduction of the Social-Ecological Systems Framework.” In C. Weible and P. Sabatier eds., Theories of the Policy Process, 267–306. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Ostrom, Vincent. 1987. The Political Theory of a Compound Republic: Designing the American Experiment. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. Ostrom,Vincent. 1997. The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies: A Response to Tocqueville’s Challenge. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ostrom,Vincent. 2008. The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration. 3rd ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Partelow, Stefan. 2018. “A Review of the Social-Ecological Systems Framework: Applications, Methods, Modifications, and Challenges.” Ecology and Society 23(4):art36. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-10594-230436. Patel, Vidushi, Eloise M. Biggs, Natasha Pauli, and Bryan Boruff. 2020. “Using a Social-Ecological System Approach to Enhance Understanding of Structural Interconnectivities within the Beekeeping Industry for Sustainable Decision Making.” Ecology and Society, Published Online: Jun 24 25(2):1–29. https://doi. org/10.5751/ES-11639-250224. Pieper, Leah, Santiago Ruiz, Edella Schlager, and Charlie Schweik. 2022. “The Use of the Institutional Grammar 1.0 for Policy Studies: A Literature Review.” Working Paper. Poteete, Amy, Marco Janssen, and Elinor Ostrom. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons, and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  227 Potoski, Matthew, and Aseem Prakash. 2013. “Green Clubs: Collective Action and Voluntary Environmental Programs” Annual Review of Political Science 16:399–419. Pulhin Juan M., Arielle R. Fajardo, Canesio D. Predo, Asa Jose Sajise, Catherine C. De Luna, and Dan Leo Z. Diona. 2021. “Unbundling Property Rights among Stakeholders of Bataan Natural Park: Implications to Protected Area Governance in the Philippines” Journal of Sustainable Forestry. https://doi.org/10.1080/10549 811.2021.1894950. Quiñones-Ruiz, Xiomara F., Thilo Nigmann, Christoph Schreiber, and Jeffrey Neilson. 2020.“Collective Action Milieus and Governance Structures of Protected Geographical Indications for Coffee in Colombia, Thailand and Indonesia.” International Journal of the Commons 14(1):329–343. https://doi.org/10.5334/ IJC.1007/METRICS/. Roditis, Maria L., Donna Wang, Stanton Glantz, and Amanda Fallin. 2015. “Evaluating California Campus Tobacco Policies Using the American College Health Association Guidelines and the Institutional Grammar Tool.” Journal of American College Health 63(1):57–67. Rouillard J., Babbitt C., Pulido-Velazquez M., and Rinaudo J.-D. 2021.“Transitioning out of Open Access: A Closer Look at Institutions for Management of Groundwater Rights in France, California, and Spain.” Water Resources Research 57(4):e2020WR028951. Ruiz-Ballesteros, E., & Brondizio, E. 2013. “Building Negotiated Agreement: The Emergence of Community-Based Tourism in Floreana (Galápagos Islands).” Human Organization, 72(4), 323–335. Schlager, Edella. 2016. “Editorial: Introducing the “the Importance of Context, Scale, and Interdependencies in Understanding and Applying Ostrom’s Design Principles for Successful Governance of the Commons.”” International Journal of the Commons 10(2):405–416. https://doi.org/10.18352/IJC.767/METRICS/. Schlager, Edella, and Elinor Ostrom. 1992. “Property Rights Regimes and Natural Resources: A Conceptual Analysis” Land Economics 68(3):249–262. Schlager, Edella, and Michael Cox. 2018. “The IAD Framework and the SES Framework: An Introduction and Assessment of the Ostrom Workshop Frameworks.” In Christopher M. Weible and Paul A. Sabatier eds., Theories of the Policy Process, pp. 225–262. New York: Westview Press. Schlager, Edella, Laura Bakkensen, Tomas Olivier, and Jeffery Hanlon. 2021. “Institutional Design for a Complex Commons: Variations in the Design of Credible Commitments and the Provision of Public Goods.” Public Administration 99(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12715. Schlüter, Maja, L Jamila Haider, Steven J Lade, Emilie Lindkvist, Romina Martin, Kirill Orach, Nanda Wijermans, and Carl Folke. 2019. “Capturing Emergent Phenomena in Social-Ecological Systems.” Ecology and Society 24(3):11. Schröder, Nadine Jenny Shirin. 2018. “The Lens of Polycentricity: Identifying Polycentric Governance Systems Illustrated through Examples from the Field of Water Governance.” Environmental Policy and Governance 28(4):236–251. https:// doi.org/10.1002/EET.1812. Schulze, Nora, Andreas Thiel, and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. 2022. “Coordination across the Policy Cycle: Uncovering the Political Economy of River Basin Management in Spain.” Environmental Science & Policy 135:182–190. Sendzimir, Jan, Zsuzsana Flachner, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, and Christian Knieper. 2010. “Stalled Regime Transition in the Upper Tisza River Basin: The Dynamics of

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228  Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas Linked Action Situations.” Environmental Science & Policy 13(7):604–619. https:// doi.org/10.1016/J.ENVSCI.2010.09.005. Siddiki, Saba. 2014. “Assessing Policy Design and Interpretation: An InstitutionsBased Analysis in the Context of Aquaculture in Florida and Virginia, United States.” Review of Policy Research 31(4):281–303. Siddiki, Saba, Christopher M Weible, Xavier Basurto, and John Calanni. 2011. “Dissecting Policy Designs: An Application of the Institutional Grammar Tool.” Policy Studies Journal 39(1):79–103.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00397.x. Siddiki, Saba, Xavier Basurto, and Christopher Weible. 2012. “Using the Institutional Grammar Tool to Understand Regulatory Compliance: The Case of Colorado Aquaculture.” Regulation & Governance 6(2):167–188. Stone, Deborah. 2012. Policy Paradox: The Art of Political Decision Making. New York: WW Norton & Co. Steenmans Katrien. 2021. “Do Property Rights in Waste and by-Products Matter for Promoting Reuse, Recycling and Recovery? Lessons Learnt from Northwestern Europe.” Current Research in Environmental Sustainability 3:100030. Tang, Shui Yan. 1994. “Institutions and Performance in Irrigation Systems.” In Elinor Ostrom, Roy Gardner, and James Walker eds., Rules, Games and Common Pool Resources, pp. 225–245. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Taufa Salome.V., Mele Tupou, Siola’a Malimali. 2018.“An Analysis of Property Rights in the Special Management Area (SMA) in Tonga.” Marine Policy 95:267–272. Theesfeld Insa, Tom Dufhues, and Gertrude Buchenrieder. 2017. “The Effects of Rules on Local Political Decision-Making Processes: How Can Rules Facilitate Participation?” Policy Sciences 50(4):675–696. Thiel, Andreas, Muluken Elias Adamseged, and Carmen Baake. 2015. “Evaluating an Instrument for Institutional Crafting: How Ostrom’s Social–Ecological Systems Framework Is Applied.” Environmental Science & Policy 53:152–164. Thiel, Andreas, D. E. Garrick, and W. A. Blomquist (eds.). 2019. Governing Complexity: Analyzing and Applying Polycentricity. Cambridge University Press. Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio. 2018. “Polycentricity in the Water–Energy Nexus: A Comparison of Polycentric Governance Traits and Implications for Adaptive Capacity of Water User Associations in Spain.” Environmental Policy and Governance 28(4):252–268. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1813. Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio, Christoph Oberlack, Graham Epstein, Stefan Partelow, Matteo Roggero, Elke Kellner, Maurice Tschopp, and Michael Cox. 2020. “Using Case Study Data to Understand SES Interactions: A Model-Centered Meta-Analysis of SES Framework Applications.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Elsevier B.V. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2020.05.002. Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio, Philipp Grundmann, Graham Epstein, Tom Evans, and Christian Kimmich. 2015. “The Water-Energy-Food Security Nexus through the Lenses of the Value Chain and the Institutional Analysis and Development Frameworks.” Water Alternatives 8(1): 735–755. Vitale, Corrine, Sander Meijerink, and Francesco D. Moccia. 2021. “Urban Flood Resilience, a Multi-Level Institutional Analysis of Planning Practices in the Metropolitan City of Naples.” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Ahead-Of-Print, 66(4), 1–23. Wang, Lihua. 2020. “Newbie or Experienced: An Empirical Study on Faculty Recruitment Preferences at Top National HEIs in China.” Studies in Higher Education 47(4):783–798. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1804849.

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IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis  229 Weible, Christopher,Tanya Heikkila, and David P. Carter. 2017. “An Institutional and Opinion Analysis of Colorado’s Hydraulic Fracturing Disclosure Rule.” Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning 19(2):115–134. Weimer, David, and Aiden Vining. 2016. Policy Analysis: Concepts and Practice. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Williamson, Oliver. 1985. The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. New York: Free Press. Wilkes-Allemann, J., M. Pütz, and C. Hirschi. 2015. “Governance of Forest Recreation in Urban Areas: Analysing the Role of Stakeholders and Institutions Using the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework.”  Environmental Policy and Governance, 25(2), 139–156. Witkowski, Kaila, Jungwon Yeo, Sara Belligoni, N. Emel Ganapati,Tanya Corbin, and Fernando Rivera. 2021. “Florida as a COVID-19 Epicenter: Exploring the Role of Institutions in the State’s Response.” International Journal of Public Administration. https://doi.org/10.1080/01900692.2021.2001013.

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation Osmany Porto de Oliveira, Giulia C. Romano, Craig Volden, and Andrew Karch

Introduction: The Diffusion of Policy Innovations The previous chapters of this volume offered varied and valuable theories of how to view the public policy process. However, they all tended to have one element in common. Specifically, they focused on policymaking within a single locality, state, or nation. In this chapter, we present a broader perspective, noting that policies spread – or diffuse – across governments. Understanding the nature of diffusion processes helps students and scholars see where policy ideas come from and why policymakers adopt them. At a normative level, a focus on policy diffusion also invites a systemic assessment of whether the policy process as a whole is working to bring about good policy choices or whether it fails to do so. At the simplest level, a focus on policy diffusion moves us from thinking about policy choices within a single government to considering interactions across pairs of governments, to understanding complex networks of relationships among countless governments and policy actors. As Figure 7.1 shows, we often think about policy choices arising from internal determinants within a single government. Which policies are chosen may be a function of the characteristics of the people, their communities, or the government. Factors like the prospects of political promotion for local government leaders and the urgency of certain issues may explain the adoption of climate policies in China; political leanings of citizens and government officials may explain the adoption of anti-abortion policies in certain U.S. states; and political parties responding to social pressures may explain policies to fight against hunger in Brazil. Yet, these policies do not arise out of thin air. Governments and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work hard to transfer policies from one government to another. The Dutch government, for example, worked through a consortium of public and private organizations to promote the export of their water management to different regions, such as Jakarta in Indonesia (Minkman et al., 2019: 1569). City governments collaborate with a variety of organizations, both public and private, to spread their best practices in different sectors like urban transportation, city planning, and water management (Montero, 2017; Pow, 2014). However, even such government-to-government exchanges are but a portion of policy diffusion DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-9

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  231 Internal Determinants Agents

Policy Transfer

Policy Diffusion

Policy Circulation

Figure 7.1 Different Conceptions of How Policy Innovations Spread Source: Created by the authors.

processes, through which policies can spread to (and from) many different governments at once. More broadly still, policies circulate and move within vast networks of officials, consultants, experts, organizations, and policy entrepreneurs, who influence and are influenced by one another. For example, agents such as elected officials, bureaucrats, physician interest groups, and NGOs contributed to the spread of evidence-based medicine to Britain, France, and Germany well after its development in the United States (Hassenteufel et al., 2017). Global institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund promoted the privatization of public services; and the spread of privatization was profoundly shaped by individuals beyond policymakers who were responsible for “enacting globalization on the ground” (Larner & Laurie, 2010). Other arrangements involving regional integration illustrate this type of process. For example, the URB-AL Program was created by the European Union and was designed to promote the exchange of knowledge and experience between European and Latin American cities. It operated in several areas of urban management (e.g., poverty alleviation,

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232  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. democracy, sustainable economic growth), between cities in Europe and Latin America, working through networks composed of governmental and non-governmental agents. In this chapter, we offer an overview to orient readers toward the rapidly expanding literature on policy diffusion – the traditions from which it has arisen, the principles around which it is organized, current frontiers of knowledge, and areas for future contributions. Specifically, in “Research Traditions Examining How Public Policies Travel”, we summarize the traditions of policy diffusion, policy transfer, policy circulation, and policy mobilities. We note the origins and main questions addressed by each approach, how each characterizes the movement of policies across governments, and the methodological tools each approach typically uses to advance knowledge.1 In “Organizing Principles behind Policy Diffusion Processes”, we discuss a series of organizing principles around which policy diffusion scholars conduct their research. The “what diffuses” question notes that diffusion takes place across all stages of the public policy process, with an emphasis on the flow of ideas, programs, methodologies, and technologies. The “where” question leads to a discussion of the contexts of policy diffusion, as well as of the actual impacts of policies and ideas that diffuse via several channels and mechanisms. The “who influences diffusion” question addresses the role of governments, NGOs, professional associations, interest groups, advocacy coalitions, policy entrepreneurs, and many others in spreading policies. The “how” question raises the mechanisms behind policy diffusion, while also considering political power and resistance. The “when” question addresses the sequence, timing, tempo, and life cycle of the diffusion process, all of which affect whether and how policies and other innovations spread. Finally, our “Conclusion” briefly highlights some potential avenues for future research and describes some of the opportunities that exist to build bridges across divides within the policy diffusion community. Despite our similarities, we often build silos of terminologies and methodologies within isolated communities that undermine learning from one another. If governments can find ways to learn from one another to help effective policies diffuse, scholars can likewise find ways to facilitate the spread of useful knowledge.

Research Traditions Examining How Public Policies Travel The first studies on policy diffusion can be traced back at least to the 1960s. The scholarship evolved over the years producing important theoretical, conceptual, and methodological insights for the understanding of how public policies travel across borders. Authors combined different disciplinary tools to analyze these phenomena, bringing public policy studies closer to political science, economics, geography, sociology, and international relations. Nevertheless, certain ontological and epistemological cleavages

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  233 arose, creating four main distinct streams of research that we label Policy Diffusion, Policy Transfer, Policy Circulation, and Policy Mobilities. In this section we present the development and principal characteristics of each of these research traditions, discussing both early stages of the research and recent trends, as well as their core concepts and methods. We argue that all four traditions offer valuable heuristic contributions and that instead of affiliating with a specific stream, scholars might amplify the explanatory power of their research by combining different elements of each of them. Policy Diffusion The study of policy diffusion has many roots, ranging from the writings of U.S. Supreme Court justices, to economic theory, to sociological studies.2 In political science, interest grew following Jack Walker’s (1969) seminal study of the spread of eighty-eight policies across the American states, assessing what could be learned from their diffusion about the innovativeness of various governments.3 Much of this early work identified regional patterns of policy adoptions as an alternative to studies that focused solely on the internal determinants of policy choices within individual governments. Berry and Berry (1990) identified event history analysis as a way to unite internal determinants studies and diffusion studies. Essentially, this quantitative approach allowed researchers to study when policies were adopted by governments in a cross-sectional time-series analysis. In its simplest form, for each government, the dependent variable takes a value of zero in each year prior to adoption and a value of one in the year of adoption, with further observations removed from the analysis in later years for governments no longer at risk of adopting the policy (because they already have). Independent variables could then characterize the political, demographic, and other internal characteristics of each state (or locality or country) at each period of time. And variables capturing matrices of other governments’ policy decisions could be included at the same time to capture the diffusion effects as part of a unified model (Berry and Berry, 2018). Most simply, a Neighbors variable could identify the number (or fraction) of geographically neighboring governments that had already adopted the policy. If having neighbors with a policy makes a government more likely to adopt itself, the Neighbors variable would attain a positive coefficient and the researcher would declare evidence of policy diffusion. This innovative approach was so popular as to lead to a dramatic surge in diffusion studies focused on policymaking across the American states, across subnational governments in other countries, and across countries in various regions around the world.4 As scholarly work progressed, four main implicit assumptions and biases of this approach came to light, leading to new discoveries and insights. First, it is entirely possible that governments will adopt similar policies independently of one another and nevertheless appear related, simply because neighboring (or otherwise similar) states are confronting similar problems at

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234  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. about the same time (Volden, Ting, and Carpenter, 2008). This realization led scholars away from labeling any regional adoption of policies at the same time as policy diffusion. Instead, scholars gravitated toward a new definition of policy diffusion, one which remains popular today. Specifically, policy diffusion occurs when one government’s decision to adopt a policy innovation is influenced by the choices of other governments (e.g., Simmons, Dobbin, and Garrett, 2006). Second, with this definition in hand, scholars of policy diffusion were better able to account for the spread of policies outside of geographic proximity. When Dallas was devising a package of policies to become an attractive home for Amazon’s new headquarters, for example, it was competing with Atlanta, Boston, and Los Angeles, not just Houston and Austin. State governments learn from experiments across the country and countries learn from those around the world. Indeed, recent work on diffusion among the American states suggests that other considerations, such as ideological similarity, better characterize policy diffusion today than does geographic proximity (Mallinson, 2021). Third, scholars used event history analysis to identify diffusion patterns in many distinct policy areas, ranging from abortion to welfare, from lotteries to lien laws.Yet this policy-by-policy approach limited opportunities to learn about differences across policies and about broader patterns, when compared to studying dozens of policies at once, as Walker had. Recently, scholars of policy diffusion have pooled multiple policies together, even exploring hundreds of policies spreading together over extended time periods (e.g., Boehmke et al., 2020). Fourth, the event history analysis approach reflects the dominant observational large-N quantitative approach used to study policy diffusion. Instances where policy innovations are tried and abandoned without spreading are set aside as providing insufficient data for such analyses, leading to biases in studying diffusion successes rather than failures (Karch et al., 2016). Additionally, qualitative approaches remain valuable but underutilized (Starke, 2013). In contrast, the recent wave of interest in experimental designs in political science has begun to take hold in diffusion studies (e.g., Butler et al., 2017). Policy Transfer Policy transfer research has its roots in a different set of works that draws together such issues as international lesson-drawing, convergence, learning, and emulation. This stream emerged mainly within the policy studies field5 at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of globalization. Early empirical work in this tradition focused on processes of regional integration (Radaelli, 2000), the rising proactive engagement of non-state agents in public policymaking (Dunlop, 2009; Laidi, 2005; Stone, 2001), and the role of international organizations in the spread of ideas and norms (Dolowitz, Hadjiisky, & Normand, 2020; Pal, 2012; Stone & Wright, 2006). Richard

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  235 Rose’s pioneering work about lesson-drawing emphasized how policymakers facing a problem would scan for solutions by looking to their peers. As Rose puts it, the concept of “lesson-drawing is about whether programmes can transfer from one place to another” (1991: 5). Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) popularized the notion of policy transfer a decade later. In general, policy transfer studies criticized policy diffusion research for being too focused on the patterns and mechanisms of policy adoption; they insisted on the need to dive more deeply into the transfer process. According to Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) policy transfer “studies are concerned with the process by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political system” (5).These authors developed a research framework that presented an inventory of the motivations, agents, objects, origins, degrees, constraints, and outcomes of policy transfers, influencing a vast group of researchers across the world. Dolowitz and Marsh contributed key terms and definitions to the study of how policies move (Benson & Jordan, 2011).The first generation of policy transfer studies focused especially on policies traveling across Global North countries, such as the United States and Britain (Dolowitz et al., 2000), or in European countries (Bulmer et al., 2007). Hadjiisky, Pal, and Walker (2017) later broadened this focus in an edited volume that featured case studies of policy transfers from the Global South; for example, it included Christopher Walker’s work on transport policies in South Africa and Carolina Milhorance’s research on rural development in Brazil and Mozambique.The volume also highlighted the need to combine micro- and macro-dynamics in policy transfer analysis and to look more closely at constraints on policy transfers, such as organizational culture, counter hegemonic models, and resistance, to coercive designs. Later research in this tradition drew attention to the arenas of policy transfers (Porto de Oliveira & Pal, 2018), the role of private advisory groups (Stone et al., 2021), and the dimension of power and development (Stone, Porto de Oliveira, Pal, et al., 2019). The inclusion of Southern cases not only provided information from overlooked empirical settings, but it also allowed policy transfer research to innovate conceptually, methodologically, and theoretically.6 Policy transfer studies generally share common features. First, they are concerned with the process of policies moving from one government to another, from international organizations or other agents to one country (or, occasionally, to a few or many countries). The second is related to the methods, insofar as policy transfer scholars are more inclined to use qualitative techniques, often conducting case studies or small “N” comparisons. More recently network analyses were employed to understand the role of the OECD in policy diffusion (Pal & Spence, 2020). Critics of the policy transfer approach, including scholars affiliated with the policy mobilities stream of research (discussed later in this section), often view it as too rational, technical, and formal.

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236  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. Policy Circulation The notion of policy circulation is part of the French approach to policy studies or the so-called “political sociology of the policy process” (sociologie politique de l’action publique) (Hassenteufel, 2014). It combines different sources of inspiration – from political science to anthropology, passing through sociology – and brings a “French touch” to the analysis of policymaking through such classic authors as Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu (Boussaguet et al., 2015). French scholars have been researching policy transfer phenomena at least since the 1990s. The earliest studies in political science focused on comparative politics and theories of political development. They tended to examine the country’s colonial legacy, particularly in Francophone Africa, as well as its integration in the European Union. Bertrand Badie (2000), for example, in his classic book The Imported State: The Westernization of the Political Order analyzed how Western institutions were “imported” by leading elites in sub-Saharan Africa who were concerned with legitimization during their processes of national independence (Hadjiisky, Hassenteufel & Porto de Oliveira, 2021). Similarly, Jean-François Bayart (1996) assessed how the local context shaped the effects of institutional graft, describing the autochthone appropriation processes that various Western institutions underwent in the African region (Hadjiisky, Hassenteufel & Porto de Oliveira, 2021). Almost a decade later, scholars began to use the Dolowitz and Marsh policy transfer framework to understand distinct types of public policymaking (Dumoulin & Saurugger, 2010). In the European Union, they observed the multi-level games that took place to implement regional policies and produce harmonization (Saurugger & Surel, 2006). Although the notion of policy transfer resonated within the French public policy academic community, it also drew considerable criticism. Researchers questioned its assumptions of linearity and the technical neutrality of policy transfer studies, claiming that such processes were instead embedded in complex transnational relations, involving different agents, with distinct levels of power, playing a variety of roles, and holding specific interests (Hadjiisky, Hassenteufel & Porto de Oliveira, 2021). In addition, critics claimed that the transnational flow of policy ideas tended to involve circulation among individuals, organizations, and governments – with the possibility of several round-way trips – rather than direct transmission from one government to another. The notion of policy circulation – which was already employed by disciplines like history (Saunier, 2004) and sociology (Bourdieu, 2002) – seemed to capture this idea better (Vauchez, 2013).7 French studies of public policy circulation brought three main elements to the literature: the notion of policy instruments, the study of policy translation, and the sociology of elites. The concept of policy instruments plays an important role in French policy studies. Halpern and Le Galès (2011) take insights from Michel Foucault and Weber to develop a notion of instruments that is distinct from classic public policy studies (Hood & Margetts, 2007; Howlett, 1991). For the authors, instruments are both a technical and social device that organizes

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  237 relations between governments and citizens (Halpern & Le Galès, 2011: 44). Governments materialize their actions through instruments. This notion implies that instruments have both a concrete and an abstract dimension, which can change as they circulate transnationally depending on the agents who carry them (Halpern, Lascoumes & Le Galès, 2014). It also leads us to the transnational sociology of agents, which draws much inspiration from the bourdieusian sociology of elites. The transnational sociology of elites tries to understand the assets, resources, and skills of those promoting policies, as well as the ideas they defend, the narratives they use to persuade, and the symbols they carry along the circulation process. Not only do policies circulate; individuals do as well. For example, Dezalay and Garth (2002) discuss how Latin American elites circulated between U.S. universities and their countries’ high-level institutions, bringing paradigms, such as those defended by professors at the University of Chicago, to their country of origin. The sociology of agents helps us understand what type of instruments are circulating and how they promote policy change.The notion of translation is a key component of this perspective (Hassenteufel & Zeigermann, 2021).Translation, which also appears in pioneering works of science innovation, refers to the metamorphosis that policies undergo while they travel.8 The works of Michel Callon, for example, showcase the different operations that translators implement in order to transfer instruments, which can involve completely reframing a policy instrument from its original conception (Hadjiisky, Hassenteufel & Porto de Oliveira, 2021). Finally, French policy circulation studies focus on bringing a micro-sociological dimension to the analysis. They frequently use a combination of ethnography, participant observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis to examine transnational processes of policy circulation. Policy Mobilities The final research tradition dedicated to the study of how policies travel is that of “policy mobilities”.This approach originated in the early 2010s in the field of human geography and urban studies (e.g., McCann, 2011; McCann & Ward, 2011, 2012; Peck & Theodore, 2010). Its proponents focus on “how policies are constructed and mobilized, mutating as they move from one place to another, being assembled, disassembled, and reassembled along the way” (McCann & Ward, 2012: 43). In other words, they aim to understand how traveling policies change along their journey, as well as who participates in their creation and transformation, the practices these agents adopt, and the representations they hold about specific policies (Temenos & McCann, 2013). Crucially, this brings attention to policy diffusion phenomena among cities and/or among agencies of various kinds that have urban policies as their focal point. While cities have not been completely ignored by the traditions mentioned above (e.g., Shipan & Volden, 2008; Wolman & Page, 2002), the policy mobilities approach makes them central protagonists, combining the typical foci of urban studies (e.g., gentrification, policing, planning, redevelopment) with policy transfer studies (Baker & Temenos, 2015).

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238  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. A key concept of policy mobilities scholarship is “assemblage”. Borrowed from French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, assemblage can be understood as a social practice through which things are rearranged, re-organized, and cobbled together. Policy mobilities scholars use this term to understand how policy knowledge moves, what happens when it travels “in and around the urban world”, and how it is “translated and contested” (Pow, 2014: 289). Assemblage characterizes the work of policy transfer agents as well as the composite nature of policies (McCann & Ward, 2012).These shall be seen as “gatherings, or relational assemblages of elements and resources (…) from close by and far away”, packed together in specific ways to respond to “particular interests and purposes” (McCann & Ward, 2013: 8). Therefore, policies do not “circulate unchanged” (ibid.). Rather, they are re-elaborated and re-invented, mutating during the mobility process.9 Policy mobilities scholars have contributed to policy diffusion research by integrating geographical, sociological, and anthropological lenses into the analysis. Specifically, they pay attention to “place, space and scale” as well as to “social relations, networks and ‘small p’ politics, both within and beyond institutions of governance” (McCann & Ward, 2013: 3). In this respect, they illustrate the importance of “globalizing micro-spaces” (e.g., meeting rooms, hallways, cafes, bars, and restaurants at conferences). These are the sites where “globally significant best practice is deployed and discussed, where lessons are learned”, and where various ties are created, “connecting what would otherwise be socially and spatially isolated policy communities” (McCann, 2011: 118–119). This relates to the notion of “policy tourism”, through which best practices are also communicated and learned (Montero, 2017). Policy mobilities scholars delivered four critiques of policy transfer studies. One concerns the scale of analysis. They pointed out that policies may travel between, among, and toward different scales, and that transfer does not only occur at the national level (McCann & Ward, 2013: 6). For example, the “drug consumption rooms” model diffused among different cities in different countries (McCann & Temenos, 2015). The second critique concerns the agents of policy transfer. For policy mobilities scholars, the policy transfer literature focused too much on their categorization and not enough on their agency; it did not assess “the process of policy mobilization and the wider contexts that shape and mediate the agency of various policy actors” (McCann & Ward, 2013: 6). Pow (2014), for instance, illustrated how the making and marketing of the “Singapore model” in the fields of housing, environmental services, and water technology resulted from the contributions and activities of a wide variety of local and international agents, both private and public, as well as of actants like exhibition spaces, guidebooks, policy reports, and magazines. A third critique concerns the incompleteness of the concept of “transfers” per se. “Transfer” understands the processes by which policies move as “very flat and straightforward”, as if policies travel in a “fully formed, off the shelf ” form (McCann & Ward, 2013: 7). This ignores that policies mutate as they

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  239 travel. Policy mobilities scholars emphasize these “assemblages, mobilities and mutations”, using ethnographic research methods to analyze the processes that produce policy transformations. Specifically, they suggest “following policies and studying through” cases of policy mobility (McCann & Ward, 2012). Scholars should follow and “move with the ‘transfer agents’ and other policy actors who produce, circulate, mediate, modify, and consume policies through their daily work practices” (ibid.: 46). They should also trace “the places a policy has traveled through and interrogating how the policy has mutated or been transformed along the way” (ibid.). Scholars should “follow places”, understanding how they “are reduced to a particularly onedimensional ‘model’ that is then moved by policy actors”, like the “Barcelona regeneration model” spread in Latin American countries (Silvestre & Jajamovich, 2021). The fourth and final critique concerns the interpretation of transfer agents as optimizing, rational actors. Existing policies do not necessarily provide clear, non-controversial lessons. Moreover, policy mobilities scholars emphasize that policymakers do not have “clear priorities about what they are looking for” and they do not choose from a predefined “pool of policies” (McCann & Ward, 2013: 8). Rather, transfer agents operate under specific conditions, and they always make choices conditioned by the structures in which they operate. In this section we discussed four different research traditions for the analysis of policies moving across borders. Table 7.1 offers a succinct summary of these traditions. Of course, researchers can combine different elements of these traditions to find the most appropriate methodological and analytical strategy to answer their research questions. Other disciplines – including economics, sociology, anthropology, and history – offer additional lenses through which scholars can view the diffusion process.

Organizing Principles behind Policy Diffusion Processes Despite variance across these research traditions, policy diffusion scholars are fundamentally asking a broadly similar set of questions and using their different approaches to gain new insights. In this section, we illustrate the organizing principles that guide such research. In answering “what diffuses?” we note that the spread of policies is but part of these studies, which also extend to the transfer of governmental institutions and the circulation of ideas, ideologies, and meanings. Regarding “where” diffusion takes place, recent diffusion studies span every level of government – from local to global – and every region of the world. Innovations take multiple forms in the jurisdictions in which they are enacted, raising several conceptual questions for diffusion scholars. With respect to “who” promotes policy diffusion, we show that the classic focus on policymakers as the main actors has given way to a nuanced understanding of the roles of policy entrepreneurs, professional associations, and advocacy coalitions, among others. The “how” of policy diffusion centers around key mechanisms – from learning and competition to socialization and coercion. We conclude this section with a discussion

Diffusion

Political science

1. What are the patterns of policy adoption? 2. When and where are policies adopted? 3. What combination of internal determinants and external forces influence policy diffusion? 4. What are the mechanisms through which policies spread?

Research Traditions

Origin

Main questions

Table 7.1 Research Traditions Summary Circulation

French political sociology of the policy process (Sociologie de l’Action Publique) 1. Why do actors engage 1. How do policies in policy transfer? circulate? 2. Who are the key actors 2. What are the power involved in the policy disputes among agents? transfer process? 3. Which instruments are 3. What is transferred? traveling? From where are lessons 4. How are instruments drawn? translated? 4. What are the different degrees of transfer? 5. What restricts or facilitates the policy transfer process? 6. How is the process of policy transfer related to policy “success” or policy “failure”?

Public policy studies

Transfer

1. How are policies constructed and mobilized? 2. How do policies mutate as they move from one place to another? 3. Who are the agents making policies move and how do they assemble policies? 4. For which purposes and particular interests are policies assembled, disassembled, and reassembled along the way?

Human geography, urban studies

Mobilities

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Often, but not exclusively to many governments.

quantitative, event history analysis, experimental methods.

Movement of policies

Primary Methods

Often, but not exclusively Policies move through from one government complex transnational to another or from one processes involving government to a few different agents. Not governments. only policies move, but also agents circulate, carrying policies from one place to another. Qualitative, case studies, Qualitative, ethnography, small-N comparisons. participant observation, in-depth interviews.

Qualitative, ethnographic methods, “follow the policy”.

Policies move through complex processes involving different agents. Cities are a specific focus of analysis.

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242  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. of time, that is, “when” policies spread; we highlight the sequence, timing, rhythm, and life cycle of policies and their diffusion. What? Many different types of transfer objects, such as innovative policies and government institutions, diffuse from one jurisdiction to another. At the national level, for example, external developments can facilitate sectoral reforms that remake broad policy areas such as healthcare and pensions. Weyland (2006) identified this dynamic in a comparative study of social reforms in Latin American countries, finding that decision-makers used developments in other jurisdictions as informational shortcuts. Diffusion scholars have also traced the interjurisdictional trajectories of specific policy instruments, such as microfinance (Oikawa Cordeiro, 2019), Conditional Cash Transfers (Morais de Sá e Silva, 2017), and local economic development policies (Delpeuch & Vassileva, 2010). The diffusion of policy instruments occurs at both the national and subnational level. Scholars have also highlighted the importance of policymaking at the city level (Saraiva, Jajamovich & Silvestre, 2021), examining the spread of such innovations as drug strategies in Vancouver (McCann, 2008), bus rapid transit in Bogotá (Ardila, 2020), and urban renewal policies in China (Romano, 2020). Similarly, the creation and reform of governmental institutions can be influenced by external developments. Just as policy innovations can be broad sectoral reforms or specific policy instruments, bureaucratic initiatives can take the form of a general transition from one approach to another or the creation of a new administrative agency (Jordana & Levi-Faur, 2005; Jordana, Levi-Faur & Marín, 2009). Moreover, public officials constantly look to one another for guidance on how to best implement new policies to fight pandemics, improve educational outcomes, or address homelessness. The spread of so-called “best practices” is common, sometimes driven by transfer agents who energetically promote them and sometimes spurred by international organizations who seek to legitimize them. Policies that represent “best practices” often travel to new locations that differ significantly from the original context of their development (Montero & Baiocchi, 2021). The case of Participatory Budgeting (PB), an instrument of participatory democracy that was first implemented in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and that includes citizens in the process of public spending, is one such best practice that has circulated around the globe (Porto de Oliveira, 2017). Now found in over 10,000 cities (Dias, Enríquez & Júlio, 2019), PB has been implemented in diverse contexts, including non-democratic countries such as Russia and China. It has also acquired a wide variety of meanings and distinctive policy designs. While much of the scholarly literature focuses on concrete policy instruments and institutions, transfer objects also carry an abstract dimension. It is critical to acknowledge that ideas, beliefs, principles, ideologies, political projects, knowledge, and meanings also travel from one jurisdiction

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  243 to another. Turning to the abstract dimension allows scholars to examine how transfer agents condense and combine information from various sources; their efforts can produce sanitized and standardized messages and stories that facilitate the diffusion of various innovations (Bulkeley, 2006; Vettoretto, 2009). Broad ideas about public policy and administration, such as the so-called New Public Management, can spread globally at the behest of powerful international actors like the OECD (Pal, 2012). Similarly, internationally sanctioned ideas can provide local activists with arguments they can use to promote desired reforms; conservative reformers in Argentina exploited this dynamic (Lopreite, 2012). These and other examples illustrate the necessity of thinking about transfer objects in broad terms. The relative significance of concrete and abstract transfer objects may vary across the different stages of the policy process that have been discussed in the previous chapters of this volume. The diffusion of novel policy ideas might occur during the agenda-setting stage, for example, whereas the diffusion of concrete policy designs might prove more influential during the policy formulation and adoption stages. Although policy diffusion studies tend to focus on the adoption of policy and other innovations, often neglecting other important interjurisdictional dynamics, we know that ideas spread even before policies are formulated to address policy problems. In the American states, for example, similar bills are often introduced all over the country even if they are adopted in only a fraction of the states (Karch, 2007). Recognizing the broad range and distinct attributes of potential transfer objects can produce additional insights about the diffusion process. The nature of the policy or other challenge being addressed and the specific content of the innovation in question can have an independent effect. For example, the framing of innovations may influence which constituencies, stakeholders, and organizations become involved in political debates. Even minor variations in policy provisions can shape whether interest groups decide to mobilize (Pierce & Miller, 1999). The type of policy under review can have an analogous effect. The consideration of a technical or administrative innovation can spur the involvement of professional associations (McNeal et al., 2003), while interest groups may be more influential during debates over publicly salient policies. Thus, policy content both affects the mobilization of specific transfer agents and is affected by them. Even focusing solely on the adoption decision, diffusion depends greatly on which policy challenge is being addressed in what way. Policies addressing highly salient problems are more likely to spread, whereas complex policy proposals spread more slowly (Nicholson-Crotty, 2009). Whether policies and their effects are easily observed and whether new ideas are compatible with prior laws and practices also help determine whether and how policies spread. For example, Makse and Volden (2011) find that highly observable criminal justice policies spread twice as quickly as those with less transparent effects. It is also true that some policies are more flexible than others. Malleable policies can be adapted to different jurisdictions in ways that foster their widespread adoption, with the diffusion of “three strikes” laws

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244  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. providing a notable example in the domain of criminal justice policy (Jones & Newburn, 2002). Where? Another fundamental question is concerned with “where” policies diffuse, especially considering the distinct contexts in which they are formulated, transmitted, and received. Early diffusion studies focused on episodes within the United States, or between Global North countries such as France and Germany, or inside the European Union; they also stressed how international organizations influence the adoption of policies in the Global South. Recently, however, several studies ventured into previously unexplored territory, producing new insights and concepts. In fact, today numerous studies examine regions such as Asia (Common, 2001; de Jong, 2013; Romano, 2017, 2020; Zhang & Marsh, 2016), Africa (Soremi, 2019; Steinberg, 2011; Wood, 2015), and Latin America (Dussauge-Laguna, 2013; Osorio Gonnet, 2019, Porto de Oliveira, 2019), as well as post-communist countries (Delpeuch & Vassileva, 2010; Plugaru, 2014). Moreover, policy mobilities scholarship and other approaches like “vernacularization” (Levitt & Merry, 2009) have multiplied the number of studies going beyond the nation state as a scale of analysis (Silvestre & Jajamovich, 2021;Temenos & McCann, 2012;Wood, 2015).These contributions illuminate different aspects of the reception process and the weight of contextual factors such as local politics, local capacities, administrative and vernacular cultures, formal and informal institutions, and organizational characteristics. In this section we discuss the arenas where policy diffuses, the impacts of policy capacity on transfers, the role of culture, and the adjustments that instruments undergo while being implemented. As the earlier sections already illustrated, policies originate in many local, national, international, and transnational settings or arenas. They are also transmitted in various sites, including global conferences like the World Cities Summit or the Mayors Forum and regional and sectoral events such as the Africities Summit or the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (Porto de Oliveira, 2017). Other examples include the localized policy tours featured in the urban studies literature (Gonzalez, 2011) and informal spaces (McCann, 2011). Many studies focus on reception contexts, illustrating what happens once an idea or a policy is transmitted elsewhere – whether it inspires a change of policies, practices, or institutions; whether it is adopted partially or totally; how it is adapted and what it looks like after the adaptation; whether and how it takes root; and how various contextual factors like politics, existing knowledge, administrative and professional capacities, organizational structures, or institutional arrangements affect the reception process (e.g., Common, 2001; Jacoby, 2000; Jacoby, Lataianu & Lataianu, 2009; Pojani & Stead, 2015; Romano, 2017, 2020; Stead, 2012). The policy diffusion literature identifies several factors present in certain locations that restrict or facilitate the implementation of a policy from elsewhere. They include program complexity, past policy choices, institutional

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  245 and structural constraints, ideological or “cultural proximity” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000: 9), and the presence of “political, bureaucratic and economic resources” needed to implement a policy (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996: 353–354). Administrative capacity is especially important because desirable innovations may not diffuse “if implementation is beyond a jurisdiction’s technological abilities” (Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996: 354). Policies may be viewed as impractical if their successful implementation requires bureaucratic expertise that does not exist.The presence or absence of administrative capacity also affects how diffusion occurs, moderating the impact of certain mechanisms in specific jurisdictions (Osorio Gonnet, 2019) and heightening the influence of specific transfer agents. Policies and ideas can take diverse forms in the places where they are adopted (Grattet, Jenness, & Curry, 1998; Jones & Newburn, 2002; Mossberger, 2000). Rather than viewing policy transfer as a dichotomous, all-or-nothing process where jurisdictions either adopt policies or fail to do so, it is more productive to observe the different transformations (assemblages and translations) that policies undergo through the diffusion process. For example, differences in policy content might be the byproduct of a systematic process through which later adopters learn from earlier adopters’ experiences. This sort of lesson-drawing is not always at work, however. Lawmakers often customize innovations for political, programmatic, and other reasons, and these initial differences might be extended by subsequent modifications, repeals, amendments, and reinstatements (Eyestone, 1977; Karch & Cravens, 2014). Also relevant to where policies spread is the potential influence of culture, a topic receiving recent attention in studies in policy diffusion (Bertram, 2022; Romano, 2021). Cultural differences can produce contradictory interpretations of the same concept or policy, meaning that diffusion will not inevitably lead to a convergence of similar policy choices. Policies might be adapted or customized to fit distinctive cultural contexts. The potential impact of culture, capacity, and intermediaries highlights the necessity of thoroughly examining both interjurisdictional imperatives and the domestic context in studies of transnational diffusion. Process-tracing studies of “pathways of policy tinkering and adjustment” can identify which intermediaries are responsible for programmatic variation (Stone, Porto de Oliveira & Pal, 2020: 5). In China, for example, information from international contacts was used very selectively as global regulatory standards against money laundering “were weakened or even neutralized through discretionary enforcement” (Heilmann & Schulte-Kulkmann, 2011: 639). Economic interests facilitated the standards’ adoption, while domestic political imperatives influenced their implementation. This specific example also highlights the necessity of looking beyond the adoption decision. Differences in program administration, which may themselves be a byproduct of cultural or capacity-driven differences, may lead to significant variation. In this sense, there is often a translation or customization process as policies traverse jurisdictional

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246  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. boundaries. For instance, some studies illustrated how, with the contribution and understandings of various agents involved in the transfer and adaptation process, the contents of policy models can change over time as the agents involved in transfer and adaptation contribute ideas and understandings; the end result can be particular interpretations that diverge widely from the original policy, including in its scope (Larner & Laurie, 2010; Romano, 2020). Policy diffusion therefore can be understood as a potentially never-ending process that has “multiple dimensions, often succeeding in some respects but not in others, according to local circumstance and actors, and upon perception and interpretation” (Stone, 2017: 56). Who? In their seminal essay, Dolowitz and Marsh (1996) asked, “Who transfers policy?” Over time, scholars working in different research traditions have offered a diverse array of answers to this straightforward question. Overall, the study of policy diffusion “has evolved from its rather narrow, state-centered roots to cover many more actors and venues” (Benson & Jordan, 2011: 366). Scholars apply various labels to these pivotal actors, calling them “vectors” of diffusion or “transfer agents”.10 These actors share the capacity to operate in multiple jurisdictions, enabling them to facilitate the interdependencies that are the core of diffusion processes. One strand of diffusion research highlights influential individuals. Transnational transfer agents include “policy ambassadors”, individuals who are “constantly engaged in the promotion of policies at the local, national, and transnational levels” (Porto de Oliveira, 2020: 55). Other types of individual agents are called policy entrepreneurs, activists, policy flexians, or brokers and can be bureaucrats, elected officials, consultants, members of the business community, and activists (Keck & Sikkink, 1998; Knight & Lyall, 2013; Mintrom, 2000; Stubbs & Wedel, 2015). For example, city managers and bureaucrats who transfer to new jurisdictions may bring innovative public policies with them or facilitate diffusion by keeping up with professional trends or by paying attention to developments in their former locales (Teodoro, 2009;Yi, Berry & Chen, 2018;Yi & Chen, 2019). Similarly, activists might transfer programmatic information across jurisdictional lines in pursuit of their policy and political goals. Mayors may also promote specific models, as in the case of the mayor of Bogotá, who was very active in promoting the city’s transport policy in other cities in Latin America (Montero, 2017). Organizations also serve as transfer agents. Professional associations and interest groups facilitate diffusion by providing information and expertise (Yu, Jennings & Butler, 2020). For example, they help create professional networks by hosting conferences and informal meetings. Interest groups can also represent an obstacle to diffusion by launching campaigns to stifle the spread of innovative policies (Finger, 2018). International organizations such as the World Bank and the United Nations, large management consulting

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  247 firms, such as McKinsey, and philanthropic organizations such as the Rockefeller or Gates Foundations also endorse innovations and take steps to encourage their transnational spread (Dolowitz & Marsh, 2000; Osorio Gonnet, 2019; Stone, Porto de Oliveira & Pal, 2020). The information they disseminate facilitates interjurisdictional interdependencies by alerting decision-makers to external developments. Cities are also very active in disseminating policies and “best practices”, as illustrated by Singapore and its Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), as well as its various consulting firms in urban planning (Pow, 2014). Although one might not think of them as organizations, media outlets can play a similar role by stimulating awareness of policy innovations and disseminating information about them (Bromley-Trujillo & Karch, 2021). Influential channels of the international press, including The Economist, facilitated the diffusion of Brazilian social policies like PB and the family allowance program by extolling and endorsing them (Porto de Oliveira, 2019). In other cases, media coverage can make it likely that knowledge of a policy spreads to multiple jurisdictions. Individuals and organizations are frequently embedded in intellectual, professional, or advocacy communities that give them knowledge about the details and effects of innovations in other jurisdictions (Kirst, Meister, & Rowley, 1984; Rose, 1991; Walker, 1981). Collective agents are important diffusion vectors that have been discussed by the literature under different labels, such as epistemic communities (Dunlop, 2009), instrument constituencies (Foli et al., 2018), elites (Dezalay & Garth, 2002), advocacy coalitions (Milhorance, 2018), or programmatic actors (Hassenteufel & Genieys, 2020). These communities are informal networks of people who can lay claim to policy-relevant expertise and intense interest in a specific policy arena (Mooney, 2020: 44). A recent study of Conditional Cash Transfers in Chile and Ecuador identified an epistemic community that included individuals from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Osorio Gonnet, 2019). These informal networks often play an important role in the diffusion process. Most existing research on transfer agents focuses on demonstrating their impact. With its agent-centered perspective, the scholarly literature on policy transfer tends to use process tracing and qualitative evidence based on field research and ethnography to isolate the microfoundations of interjurisdictional influence (Porto de Oliveira, 2019). Many of these studies focus on specific elites or organizations, which is the same general approach taken by many quantitative studies in the policy diffusion tradition. Constructing valid quantitative measures of transfer agent activity is inherently difficult, but scholars have used surveys and other indicators to assess the impact of policy entrepreneurs and leadership roles in professional associations (Balla, 2001; McNeal et al., 2003; Mintrom, 2000). Many interest groups and other organizations circulate model legislation to promote their preferred policies, and recently computational text analysis has been used to assess the impact of these policy templates. Its ability to compute a “similarity

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248  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. score” for two texts has made text analysis an increasingly popular tool for diffusion scholars who want to evaluate the influence of interest groups in the American states (Collingwood, El-Khatib & Gonzalez O’Brien, 2019; Jansa, Hansen & Gray, 2018). Thus, existing research compellingly demonstrates that many types of actors can serve as transfer agents in a striking range of contexts. In terms of theory building, one avenue for future research concerns the conditions under which certain types of transfer agents are most likely to influence the interjurisdictional spread of innovative policies. Do structural constraints affect the ability of certain types of individuals and organizations to promote their preferred policies? Does the presence of these transfer agents affect how policies diffuse? This latter question highlights the importance of diffusion mechanisms – the subject of our next section. How? Policies spread across governments through four main mechanisms – learning, competition, coercion, and socialization (e.g., Shipan & Volden, 2008; Simmons, Dobbin & Garrett, 2006). Learning is the process through which governments use evidence from the experiments of early adopters in their own policy decisions. For example, U.S. states learn about how to best insure poor children (Volden, 2006), and countries learn how to overhaul unsustainable pension programs (Weyland, 2005). Learning processes influence policy adoptions not only based on policy successes but also in terms of political successes. For example, right-leaning OECD governments altered their policy choices concerning unemployment benefits after learning about the electoral consequences of reforms elsewhere (Gilardi, 2010). In China, local governments learn from other successful local experiences to enhance career advancement probabilities and security (Teets, 2016). Learning is not always a one-way process; rather, it can also be mutual. Recent experiences of South-South cooperation, for example, have included mutual learning as a component in knowledge and policy exchange projects (Constantine & Shankland, 2017). Not only do governments learn from one another, but they also compete with one another – to attract businesses and grow their tax bases or even to pass problems off to others. Such competition can influence the spread of public policies. Governments adopting environmental or labor restrictions may find businesses moving elsewhere to make a greater profit, and as such they may make their decisions based on what others are doing. Although competition can pressure governments to offer attractive services like good schools and to do so at low costs in terms of taxes, such competitive pressures can also set up a counter-productive “race to the bottom”, especially in the provision of social services (e.g.,Volden, 2002). Policymakers may also select their tax policies in response to those chosen in other jurisdictions (e.g., Berry & Berry, 1992).

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  249 Governments also influence one another’s policy choices through coercion. Economic sanctions and other pressures are used to influence countries’ foreign policies and domestic behaviors, or even their degree of democratization (Gleditch & Ward, 2006). Conditions attached to aid or loans by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, or others help determine which policies spread and which are abandoned. Within federal systems, coercion-based policy diffusion occurs when a central government places restrictions on how intergovernmental grant funds can be spent or when the central government preempts local policy decisions (Allen, Pettus & Haider-Markel, 2004). Examples include highway funds in the U.S. being linked to states setting a certain drinking age or a particular speed limit. Finally, policies (and the ideas that form into policies) can spread through a socialization mechanism. The development and acceptance of norms of behavior sets the stage for the spread of policies. For example, if countries in a region could be convinced to accept a norm of common security, their levels of defense spending and foreign policies might then be modified and perhaps aligned (e.g., Acharya, 2004). Likewise, socialization around the urgency of acting in the face of global climate change could lead to a more rapid spread of green energy policies. When there is a commonly accepted view of what is “good behavior” by governments, early adopters are quickly imitated by governments that do not wish to appear out of step or as norm violators (e.g., Shipan & Volden, 2008). This literature tends to focus on the mechanisms that promote policy diffusion. However, there are many forces that constrain these processes, such as the limited capacity to adopt specific instruments, lack of funding, and battles between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic models (Hadjiisky, Pal & Walker, 2017: 16). Recently, some studies have been dedicated to understanding how agents resist the adoption of policy proposals (Pal, 2019). Brexit is an example of resistance in which the British electorate rejected, via referendum, European Union policies.The Mozambican peasant movement, which resisted the transfer of Brazilian agrarian techniques in the Nacala region, provides another example (Porto de Oliveira & Pal, 2018: 212). In China, where one might expect the central government to have more power to impose policy mandates, local government officials actually can resist topdown directives in several ways (Mei & Pearson, 2015). When? To understand the spread of policies, it is necessary to address “when” the process occurs. Policy diffusion is strictly intertwined with the dimension of time. A classic issue for social scientists, time has been conceived of in at least four ways in the context of diffusion: (1) The sequence of events, (2) The timing, (3) The rhythm, and (4) The life cycle. This section presents how the literature has discussed these topics, offering insights for scholars who wish to incorporate the dimension of time in their research.

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250  Osmany Porto de Oliveira et al. The first conception of time concerns the sequence of adoption. A common element of policy diffusion is the so-called “S” shaped curve, which shows that in the beginning only a few early adopters implement a new idea. When a significant number of adoptions is reached and the policy gets recognition, diffusion starts to intensify, until it peaks. After that, the adoption curve reaches a plateau and new adoptions start to decline. This discussion is also related to the notion of waves of diffusion. Weyland, for example, shows the “S” shaped curve of pension privatizations in Latin America and Eastern Europe, between the 1980s and 2000s, after Chile introduced a radical new model in 1981 (Weyland, 2006: 19–20). The second conception of time appears in the seminal work of John Kingdon, who brought to attention the notion of “policy window” – a specific configuration at a certain moment of time allowing an idea to emerge onto the governmental agenda. This notion is strictly intertwined with the timing of a policy. Transfer agents play a crucial role in such configurations, insofar as they must find the right timing in order to push or pull a policy toward adoption. Howlett, Ramesh, and Saguin (2018), for example, argue that the adoption of Conditional Cash Transfer Programs in the Philippines, the so-called Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), was possible due to a confluence of interests between the World Bank and domestic agents in the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Key constituencies shaped the model, redesigning policy instruments that were imported from Latin American countries like Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia (Simons & Voß, 2018). The discussions around time gained additional momentum with the publication of “Fast Policy” by policy mobilities scholars Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore (2015). They argue that policies float rapidly from one place to another in today’s networked global society. Similarly, Dolowitz, Plugaru, and Saurugger (2019) argue that policy transfers might occur with varied rhythms, which can be more or less intense. This dynamic is akin to classical music, which can have rapid movements when it is allegro, slower cadences when it is moderato, and relatively fast when it is allegro, ma non troppo. This third conception of time is called the tempo of a policy transfer process. Astrid Wood (2015) observed the multiple temporalities of the bus rapid transit (BRT) circulation in South African cities. Discussions about the policy started in 1973 even though the policy was not implemented until 2006. Several failed attempts to implement BRT occurred during this period, suggesting that policy circulation involves gradual, repetitive, and delayed processes. Finally, policies also have their own history, which can be either ephemeral or long-lasting. Disentangling the life cycle of policy diffusion implies observing the changes the original model experiences while it travels, the different narratives used to legitimize the model, the replacement of generations of agents promoting instruments, and moments of success and crisis. Morais de Sá e Silva and Porto de Oliveira (2020) analyzed two Brazilian policies with long-lived circulation processes: Conditional Cash

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  251 Transfers (1995) and Participatory Budgeting (1989). The authors discuss how the plasticity of such models allowed them to circulate worldwide for more than two decades. The study argues that as time goes by diffusion stories become increasingly complex and new agents emerge in new spaces, bringing different meanings to instruments that often contradict the original ones.This reveals that there is no single path to the spread of policies, but the process itself mutates along with the policies traveling (Table 7.2). Table 7.2 Organizing Principles behind Policy Diffusion Processes Research Question

Organizing Principles

What diffuses?

1. The spread of policies themselves 2. Constitutions and governmental institutions 3. Ideas, beliefs, meanings 4. Principles, ideologies 5. Best practices, how-to knowledge, implementation 6. Policy instruments 1. Local, regional, national 2. Different empirical settings (first studies observed mostly the Global North, recent researchers started to investigate the Global South) 3. Those adopting innovations of others may adapt, transform, or customize them depending on their needs and resources 4. Transnational arenas 1. Classic focus on policymakers (elected officials, appointed bureaucrats) 2. Policy entrepreneurs, consultants, activists 3. Professional associations and interest groups 4. Advocacy coalitions and informal networks 5. International organizations 6. Philanthropic, private advisory, and nongovernmental organizations 1. Learning from others (success and failures) 2. Competition with others (often economic) 3. Coercion by others 4. Socialization and imitation 5. Policy diffusion pressures may face resistance 1. Sequence often appears as S-shaped curve 2. Timing may reflect open policy windows, crises, and urgency 3. Rhythms of slow and fast tempos of spread 4. Life cycle with original models adapting and being replaced

Where does diffusion take place?

Who is involved in diffusion?

How do policies diffuse?

When do policies diffuse?

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Conclusion Policymakers look beyond their own cities, states, and countries for helpful ideas.The policy process is therefore best understood by integrating concepts from policy diffusion along with a focus on the internal determinants of policy choices. The preceding sections highlight how diffusion scholars organize our thinking in response to key research questions. For the most part, the differing approaches discussed reflect a constructive broadening of this field of study, both conceptually and methodologically. Recent studies investigate a broader set of transfer objects, examine them in a wider range of settings across the globe and at multiple levels of government, and assess the influence of a growing number of transfer agents. This research has illuminated the impact of diffusion at various stages of the policy process and identified key contextual factors that can facilitate or hinder these dynamics. Moreover, diffusion scholars have embraced a wider range of research designs, including innovative quantitative approaches like experiments and text analysis and insightful in-depth qualitative approaches such as ethnography and participant observation. Viewing the policy process through the lens of innovation and diffusion holds great promise for students, scholars, and practitioners. It offers a better sense of the opportunities that leaders have to address policy challenges based on the experiments that other governments are conducting to tackle their own policy problems. In sum, diffusion research is a vibrant field of increasing breadth, one in which scholars in various subfields and disciplines have the opportunity to make valuable intellectual contributions. Yet, the value of these many studies and findings has not been fully realized and there are still numerous important avenues for future policy research. For example, first, further study would be valuable regarding the role of policy failure within policy diffusion processes. As Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) argue, often policies fail to be implemented because transfer is incomplete, inappropriate, or uninformed. In a similar vein, Shipan and Volden (2021) explore why bad policies spread and good ones don’t. They note that learning-based policy diffusion holds great promise, but also requires three key (and often lacking) ingredients – observable experiments, time to learn, and proper expertise and incentives. The normative question underlying policy diffusion studies can also be extended to a second avenue, related to the rise of far-right movements across the world and the circulation of xenophobic, chauvinist, and authoritarian policy instruments and ideas. A third important avenue is related to knowledge and policy diffusion in a world of fast-growing post-truth context.Without a common set of facts and values, learning from one another becomes difficult or impossible. Fourth, we need a better understanding of how policy diffusion is related to public policy challenges on a global scale (Porto de Oliveira, 2022). This can be explored from the point of view of the role of international organizations in setting global agendas for the world (e.g., Sustainable Development Goals, New Urban Agenda, Paris Agreement), as

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Policy Diffusion and Innovation  253 well as the localization of the content of these agendas at the national and subnational levels. Given these pressing issues, we call upon a new generation of scholars to select from the broad range of diffusion traditions available and to join in these efforts. At the same time, we caution existing scholars that the traditions of policy transfer, policy diffusion, policy circulation, and policy mobilities are too often isolated from one another. Diffusion scholars studying the American states and those examining policies spreading across counties often fail to read, cite, and integrate each other’s work into their own. We conclude, therefore, with a call to those working in the diffusion field (or approaching it for the first time) to engage in further bridge-building efforts. Bridge building requires, first, an awareness of the work of others. We tried to offer a starting point here with an overview of the multiple approaches that scholars have undertaken in recent years. Second, diffusion scholars can benefit from common terminology. For example, significant progress has been made following a common understanding that there are only a few mechanisms of policy diffusion rather than the dozens of different terms for similar phenomena that scholars had been using. Third, a recognition that different methodological approaches are valuable to addressing different questions may help in the acceptance of work arising from different traditions. Some degree of specialization within each area and the acceptance of common approaches – such as the rise of event history analyses to capture both internal determinants and diffusion processes – have helped advance knowledge. That said, mixed-methods approaches – combining quantitative, qualitative, formal theoretical, experimental, and others – offer opportunities for significant future advancements. Just as policymakers can learn from others with different ideas and experiences, so too can students and scholars of policy diffusion learn from one another, benefiting from our different approaches, areas of expertise, and insights.

Notes  

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The Ecology of Games Framework Complexity in Polycentric Governance Mark Lubell, Jack Mewhirter, and Matthew Robbins

Introduction The state of the art in policy process research recognizes the central importance of the concept of polycentric governance, which is a specific instance of the more general idea of complex adaptive systems (Levin et al., 2013). Rooted in V. Ostrom et al.’s (1961; see also McGinnis & E. Ostrom, 2012) work on local politics and E. Ostrom’s (1990) analysis of commonpool resources, a polycentric system consists of “(1) many autonomous units formally independent of one another, (2) choosing to act in ways that take account of others, (3) through processes of cooperation, competition, conflict, and conflict resolution” (V. Ostrom, 1991, p. 225). The concept of polycentricity has been used to describe governance systems operating at various scales and covering diverse issue areas, ranging from international domains such as global climate change (Cole, 2015; Jordan et al., 2018; E. Ostrom, 2010), security (Miskimmon & O’loughlin, 2017; Scholte, 2004), and trade (Horner & Nadvi, 2017; Roe, 2009), to local and regional systems addressing issues such as emergency-service provision (Boettke et al., 2016), education (V. Ostrom, 1999; Tyler et al., 1961), policing (McLaughlin et al., 2021; Mewhirter et al., 2022), and resource management (Andersson & E. Ostrom, 2008; Blomquist & Schlager, 2005; Heikkila et al., 2011). ­

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Ecology of Games Framework  263 suited to resolve policy issues featuring overlapping and multi-level cooperation problems (Bixler, 2014; Carlisle & Gruby 2017; Da Silveira & Richards, 2013; Folke et al., 2005; Pahl-Wostl & Knieper, 2014), modern scholarship often recommends polycentricity as a normative “prescription” for complex policy issues. This prescriptive focus raises (at least) three crucial problems. First, it risks becoming a “panacea” because it is prescribed for all types of policy problems (Ostrom and Cox 2010). The suggestion that system performance would be enhanced (or corrected) through the introduction of (or increased) polycentrism may only be appropriate in specific circumstances and, in fact, may be counterproductive under some conditions (e.g., Mewhirter & McLaughlin, 2021; Romero, 2022). E. Ostrom (2007) provides a strong warning against panaceas because institutional fit requires diagnosing a wide range of variables in social-ecological systems. As she notes, “[w]e should stop striving for simple answers to solve complex problems” (p. 15181). Second, it ignores the fact that polycentric governance is not an alternative governance structure but instead is a pervasive fact of life in all policy systems. For example, we should not be in the business of recommending polycentricity versus networks, markets, or hierarchies as these concepts are not mutually exclusive. While there may be variance in the structure and function of polycentricity between markets and hierarchies (for example), or across geographic regions or other socially relevant units, in some sense, everything is, in fact, polycentric (at least to some extent: Lubell et al., 2012). Third, focusing on the supposed ubiquitous benefits of polycentrism detracts from broader—and in our opinion, more fruitful—conversations regarding how the structure and function of polycentric systems vary over time and space. Polycentric systems are not all the same (Aligica & Tarko, 2012): across systems, the number and types of actors, forums, and issues (and the interconnections among these components) exhibit considerable heterogeneity. Such structural variance may depend on the social-ecological context in which a polycentric system evolves and represents higher or lower levels of institutional fit (Epstein et al., 2015; Lebel et al., 2013). Different polycentric systems may perform better at enabling the key social processes of learning, cooperation, and bargaining, managing potential trade-offs among them, or changing emphasis over time. If everything is polycentric, and polycentricity is always the “right approach” to governance, then how can we compare the effectiveness of polycentric governance to a given alternative? The literature has lost the idea that polycentric approaches should be compared to some other type of arrangement: for example, centralized structures (Romero, 2022). Alternatively, instead of reflexively assuming polycentric systems are “good,” we should be developing theories about the structure and function of polycentric systems that aim to identify the structural configurations that work well under different contexts. We view this latter goal as more important.

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264  Mark Lubell et al. The theoretical problems caused by the normative approach to polycentricity set the stage for the main purpose of this chapter: to introduce the “ecology of games framework” (EGF) as a theoretical approach for analyzing polycentric governance and its associated complexity. Lubell (2013) first articulated the EGF, and since then it has been applied to many empirical cases, most often in environmental governance settings (see Berardo & Lubell, 2016, 2019). That said, the framework is generally applicable to any policy domain featuring collective-action problems, and has been applied in settings as diverse as talent development in Norwegian handball (Bjørndal et al., 2015). In previous reviews, we summarized some of the core EGF hypotheses that have been the focus of empirical work to date (Berardo & Lubell, 2019; Lubell, 2013; Lubell et al., 2022). The Appendix describes these hypotheses and provides a table highlighting findings from relevant EGF studies. Instead of repeating this previous work, this chapter will briefly introduce the core elements of the EGF with an eye toward new readers. We then illustrate the EGF with two case studies that highlight a driving force of institutional change in polycentric systems: the emergence of new forms of cooperation to solve collective-action problems and the concomitant dilemma of “is anybody in charge?”We then elaborate on the idea of the EGF as a theory of complex, polycentric governance systems by describing how the EGF addresses some core questions in complexity theory with examples from the case studies.

A Brief Introduction to the Ecology of Games Framework The EGF steals its name from sociologist Norton Long’s (1958) paper entitled “The Local Community as an Ecology of Games.” Long’s analysis focuses on urban governance where the “games” are defined by the political

Figure 8.1 An Illustration of Key EGF Components Source: Created by the authors.

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Ecology of Games Framework  265 and career incentives of different types of policy actors such as elected officials, administrators, interest groups, journalists, and others. In contrast, the EGF focuses on policy actors, policy forums, policy issues, and the structure of interdependent relationships among these elements. Figure 8.1 portrays an illustration on how these components relate in an environmental governance setting: it considers structure and process, which co-evolve over time as the polycentric governance arrangements respond to decisions made across forums and as policy outputs/outcomes affect issues. For illustrative purposes, Figure 8.1 presents a “simple” system, featuring two actors, two issues, and a single forum. Real-world systems are much more complex. For instance, Lubell et al.’s (2017) mapping of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water governance system in California revealed a network of 354 actors making policy decisions about eight inter-related issues across 271 forums. Ecology of Games Structure In terms of structure, any ecology of games is composed of the set of policy actors, issues, and forums related to a given policy area within a pre-defined geographic space, as well as the emergent games. While all systems are composed of the same discrete components, the number and types of actors, issues, forums, and games are highly variable across systems. As shown in Berardo and Lubell (2016), even systems that deal with similar policy issues can exhibit a high degree of structural variability; similarly, endogenously or exogenously imposed changes can lead to structural instability within a given system (Berardo & Holm, 2018; Berardo et al., 2015). Policy actors are individuals or organizations (e.g., government agencies, businesses, non-profits) that have a vested interest in a given issue area and are active in making choices that impact it. Actors within and across systems have distinct values, belief systems, policy preferences, resources, and decisionmaking strategies. Similarly, policy actors generally control different types of resources, such as funding, knowledge, and political authority that must be coordinated in policy implementation. Consistent with other theories of the policy process (e.g., Baumgartner et al., 2018; E. Ostrom, 2019), the EGF contends that policy actors are boundedly rational and influenced by processes of motivated reasoning (Druckman & McGrath, 2019) and cultural cognition (Kahan & Braman, 2006; Kahan et al., 2011). Hence, cooperation is often based on shared values and information processing which reinforces established beliefs. In this sense, policy actors often form coalitions in ways similar to those proposed by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Policy issues are the collective-action problems that concern policy actors. Each of the issues represents some type of collective-action dilemma where there is a divergence between individual and collective welfare, such as public goods provision, common-pool resource management, or negative externalities. Furthermore, policy issues are typically interrelated via some type of biophysical process or cascading infrastructure effect (Mewhirter & Berardo, 2019).

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266  Mark Lubell et al. Consider, for example, how issues facing a hypothetical water governance system—supply, quality, biodiversity, flooding, climate change, land use, etc.— might intersect. For instance, if water supply demand increases, the resulting decrease in flow will affect water quality and aquatic biodiversity. Additionally, when flooding from sea-level rise affects one local jurisdiction, the resulting infrastructure impacts will spread through regional transportation systems (Lubell et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2017). “Institutional fit” is improved when collaboration occurs between actors and forums involved with interdependent issues (Bodin, 2017; Bodin et al., 2014). Policy forums are decision-making arenas in which actors engage in deliberation and collective decision-making about policy issues. Collective decision-making in policy forums is shaped by formal and informal institutional arrangements about who can participate, how science and other types of knowledge are linked to decision-making, and how policy preferences are aggregated into social choice (see Fischer & Leifeld, 2015). E. Ostrom (1996) would call the rules governing decision-making in policy forums “collective choice rules.” The outputs of policy forums are usually some type of plan or management action, which may influence decision-making regarding the issues, such as appropriation levels for common-pool resources. E. Ostrom (1996) would call the outputs of policy forums the “operational rules” governing common-pool resource management. Policy games are the constellations of actors, forums, and issues. Figure 8.1 is essentially a single policy game, but a polycentric system generally involves many policy games. McGinnis (2011) conceptualizes this as networks of adjacent action situations, although there are important differences between this approach and the EGF.The policy forum is similar to the “arena” for the policy games, and the actors are the players in the arena.They interact following the rules of the game, and the results of the game are the policy outputs and outcomes the affect the issues. The “payoffs” to the actors derive from the benefits and transaction costs of solving the collective-action problems. The structure of the system evolves over time (1) as new forums emerge (and dissolve) and forum jurisdictions change, (2) when actors enter (and exit) the system and choose which forums to participate in and which actors to collaborate with, and (3) when new issues are identified, resolved, or better understood. Lubell et al. (2017) describe an evolutionary process that shapes EGF dynamics, where forums survive only when they provide benefits to policy actors and attract enough resources and political support. Forums that fail to attract such support will be abandoned or changed. Within forums, actor’s benefits derive from securing their preferred policy preferences (i.e., solution concepts for the collective-action problems) and when the benefits of solving the collective-action problems outweigh transaction costs (Angst et al., 2021). As noted throughout the EGF literature (e.g., Mewhirter et al., 2019a, 2019b; Scott & Thomas, 2017), not all actors benefit equally from forum participation. Actors that fail to derive benefits in one forum may shift their attention to others (Lubell et al., 2010) or choose to exit the system entirely (Smaldino & Lubell, 2011).

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Ecology of Games Framework  267 Ecology of Games Processes The EGF posits three simple processes that influence the effectiveness of any polycentric system: learning, cooperation, and bargaining. By effectiveness, we mean the capacity of the system to solve underlying collective-action problems and adapt to change over time in the face of uncertainty. This definition of effectiveness is consistent with both E. Ostrom’s (1990) analysis of solutions to common-pool resource overexploitation and various concepts from the political economy literature, including securing mutual benefits, minimizing transaction costs (Libecap, 1989; North, 1990), and conflict resolution (Knight, 1992). A key advancement of the EGF is that it considers the multi-functional capacity of polycentric systems—it is not just learning, cooperation, or bargaining in isolation. Polycentric systems need to facilitate all these processes and manage potential trade-offs and conflicts among them over time. Learning entails a better understanding of the underlying causes and impacts of policy issues present in a system. For example, in nearly all resource governance systems, it is imperative that actors improve their understanding regarding how human decisions and economic processes influence the conditions and dynamics of natural resources. In other words, learning entails understanding the ecological components of a social-ecological system. In policy sectors beyond environmental policy, this means understanding the basic drivers and processes involved in any policy issue. But learning also refers to learning the social components of the system, such as the rules of the game, how to acquire resources, and the preferences of other actors. Many of the hypotheses considered in theories of policy and social learning are directly applicable to learning in the EGF (e.g., Heikkila & Gerlak, 2013; Pahl-Wostl, 2009). Cooperation occurs at three levels. First, as with E. Ostrom (1990), cooperation in appropriation and provision decisions is needed to mitigate the overexploitation of common-pool resources, to consider the social costs of externalities, and/or to provide public goods. From an economic perspective, this means a closer alignment between individual decision-making and socially beneficial outcomes. Second, cooperation is also needed within policy forums to effectively engage in collective decision-making: this is consistent with the concept of “principled engagement” detailed in the collaborative governance literature (Emerson et al., 2012, Lubell 2015). Third, cooperation is needed in policy implementation because it requires coordination action among actors with specialized knowledge and resources. Bardach (1977, 1998) conceptualizes policy implementation as an “assembly line,” where different actors play unique roles but must coordinate their actions to complete the product. Bargaining is related to procedural and distributional fairness and equity. Policy decisions in forums entail a distribution of benefits and costs across actors.The distribution of benefits and costs is not automatically symmetric or “fair,” and thus, actors will bargain over the distribution (Lubell et al., 2020).

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268  Mark Lubell et al. If bargaining fails, then the policy decision will not occur (Libecap, 1989). In this context, procedural fairness is related to forum representation and decision-making rules (Hamilton, 2018; Tyler & Blader, 2000). Policy actors are more likely to perceive a forum as fair if they feel included in the forum deliberations and when the rule-making procedures recognize their preferences (Hamilton & Lubell, 2019). Power dynamics influence the capacity of actors to participate in policy forums, and lack of representation reinforces power differentials and exacerbates inequality (Morrison et al. 2019). Distributional fairness is related to the resulting distribution of benefits and costs. Any definition or evaluation of equity would assess the extent to which one actor or group tends to bear most of the costs or be excluded from the benefits of collective-action. In the context of environmental governance, the bargaining processes in the EGF are directly related to questions of environmental (in) justice (Dobbin & Lubell, 2021).

Case Studies of Institutional Change in California’s Bay-Delta: Is Anybody in Charge? This section discusses two EGF case studies in the context of environmental governance in California: regional sea-level rise adaptation in San Francisco Bay (SF Bay) and science governance in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta). Each of these social-ecological systems features a complex, polycentric governance arrangement with many actors, forums, and issues. Each case study is also experiencing a key driver of institutional change, specifically the creation of new institutions or networks to solve collective-action problems and capture unrealized gains from cooperation. Capturing these potential gains from cooperation requires resolving a key governance challenge: who oversees coordinating the involved policy actors? As California water policy veteran Phil Isenberg (2016) wrote in response to an EGF paper on water governance, polycentric governance is quintessentially a “policy-making structure in which everyone is involved, but nobody is in charge.” Addressing this challenge requires identifying whether an existing agency or a new authority will better facilitate cooperation, and how alterations to the status quo could impact the autonomy and interests of involved policy actors. These case studies are just two examples; every social-ecological system in the world will have some type of polycentric governance arrangement that, at some point, must deal with an emerging collective-action problem. Note that the purpose of these case studies is not to identify generalizable lessons regarding how existing systems can be augmented to enhance system effectiveness, but rather (1) to illustrate how polycentric systems can be studied from an EGF perspective and (2) to detail an emerging research stream. Note that the case studies detailed below provide only a brief snapshot of larger projects. In Lubell et al. (2022), we provide greater detail regarding how to design and conduct an EGF study.

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Ecology of Games Framework  269 Sea-Level Rise Adaptation in San Francisco Bay Sea-level rise is projected to have a major impact on SF Bay. In a highemission climate change scenario, there is 50% chance that water levels will rise by at least 0.9 feet by 2050, with the flood risks compounded by extreme storms (State of California Sea-Level Rise Guidance, 2018). The most extreme scenario expects 2.7 feet of sea-level rise by 2050, which would be catastrophic to coastal communities. Due to climate change “lock in,” sea-level rise will occur even if global emissions dramatically decrease (Nauels et al., 2019). Sea-level rise is arguably the most salient climate vulnerability considered by SF Bay policy actors, although it intersects with other climate issues such as extreme heat and wildfire smoke, as well as social issues like economic and housing vulnerability. The polycentric governance system for sea-level rise in SF Bay has quickly evolved over the last two decades, with a major acceleration in the number of actors and forums starting in the early 2000s. Figure 8.2—which contains two bipartite network graphs that demonstrate the way actors participate in forums (“venues”) at two time periods—illustrates this growth. As shown, the system has grown in a decentralized manner, with a surge in the generation of local forums that attract participation from regional and local actors (Lubell and Robins 2021). The growth in local (as opposed to regional) forums may lead to suboptimal system effectiveness as climate adaptation entails key interdependencies— notably vulnerability interdependency and adaptation interdependency—that cause collective-action problems. Vulnerability interdependency occurs when a climate impact that affects one locale has regional spillover effects, usually through cascading infrastructure processes such as traffic congestion. Adaptation interdependency occurs when the adaptation actions taken by one local jurisdiction, for example, building a sea wall, have negative or positive externalities for other jurisdictions, such as changing hydrodynamics in ways that increase flooding. Coordinating local actions at the regional level is required to manage both of these types of interdependencies and, thus, is key to enhancing system effectiveness. As a result, SF Bay policy actors have been searching for governance solutions to catalyze regional cooperation, including whether an existing agency or a new authority should oversee the development of a regional plan. This is analogous to the network governance problem, where the benefits of different governance modes such as lead agency, network administrative organization, or shared governance depend on contextual variables like trust and number of actors. Most SF Bay policy actors dislike the idea of a new governance authority and have nominated the San Francisco Bay Conservation Development Commission (BCDC) as a potential lead agency (San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission, 2019). The BCDC is an existing state agency created in 1965 with regional jurisdiction to allocate permits for coastal development and engage in planning for bayside issues. BCDC’s long history of involvement, resources, and central

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Figure 8.2 The Evolution of the SF Bay Sea-Level Rise Governance Network, 1991–2016 (a) Early Network: Forums Created between 1991 and 2007 (b) Later Network: Forums Created between 1991 and 2016 Source: Created by the authors.

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Ecology of Games Framework  271 role in the SF Bay ecology of games makes it a strong candidate for leading regional planning. In 2021, BCDC spearheaded a regional sea-level rise planning effort called Bay Adapt, which was a collaborative forum involving policy actors from multiple scales and sectors (www.bayadapt.org). Bay Adapt sought to develop a “joint platform” that identified the main goals and actions needed to effectively adapt to sea-level rise. While the Bay Adapt planning process itself required cooperation among multiple actors, the implementation of the identified actions will require even more ongoing cooperation given the absence of an overarching authority capable of mandating all desired actions. Bay Adapt lays out a blueprint, but many policy actors must come together with diverse resources to fulfill its vision and capture the gains from cooperation. It remains to be seen whether Bay Adapt implementation will be successful over time, or if some more centralized institutional authority will need to be created. Science Governance in the California Delta The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (California Delta) is the heart of California’s water system. Here, the state’s two largest rivers converge with a large amount of water exported to other parts of the state through an extensive storage and conveyance system. As a result of water (mis)management, land-use change, and other human influences, the Delta ecosystem has substantially changed, giving rise to a wide range of environmental problems. The California Delta features a complex and quickly changing polycentric governance system, famous for its experiments in large-scale collaboration with programs like the California Bay-Delta Program (CALFED), which subsequently evolved into the Delta Stewardship Council (Kallis et al., 2009; Lubell et al., 2012). The Delta Stewardship Council also houses the Delta Science Program, with the mission “to provide the best possible unbiased scientific information to inform water and environmental decision-making in the Delta,” by “funding research, synthesizing, and communicating scientific information to policymakers and decision-makers, promoting independent scientific peer review, and coordinating with Delta agencies to promote science-based adaptive management” (Delta Stewardship Council, 2022) Linking science to decision-making involves its own governance challenges and collective-action problems. The Delta “science enterprise” is described as the collection of science programs and activities that exist to serve managers and stakeholders in a regional system. The elements of an enterprise range from in-house programs within single agencies or other organizations to large-scale collaborative science programs funded by governments, to academic research that may operate independently of management and stakeholder entities. (Delta Stewardship Council, 2018)

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272  Mark Lubell et al. Hence, the science enterprise is also a polycentric system, which involves actors and forums interacting to develop knowledge about the Delta system. Figure 8.3 presents a snapshot of the network of actors and the different collaborative science forums in which they are involved. The collectiveaction problems involved with the science enterprise include how to integrate scientific workflows (e.g., data sharing, model development, research project implementation) across agencies, sustain funding and resource flows, and link science to specific management needs and decisions. The collective-action problems of the science enterprise also create debates regarding “is anybody in charge” and how to restructure forums to achieve higher levels of integration and linkages to decision-making. For example, there is an ongoing discussion about whether to create a “joint powers authority” that formally merges multiple science programs and provides a target for sustained funding and collaboration. Another option under consideration is a “collaboratory” that would represent a more informal forum in which science enterprise actors can develop collaborative projects and relationships. The Delta Science Program facilitates much of this discussion through workshops and other participatory methods, but there is currently

Figure 8.3 Delta Science Enterprise Network Source: Created by the authors.

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Ecology of Games Framework  273 no overarching planning process or proposal for institutional change. The constant discussion and “churn” of forums and actor participation seen in the Delta science enterprise exemplifies the processes that drive the evolution of polycentric governance systems.

EGF as a Theory of Complex Governance Solving the types of collective-action problems described in the case studies requires understanding how science, knowledge, and decision-making interact in the context of complex systems. While the cases highlight how complexity complicates governance dynamics within a social-ecological context, the identified challenges are common across systems, irrespective of the substantive policy area under consideration (though, of course, variation exists). The EGF aims to provide a theoretical perspective for studying the complexity of polycentric governance approaches and, in doing so, develop testable hypotheses regarding the structure, function, and evolution of such systems. Cairney (2012) and Duit and Galaz (2008) provide useful reviews about the intersection between governance theory and complexity, detailing a number of key issues that should be addressed by any theory of complex, polycentric systems. This section reviews how the EGF treats some of these key issues, with illustrations from the case studies. Articulating the intersection between the EGF and complexity theory is motivated by E. Ostrom’s statement in her Nobel Prize address: “To explain the world of interactions and outcomes occurring at multiple levels, we also have to be willing to deal with complexity instead of rejecting it.” Path Dependence Path dependence occurs when an earlier policy decision establishes a set of institutional arrangements that produces increasing returns over time, where the “probability of further steps along the same path increases with each move down that path” (Pierson, 2000, p. 252). Imagine going backpacking in the wilderness, walking a mile down one trail, and then comparing the costs and benefits associated with staying on that trail as opposed to switching to an alternative one; holding all else constant, staying on the current path would be preferable given the costs associated with switching. As a result, initial conditions matter, and policy systems become locked into a particular trajectory because it is increasingly costly to shift to an alternative path. Path dependence is magnified in policy systems where institutions are created to coordinate the behavior of policy actors, who invest substantial specialized skill and resources into policy implementation (Pierson, 2000). The EGF encompasses the notion of path dependence in the evolution of polycentric institutional arrangements and associated policy networks. The set of policy forums that exist at any particular time, and the history of decision-making within them, constrains the range of possible new forums

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274  Mark Lubell et al. or changes to existing forums that could occur over time. The history of social interactions that has shaped policy networks, such as conflict, cooperation, and trust, shapes how actors will choose future partners, maintain relationships over time, or dissolve relationships (McLaughlin et al., 2021; Mewhirter & McLaughlin, 2021). The Bay-Delta case studies provide numerous examples of path dependence. From its establishment in 1965, BCDC’s permitting authority is primarily defined as extending inland for one hundred feet from the shoreline. Hence, BCDC cannot impose permit requirements on upper watershed projects, even though such land-use affects coastal flooding vulnerability. Local governments and developers also “game” the system by proposing projects at the edge of BCDC authority (Romero, 2022). Attempts to extend BCDC authority are met with conflict, and thus the range of possible climate adaptation forums is confined to mostly voluntary, collaborative processes. The Delta science enterprise features some collaborative forums that focus on extremely long-term monitoring, such as the Interagency Ecological Program (IEP). The long-term monitoring datasets produced by the IEP have been instrumental in understanding the population dynamics of endangered species like the delta smelt and diagnosing the multiple causes. As a result, the discussion of institutional change in the science enterprise is constrained by a desire to maintain the continuity of IEP monitoring data, integrate it with other long-term ecological or emerging social data, and sustain its organizational structure and resources. Threshold Effects Complex systems experience threshold effects when a critical mass of incremental changes triggers a much larger change in the system. Sand-pile dynamics are a classic example, where the addition of each additional grain of sand will eventually trigger an avalanche (Frette et al., 1996). Threshold effects may also result from a domino process where state changes in one element of a system trigger changes in linked components, or feedbacks based on other processes (Scheffer et al., 2012). Threshold effects are central to the punctuated equilibrium theory of policy changes (Jones & Baumgartner, 2012), which stipulates that periods of rapid policy change are triggered when a policy issue is elevated on the policy agenda and becomes the subject of serial processing within the political system. The EGF is generally consistent with punctuated equilibrium theory but considers it in the context of polycentric, multi-level policy systems (Berardo et al., 2015). Polycentric systems have some policy forums that are the “big games in town,” which are highly salient to many actors and attract some of the most powerful organizations that control substantial policy resources. These central policy forums are attended by individual leadership (e.g., executive directors instead of staff) within organizations, which provides additional legitimacy and credibility for any commitments of policy resources for decision implementation. The most important policy changes

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Ecology of Games Framework  275 occur within these central forums, and the resulting institutional changes often have direct implications for other forums in the system (McLaughlin et al., 2021). The SF Bay clearly experienced a rapid growth in climate adaptation policy forums beginning in the early 2000s, as sea-level rise became a highly salient policy issue. This eventually resulted in BCDC stepping up as a lead agency to organize Bay Adapt as the central regional plan for organizing cooperation among policy actors. But Bay Adapt is only one step along the adaptation pathway, because its main goals still need to be implemented over time. In contrast, the Delta science enterprise is mainly in a period of incremental change, but the Delta Science Program (central in the network) is organizing an ongoing discussion of how to improve science integration, which may eventually cross the threshold to trigger a major policy change: the creation of a new forum. Cascading Effects Cascading effects occur when some change in the system has effects that spread over space, time, levels of geographic scale, or between systems. Threshold and cascading effects are related because thresholds generally result from processes that spread across system components. The concept of “femtorisks,” defined as “small fissures inside nodes arrayed along network topologies” (Frank et al., 2014, p. 17356), captures how even small local changes may cascade to the global level. The change is usually trigged by the actions at one node, and then cascades across the system via social (e.g., peer influence), biophysical (e.g., hydrological patterns), or built environment processes (e.g., transportation disruptions). The EGF considers cascading effects in terms of two types of institutional externalities: payoff externalities and strategic externalities (Klasic & Lubell, 2020). Direct payoff externalities occur when two forums have jurisdiction over the same issue, such that decisions made in one forum affect the issue in a way that changes the payoffs experienced in another forum (Lubell, 2013). Indirect payoff externalities occur when a decision made in one forum affects an issue that is linked to another issue by some biophysical or other process (Mewhirter et al., 2018). Strategy externalities occur when actors learn an effective decision-making strategy in one forum, and then apply the resulting behavioral repertoire to another forum even though the payoff structure is different (Bednar et al., 2012; McLaughlin et al., 2021). Externalities are rampant in the SF Bay climate adaptation system. For instance, in SF Bay, direct payoff externalities arose when two organizations— the BCDC and the Regional Water Quality Board—maintained overlapping authority for coastal development permitting.The complexities and conflicts associated with multiple permitting requirements incentivized the SF Bay actors to develop Bay Restoration Regulatory Integration Team: a collaboration between the multiple permitting authorities meant to facilitate a more efficient permitting process. Indirect payoff externalities occur in the

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276  Mark Lubell et al. region when one city builds coastal infrastructure that, in turn, affects the flood risks of other jurisdictions or the viability of wetlands restoration: a common occurrence (Lubell et al., 2021). Strategy externalities are present in the development of the Bay Adapt plan, because for some policy actors, distrust toward BCDC developed in past conflicts over regulation became a constraint on cooperation in the context of regional planning. This “legacy of conflict” has been portrayed as a central feature of California water governance systems (Lubell et al., 2020) and a guiding feature of system evolution (McLaughlin et al., 2021). Surprise Surprise is a consequence of the interconnectedness of complex systems, and thus is a byproduct of thresholds and cascading effects. People are surprised by occurrences within complex systems because they do not fully understand system structure and/or processes (Mewhirter & Berardo, 2019). But surprise also occurs because humans have only a limited capacity to engage in systems thinking (Levy et al., 2018), and generally make decisions on the basis of simplified mental models (Gray et al., 2015) that may not be reflective of real-world conditions. While the EGF has not directly grappled with the concept of surprise in the past, it certainly encompasses this feature of complex systems. Policy actors in the EGF make decisions under conditions of risk (known probabilities) and uncertainty (unknown probabilities) in both the social and biophysical components of the system. Over time, new and unexpected issues, linkages among issues, and causes of problems may be discovered and/or better understood. In addition, the motivations and strategies of policy actors may be misunderstood or subject to stereotypes, along with the expected patterns of coalition formation (e.g., agriculture versus environment). Motivated reasoning exacerbates uncertainty by causing actors to underemphasize new information that is inconsistent with an individual’s current understanding of the system. As a result, decisions in policy forums are not fully informed about all the system interdependencies, which can lead to surprising results (Mewhirter et al., 2019a,b). This failure of individual and collective decision-making to fully incorporate all the interdependent components of a polycentric system is the main culprit behind “unintended consequences” of policy decisions (Arnold, 2015; Lewison et al., 2019). To investigate surprise, we asked some of our key informants in the BayDelta case studies to report on any surprising events or aspects of their work in the past few years. This was a purely purposive sample and exploratory discussion, so we make no claim of generalizability. From the social perspective, policy actors were surprised by social dynamics that challenged their pre-existing assumptions. This included policy actors with unexpected policy preferences such as farmers who are concerned about climate

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Ecology of Games Framework  277 change, the development of collaborative policy networks among “unlikely bedfellows” (typically considered in opposing coalitions), and differences in the culture of decision-making between administrative agencies and community-based organizations. On the ecological side, policy actors were often surprised by the identification of unsuspected ecological and physical drivers of important policy issues, such as trophic interactions across multiple species that affect the population dynamics of a focal endangered species (Barnes et al., 2019). As a result, policy actors felt it was difficult to evaluate the impact of any program or decision relative to the complexity of the overall polycentric system. These initial anecdotes reinforce the idea that surprises emerge from policy actors’ limited understanding of the interdependencies among system components and the necessity of continuous policy learning. Exploration versus Exploitation Duit and Galaz (2008) argue that complex, polycentric systems must balance exploration versus exploitation. Borrowing from March (1991), exploration is defined as the ability of an organization to experiment with new ideas and develop innovative solutions, while exploitation refers to the efficient implementation of existing routines to solve known problems and achieve established goals. To balance between exploration and exploitation, organizations must have a capacity to discover new problems and opportunities over time. Institutional and organizational change is then driven by creating new organizational structures, routines, and networks to take advantage of those opportunities and avoid problems. The EGF captures the concepts of exploration and exploitation by positing a multi-functional system that includes processes of learning, cooperation, and bargaining. Learning is basically a synonym for exploration, since it involves policy actors learning about policy issues and opportunities for cooperation. As Duit and Galaz (2008, p. 319) write, “to engage in the activities associated with exploitation…problems of collective action must be resolved or at least controlled.” The EGF adds bargaining to the mix, because collective-action problems are unlikely to be solved if policy actors are dissatisfied with procedural and distributive fairness. The EGF also advances this discussion by considering how different components of the polycentric system, like specialized regions of the brain, are more focused on cooperation or learning.Thus, the resilience of the overall system depends on effectively connecting the components of the system that perform different functions: the appropriate portfolio of learning, bargaining, and cooperation may vary over space and time. The balance between exploration and exploitation is embodied in the link between science and policy that is present in both systems. Research in policy sciences has an established tradition of studying the connections between science and policy (Dilling & Lemos, 2011; Kirchhoff et al., 2013), and knowledge and

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278  Mark Lubell et al. action (Cash et al., 2003). Bay Adapt relies on estimates of sea-level rise vulnerabilities under different climate scenarios, and how the resulting inundation will impact human communities.This science is constantly evolving, including discovering new problems such as how sea-level rise will influence groundwater flooding and the mobilization of legacy toxic pollution. But Bay Adapt must also mobilize collective action among all the involved policy actors. The Delta science enterprise plays an essential function for exploration because its mission is to develop new knowledge that supports adaptive management actions under the Delta Plan. For example, every few years the Delta Science Program publishes the Science Action Agenda to prioritize research questions and uncertainties, and the types of science needed to address them.

Conclusion This chapter summarizes the key features of the EGF as a theory of polycentric governance. The EGF’s main theoretical contribution is going beyond a normative, undifferentiated concept of polycentricity and instead analyzing the structure, processes, and evolution of polycentric systems. The EGF has a demonstrated capacity to generate empirically testable hypotheses across a range of different policy sectors, especially environmental policy. From the applied policy perspective, we think it is crucial to understand how to steer and navigate polycentric systems because they are the fundamental reality of modern governance. However, the existing research has only scratched the surface—we need way more research across different types of social-ecological systems, policy sectors, and political cultures as well as longitudinal studies of institutional evolution and change. The elements of the case studies presented here focus on a driving force of institutional change: the attempts to capture the gains from cooperation from solving new collective-action problems. Capturing these gains usually requires some actor or new forum to lead and incentivize the process of cooperation. Resolving the “is anybody in charge” dilemma has equity consequences in terms of which policy actors are more likely to enjoy the benefits of cooperation versus being left out. At the same time, the EGF is capable of analyzing polycentric systems as complex adaptive systems. The processes of learning, cooperation, and bargaining play out over time in a system of interdependent components, such that change in one component may lead to cascading or threshold effects that surprise policy actors. The resilience of the system over time depends on the ability to effectively balance exploration of new opportunities for cooperation versus exploiting existing opportunities.The components of the system must mutually adjust to each other over time without any single central authority to command the whole system. Isenberg (2016) commented that governing such messy systems is “impossible.” We disagree and believe the EGF provides some theoretical and practical paths forward—it is an exercise in the “art of the impossible.”

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284  Mark Lubell et al. Pahl-Wostl, C. (2009). A conceptual framework for analysing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resource governance regimes. Global Environmental Change, 19(3), 354–365. Pahl-Wostl, C., & Knieper, C. (2014). The capacity of water governance to deal with the climate change adaptation challenge: Using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to distinguish between polycentric, fragmented and centralized regimes. Global Environmental Change, 29, 139–154. Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, path dependence, and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, 94(02), 251–267. Roe, M. (2009). Multi-level and polycentric governance: Effective policymaking for shipping. Maritime Policy & Management, 36(1), 39–56. Romero, I. (2022). Challenges on the Galápagos polycentric governance: Recentralization to overcome conflict and achieve the recommended policies. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. Sabatier, P.A., & Jenkins-Smith, H. (1993). Policy Change and Learning: An Advocacy Coalition Approach. Westview. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission. (2019). Rising Sea Level Priorities. [online] Available at: https://bcdc.ca.gov/ cm/2019/0125RisingSeaLevel2019.html [Accessed 22 May 2022]. Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S.R., Lenton, T.M., Bascompte, J., Brock, W., Dakos, V., Van de Koppel, J., Van de Leemput, I.A., Levin, S.A., & Van Nes, E.H. (2012). Anticipating critical transitions. Science, 338(6105), 344–348. Scholte, J.A. (2004). Civil society and democratically accountable global governance. Government and opposition, 39(2), 211–233. Scott, T.A., & Thomas, C.W. (2017). Winners and losers in the ecology of games: Network position, connectivity, and the benefits of collaborative governance regimes. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 27(4), 647–660. Smaldino, P.E., & Lubell, M. (2011). An institutional mechanism for assortment in an ecology of games. PLoS One, 6(8), p.e23019. Smaldino, P.E. & Lubell, M. 2014. Institutions and cooperation in an ecology of games. Artificial life, 20(2), 207–221. Tyler,T.R., & Blader, S.L. (2000). Cooperation in Groups: Procedural Justice, Social Identity, and Behavioral Engagement. Psychology Press. Tyler, R.W., Borrowman M.L., Havighurst, R.J., & Ostrom V. (1961). Social Forces Influencing American Education. University of Chicago Press Ostrom, V. 1991. The Meaning of American Federalism: Constituting a Self- Governing Society. 2d ed. San Francisco: ICS Press Wang, R.-Q., Herdman, L.M., Erikson, L., Barnard, P., Hummel, M., & Stacey, M.T. (2017). Interactions of estuarine shoreline infrastructure with multiscale sea level variability. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 122(12), 9962–9979. https:// doi.org/10.1002/2017JC012730 Zhou, W. and Mu, R., 2019. Exploring coordinative mechanisms for environmental governance in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area: an ecology of games framework. Sustainability, 11(11), p.3119.

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Appendix

EGF research has historically focused on several core hypotheses that have been the subject of empirical analysis. This certainly does not exhaust all of the possible hypotheses or assumptions associated with the EGF, but they are a strong starting point for building the knowledge base and have important connections to other theoretical frameworks. As EGF theory and research evolves over time, we expect these hypotheses will be amended and clarified and new hypotheses to emerge. •

•

•

•

The “risk hypothesis” (Berardo & Scholz, 2010) contends that alternative network structures provide actors with access to distinct types of social capital relevant to the resolution of collective-action problems. Structures that promote “bonding capital” mitigate cooperation problems that are present when the chances of defection are (otherwise) high; structures that promote “bridging capital” are advantageous when effective decision-making requires that actors have common knowledge or can learn from a central source. The “institutional externalities” hypothesis posits that the social, issuebased, political, and/or biophysical linkages that exist between forums can lead to instances whereby decisions made in one forum impact the state of the policy problem in alternate, linked forums. The “transaction cost hypothesis” states that forum effectiveness is enhanced when the costs associated with the development and implementation of forum outputs are minimized (Lubell, 2013; Lubell et al., 2013). The “multi-functional hypothesis” asserts that effective systems must simultaneously support actor learning, bargaining, and cooperation over time (Berardo & Lubell, 2019; Lubell, 2013). Notably, EGF research contends that trade-offs between these functions exist: shifts designed to enhance one may come at the cost of another.

Each hypothesis has inspired a unique research stream in which researchers seek to (i) assess the theoretical underpinnings of each hypothesis, (ii) examine each hypothesis in varying contexts across time and space, and/or

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286  Mark Lubell et al. (iii) augment and extent each hypothesis. In the provided table, we provide an overview of some of the more recent findings emanating from the respective streams. Across streams, researchers have recognized that a wide range of contextual variables—for example actor, forum, issue, and system-based features— hold important implications for how the purported relationships unfold (Appendix Table 8.1). Appendix Table 8.1 Core EGF Hypotheses and Associated Publications Core Hypothesis

Key Findings

Citation

Risk hypothesis

System evolution leads to the development of structures that promote bonding capital Structures that promote bonding capital also facilitate deeper learning about complex policy issues The prevalence of bridging and bridging and bonding network structures within a system is impacted by contextual variables (e.g., forum stability and the presence of exogenous shocks)

Angst and Hirschi (2017)

Stable systems promote trust between actors, which, in turn, reduces the efficacy of bonding structures Actor-level attributes impact the likelihood that an actor forms bringing versus bonding network structures Stakeholder conflict emerging in one forum can spill into other forums Increased actor diversity in one forum facilitates the generation of positive institutional externalities A wide range of social, physical, and material-based externalities can simultaneously exist within a system Cooperation emerging from forum processes can spread throughout the system Actors can meaningfully create externalities to advance their interests in affected forums

Bodin et al. (2020)

Institutional externalities hypothesis

Mewhirter and Berardo (2019) Berardo and Lubell (2016)

McAllister et al. (2015) McLaughlin et al. (2021) Mewhirter et al. (2019a,b) Daniell and Barreteau (2014) Zhao and Mu (2019) Mewhirter et al. (2018)

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Ecology of Games Framework  287 Core Hypothesis

Key Findings

Citation

Transaction cost hypothesis

Actor, forum, and system features impact transaction costs faced by actors Resource-poor actors opt out of forums due to high transaction costs Transaction costs increase at higher levels of geographic and institutional scale The transaction costs associated with forum participation reduce actor capacity to engage in alternative collaborative activities High transaction costs and low benefits promote forum collapse Forum elements designed to promote learning and distributional equity can reduce cooperation Forum elements that limit learning and distributional equity can facilitate cooperation Systems will rapidly expand to enhance learning (as opposed to cooperation or resource distribution) when a new, largescale problem emerges Actors place a greater emphasis on forums that impact learning and resource distribution as opposed to those that promote cooperation Regional/geographic components impact system development and, in turn, the extent to which systems promote learning and cooperation

Lubell et al. (2017)

Multi-functional hypothesis

Angst et al. (2021) Hamilton and Lubell (2018) Hileman and Bodin (2019) Smaldino and Lubell (2011) Lubell et al. (2020) Smaldino and Lubell (2014) Berardo et al. (2015)

Fischer and Maag (2019) Levy and Lubell (2018)

Part II

Comparisons and Conclusions



9

How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process? Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila

There are a wide range of theories, frameworks, and models (or generally “theoretical approaches”) to describe and explain policy processes. Indeed, the field of policy studies is perhaps too large and unwieldy to understand as a whole. Consequently, scholars seek guidance on which approaches might align best with the scope of their research, or whether to combine their insights – or accept some and reject others – when producing new applications (Sabatier, 2007a, 330). Since scholars already make these comparisons implicitly or in an ad hoc way, our first guiding question is: how can we add some rigor to this process? For example, this book already helps to narrow the list by identifying a manageable number of the most established “mainstream” approaches (Durnova and Weible, 2020) and informs readers by asking key authors to describe the approach and its empirical applications. In that context, in previous editions of Theories of the Policy Process, our role has been to examine and apply three criteria used consistently by Sabatier and Weible to assess theoretical value: 1 2 3

To what extent does the approach cover the basic elements of a theoretical approach, such as a shared vocabulary and defined concepts? Are the scholars who are applying the theoretical approach developing an active research program? Does the theoretical approach explain a large part of the policy process?

Using these criteria, our aim has been to make the theoretical approaches presented in this volume comparable by identifying their key concepts, their strengths and weaknesses for understanding the policy process and advancing knowledge, the similarities and differences in what these different theories explain, and what shared knowledge can be gleaned across them.1 These are not the only scientific criteria by which policy process theories can be compared. Weible’s introduction, for instance, includes “conducting comparative research” as a requirement for the approaches in this volume, which Tosun and Workman discuss at length in Chapter 10.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-12

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292  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila We have already noted, in previous editions, that this comparison involves what we might call “technical” difficulties: policy theories are not conducive to systematic comparison since the literature contains a complicated mix of frameworks, theories, and models (Schlager, 1999, 2007; Cairney and Heikkila, 2014; Heikkila and Cairney, 2018). They were designed independently of each other and not with these comparisons in mind. They contain different frames of reference, foci, and concepts. Their assumptions and findings may complement or contradict each other. They may attach different meanings to the same concepts (Cairney, 2013a, 7). So, a systematic comparison is important to foster broad agreement on how scholars can understand different approaches. Such comparisons may also help to foster more dialogue between mainstream and interpretive approaches, even though the latter do not yet feature much in this volume (Durnova and Weible, 2020; Heikkila and Jones, 2022). In this edition, our second guiding question is: how can we situate this scientific comparison in a wider normative context? We identify three examples of ways to get beyond comparisons that use narrow scientific criteria to decide what is a “good” theory and how much “progress” it is making. First, theories can demonstrate progress in relation to geographical coverage. Most approaches in this volume began life as US theories, with most showing impressive adaptation to their increased application to European contexts. How many theories show similar progress in relation to (say) Global South applications? Second, as critical social science studies show, theories can also be “good” if they seek to improve the world that they study. So, one additional criterion relates to normative development: do theories have a clear sense of how to understand and address the social and other problems associated with their research? Or, at least, can they provide “practical lessons” (Weible and Cairney, 2021)? Third, progress can be measured in relation to the support for professional diversity, equality, and inclusion: are there well-established policy theory communities that encourage scholarly inclusion? While the first new question is now asked relatively frequently (and features somewhat in previous editions), the second and third questions are not so easy to answer but are important for the advancement of the field (Heikkila and Jones, 2022). Rather, we describe what theoretical progress might look like in the future, to help set the agenda for future editions.

How Should We Compare Theoretical Approaches? The first criterion is the extent to which the basic elements of a theory are covered. We consider the extent to which each has (1) a defined scope and levels of analysis, (2) a shared vocabulary and defined concepts, (3) explicit assumptions, (4) identified relationships among key concepts or variables, and (5) a model of the individual grounding the theory. The second criterion is the development of an active scientific research program. We consider four indicators of this criterion: (1) the degree to

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  293 which the approach has been employed actively by researchers and published as journal articles and books; (2) whether it has been tested in multiple contexts, inclusive of diverse policy issues and different political systems, and with multiple methods; (3) whether scholars involved in employing the theory have made an attempt to actively develop shared research protocols, methods, or approaches, as well as how transparent those approaches are; and (4) how the theory has been adapted or modified over time. Developing indicators of the third criterion – whether the theory explains a large part of the policy process – is the most challenging because we know that the policy process is complex and there is no “general theory” (Smith and Larimer, 2009, 15–19). This prompts us to consider a fundamental question: given that we must simplify a complex world to understand it, which elements do policy scholars treat as crucial to explanation? These crucial elements are identified in sufficiently similar ways (see, e.g., John, 2003; Schlager, 2007; Weible, 2014; Cairney, 2020) to allow us to describe the following elements to provide an overall explanation of policymaking systems: 1

2

3

Actors making choices and interacting in many venues: The policymaking world may include thousands of policy actors spread across multiple venues for authoritative policy choice (often described as many levels, types, or “centers” of policymaking – Cairney et al., 2019). Actors can be individuals or collectives, and collectives can range from private companies to interest groups to governments bodies (Weible, 2014). They interact in various ways to influence the policy process – for instance, through negotiation, conflict, bargaining, and other means – and they often use strategies, such as framing, lobbying, and public engagement, among others, to influence choices. Institutions: These are the rules, norms, practices, and relationships that influence individual and collective behavior. The choices of actors are explained partly by their understanding of and adherence to rules (in their own organizations and each policymaking “center”). Rules can be formal and widely understood, such as when enshrined in law or a constitution, or informal and only understood in particular organizations. Institutions at one level (e.g., constitutional) can also shape activity at another (e.g., legislative or regulatory), establish the types of venue where policy decisions are made, and make the rules that allow particular types of actors or ideas to enter the policy process. Networks or subsystems: These are the relationships between actors responsible for policy decisions and the “pressure participants” (Jordan et al., 2004), such as interest groups with which they consult and negotiate. Senior policymakers delegate responsibility for policymaking to bureaucrats, who seek information and advice from groups. Groups exchange information for access to and potential influence within government. Bureaucracies and other public bodies (or forums for collective choice) may have operating procedures that favor particular sources of evidence and some participants over others. In other words,

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4

5

6

the rule-bound interactions between actors are as important as the individual actors (and strategies) themselves. Ideas or beliefs: This broad category captures how theories deal with ways of thinking or the knowledge that plays a role in the policy process. This category may include beliefs, knowledge, worldviews, and shared definitions of policy problems, images, and solutions within groups, organizations, networks, and political systems. Some ideas or beliefs may be taken for granted or rarely questioned – such as core beliefs, values, or paradigms. Others may be more malleable, such as proposed solutions to policy problems. Policy context: This category describes the wide array of features of the policymaking environment that can influence policy decisions. It can refer to the often-changing policy conditions that policymakers consider when identifying problems and deciding how to address them, such as a political system’s geography, biophysical and demographic profile, economy, and mass attitudes and behavior (Hofferbert, 1974). It can also refer to a sense of policymaker “inheritance” – of laws, rules, institutions, and programs – on entry into office (Rose, 1990). Events: Events can be routine and anticipated, such as elections that produce limited change or introduce new actors with different ideas. Or they can be unanticipated incidents, including social or natural crises or major scientific breakthroughs and technological changes (Weible, 2014). Their unpredictability makes them difficult to theorize, and they can often be treated as “errors” or external factors providing an additional source of explanation. Or they can be incorporated within theories that focus on how actors interpret and respond to events.

Policy theories do not treat these concepts in the same way. First, these terms are ambiguous, producing debate about their meaning and most useful applications. For example, there are many approaches to studies of institutionalism (including rational choice, historical, sociological, constructivist, feminist), and it is still difficult to place many texts within those categories (Hall and Taylor, 1996, 939–940; Peters, 2005, 108; Lowndes, 2010, 65; Mackay et al., 2010). Such problems are compounded when we try to connect terms and use a range of other ambiguous concepts – such as power, evolution, punctuated equilibrium, and policy entrepreneurs – to provide a complete explanation (Cairney, 2020). For example, in this volume, compare Baumgartner et al. with Mettler and Sorelle on positive and negative feedback. Further, a change of authorship can produce changes in the working meaning of concepts (see Porto de Oliveira et al., this volume, on the catchall meaning of diffusion). Second, the boundaries between terms are fluid. As one example, institutions are defined primarily as rules and norms, which make them difficult to disentangle from ideas or networks. In particular, “constructivist institutionalism” challenges the suggestion that institutions represent fixed structures (Hay, 2006, 65; Béland and Cox, 2010, 4). Other studies identify

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  295 shared rules and norms as the main explanation for subsystem stability (Jordan and Maloney, 1997). It is also difficult to place overarching concepts such as strategies in one category, since they involve actors often trying to influence policy beliefs and ideas, and adapting strategies to rules in networks or subsystems in particular contexts. Third, theories explore these processes at the level of the individual, network, or system. The metaphor of the telescope is useful: (1) zooming in to see individuals, then zooming out to see groups and organizations, networks, and political systems (Cairney, 2020, 150); and (2) shifting one’s focus from the “top” or “bottom” or from one organization to another. Further, not all theories focus on all aspects of the policy process (e.g., some seek to explain one element in depth). So, we should not assume that each theory refers to each term in the same way or shares the same focus.

Comparative Criterion 1: Elements of a Theory To help organize our comparison, Table 9.1 presents a summary of the indictors we use to explore our first criterion: key elements of a theory. These indicators include (1) a defined scope and levels of analysis, (2) shared vocabulary and concepts, (3) defined assumptions, (4) identified relationships among key concepts, and (5) the model of the individual. Scope and levels of analysis. Each of the approaches in this volume has a relatively well-defined scope and provides a different lens on the policy process. They all, to some degree, address questions related to policy formulation and change within their scope. Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET), and Policy Diffusion and Innovation (PDI) approaches have tended to emphasize particular stages of the policy process more than the other theories, although each poses distinct questions. MSF explores how agenda setting and policymaking occur under conditions of ambiguity (Chapter 1). PET explains why and how complex policymaking systems, generally characterized by stability and incrementalism, occasionally produce large-scale departures from the past (see Chapter 2). PDI considers what explains the adoption of new policies and how they diffuse across states and other jurisdictions. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) place a premium on questions related to policy formulation and change, but also on the importance of the cognitive biases that make storytelling and coalition formation so important. The ACF examines coalition formation and policy learning, for example.The NPF looks at how narratives influence public opinion, how these narratives are structured, and how they reflect policy beliefs. Although Policy Feedback Theory (PFT) addresses policy formulation and change, it focuses more on questions of policy design and dynamics, such as the feedback of policies into society. The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework differs from the other theories in that it is explicitly more generic.The IAD is aimed at guiding inquiry of how institutions (including public policies) shape human interactions, as well as how they are designed and perform.The starting point

Scope and levels of analysis

Primarily policy Numerous key feedback and concepts, the types of such as effects policy core beliefs, coalitions

ACF

Shared Primarily the Numerous key vocabulary five structural concepts such and defined elements of the as institutional concepts framework friction, policy images

PFT Scope – Scope – how advocacy policies shape coalition politics and interaction, subsequent learning, policymaking and policy Level – system, change but implicit Levels – coalitions and subsystems

PET

Scope – political Scope – policy system toward choice under stability and ambiguity periodic major Level – system, change but implicit and focus is on Level – system actors coupling streams

MSF

Table 9.1 What Elements of a Theoretical Approach Are Included? IAD

PDII

EGF

Scope – Scope – policy Scope – influence Scope – how collective diffusion and people solve of narratives on action innovation collective public opinion, problems Levels – problems, policy dialogue, within policymaking devise agenda setting, polycentric venues/ institutions policy change systems governments and the Levels – Levels –systems outcomes individual, and forums of those coalition, within them processes societal Level – the “action situation,” may be broadly interpreted Numerous key Primarily policy Several central Numerous key concepts, adoption and concepts concepts, some some diffusion, at the borrowed, overlap including framework some overlap with related policy transfer, level and with related approaches circulation, and within approaches (e.g., IAD, mobilities; and related (e.g., ACF) ACF); others key concepts theories and emerging tools as theory develops

NPF

296

Model of the individual

Assumptions

Explicitly defined Included, e.g., logic of decisionmaking, but not explicitly labeled as assumptions Bounded Challenges rationality, assumptions of particularly comprehensive relating to rationality; attention and focus on information ambiguity processing

(Continued )

Not explicit, but Boundedly Multiple are Homo Narrans, Boundedly recognizes that rational compatible, builds on rational, policymakers actors but the bounded emphasis that can learn influenced researcher rationality individuals by must be recognizing are motivated explicit with the role of motivated reasoning the model heuristics, by beliefs and cultural primacy of and prone to cognition affect, hot devil shift cognition, confirmation and disconfirmation bias, selective exposure, primacy of groups, identity protective cognition, narrative cognition

Some Generally assumptions defined explicitly defined for the models

Not explicitly discussed in this volume; suggests individual choice is shaped by policies and institutions

Explicitly defined Defined, but very generally at the framework level

Explicitly defined

Implicitly defined assumptions underlying the rationale for effects

297

PET

PFT

ACF

NPF

General General Describes factors General Generally relationships relationships emphasis that lead to identifies three linking how shaping on effects major policy “streams” narrative subsystem at of public change and that come content and framework policy on the those that together during form shape level; specific meaning of constrain “windows of responses from factors that citizenship, change or opportunity” policy actors. influence form of produce to cause Specific coalition governance, incrementalism; major policy hypotheses at formation, power of offers specific change; specific micro- and policy groups, hypotheses hypotheses meso-levels learning, political for empirical recently added on the use and and policy agendas – all testing influence of change via of which narratives hypotheses affect future policy; hypotheses in empirical applications

Source: Created by the authors.

Relationships among key concepts

MSF

Table 9.1  (Continued) PDII

Diffusion occurs General through relationships learning, at the competition, framework coercion, and level, and socialization more specific at theory and model levels – e.g., conditions that lead to collective action and principles of robust commonpool resource governance

IAD

Identifies an evolutionary process of policy games and three processes shaping effectiveness of the system (learning, cooperation, and bargaining)

EGF

298

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  299 is typically a collective action problem, and scholars have applied a diverse set of theories and models in studying different problems. Similar to the IAD, the Ecology of Games Framework (EGF) focuses on collective action problems, but specifically in the context of polycentric governance systems. It directs attention to how the network structure of these systems and the nature of interactions among actors within different venues of governance systems shape the performance and evolution of governance systems. Many approaches study a policy system and/or subsystem. However, it is important to differentiate between the level of analysis and the unit of observation. Often researchers rely on units of observation that differ from the primary level of analysis. For example, ACF studies typically use policy actors as the unit of observation to draw conclusions about coalitions or subsystems. Likewise, EGF examines policy actors and their interactions in different venues of a system, while PET is explicitly a system-level analysis. Some theories are more explicit than others about what levels of analysis are of interest. The NPF directs researchers to three possible levels of analysis (macro/societal, meso/subsystem, micro/individual), whereas the ACF identifies and defines two levels of analysis (policy subsystems and coalitions). PET discusses the nature of decision-making in political systems but does not define them as directly as the ACF. The MSF and PFT also explore questions related to policy systems but do not pay close attention to the boundaries of those systems. PDI studies look at policymaking venues or governments for the level of analysis. Still, PDI draws inferences about how policies diffuse across a system or collection of states (i.e., a political system made up of states, such as the United States or European Union). The primary level of analysis in the IAD also diverges from the others in that it looks at action situations. However, the breadth of the concept of the action situation means that it could be viewed as a coalition, network, or other type of collective action venue. Shared vocabulary and defined concepts. Each of the theories or frameworks presented has a shared vocabulary. Most are explicit about their definitions and have incorporated key concepts into principal diagrams and figures.The IAD may have the most extensive shared vocabulary, likely due to its broad scope. By contrast, the MSF, although it presents a set of shared key concepts and general definitions, has been critiqued for its lack of consistent and clear operationalization of its core concepts (Cairney and Jones, 2016; Jones et al., 2016), which has encouraged MSF scholars to offer more precision in the operationalization of key concepts (Zohlnhöfer et al., 2022). While clear conceptualization can aid analysts by providing opportunities for more precise measurement, especially across research contexts, an overly complex, or precisely defined, set of concepts may inhibit widespread appeal of the applicability of the theory. Additionally, the set of key concepts identified within these theories can evolve, or the theory may incorporate new concepts or shift their emphasis. Assumptions. All of the theories in this volume offer at least implicit assumptions that underlie their theoretical logic. The IAD’s assumptions are

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300  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila the most general and least specified at the framework level. For example, in laying out the components of an action situation, or identifying a typology of rules and the levels where collective action occurs (operational, collective choice, constitutional), the IAD includes assumptions about the factors that are critical to understanding collective decision-making. EGF lays out some general assumptions that all polycentric systems comprise actors, policy issues, and forums. It draws some insights from the IAD in its assumptions about how collective choice rules and operational rules structure the games around collective action problems. ACF provides explicit assumptions, such as its emphasis on a long time period to study policy change and that the focus of policymaking activity is the subsystem. The NPF also recognizes the subsystem as a key level of activity at the mesolevel but also explicitly assumes that policy narratives operate across micro-, meso-, and macro-levels. The NPF further assumes that the world is (to a great extent) socially constructed, but those constructions are susceptible to manipulation by actors telling stories. The MSF similarly suggests that the problem stream is socially constructed, but does not include this in its set of explicit assumptions. MSF is increasingly explicit with its assumptions, focusing on the ambiguity of decision-making, the time constraints facing policymakers, problematic preferences of actors in policy processes, unclear technology within political systems, fluid participation in decision-making bodies, and stream independence. PET draws on similar assumptions about bounded rationality and agenda setting but adds the expectation that policy systems exhibit exogenous and endogenous drivers of positive and negative feedback. Model of the individual. The model of the individual in many theories is part of the stated assumptions. Most theories in this book adopt a broad focus on “bounded rationality,” although often in different ways than envisaged by Simon (1957). Initially, bounded rationality represents little more than a truism: people do not have the time, resources, and cognitive ability to consider all issues and act optimally, so they use informational shortcuts and other heuristics or emotional cues to produce what they perceive to be good-enough decisions. Then, each approach makes sense of the model’s implications in relation to other key concepts, producing different emphases in the models of the individual. For instance, ACF and EGF both acknowledge that the choices of boundedly rational individuals are shaped by their belief systems and values. The NPF emphasizes the role of emotions and narration on human decision-making in establishing its model of “homo narrans”: actors tell stories to manipulate the bounded rationality of others. PET focuses on the need for individual actors to consider issues serially (one issue at a time), while organizations can parallel process, producing limited attention to most issues but continuous potential for major shifts in attention. PDI and PFT are the least explicit about a model of the individual. PFT suggests that individuals are not perfectly rational because their choices and understanding of the political world are influenced by policy designs. PDI recognizes that policy actors are capable of learning, but that

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  301 diffusion processes may not be rational. The IAD accepts that its framework can accommodate differing models of the individual; some of those models make the assumption of comprehensive rationality, whereas others explore bounded rationality. There is likely a tradeoff in the level of specificity underlying the model of individual. On the one hand, detailed models offer more accurate representations of the underlying drivers of human decision-making. Moreover, adding nuance can prompt new questions about how actors engage and interact in policy processes, as well as whether and under what conditions policy learning occurs. For example, different emphases have opened up questions about how problem framing occurs (MSF), how attention to policy problems shifts (PET, MSF), why collective action is possible under certain conditions (IAD, EGF), or how coalitions demonize their opponents (ACF, NPF). Expanding individual models further, or adopting insights from other models, may add areas for future theoretical development, but too many layers of complexity can make it difficult to establish clear linkages or rationale for hypotheses. It is also impossible to present systemwide analysis without a relatively simple model of individual behavior. Relationships among key concepts. Each approach presents relationships among key variables that build on the logic of the theory’s assumptions and models of the individual – often in the form of explicit hypotheses or propositions. Most often these relationships explore how different factors (e.g., contextual variables, narratives, coalitional structures, institutional venues, or framing of target populations) affect an outcome within the policy process (e.g., major or minor policy change, public opinion of policies, policy efficacy). In some cases, these relationships are broadly implied. For example, the main argument of MSF is that three “streams” (problems, policies, politics) come together, often through the efforts of policy entrepreneurs, during “windows of opportunity” to set policy agendas and effect policy change. Yet, new exponents of MSF also offer a new set of more specific hypotheses, regarding the three “streams,” policy windows, and entrepreneurs (see Herweg et al.’s Table 1.1 and Figure 1.2 in this volume). These lay out the conditions under which the key elements of the framework are more likely to lead to agenda setting and policy decision-making. PET also lays out general expectations and more precise hypotheses. It identifies institutional, subsystem, and decision-making factors that lead to major policy change, as well as those that constrain change or produce incrementalism. PET further develops more precise hypotheses, such as the levels of institutional “friction” that explain the size or frequency of punctuations. PDI broadly recognizes general patterns that lead to diffusion, including highly specified variables of both internal and external “determinants,” while the diffusion models that fall under this umbrella often use more specific hypotheses to identify the determinants and mechanism of policy adoption. NPF also develops several hypotheses that detail how persuasive policy narratives will be on individuals, how narratives are used in coalitional strategies, and how narrative strategies

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302  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila can affect public opinion and policy outcomes. Neither PFT nor EGF presents specific hypotheses in the overview chapters in this volume, but both point to individual studies that examine testable hypotheses derived from the theories. Both the ACF and the IAD are open to tackling diverse sets of relationships among key concepts or variables.They present these relationships both at the general “framework” level, identifying the broad categories of factors that can influence policy processes (or action situations in the case of the IAD), and at the theoretical level, explaining more precise phenomena within the policy process.The ACF’s theory-level explanations address the nature of coalitions, policy learning, and policy change.The IAD is less explicit about its hypotheses at the theory level than the ACF, but it does lay out the conditions that lead to collective action around common-pool resource governance, as well as the principles or factors associated with robust common-pool resource institutions. Not all theories offer causal or explanatory hypotheses; rather, some present descriptive hypotheses. These would include the ACF’s propositions on coalitions or PET’s propositions about the frequency and characterization of budget distributions. At the same time, some propositions stem directly from their assumptions, such as the ACF’s ordering of beliefs. PET’s assumptions also appear as propositions or hypotheses. For instance, PET argues that policy change is a function of disproportionate attention; high attention often leads to reframing issues or overcoming institutional “friction.” These propositions or hypotheses explicitly help explain systemwide effects, rather than try to predict which issues will receive most attention and which policy areas subject to most punctuations. EGF points to descriptive expectations about complex governance systems in this volume, examining some of the triggers of system change, such as threshold effects and cascading effects.

Comparative Criterion 2: Activeness of Research Programs and Their Coherence Table 9.2 presents a summary of our assessment of the theories’ levels of research activity and coherence. Each of the approaches is active in terms of the number of publications and appears to keep growing and evolving. Of course, some are more mature, and have had more time to expand (e.g., IAD, ACF, PET), while others are relatively young (NPF, EGF). All have been tested in multiple contexts (again, with some more expansive than others, which we discuss later) and most employ multiple methods. Some tend to employ quantitative methods with sophisticated modeling techniques (e.g., PET and EGF); others have relied more heavily on qualitative or case study applications (e.g., MSF). Others, like the ACF, IAD, NPF, and increasingly PFT, incorporate both quantitative and qualitative approaches and multiple types of data sources, such as surveys, document coding, and experiments.

Source: Created by the authors.

Change or adaptation to the theory over time

Shared and transparent research protocols, methods, approaches

Extensive applications across many countries – budgets and agendas in diverse policy domains; Method –mostly quantitative

PET

PFT

ACF

NPF

IAD

Numerous Extensive Growing Extensive applications – applications – applications – applications – multiple multiple many US in around the countries and countries a few policy world in diverse policy and settings, contexts, diverse policy arenas; but with increasing domains of Methods – initial bias international IAD and qualitative, toward US and comparative related tools; ethnographic, and enviro. applications; Methods – quantitative, policy; Methods – multiple and Methods – multiple experimental multiple Studies appear Shared models of Publications Coding forms Shared codebooks Framework is inspired by broad, budget changes, highlight and surveys and methods the shared intuitive concepts agenda change common often for identifying approach Shared datasets, research available as narratives, with a large website, etc. agendas appendices, with several and active among the but modifications network; diverse application and adaptations includes community of protocols several of scholars not always institutional consistent tools spawned by IAD Modifications made New empirical Evolution of the Hard core of Updated Regular in applications and underlying the theory hypotheses and evolution to new political methodological theory of maintained, connections of concepts, systems and applications feedback and with multiple to related and links different policy cross-nationally; mechanisms revisions policy theories; to theory, stages (e.g., recent and and more methodological models, and implementation), expansion of expansion of precision in advancements analytical hypotheses drawn local policy methods and theoretical and some tools out more explicitly agenda research contexts. arguments practical in recent years applications

Publications Numerous tested in applications across multiple many countries contexts in diverse policy and/or with domains; multiple Methods – mostly methods case studies, with a few quantitative applications

MSF

Table 9.2 How Active and Coherent Are the Research Programs?

Growing applications – primarily in environmental governance domain; Methods – mostly quantitative and extensive network methods Common tools to measure key variables and shared analytical approaches

EGF

Connections Theoretical between refinements diffusion added in research understanding and broader how literature on polycentric policy “travel” systems identified, change and especially adapt internationally

Key methods and variables identified

Numerous applications – multiple policy topics, numerous international applications; Methods – multiple

PDI

30

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304  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila Across the theories, we find strengths and weaknesses in how each advances its research program in terms of the extent and diversity of the research applications, the shared research protocols, and adaptations to the theory over time. When the MSF is applied, its strength is also its weakness. Its core concepts have broad intuitive appeal, which may make it feasible to apply without being immersed in the research program over a long period (Cairney and Jones, 2016). It also has been modified to make it more readily applicable outside the United States. Most applications have been cases studies that use the concepts of contingency and ambiguity to focus in detail on why key decisions at particular stages were made in particular places at particular times. The explanations are impressive but difficult to generalize. In 2016, a meta-analysis of the MSF found that the coherence of the research program remained limited, particularly due to the inconsistencies in the operationalization of MSA’s core concepts and the lack of integration of new subcomponents into the MSF’s hypotheses (Jones et al., 2016). Herweg et al. (Chapter 1 in this volume) describe efforts to address these limitations, identifying conceptual and methodological tools that can allow for more comparative MSF research. When compared to MSF studies, PET research generally has treated its core concepts and their interaction consistently and coherently. Some concepts have been modified, and methods have advanced over time. There is potential for reduced clarity as the Comparative Agendas Project expands and new scholars (with different backgrounds and less training in PET) become involved, although PET’s history of shared datasets and methods helps. When applied, PET has two major strengths. The original work produced in-depth case studies combining qualitative and quantitative methods of postwar policy continuity and change. The general punctuation hypothesis extended the analysis to a quantitative account of stability and instability in budgets and legislative outputs. This helped shift the focus from agenda setting to the broader policymaking system. The explanations are increasingly generalizable, across levels of the US government and in multiple countries (particularly budget distributions), although this expansion has prompted some debate about methods and measurement among the core team (Dowding et al., 2016; Jones, 2016). EGF also appears to have a relatively coordinated and coherent research program, but compared to others in this volume, it is still in its infancy. Thus, the research program is relatively narrow – focusing heavily on applications in the natural resources policy domain and centered around the work of Lubell and colleagues and students from a common lab. Thus, methods, such as survey tools and network analytical approaches, are relatively consistent across applications. Although the framework has not appeared to travel widely yet across the globe, its connection to broader concepts of polycentricity and complex governance systems helps it to plug into broader discussions of policy domains and methods. As Lubell and Mewhirter describe in this volume, EGF can also intersect with other compatible theories, for instance theories of learning, in understanding how polycentric systems change and adapt.

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  305 PFT has tended to emphasize in-depth case studies, especially on social/ welfare policy topics in the United States. The research has expanded in recent years to include large-N datasets and experiments and applications outside the United States (Mettler and Sorelle in this book discuss many recent examples of rigorous applications). However, it is not directly apparent that there is a coordinated and coherent research program promoting shared research protocols or approaches. As with the PET, the ACF’s core studies treat key concepts and their interaction consistently and coherently – but with considerable scope for independent scholars to use the ACF very loosely, without testing any of its hypotheses (which may, in part, contribute to its extensive use). It is increasingly applied beyond the United States and environmental policy, prompting its key authors to adapt the framework to make it more generalizable and to coordinate comparative applications (e.g., Weible et al., 2016). ACF also has shared approaches and protocols that are commonly made available to scholars, but the consistency in application of these protocols is less clear. The framework has maintained its basic assumptions, but hypotheses and concepts have been modified on occasion to reflect new empirical and theoretical insights. The NPF’s attempt to make the role of narratives in the policy process measurable and more conducive to testable hypotheses has led NPF scholars to develop shared codebooks and methods for identifying and quantifying the nature and effect narratives. Some inconsistencies remain across the applications in terms of how the elements of narratives are operationalized. Yet, continued efforts to refine and adapt the methodologies, modify (or eliminate) some hypotheses, and extend the research outside of the United States suggest growth in the research program (albeit while facing some friction when building on insights from positivist and postpositivist accounts – Jones and Radaelli, 2016). As it is still a relatively young research program, some hypotheses have yet to be tested (e.g., at the macro-level). The NPF’s applicability to a diverse array of policy areas and contexts has expanded. The IAD’s long-standing research program has been structured around the framework as the shared approach for a large and cohesive network of scholars, as well as the development of shared datasets, models, and methods (Poteete et al., 2010). These trends in diverse methods and applications continue, as evidenced by the recent special issues of journals and books that Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas identify in Chapter 6, including many applications using formal modeling and experimental work, as well as comparative studies from around the world. Its most prominent strength is in the study of common-pool resources, with Ostrom winning the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 for demonstrating how people can create and enforce rules to ward off common-pool resource exhaustion. Recent efforts to apply some of the IAD’s early work on polycentric governance to common-pool resource studies have taken this research in new directions. Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas also describe extensive efforts to develop and test various tools of institutional analysis – namely the Institutional Grammar Tool, IAD

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306  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila Rule Typology, Linked Action Situations, and Social-Ecological Systems Framework – that demonstrate the diversity and depth of IAD applications. The challenge, however, is that with this diversity and depth comes complexity and potential difficulty for new scholars to learn and apply. The PDI chapter in this volume (Chapter 7) illustrates the bread of diffusion and innovation approaches beyond the models described in previous editions of this volume. Porto de Oliveira and colleagues describe four overarching research traditions: diffusion, transfer, circulation, and mobilities (see Table 7.1) that all offer explanations of how policies travel. In examining how these traditions explain what, where, who, and when policies travel, they demonstrate the similarities and differences in the research traditions but also the diversity of applications and growth in studies of policy “travel” internationally.

Comparative Criterion 3: How Does Each Theoretical Approach Explain “The Policy Process”? Table 9.3 identifies how each theory describes the six key elements of the policy process and explains how they interact to produce policies. In some cases, the lack of explicit articulation of each concept prompts us to infer whether they are used. Multiple Streams Framework. Kingdon’s (1984) focus was on the interaction between (1) policy solutions that could catch on quickly and (2) the established beliefs in a policy community that could slow its progress. Government attention may lurch quickly to a problem. However, a technically and politically feasible solution takes much longer to produce, involving network activity to refine a solution as well as policy entrepreneurs trying to find the right time to propose it (when attention is high and policymakers have the motive and opportunity to adopt it). The role of institutions can be inferred from the recognition of informal rules in each political system, such as when to introduce a bill in Congress (Zahariadis, 2014), and the MSF chapter in this volume offers further suggestions for advancing insights on the role of institutions in agenda setting and decision-making. Focusing events can be important to shift levels of attention to a problem, but the MSF is about the need for other processes to occur before the event has more than a fleeting importance. Key sources of context include the “national mood,” interpreted by policymakers, and the policy conditions in each case, such as levels of congestion, fuel availability, and pollution when policymakers consider transport policy. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory. PET has emphasized the interaction between: (1) the “monopoly of understandings” underpinning subsystem relationships and (2) the new solutions that could “catch fire.” Subsystems are a source of stability, power, and policy continuity for long periods. Instability and major change can come from the interactions among institutions, such as venues with different rules and understandings, or between the policy subsystem and the macropolitical system (a conceptualization also found in

Networks/ A broad “policy subsystems community” of actors, with relatively little focus on insulated subsystems

Subsystems as sources of stability and power

ACF

NPF

IAD

PDI

EGF

(Continued )

Actors, primarily Policymakers, Policy actors Policy actors Actors and individuals, experts, involved in groups who form who make entrepreneurs forums interested in coalitions choices policies use act narratives strategically, strategically learn, etc. to influence public opinion and decisions Indirectly, Institutions as Part of context Institutions as Policies Types of “institutionalized the rules of rules and institutionalized policy channels of games norms that in rules and venues and communication” shape behavior, programs rules in the and typology broader of rules context, but less directly Loosely, information Networks Networks Groups Subsystems Modifies the networks function within action mobilizing and ACF’s flow within the situation, but to protect coalitions diagram on polycentric no explicit or challenge subsystems system attention to programs and explores subsystems the idea of focusing on regimes

PFT

Implicitly actors Broadly, who are policymakers, affected by interest groups policy may in and other turn become organizations, policy actors and individuals within groups and different venues

PET

Institutional Institutions Informal rules venues and as rules or and formal their rules venues of venues, which cause decisionrecognized but more or less making institutions not “friction” emphasized

Actors Policy making entrepreneurs choices in and venues policymakers

MSF

Table 9.3 Explains or Emphasizes What Elements of the Policy Process?

307

National mood, policy conditions, pressure groups, admin turnover, etc.

Focusing events draw attention to problems

Context

Events

Source: Created by the authors.

Policy solutions proposed and amended over time to become acceptable to a policy community

Ideas or beliefs

MSF

Table 9.3  (Continued) PFT

ACF

NPF

Ideas about Monopoly of policy benefits understandings and political in established attitudes via subsystem; and “interpretive new solutions effects” of or ideas that policy breakthrough

Belief systems Narrative that drive strategies, policy actor grounded behavior in belief systems, and ways of thinking that are embedded in cultures Problem Stable Endogenous Past policy context is parameters subsystem decisions the spatial, – social, context, and and broader temporal, cultural, wider policy political and economic, environment context (e.g., ideational physical, partisanship) setting of a and shaping narrative institutions feedback effects structuring the subsystem Not directly External Events shift the Not directly addressed, events and macro-political addresses (but but may internal agenda often part of combine events (e.g., a narrative with shocks, of “critical narratives change to junctures”) to focus governing attention coalition)

PET Policy solutions emulated, or the perceived norms of policy adoption that influence policy borrowers

Shared preferences or norms of actors, but not explicit

Beliefs can influence structure of networks and engagement in forums

EGF

Not directly addressed

Indirectly addressed – e.g., crises, but part of context

Loosely addressed – e.g., surprise

Socio-economic, Not directly Physical and conditions, addressed – material education, structure of conditions, ideology, religion, polycentric community etc. systems is characteristics, the context pre-existing institutions

PDI

IAD

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  309 some evolutionary and complexity theories [Cairney, 2013b]). The latter is unpredictable: lurches of macropolitical attention can destabilize subsystems, but most subsystems can remain unaffected for long periods. “Institutional friction” describes the effort required to overcome established rules. High friction suggests that a major effort is required to secure institutional change, which may produce a pressure-dam effect and policy change. Major events, like wars that change budget patterns, as well as sustained and cumulative attention to minor events, may also cause policy change. Different sequences of events can help explain different processes across countries, which can include elections or less predictable shifts in the policymaking environment. However, the focus of PET is often endogenous change in subsystems in the absence of changes in the wider policy environment. Policy Feedback Theory. PFT has its roots in historical institutionalism, which suggests that commitments made in the past produce increasing returns (Pierson, 2000).When a policy becomes established and resources are devoted to programs, they structure current activity and provide advantages for some groups more than others (Mettler and Sorelle, Chapter 3 in this volume). Actors are present when policies assign different citizen rights to groups, influencing their ability and incentive to mobilize and engage. Networks are implied when government agencies mobilize support for, and groups mobilize to protect, programs. Established policies and rules represent institutionalized beliefs or dominant policy frames. Further, in historical institutionalism, “critical juncture” highlights the major impetus required to prompt institutional change when policies are “locked-in” (Pierson, 2000; Cairney, 2020, 82). Advocacy Coalition Framework. People engage in politics to translate their beliefs into action (Chapter 4). There are three main types: core, policy core, and secondary. Actors with similar beliefs become part of the same advocacy coalition, and coalitions compete with each other in multiple arenas. The main focus is the subsystem, a key venue (with particular rules of engagement) for coalition interaction. The ACF’s conceptualization of subsystems is distinctive, focusing on actors beyond government and interest groups, including academics and analysts. The ACF flow diagram identifies spillover effects from other policy subsystems and events, such as a change in government or a shift in governmental priorities, on subsystems. However, its focus is on how coalitions interpret and respond to events from outside subsystems (external shocks) or policy failures (internal shocks). Major responses to shocks are less frequent than policy-oriented learning and the revision of secondary aspects of beliefs. Narrative Policy Framework.The NPF seeks to measure how actors use, and are influenced by, narratives in policymaking. Narratives are stylized accounts of the origins, aims, and likely impacts of policies. Actors making choices are the core focus: using narratives strategically to reinforce or oppose policy measures. Subsystems are also a cornerstone, adapting the ACF to identify how advocacy coalitions compete or how subsystem-level actors can dominate narratives. Context is important through the policy setting, including

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310  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila the factors that actors have to account for when constructing narratives (e.g., legal and constitutional parameters, geography, scientific evidence, economic conditions, agreed-on norms). Institutions are addressed more indirectly by arguing that successful narratives may become institutionalized in policy systems at the macro-level. Events are resources, used to construct focusing events and apportion blame. Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. The IAD focuses on how actors make choices and interact within institutional environments that structure (or help explain) their behavior when engaged in collective action. It provides tools to explore how different sets of actors and institutions produce different outcomes, often evaluated in terms of efficiency, equity, and accountability. The IAD contains a typology of (seven) rules regarding who can take part, how extensive their involvement can be, who is in charge, how to share information, and how to punish defectors – but it notes that many rules are implicit and difficult to identify in practice. One set of operational rules is nested in a set of rules on collective action, which is nested in constitutional rules. The institutional context is underpinned by physical and material conditions that affect how people can act and which rules can be set. This wider context may produce the incentives for people to act selfishly or cooperatively and influences the rules that people generate to regulate behavior. Shared preferences or norms underpin the production of rules, while the role of networks (the interaction of actors in venues with specific rules) is important within the concept of the action situation (Ostrom, 2009). Policy Diffusion and Innovations. Policy diffusion and innovation is the process of policy “travel” from one policymaking jurisdiction or government to another. PDI focuses partly on the – sometimes very limited – choices of actors at the “collective level” (e.g., governments), from the perception within governments that they should learn about the benefits of policies in neighboring jurisdictions, or the perception that they need to keep up with norms or competitive pressures, to the limited choice among governments who receive international assistance on the condition that they change policy. The literature also identifies the usual suspects within each state (including elected policymakers, officials, and interest groups), plus actors who operate across states, including supranational or federal organizations, multinational corporations, epistemic communities containing networks of experts (Haas, 1992), and entrepreneurs selling policies from one government to another (Cairney, 2020, 200). Institutions are conceptualized minimally – most often in the context of “what” is transferred or diffused, while networks are information networks, not the more regular and systematic patterns of behavior in subsystems.With respect to context, PDI studies have recognized numerous factors, ranging from local politics to administrative cultures and economic conditions that shape not only the likelihood of policy diffusion or transfer but also the extent to which policy will change as it transfers. Some studies also use proximity to explain adoption, from physical proximity to a wider similarity

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  311 between states (ideology, biophysical properties, social composition, attitudes, etc.). Events also play an important role in explaining temporal patterns of diffusion. Ecology of Games Framework. EGF focuses on how policy actors, who are shaped by their policy beliefs, interact through networks in different policy forums, which are structured by institutions, to address policy issues or collective action problems. Less central to the EGF are the wider contextual factors of the polycentric systems where actors function, but the EGF recognizes that systems will vary in their levels of polycentricity and structural elements. Events are also more loosely addressed. In this volume, for instance, Lubell and Mewhirter (Chapter 8) discuss the issue of “surprise,” which can happen through or unexpected interactions in the system and thus might be akin to certain events identified in other policy process approaches.

Comparing Ways to Compare Theories: Technical and Normative Criteria In previous editions of this book, we focused on the extent to which these theories should be treated as complementary or contradictory (Cairney and Heikkila, 2014; Heikkila and Cairney, 2018). Treating them as complementary is intuitively appealing, but theories rarely ask the same questions or examine the same cases. Further, when studies try to combine insights and apply them to specific cases, they face major terminological and methodological obstacles (Cairney, 2013a). The alternative, to focus on a small number of discrete theories and reject others, is what we do as professional scholars (e.g., through peer review and editorial discretion), often based on widespread adherence to certain scientific principles (Sabatier, 1999, 2007b; Eller and Krutz, 2009). Or this occurs without fully agreeing on the rules for inclusion (Cairney, 2013a), and without being sure that different theories using different concepts to explain different things actually compete with each other (Dowding, 2015). In that context, we explore different ways to assess theories and theoretical progress. 1

Applying narrow scientific criteria What are the theory’s strengths and weaknesses if we use our three overarching criteria: (1) inclusion of basic elements of a theoretical approach; (2) development of an active and coherent research program; and (3) explanation of a large part of the policy process? First, all approaches included in this book include the basic elements of a theoretical approach. All do well in clearly defining their scope/levels of analysis and establishing a clear vocabulary, although some are more expansive (i.e., IAD) or more consistent than others. Some (PFT, IAD, EGF, PDI) leave their assumptions more implicitly stated, or leave their model of the individual more implicit (PFT, PDI), and could provide more clarity for theory consumers and potential users on those fronts.

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2

All approaches have defined relationship among key variables, albeit with wide variation in how these are described. Occasionally, theories present more general relationships through a visual framework or flow diagram (ACF, IAD, EGF), or through generalized models (PDI). Others focus on describing these general relationships verbally (MSF, PET, PFT). All, except IAD, also lay out more specific hypotheses that have been identified theoretically or empirically, while the IAD explores more precise relationships through related modeling, such as game theory and laboratory experiments. A few are more limited, however, in the extent to which some of their theoretical hypotheses have been empirically tested across a diversity of contexts (i.e., MSF, NPF, EGF). Second, we generally find an impressive level of activity with respect to the extent of publications and adaptation of the theories over time. While most have well-developed research protocols and/or methods, some have room to develop on this front (MSF, PFT). Others may struggle with consistency (ACF, NPF, IAD) in the application of their theories and concepts, or in the application of sophisticated data collection or modeling (PET, PDI, EGF), especially when scholars from outside of the core research community look to apply these theories. This is a critical challenge for each of the theories if we expect to see continued growth and expansion. Yet it points to the need for ongoing training opportunities (e.g., conference workshops) and more transparent and easily accessible research protocols (i.e., appendices to journal articles, online manuals, etc.). These points are also critical for expanding the empirical applications of these theories to new policy settings (e.g., even more diversity outside of the environmental arena for ACF, NPF, IAD and EGF) or to more non-Western contexts (see next section). Third, we find that most approaches pay attention to the six major elements of the policy process. However, the emphasis on specific factors varies based on the scope of each theory, in terms of what phenomenon they seek to explain or what key factor they consider important in shaping policy outcomes. This is typical of theories. No single theory can adequately explain all elements of policy processes – or such an attempt would likely render it either overly complex or overly superficial. Consumers and users of theories should pay attention to the foci of theories and ensure that applications are appropriate for the question at hand. At the same time, to advance the theories, it may be useful to consider whether more attention to the elements of policy processes that are not addressed (e.g., PFT or PDI incorporating more attention to events or NPF delving more into institutions) could offer new insights. Applying geographical criteria: applications outside of the United States and Europe. Traditionally, the applications of most approaches have been biased toward US applications before expansion to (mostly Western) Europe. This historic trend may prompt us to question how much progress these

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  313 theories have made. How many theories show more impressive progress in relation to non-Western or Global South applications? In previous editions of this volume, the IAD was largely the exception in terms of its continuous applicability outside of Western democracies. Efforts to develop a global network of scholars have been part of the IAD through the Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University for more than three decades. Further, Schlager and Villamayor-Tomas (Chapter 6 in this volume) detect – in the last five years – a relative focus on South East Asia (“especially China and Indonesia”) and Latin America, alongside Europe and North America. Such efforts toward internationalization may provide a useful example of how to broaden the contexts where a research program is applied, although this requires resources and dedicated leadership that may not be available to each of these theories. In recent years we note substantial growth across most approaches in their international scope and applicability outside of the United States and Western Europe: •

•

•

•

•

The Comparative Agendas Project has helped facilitate this effort with PET, providing scholars worldwide with the concepts and tools to produce comparative empirical work in new contexts. Baumgartner et al. (Chapter 2 in this volume) focus mostly on the major expansion of PET studies in Europe but also note activity in China, South Korea, and Hong Kong. Further, they use a general US and China comparison to identify far higher levels of friction in authoritarian regimes. The ACF has also built a strong global network of scholars, and Nohrstedt et al., Chapter 4 in this volume, cite examples of multiple applications in new contexts (e.g., South Korea, China, Japan) and many single-case applications in Asia (e.g., fracking policy in India), Africa (pesticide policy in Uganda, higher education in Mozambique, mining policy in South Africa, information policy in Ghana), and Latin America (e.g., climate change and environmental politics in Brazil, health policy in Columbia, fracking policy in Argentina). Herweg et al. (Chapter 1 in this volume) describe applications in relation to different political systems – including presidential systems in Brazil and Uruguay, parliamentary systems in India, and autocracies including Iran, Belarus, and China – and the implications for core MSF concepts (e.g., in autocracies, the “policy community” may be smaller and the “national mood” less of a factor). Jones et al. (Chapter 5 in this volume) describe NPF applications in Russia, India, Indonesia, South Korea,Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand (as well as international organizations such as the United Nations), allowing for comparisons of narratives in democratic and non-democratic systems. The PDI chapter demonstrates two related factors. First, globalization and the unequal relationship between Global North and South

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countries – which often influences the spread of policy solutions – have long been features of studies of policy transfer. Second, by bridging the literature on policy diffusion, transfer, circulation, and mobilities, Porto de Oliveira et al. (Chapter 7 in this volume) highlight the international scope (and multi-level or multi-scalar nature) of empirical applications, including in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. • The latter would be true of PFT, if referring to a wider (uncoordinated) collection of case studies of historical institutionalism and other international studies of policy legacies, and EGF, if referring to the wider international study of “complex governance.” While these developments are welcome, it may take time to assess their significance.There are some examples that describe attempts to sum up and compare multiple applications in one country (e.g., the ACF chapter). However, in most cases, we are finding single case study applications in new contexts without enough knowledge of how comparable these studies are and what they add up to. Applying normative criteria or seeking practical lessons. The theories described in this book prioritize scientific criteria, but theories can also be “good” if they seek to improve the world that they study. For example, to prioritize normative issues would prompt us to include Social Construction and Policy Design (SCPD), which has over one hundred applications since 1993 (Pierce et al., 2014), most of which seek to challenge “degenerative” politics – largely in the United States – in which the distribution of government benefits to target populations is highly unequal, reflecting and reinforcing inequalities in society, producing policy designs that contribute to worryingly low levels of civic and political participation (Schneider et al., 2014). Prioritizing scientific criteria may help to downplay the normative importance of the questions that SCPD raises (although this approach is an important feature of Mettler and SoRelle’s, Chapter 3 in this volume). Or, as with studies of public administration, could we expect mainstream policy scholars to apply (more frequently) their theories toward “reckoning with race and gender in public administration and public policy,” or encourage a more general focus on “social equity”? (Pandey et al., 2022). While chapter authors were not asked to reflect on such questions, we can find some examples of mainstream theories seeking to understand and address the policy and policymaking problems associated with their research. For example, the IAD community emphasizes a “problem orientation” to its research, which can provide useful normative lessons about how to design institutions to better achieve normative goals – such as building community resilience or improving sustainability of natural resources (see also Lubell and Morrison, 2021; Lubell and Mewhirter, Chapter 8 in this volume). We do see some emerging attention to such normative values among the different theories. For example, PET now places more focus on the

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potential links between policymaking pathologies and punctuated equilibrium, with Baumgartner et al. (Chapter 2 in this volume) arguing that “better governance systems tend to minimize the disruption from such punctuations.” Major change may be associated with long periods of friction or resistance to change and limited information gathering, overcome eventually with the help of major events or pressure, but in a way that can be “highly destructive” (Baumgartner et al., Chapter 2 in this volume). While these developments were previously linked to a US democratic process, studies of China, for example, highlight comparable processes in authoritarian regimes and prompt us to consider how centralist are key organizations in less authoritarian regimes.These concerns, aided partly by more comparative studies of democratic and authoritarian regimes, are also raised by the ACF and NPF chapters. Indeed, Jones et al. (Chapter 5) make the explicit case that “science and liberal democracy are worth defending.” Further, Porto de Oliveira et al.’s discussion of PDI (Chapter 7 in this volume) raises a series of very different normative issues, ranging from: (1) relatively technical issues, relating to the coherence of policies when produced by multiple levels of government, or their likely success when imported from other governments with more or less attention to how they translate in new contexts; to (2) issues of power, when powerful countries or international organizations oblige more vulnerable countries to change policies in exchange for financial support. Indeed, the historical record of liberal democracies in the Global North, in relation to Global South countries, helps to qualify the idea that democratic is simply synonymous with good. Further, other volumes have engaged with the “practical lessons from policy theories” question head-on (Weible and Cairney, 2021; see also Cairney, 2015; Weible et al., 2012). Many of these lessons are the equivalent of cautionary tales, to question too-simple and optimistic expectations of policy processes. For example, we may seek to encourage evidence-informed policy learning, but recognize the role of selective attention, emotion-fueled and manipulative framing, and the often intense but unequal competition – across multiple centers – to determine what lessons should be learned. However, these tales are also a source of optimism, to suggest that a more sophisticated understanding of policymaking dynamics will help policy actors navigate them more effectively when seeking greater equity and social change (Cairney et al., 2019, 2022).While this focus on navigating policy processes does not tell us when or how policy processes are effectively meeting normative societal goals – such as improving democracy or reducing inequalities – its contribution to normative policy studies should not be underestimated. Applying professional criteria: are these approaches associated with equity, diversity, and inclusion? Progress can be measured in relation to the support for professional diversity, equality, and inclusion. It may involve specific responses, such

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316  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila as to highlight “the critical topic of sexual harassment and violence in the field of public administration” (D’Agostino and Elias, 2020) and to “end teaching staff sexual misconduct” (Young and Wiley, 2021a, b). Or it may involve more general attempts to encourage scholarly diversity and inclusion. The latter are not easy to identify, define, measure, or assess. However, Jones et al. (Chapter 5 in this volume) make a clear effort to raise the issue and seek measures of progress (e.g., to estimate the number of NPF applications authored by women and scholars of color). Further, recent efforts (e.g., see Heikkila and Jones, 2022) have attempted to examine the diversity of the field more generally, in terms of who is engaged in the scholarship, what topics or policy issues are explored, and what methods are used – recognizing that hard data on these indicators is currently lacking. Diversity in terms of “who” is involved in the field appears to be improving – at least based on cursory evidence of the geographic location of primary authors publishing in some of the theories described in this volume. But we need better indicators to measure diversity across policy process research, such as in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. Building such evidence might require surveys from professional associations or voluntary reporting in journals. Leaders of research programs and senior scholars further need to advocate for such data. They also need to actively seek out opportunities for engagement in conferences and workshops (including online, to address accessibility issues in relation to the unequal costs and barriers to meeting face-to-face) with a broader array of scholars to build their pipeline of scholars. Providing more low-cost opportunities to train new scholars in the methods and approaches employed by policy theories is also critical. Expanding who is involved in the field can further support diversity in terms of topics (“what”) and methods (“how”) across policy process theories. As indicated in this volume and by other assessments (Heikkila and Jones, 2022), more studies are being conducted in nonWestern contexts and employing a wider range of methods, especially among some of the more established theories – such as the ACF, PET, and MSF. Yet, there is more to do. Even where research programs have well-established protocols and traditions, the methods are not always clearly defined in individual studies, applications within a theory are often inconsistent, and the language and conceptual jargon in a research community creates barriers to learning. These limitations in turn make it difficult for scholars to apply theories in a wider array of geographic contexts. More intentional comparative efforts, special issues of journals and edited books with a wider focus, or hosting regular meetings in non-Western locations are important avenues for continued expansion of who, what, and potentially how we apply theories of the policy process.

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Conclusions and Reflections on Our Criteria The theories, frameworks, and models presented in this volume are indicative of the depth and vibrancy of the field. There are many significant overlaps between theories, which open up the possibility of combining insights to gain more perspective on policymaking, by core authors (such as the NPF drawing explicitly on ACF ideas) or scholars interpreting theories in ways not envisaged by their architects. However, our comparisons also expose key differences between theories – including the questions they ask, their object of study, and the practical meaning they attach to concepts – that should prompt considerable caution for scholars who want to combine their insights. There is no single general theory of policymaking, and the combination of many theories can create more conceptual confusion than new insights. However, in applying the criteria we selected, our goal was not to identify the best theory or framework. Narrow scientific criteria can help gauge progress to a limited extent, but think of this approach as to invite critical discussion on academic tradeoffs rather than resolve the matter. For example, we explored whether the theories (1) use multiple methods and (2) have developed shared research protocols and methods. Establishing standardized approaches to data collection and analysis within a research program, using well-developed and replicable instruments, takes time and energy. Such investments could therefore make it challenging to engage in a diversity of methods, at least initially. Additionally, the criteria we selected by no means encompass the full range of possible evaluative or comparative criteria for theories.We did not explore the quality of the explanatory or causal arguments made by the theories and models, such as their generalizability, coherence, parsimony, relevance, or precision (e.g., Gerring, 2012). Also, Schlager (1999, 2007) organized her evaluation of the theories in the first two volumes of this book to highlight comparisons across theories, frameworks, and models more directly, which was valuable for identifying differences in research programs and scientific advancements. In terms of the policy process elements, we did not compare how the theories address key outcomes of the policy process, such as policy change or collective action, as examined by Schlager. Our discussion of normative criteria also helps to widen this assessment and – hopefully – prompts more reflection on what constitutes good theory or research progress. We detect high commitment, in this volume, to judging policy theory progress on a global scale rather than simply in relation to Global North countries. We also detect an equivalent commitment, within our scholarly community, to produce research with direct relevance to important and urgent policy problems, which requires more focus on normative assumptions and the emancipatory role of research. Finally, we should measure professional excellence and progress in relation to how we – and relatively established and senior scholars in particular – support our colleagues to foster a more diverse and inclusive scholarly community.

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318  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila In sum, we encourage scholars to be open to multiple and alternative criteria in their comparisons and evaluations of theories, frameworks, and models of the policy process and to make their criteria transparent. We see this as fitting with the call to explain methods, define concepts clearly, and clearly set out the causal processes, which is the conventional wisdom used to warn scholars against obfuscation, confirmation bias, and a generally defensive approach to their results. In this context we introduced a range of criteria to generate some agreement – and some debate – within the discipline about which frameworks and theories show a sufficient amount of payoff from the investment of scholars.

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References Béland, D. and Cox, R. 2010. “Introduction: Ideas and Politics.” In Ideas and Politics in Social Science Research, edited by D. Béland and R. Cox, 3–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cairney, P. 2013a. “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: How Do We Combine the Insights of Multiple Theories in Public Policy Studies?” Policy Studies Journal 41, no. 1: 1–21. . 2013b. “What Is Evolutionary Theory and How Does It Inform Policy Studies?” Policy and Politics 41, no. 2: 279–298. . 2015. “How Can Policy Theory Have an Impact on Policy Making? The Role of Theory-led Academic-Practitioner Discussions.” Teaching Public Administration 33, no. 1: 22–39. . 2020. Understanding Public Policy, 2nd ed. London: Red Globe. Cairney, P. and Heikkila, T. 2014. “A Comparison of Theories of the Policy Process.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by P. Sabatier and C. 1993. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: Westview Press. Cairney, P. and Heikkila, T. and Wood, M. 2019. Making Policy in a Complex World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cairney, P., St. Denny, E., Kippin, S. and Mitchell, H. 2022. ”Lessons from Policy Theories for the Pursuit of Equity in Health, Education, and Gender Policy.” Policy and Politics 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1332/030557321X16487239616498 Cairney, P. and Jones, M. 2016. “Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Approach: What Is the Empirical Impact of This Universal Theory?” Policy Studies Journal 44, no. 1: 37–58. D’Agostino, M.J. and Elias, N. 2020. “Viewpoint Symposium Introduction:# MeToo in Academia: Understanding and Addressing Pervasive Challenges.” Public Administration Review 80, no. 6: 1109–1110. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13318

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  319 Dowding, K. 2015. The Philosophy and Methods of Political Science. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Dowding, K., Hindmoor, A. and Martin, A., 2016. “The Comparative Policy Agenda Project: Theory, Measurement and Findings.” Journal of Public Policy 36, no. 01: 3–25. Durnova, A. and Weible, C. 2020. “Tempest in a Teapot? Toward New Collaborations between Mainstream Policy Process Studies and Interpretive Policy Studies.” Policy Sciences 53: 571–588. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-020-09387-y Eller, W. and Krutz, G. 2009. “Editor’s Notes: Policy Process, Scholarship and the Road Ahead: An Introduction to the 2008 Policy Shootout!” Policy Studies Journal 37, no. 1: 1–4. Gerring, J. 2012. Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework: Strategies for Social Inquiry, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haas, P.M. 1992. “Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination.” International Organization 46, no. 1: 1–35. Hall, P. and Taylor, R. 1996. “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44, no. 4: 936–957. Hay, C. 2006. “Constructivist Institutionalism.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions, edited by R. Rhodes, S. Binder, and B. Rockman, 56–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heikkila, T. and Cairney, P. 2018. “Comparison of Theories of the Policy Process.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by C.M. Weible and P. Sabatier, 301–27, 4th ed. Chicago, IL: Westview. Heikkila, T. and Jones, M.D. 2022. “How Diverse and Inclusive Are Policy Process Theories?” Policy & Politics 51, no. 1: 21–42. Hofferbert, R. 1974. The Study of Public Policy. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. John, P. 2003. “Is There Life After Policy Streams, Advocacy Coalitions, and Punctuations: Using Evolutionary Theory to Explain Policy Change?” Policy Studies Journal 31, no. 4: 481–498. Jones, B.D. 2016. “The Comparative Policy Agendas Projects as Measurement Systems: Response to Dowding, Hindmoor and Martin.” Journal of Public Policy 36, no. 01: 31–46. Jones, M.D., Peterson, H.L., Pierce, J.J., Herweg, N., Bernal, A., Lamberta Raney, H. and Zahariadis, N. 2016. “A River Runs Through It: A Multiple Streams MetaReview.” Policy Studies Journal 44, no. 1: 13–36. Jones, M.D. and Radaelli, C.M., 2016. “The Narrative Policy Framework’s Call for Interpretivists.” Critical Policy Studies 10, no. 1: 117–120. Jordan, A.G., Halpin, D. and Maloney, W. 2004. “Defining Interests: Disambiguation and the Need for New Distinctions?” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 6, no. 2: 195–212. Jordan, A.G. and Maloney, W.A. 1997. “Accounting for Subgovernments: Explaining the Persistence of Policy Communities.” Administration and Society 29, no. 5: 557–583. Kingdon, J. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. New York: Harper Collins. Lowndes, V. 2010. “The Institutional Approach.” In Theory and Methods in Political Science, edited by D. Marsh and G. Stoker, 90–108. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lubell, M. and Morrison, T.H. 2021. “Institutional Navigation for Polycentric Sustainability Governance.” Nature Sustainability 4, no. 8: 664–671.

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320  Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila Mackay, F., Kenny, M. and Chappell, L. 2010. “New Institutionalism through a Gender Lens: Towards a Feminist Institutionalism?” International Political Science Review 31, no. 5: 573–588. Ostrom, E. 2009. “A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of SocialEcological Systems.” Science 325: 419–422. Pandey, S.K., Newcomer, K., DeHart-Davis, L., McGinnis Johnson, J. and Riccucci, N.M. 2022. “Reckoning with Race and Gender in Public Administration and Public Policy: A Substantive Social Equity Turn.” Public Administration Review 82, no. 3: 386–395. Peters, B.G. 2005. Institutional Theory in Political Science:The “New Institutionalism.” 2nd ed. London: Continuum. Pierce, J., Siddiki, S., Jones, M., Schumacher, K., Pattison, A. and Peterson, H. 2014. “Social Construction and Policy Design: A Review of Past Applications.” Policy Studies Journal 42, no. 1: 1–29. Pierson, P. 2000. “Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics.” American Political Science Review 94, no. 2: 251–267. Poteete, A., Janssen, M. and Ostrom, E. 2010. Working Together: Collective Action, the Commons and Multiple Methods in Practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose, R. 1990. “Inheritance before Choice in Public Policy.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 2, no. 3: 263–291. Sabatier, P., ed. 1999. Theories of the Policy Process. 1st ed. Boulder, CO:Westview Press. . 2007a. “Fostering the Development of Policy Theory.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier, 321–36. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. . ed. 2007b. Theories of the Policy Process. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schlager, E. 1999. “A Comparison of Frameworks, Theories, and Models of Policy Processes.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier, 233–260. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. . 2007. “A Comparison of Frameworks, Theories, and Models of Policy Processes Theory.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier, 293– 319. 2nd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Schneider, A., Ingram, H. and deLeon, P. 2014. “Democratic Policy Design: Social Construction of Target Populations.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier and Christopher M. Weible, 105–150. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Simon, H. 1957. Models of Man: Social and Rational. New York: John Wiley. Smith, K. and Larimer, C. 2009. The Public Policy Theory Primer. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Weible, C. 2014. “Introduction.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier and Christopher M. Weible, 3–21. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Weible, C. and Cairney, P. eds. 2021. Practical Lessons From Policy Theories. Bristol: Bristol University Press. Weible, C., Heikkila, T., deLeon, P. and Sabatier, P. 2012. “Understanding and Influencing the Policy Process.” Policy Sciences 45, no. 1: 1–21. Weible, C., Heikkila, T., Ingold, K. and Fischer M. eds. 2016. Policy Debates on Hydraulic Fracturing: Comparing Coalition Politics in North America and Europe. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?  321 Young, S. and Wiley, K. 2021a. “Erased: Ending Faculty Sexual Misconduct in Academia–An Open Letter from Women of Public Affairs Education.” Teaching Public Administration 39, no. 2: 127–132. Young, S. and Wiley, K. 2021b. “Erased: Why Faculty Sexual Misconduct Is Prevalent and How We could Prevent It.” Journal of Public Affairs Education 27 no. 3: 276–300. Zahariadis, N. 2014. “Ambiguity and Multiple Streams.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A. Sabatier and Christopher M. Weible, 25–57. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Zohlnhöfer, R., Herweg, N. and Zahariadis, N. 2022. “How to Conduct a Multiple Streams Study.” In Methods of the Policy Process, edited by Christopher M. Weible, and Samuel Workman, 23–50. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

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10 Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process and Comparative Research Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman

Introduction Policymaking is a key function of political systems and a means for the public to judge politicians. Scholars interested in fundamental concepts like democracy must pay attention to the process and outputs of policymaking since they constitute one of the two basic types of democratic legitimacy – output legitimacy (Strebel, Kübler, and Marcinkowski 2019). Policymaking is not restricted to one or a few jurisdictions, policy domains, political regimes, or system types and follows certain general patterns. This chapter concentrates on comparative research drawing on the policy process theories, identifying opportunities and challenges for understanding comparative public policy. Doing so is important because good science demands some examination of the generalizability of theories and an assessment of how well they travel to other institutional and political contexts (e.g., Bandelow et al. 2022; Howlett and Tosun 2019; Osei-Kojo, Ingold, and Weible 2022; Sanjurjo 2020). It is likewise important to understand theories’ major implications for comparative politics and public policy. Previous research teaches us much about bounding conditions and offers a wealth of broad and well-founded generalizations that chip away at the country-specific exceptionalism common in policy studies (e.g., Knill and Tosun 2020; Wenzelburger and Jensen 2022). Much, maybe most, of the last twenty years of research develops and tests policy process theories comparatively, bringing public policy closer to adjacent fields such as comparative and international political economy (Engeli, Allison, and Montpetit 2018; Peters 2018).Tsebelis’ concept of institutional veto players is particularly important for these comparative public policy perspectives (Tsebelis 2002). In the West European context, political parties and the assessment of their policy preferences – which concurs with Tsebelis’ veto player theory – have been the focal explanatory variables of many studies and the bridge to comparative politics, which became further strengthened by the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) (Baumgartner, Green-Pedersen, and Jones 2006; Beyer et al. 2022; Green-Pedersen 2014; Walgrave, Soroka, and Nuytemans 2008). DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-13

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  323 This chapter offers an entrée to and reflection on the comparative policy process research. We cover the fundamental challenges of theoretical and empirical extensions of policy process theories. The theories have followed unique paths in addressing comparative institutions, interest group politics, and issue-specific politics (May, Sapotichne, and Workman 2006). Research is now at a precipice where it is possible to make powerful generalizations about how institutions influence policy dynamics, the sets of issues that governments of all types face, and the form of politics within substantively specific issue areas. The successes of comparative policy process theories result from an expansive conception of what constitutes comparative research (Radin and Weimer 2018).These approaches yield useful lessons for developing policy process theorizing in more classic country-comparative approaches. On the one hand, they facilitate a more demanding empirical test of the causal mechanisms underlying policy process theories and therefore help increase confidence in their analytical merits. On the other, the concepts and findings challenge existing theories and have the potential to further develop studies of the policy process. The struggle and triumph of adopting a comparative lens for the study of policy processes lie at the heart of this chapter.

Conceptual and Theoretical Challenges Weible (Introduction in this volume) defines policy process research as studying interactions between public policy and actors, events, contexts, and outcomes. This definition provides conceptual categories by which we can identify various challenges in conducting comparative policy process research. Public Policies When looking into the literature, one might suspect there is no debate about what public policies are. However, the first and perhaps most fundamental challenge in comparative research is identifying what will be compared (Radin and Weimer 2018). There exists not just one approach to comparative public policy but many, which is important to acknowledge since the conclusions from research likewise vary. Comparative public policy tends to focus on content rather than the form. We cannot state that the latter lies outside the purview of comparative public policy. However, the attention – in both theoretical and empirical terms – varies depending on how the form is defined. It is rarely the case that comparative analyses differentiate systematically whether a public policy is an executive or a legislative act – they are just “policies” (for an exception, see, e.g., Eskander and Fankhauser 2020). In most cases, we assume the causal mechanism responsible for the way a given policy decision should matter in the same way regardless of the form of policy adopted. For example, an economic policy could take the form of an executive act or a legislative one.

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324  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman The concern for the form of public policy versus the substantive content of public policy is reflected in, and motivates, the process theories under consideration. One could arrange the theories in terms of their attention to the form of institutional configuration or substance of public policies. At one end of the continuum would fall the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework (IADF), which emphasizes the institutional configuration and form of public policies such as regulatory frameworks or participatory processes. Different arrangements of rule typologies – rules in form of written public policies or as rules in use in implemented public policies – define these studies (Schlager and Villamayor Tomas, Chapter 6 in this volume). While the IADF has often been applied to common-pool resource issues, the framework emphasizes the institutional configurations that arise from decision dependency and repeated decision-making that gives rise to institutional rules and norms structuring policy outputs. Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) occupies the middle ground, centered on understanding institutional forms, particularly delegation and organization in policymaking systems, and the substantive content of issue agendas (Baumgartner et al., Chapter 2 in this volume). PET measures substantive content in budget  allocations for specific policy areas (Breunig, Lipsmeyer, and Whitten 2019; Jones et  al. 2009) as well as issues included in the agenda of policymakers, the media, interest groups, or the public (Chaqués Bonafont, Green-Pedersen, and Bech Seeberg 2020; Workman et al. 2022). For PET, the institutional arrangements are often the driving force in the differentiating distributions and dynamics of policy change across political systems (see Baumgartner et al., Chapter 2 in this volume). Anchoring the other end of the continuum would be the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), which devote much more attention to understanding the role of particular actors and competition between them within issue-specific policy problems. The Ecology of Games Framework (EGF) also pays great attention to how policy issues, defined as collective-action dilemmas where individual and collective welfare diverges, can be addressed by policy responses (see Lubell and Mewhirter, Chapter 8 in this volume). Here, there is much less focus on institutional forms and organization, with their effects assumed to lie more in the background with actor characteristics (e.g., beliefs) and strategies brought into the theoretical foreground. One could argue that the MSF even strives to overcome the notion of structuring the role of institutions for interactions between actors. As Herweg et al. (Chapter 1 in this volume) argue, the MSF bases the composition of decision-making bodies on the idea of “fluid participation” – subject to constant change. From this perspective, institutions play a less prominent role in policymaking than actors. MSF pays considerable attention to the content of policies, as indicated by one of the three streams: “policy.” The above discussion has shown that the individual policy process theories place varying emphasis on the form of institutions when explaining policy outputs. So, how are we to define policy so that it is conducive to

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  325 comparative research? An approach adopted by many comparative studies (e.g., Holzinger, Knill, and Arts 2008) is the conceptual framework put forward by Hall (1993), who differentiates between policy instruments, their settings, and the hierarchy of goals behind policies, known as policy paradigms. In this context, Howlett and Rayner (2008) called for paying attention to policy (instrument) bundles or policy (instrument) mixes rather than treating individual policies or policy instruments as the dependent variable of policy studies. Mixes of policies are problem-specific, adding complexity to comparative research design (Capano and Howlett 2020). Time Time is a more prominent feature in PET, ACF, and MSF. Policy change always requires the assessment of policy arrangements minimally at two different points in time. For a more nuanced conceptualization of policy change, Hall (1993) suggested differentiating between three orders of change. The first order is instrumental changes attributed to “incrementalism, satisficing, and routinized decision making” (Hall 1993, 280). Adopting a new policy instrument represents second-order change and is likely to be the outcome of strategic action. Third-order change refers to changes in policy paradigms and is associated with experimentation with new policies and lesson-drawing from policy failures. Knill, Schulze, and Tosun (2012) added a fourth category which denotes the scope of a policy instrument, that is, how it governs its target groups. Streeck and Thelen (2005) proposed an alternative conceptualization of change, which originally indicated institutional change. The authors differentiate between displacement, layering, drift, conversion, and exhaustion. Displacement is about new organizational models emerging and spreading, which then challenge the existing ones. Layering refers to adding new elements to existing models, which can expel or supplant the original ones over time. Drift is about organizational changes brought about by non-decisions – lacking capacity or willingness to adapt to new goals or roles. Conversion is related to the redirection of organizations to new goals or roles. Exhaustion means a gradual institutional breakdown. Applications of these forms of institutional change to public policy can be found, for example, in studies by Béland (2007), Daugbjerg and Swinbank (2016), and – applied to policy mixes –Béland et al. (2020). Similar to policy change, the study of policy diffusion would not be possible without considering the temporal perspective. Policy diffusion is the socially mediated spread of policies across and within political systems (see Porto de Oliveira et al., this issue). The first studies of policy diffusion were descriptive. They concentrated on the empirical manifestation as S-shaped curves, that is, the description of adoption patterns based on the cumulative number of countries that have adopted a given policy by a time t. In most cases, this produces an S-shaped curve, implying that adoption is slow at first, then rapid. Policy saturation levels the curve (Gray 1973).

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326  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman Policy diffusion might result in policy convergence – “any increase in the similarity between one or more characteristics of a certain policy (e.g., policy objectives, policy instruments, policy settings) across a given set of political jurisdictions (supra-national institutions, states, regions, local authorities) over a given [period]” (Knill 2005, 768). There is one fundamental difference between studies that are interested in policy change – and hence are closely linked to policy process theories – and those exploring policy diffusion and convergence in comparative research. Studies of policy change compare the same policy or policy mixes over time in the same context, whereas studies of policy diffusion and convergence are comparative regarding the same policy or – as an emerging research perspective (e.g., Tosun and Koch 2021) – policy mixes over time and in different contexts. The feature all three concepts share is that they concentrate on the same policy, but research on diffusion and convergence is more comparative than studies examining policy change. It follows that adequately capturing the temporal dimension is critical to policy change studies as this constitutes the main comparative aspect. Policy diffusion and convergence studies can exploit the comparative potential stemming from different contexts. Policy change research must cope with the challenge of reasonably selecting the observation period and conceptualizing the dependent variable. Actors The dominant trend in theorizing in comparative and political economy in the last few years has certainly been to emphasize the characteristics and strategies of actors. For example, actor-centered institutionalism brings the actors to the fore while recognizing the context in which they act and interact (Scharpf 1997). Among the policy process theories, five pay enhanced attention to actors: the ACF, the MSF, the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), the IADF, and the EGF. The concept of actors significantly broadens the understanding of who influences policy decisions in a given political system. In public policy, our interest tends to lie on collective actors rather individual ones. Collective actors can be state bodies or business or societal groups. An individual actor would be a given politician, bureaucrat, or any other type of person involved in policymaking. Who functions as an actor depends on the specific policy process. This conceptualization of actors makes actor-centered theories particularly suitable for comparative research. In the end, policy subsystems, which is a key concept in policy process theories, vary due to the actors involved and their influence on policies. To the ACF, any policy subsystem includes a set of actors who try to influence policy processes (Nohrstedt et al., Chapter 4 in this volume). The ACF embraces the generic definition of actors, which abstracts from the classic perspective often encountered in comparative politics that individuals or systems of government agencies and interest groups matter. While the

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  327 ACF is much broader concerning the question of who matters for a given policy process, it rests on sophisticated assumptions about the belief system structures of actors. The notion of beliefs indicates that the ACF – similar to the PET, the MSF, the NPF, and the EGF – conceives individuals to possess a limited ability to process information, that is, to be boundedly rational. Individuals’ beliefs structure how they filter and process information about problems and policies and form the basis of coalitions, cooperation, and competition in actor-centered theories. In the MSF, the “politics stream” and the “problem stream” are where to look for actors (Herweg et  al., Chapter 1 in this volume). Similar to theoretical approaches in comparative politics and political economy, PET, MSF, and NPF acknowledge the existence of several interest groups competing against each other for policy influence. Policymakers working within institutions have a special ability to set institutional priorities and agendas (Baumgartner et al., Chapter 2 in this volume). Policymakers can become crucial for agenda setting and policy change when they actively support the policy proposal concerned and work toward getting a majority of other policymakers behind this idea. Policy change occurs when a policy or political “entrepreneur” exists that helps to make the politics stream ready for coupling with the other streams (Zohlnhöfer 2016). For the MSF, looking at one stream would not yield an adequate understanding of the role of actors in this theoretical approach. The same holds for the EGF, which is similar to the MSF in that it conceives “policy games” to equal constellations of actors, forums, and issues. Consequently, the policy games can vary considerably even if the policy issue at stake is the same (Berardo and Lubell 2016). The next actor type in the MSF is associated with the problems stream and is denoted as the “problem broker,” who helps to define the conditions of problems and may be identical with the political broker. Put differently, a problem broker calls for policy action, a policy entrepreneur suggests what kind of policy action (Herweg et al., Chapter 1 in this volume). Even more refined is the conceptualization of actors in the NPF, which concentrates not only on collective actors but also on individuals. More precisely, the micro-level NPF applications – which exist along with meso- and macro-level applications – concentrate on how policy narratives affect the individuals’ preferences, risk perceptions, and opinions on certain policies (McBeth et  al., Chapter 5 in this volume). The IADF conceives actors to be individuals or groups in an action situation. It is a sophisticated conceptualization as it presumes that actors and institutions are holistic entities (Schlager and Villamayor Tomas, Chapter 6 in this volume). The ACF, the MSF, the NPF, the IADF, and the EGF have in common that they rest on demanding conceptualizations of what actors and their characteristics are and how they may influence the policy process.While this represents an analytical strength for assessing a given policymaking situation, it complicates the adoption of a comparative approach to the study of the policy process.

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328  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman Events Events have been the central analytical concept used by policy studies of policy change, diffusion, and convergence. “Focusing events” demand the attention of policy actors and systems. Birkland and Schwaeble (2019) differentiate between natural and human-made “disasters” as focusing events. In contrast, Cobb and Elder (1972) and Kingdon (1984) regard political alignments as focusing events or, at a minimum, as “windows of opportunity.” In a large comparative study in PET, Fagan (2022) finds that economic, technological, and national disasters are more prevalent in policy systems with more veto players and weaker information flows – directly linking PET to the standard literature in comparative politics across multiple countries. Studies comparing policymaking over time have typically treated changes in the partisan composition of governments as events (e.g., Garritzmann, Busemeyer, and Neimanns 2018). The election of Donald Trump as US president stimulated research comparing the policy shift from Barack Obama to Trump. Having a populist and nationalist president changed US policies in various sectors such as immigration and asylum (Schmidt 2019), foreign affairs (Restad 2020), and climate change (Jotzo, Depledge, and Winkler 2018). Interestingly, research on the policy shifts under President Trump has also alluded to the changes in the content of policies and the fact that the US president used unorthodox forms to shape policy content. In the field of immigration policy, for example, he used an excessive number of executive orders and proclamations (Waslin 2020). Studies interested in comparing the same policy in different contexts – cross-country comparisons – have adopted the concept of focusing events. Event-focused research questions in comparative public policy are about how regional or global economic crises such as economic crises or the COVID-19 pandemic have affected policymaking (Boin, Lodge, and Luesink 2020; Burns, Clifton, and Quaglia 2018; Weible et al. 2020). Focusing event research typically concerns major policy shifts, which, as many studies argue, would not have been feasible because of the high attention level directed to a given issue for a limited time (Birkland and Schwaeble 2019). Many studies implicitly or explicitly hypothesize that these events neutralize other political forces (e.g., Nohrstedt and Weible 2010). Comparative research distinguishes between focusing and other events more straightforwardly for two reasons. First, defining what constitutes a focusing event and what does not is easier when selecting different cases. Second, comparative research conceives of focusing events as powerful enough to dominate domestic politics (but see, e.g., Nohrstedt 2005), which means the research design of the comparative study can be simplified. It is easier to characterize the origin, nature, and perception of focusing events than it would be the case with other, “non-focusing” events. From this, it follows that policy process theories stressing the role of non-focusing events are more likely to encounter conceptual and empirical challenges when using them for comparative designs.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  329 Contexts Contexts matter for policymaking. Comparative research might proceed by examining multiple policy issues within a particular country context – building knowledge by adding country cases. Alternatively, research might proceed by examining the same issue across multiple countries. Each of the theories has different standards of evidence and inference, making one or the other of these general approaches easier. Both theoretical and methodological ways of dealing with the context in comparative public policy exist. Theoretically, one needs to consider which macro-level factors could matter to explain policy outputs. In the case of comparing policies that address risk and uncertainty, for example, the general institutional arrangements are less important for explaining differences or similarities between countries than “risk cultures” (Douglas and Wildavsky 2010). Many observers would agree that Germany and France share many similarities – compared to other countries – regarding their institutional setup, socio-economic development level, and integration in Europe. Despite these similarities, most Germans oppose nuclear power production, whereas the majority of French feel comfortable with nuclear power. One of the reasons for this is that public opinion reflects institutional specificities of countries. In Germany, a powerful Green Party exists that has supported a phase-out of nuclear power (Brouard and Guinaudeau 2015; Evrard 2012; Jahn and Korolczuk 2012). Consequently, it is plausible that policymakers in Germany have been more reluctant to promote nuclear power than policymakers in France. The decisions taken by policymakers with regard to nuclear power have also produced feedback effects and shaped the public’s opinion on it in the two countries (see Mettler and SoRell, Chapter 3 in this volume). Qualitative designs for comparative policy research can hold context as similar (most-similar-systems-design) or as different (most-different-systemsdesign) as possible across the countries (see Gerring 2017).While both designs have merit, we can mostly observe country-comparative studies based on the logic of the most-similar-systems-design in the literature. Quantitative studies typically at least control for context factors by including variables for a range of economic, social, and institutional characteristics. Most policy process theories conceive institutions to provide the relevant context, and institutions offer some of the greatest strides in applying the theories comparatively. Extant theories of comparative politics are grounded in a firm understanding of institutions.The policy process theories excel in offering a richer, varied conceptualization of political institutions. Comparative politics depicts institutions as sets of transaction costs. The prominent veto-point (Immergut 1990) or veto-player model (Tsebelis 2002) in comparative politics is a prime example of institutions as transaction costs and constraining factors. The policy process theories gain leverage in their conceptualization and examination of political institutions by holding key elements of policy substance and thus keeping the range of positions and actors stable. Their

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330  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman substantive focus allows for isolating how institutional arrangements shape policy and the opportunity structures faced by coalitions of actors as in the ACF or EGF (Gupta 2014). Recent research has IADF scholars attempting to devise a measurement strategy focused on developing an “institutional grammar tool” to assess institutional components of public policy. In contrast, scholars working in the PET tradition have conceptualized institutions as decision-making systems for processing information and generating particular patterns of policy dynamics. For these scholars, delegation, organization, and sequencing processes are just as important as the particular form taken by institutional structures. Institutions are important both in prioritizing issues on the policy agenda and in determining policy dynamics over time (Jones et al. 2009). The systems-based and information-processing conceptualization of political institutions underlying PET gains leverage from being able to characterize institutions based on their organization, delegation processes, or the general configuration of political systems. PET’s empirical strategy and protocols use a common measurement system for issue agendas and resource allocation in budgetary decisions (Jones 2016). This is important because it ties the frontend and back-end of the policy process together via generalizations about political processes (i.e., agenda setting, budgeting, or regulatory politics) and common patterns of policy dynamics.Thus, the emphasis is not on comparing parliaments directly to the US Congress but on comparing issue agendas and patterns of policy change. This notion of having a common measurement system leads directly to a discussion of the methodological challenges posed by comparative applications of the policy process theories (Workman, Baumgartner, and Jones 2022). Comparative research adopting the EGF is particularly challenging since it assumes the existence of a polycentric system, which is adaptive and therefore changes over time (Lubell and Mewhirter, Chapter 8 in this volume). At the same time, this evolutionary understanding of institutions makes a compelling case for comparing policy processes in the same polycentric system but at different points in time. Outcomes While in the introductory chapter Weible (this issue) refers to “outcomes,” it is important to note that there exist three terms and related concepts for the result of policy systems – outputs, outcomes, and impacts. Outputs are the typical results of policymaking – laws, budgets, regulations, judicial decisions – like a tax on diesel fuel. Outcomes are the changes in the behavior of the targets of a policy. In the example, the outcome is a change in the motorists’ demand for diesel fuel. Impacts assess how much the policy outputs and outcomes contribute to attaining a policy goal resulting from behavior change. The impact of a tax on diesel fuel would be the changes in the concentration of particulate matter emissions after adopting this policy (Knill and Tosun 2020).

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  331 Policy outputs present the most direct products of policymaking, whereas policy outcomes and impacts consider the behavior of the target groups. Therefore, it is little surprise that most empirical research drawing from policy process theories concentrates on policy outputs, especially studies adopting a qualitative approach. Somewhat of an exception is the EGF, which also takes into consideration policy implementation, which is a necessary action to produce policy outcomes or impacts. However, implementation itself often requires a layering of policy outputs (e.g., regulations) that structure behavior and interaction (Workman 2015). PET includes the comparative study of government budgets, which can be conceptualized as policy outputs or as “policy inputs” (Tosun and Schnepf 2020). The study of policy outcomes and impacts has become prominent in comparative politics research. For example, Lijphart (1999) scrutinized the relationship between government forms and policy performance (i.e., how effectively a government can solve a social problem). He collapsed political systems of advanced democracies in all their complexity into competing categories: “majoritarian” and “consensus” democracies. Majoritarian democracies have plurality electoral systems, usually two major political parties, single-party cabinets, and centralized government. Consensus democracies have proportional electoral systems, more than two major parties, coalition cabinets, bicameralism, and decentralized or federal political systems. The study shows that consensus democracies better solve policy problems than majoritarian democracies. Lijphart’s conceptualization relates well to PET’s classification of systems in terms of openness to information and ability to process it (Baumgartner et al. 2009; Epp 2018; Fagan 2022; Jones 2003). In general, systems that are more open to new information experience smoother policy dynamics than closed, centralized systems (May,Workman, and Jones 2008) and are better at matching policy response to scale and severity of the problem. Interim Conclusions We discussed how policy process theories conceive of public policies, their temporal dimension, and the role they assign to actors, events, and context. We examined how they deal with policy outputs, outcomes, and impacts. Established definitions of public policy and its elements exist, which are, in principle, suitable for comparative analysis. Analyzing policy decisions in the same context at different points in time already represents a form of comparative analysis, which is both implicitly or explicitly addressed in policy studies. However, there is comparative policy research concerning policy decisions and their context. The next set of variables – i.e., actors, events, and context – plays a prominent role in policy process research. How these concepts are defined again facilitates comparative research of different types. Perhaps the most powerful analytical tool of policy process theories like the ACF, the MSF, the NPF,

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332  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman the IADF, and the EGF is the broad definition of actors and actor coalitions, which should lend them to comparative research. The systematic analysis of outcomes and impacts is the main limitation in comparative research. It makes sense that policy outcomes and impacts do not represent core interests in policy process research as they are affected not only by strategic interactions between actors but also by a range of additional factors (Knill, Schulze, and Tosun 2012).The research addressing policy feedback gauges impacts and how they feed into policy systems (see Mettler and SoRell, Chapter 3 in this volume). In this literature, public policy is formative of politics surrounding specific issues. It shapes the targets of the policy in meaningful ways that dictate behavior, problem definitions, and solutions in the future.The state of research contains several conceptual and theoretical starting points for comparative policy process research. However, we must also consider empirical and methodological considerations before formulating a corresponding comparative policy research agenda.

Empirical and Methodological Challenges The research designs for applying the policy process theories comparatively are…comparative. Leaving this higher-order design problem aside, issues of measurement and methods still plague applications. Methodologically, one theory in this volume has achieved a much greater level of standardization in both measurement and methods. PET uses a common system for measuring the issue agendas of political institutions or systems (Workman, Baumgartner, and Jones 2022). The empirical strategy and subsequent developments have retained this concern for issue agendas and measuring them in a reliable, backward-compatible way. PET generally achieves standardization and a common metric for testing hypotheses generated across countries, institutions, and governing systems. This common base of measurement not only provides a common vernacular among the group but fosters the generation of cross-national hypotheses that are very general (Green-Pedersen 2014). This common metric has also allowed a common mode of analysis. The theory uses distributional and stochastic process methods to assess the general punctuation hypothesis.The central notion of the PET is that individual and institutional cognition, constrained by limited attention, leads to disproportionate information processing. Policy change exhibits many small, incremental changes punctuated by large, dramatic changes as policy systems over and under respond to problems. This common dynamic leads to the characteristic “fat tails” in agenda and policy change distributions, where the change distribution over time is leptokurtotic. This hypothesis describes policy dynamics in political institutions and across political systems. PET makes use of government budgets – or rather annual changes – for which country-comparative data is available (especially for advanced market economies). For example, using data for annual changes in government budgets in six nations, Jones et al. (2009) identified a general empirical law

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  333 that there are more punctuations for budgetary decreases than increases and that the changes are less punctuated with local governments compared to central governments. This common metric and set of methods are largely absent from studies applying the ACF, the MSF, or the NPF, though they have distinct analytical interests. While PET is interested in identifying and explaining broader policy patterns, the ACF, the MSF, and the NPF attach greater importance to the mechanisms underlying policy change processes. Knowledge advancement in these theories proceeds with the accumulation of cases examining particular issues or venues for policymaking. Weible and Heikkila (2016) show that it is worth comparing policies as adopted in two US states and Weible et  al. (2018) and Heikkila et  al. (2019) offer country-comparative insights on fracking policies based on the ACF. Béland and Howlett (2016) and Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Huß (2016) reflect on the theoretical basis for strengthening the comparative dimension of the MSF, whereas Spohr (2016) offers a country-comparative analysis using this theory and Deschaux-Dutard (2020) presents comparisons of policies over time. Smith-Walter and Jones (2020) provide helpful guidance on comparative research that draws from the NPF. Tosun and Schaub (2021) show that this theoretical perspective can be applied to study in a comparative fashion a number of citizens’ initiatives launched at the European Union level, whereas Stauffer and Kuenzler (2021) offer a more general discussion of how the NPF can be applied to the European context, which entails the need for cross-country comparison. While PET presents a more standardized approach and vocabulary for rapidly generating comparative hypotheses, the other policy process theories have begun to go comparative or at least explore its possibilities. Research using the ACF, MSF, or NPF regards measuring policy change as more problematic than it initially appears. They tend to attempt to incorporate directional measures of policy advocacy and policy change. PET’s exception is budgetary processes where directionality is clear and assessed easily.

Policy Process Research and Comparative Politics The classic policy analysis literature acknowledged the relationship between policies and politics.The main claim in Lowi’s (1964) influential work is that “policy determines politics” in that policy types entail varying degrees of costs and opposition to attempts to change the status quo. Based on this reasoning, Lowi’s typology distinguishes between distributive policies (measures that affect the distribution of resources from the government to particular recipients), redistributive policies (measures on the transfer of resources from one societal group to another), regulatory policies (measures that define conditions and constraints for individual or collective behavior), and constituent policies (measures create or modify the states’ institutions). More recent research attempts to reverse this relationship and understand how political concepts affect policy decisions (Knill and Tosun 2020).

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334  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman The main motivation for integrating concepts from politics in policy studies stems from the success of studies in politics going comparative, which culminated in the large and still growing literature on comparative politics (Newton and van Deth 2016). The comparative politics literature can draw on established concepts and datasets on the positions of political parties (Volkens et al., n.d.), corporatism (Kenworthy 2003), and veto players (Jahn 2011), which enable comparative research. The principal research interest of comparative politics is to explain the characteristics and effects of structures and institutions in modern polities. Research in comparative politics typically examines policymaking in executives or legislatures, and how they interact with each other. Classic research questions in studies rooted in the comparative politics literature are which parliamentary faction proposes a policy, which parliamentary factions support or oppose the proposal, and how long it takes for a proposal to become adopted by parliament (Carammia, Borghetto, and Bevan 2018; Hughes and Carlson 2015; Manow and Burkhart 2008). Another key topic in the comparative politics approach to policymaking is political ideologies and parties’ role (Wenzelburger and Jensen 2022). A third major area of interest for comparative politics scholars refers to citizens’ attitudes (Soroka and Wlezien 2010) and their participation in political processes such as direct and deliberative democracy (Gherghina and Geissel 2020), and the role of various actor groups, including interest groups (Dobbins, Horváthová, and Labanino 2021), social movements (Bremer, Hutter, and Kriesi 2020), and social or mass media (Vliegenthart et al. 2016). Comparative research comes in two ways. The first one is that studies seeking to explain policy outputs use the isolated factors presented above. For example, Knill, Debus, and Heichel (2010) are interested in explaining environmental policy change. However, instead of relying on policy process theories that concentrate on policy change, the authors concentrated on the impact of the electoral strength of political parties. The second way uses policy process theories incorporating concepts from comparative politics. PET has the most visible connection with comparative politics, reflected in the background of the scholars contributing to this body of research. To illustrate this point, let us concentrate on the volume on the comparative approach to agenda setting edited by Green-Pedersen and Walgrave (2014). Both editors have a background in comparative politics, with GreenPedersen’s other research concentrating on party politics and party competition (e.g., Green-Pedersen 2019) and Walgrave’s research revolving around the role of mass media in politics (e.g., Vliegenthart et al. 2016). The great majority of other researchers contributing to that volume – including the inventors of PET Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones (see Baumgartner et al., Chapter 2 in this volume) – are comparative politics scholars working on institutions, parties, and representation (Bevan and Jennings 2014; Froio, Bevan, and Jennings 2017). The PET lends itself particularly well to incorporating concepts from comparative politics due to the role institutional arrangements play therein. As Baumgartner et al. (Chapter 2 in this volume)

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  335 explain, institutional arrangements characterized by institutional separation often reinforce policy stability, but sometimes they can be conducive to a policy change by working to “wash away existing policy subsystems.” We argue that it is the prominence of institutional arrangements and that these scholars can build on the insights of existing scholarship in comparative politics that has helped strengthen the comparative approach to the PET. Actors and coalitions structure policy change in the case-based approaches like the ACF, EGF, MSF, or NPF.The complexity of the relationship between the individual actors forming a coalition and the importance of the relationship of different coalitions within policy subsystems make transferring these macro-level comparative politics concepts to the issue and venue-specific cases of policy change difficult but certainly not impossible.The comparative politics literature offers concepts to understand certain aspects of the ACF (e.g., to what degree the ideology of the government matters). However, they are not sufficiently well-developed to offer tools for empirically gauging the various types of interactions between the actors. From this perspective, the ACF – like most other policy process theories – can make limited use of the insights offered by comparative politics due to its sophisticated and refined approach to modeling how actor coalitions determine policy change. The NPF illustrates the possibilities in a comparative application. Shanahan et al. (2011) analyze the effect of policy narratives on public opinion. To this end, the authors treat a group of students with two media accounts that reflect divergent advocacy coalitions and assess how this affects their opinion on the policy issue concerning snowmobile access to Yellowstone National Park. Comparative research would need to isolate a group across space and examine narratives in different contexts. Summing up, scholars in comparative politics have agreed in many areas on levels of analysis that allow for comparative measurement, which has helped this literature become very prolific. The concepts stemming from comparative politics have migrated to some varieties of policy process research and paved the way for comparative analysis there. Institution-centered process theories like the PET or IADF have benefited more from concepts and data from comparative politics than actor-centered theories that tend to be more complex. Nevertheless, this does not mean that no comparative research draws on policy process theories. It certainly does not preclude more comparative studies in the future. We elaborate on this point in the next section.

Policy Process Research in Comparative Perspective In this section, we characterize the comparative research applying the policy process theories. We argue that the comparative extensions of the policy process theories need not be nation-comparative only but include insights from comparing political institutions, subnational governments, and different stages of the process (e.g., agenda setting vs. policy adoption). Our discussion of the comparative research in these theoretical traditions sets the stage for considering what we have learned, what is left undone, and what

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336  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman opportunities are presented by these more recent comparative extensions of the theories and concepts presented in this volume. These opportunities encompass theoretical, conceptual, and methodological possibilities. Multiple Streams Framework The MSF developed by Kingdon (1984) underscores the possibility of policy change through agenda setting and the interaction of problem, policy, and political streams. MSF originated in the United States, as with many of these theories (Bandelow et al. 2022). Over time, however, there have been studies applying MSF to institutional contexts different than the United States, such as the European Union (Ackrill and Kay 2011), Latin America (Sanjurjo  2020), or autocratic political regimes (Herweg, Zahariadis, and Zohlnhöfer 2022). Moreover, there have been conceptual efforts to develop a comparative approach to MSF (Béland and Howlett 2016; Howlett, McConnell, and Perl 2015). In this context, Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Huß (2016) argue that enhanced attention to formal institutions makes MSF more conducive to comparative research. This suggestion is particularly remarkable given our above discussion about a natural relationship between institution-centered policy process theories and comparative politics, and how this proximity has helped promote comparative policy process research. From this perspective, the proposal by Zohlnhöfer, Herweg, and Huß (2016) points to the same dimension: exploring possibilities for exploiting the analytical tools supplied by comparative politics. Spohr (2016) offers an example of a country-comparative application of the MSF, examining reforms of labor market policies in Germany and Sweden and emphasizing the role of policy entrepreneurs. While comparative insights have been more limited, MSF concepts generally have more traction. The most frequently used concepts are – like in Spohr’s study – policy entrepreneurs and focusing events (Béland and Howlett 2016). For example, trade disputes – mostly in the context of the World Trade Organization – have often been regarded as focusing events – in the sense of the MSF – that trigger policy change (Ackrill and Kay 2011). Policy entrepreneurs are decisive in a specific decision-making context; therefore, this concept travels easily across the most diverse institutional settings (see Petridou and Mintrom 2021). It is interesting to see that the conceptual treatises on strengthening the comparative perspective to the MSF make a plea for greater emphasis on formal political institutions. In contrast, the existing empirical studies concentrate on components more detached from the institutional context. We can conclude that attempts to make the MSF more comparative can choose between adopting the whole approach and then concentrating on institutions or selecting isolated components and abstracting from institutional arrangements. The first conceptual and empirical attempts are there, but the MSF is at an earlier stage of comparative research than other policy process theories.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  337 Punctuated Equilibrium Theory The PET has devoted considerable effort to understanding human decisionmaking and integrating the lessons of psychology and behavioral economics (Jones 1994, 2001). For this reason, it has been very influential, but it has also stimulated other conceptual models. Building on Baumgartner and Jones (1993) and Schattschneider (1974), Engeli, Green-Pedersen, and Larsen (2012), for example, highlight the importance of four elements: attention, actors, images, and institutional venues. This model assumes that underlying political conflicts over a given issue determine the policy process. In this context, public and political attention determine the process that follows. The higher the level of attention – or politicization – given to an issue, the more controversial is the policy process that follows initial agenda setting. This attention to individual cognition and its implications for how institutions process information and prioritize problems has led to many comparative studies of political institutions. These studies include US state governors’ institutional powers (Breunig and Koski 2009), budgeting in Western democracies (Beyer et  al. 2022; Breunig, Lipsmeyer, and Whitten 2019; Jones et al. 2009), bureaucratic and regulatory policymaking (Bevan 2015; May, Workman, and Jones 2007; Workman 2015), and the relationship between the news media and parliamentary agenda setting (Vliegenthart et al. 2016). Attention results from the number and types of actors involved in the conflict definition of an issue. Usually, the participation of a limited number of actors characterizes low attention issues compared with high attention issues. Different actors typically have different preferences regarding the outcome of the policy process, which leads to controversial politics. The third element refers to the image of the issue concerned. The public policy literature usually addresses the image of issues under the heading of problem definition. Stone (1989) provides one of the frequently used concepts of problem definition. Accordingly, problem definition refers to a causal story that identifies harm, describes what causes it, assigns blame to those causing it, and claims that the government is responsible for stopping the activity in question. Issue images are about the perspective from which we understand issues and the exclusion of alternative views (Engeli, GreenPedersen, and Larsen 2012). The PET, with its attention to individual and organizational cognition, offers an alternative version of problem definition as the dimensions of a problem that are relevant for choice. For instance, climate change might embody substantive dimensions involving trade policy, environmental policy, agricultural policy, and energy policy, among others. Climate change policy, defined as an energy problem, has very different implications, regardless of cause and effect, than climate change defined as an environmental problem (Elgin and Weible 2013). Problem definition is closely akin to problem representation. Choice requires constructing a problem representation

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338  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman (Jones 2001; Newell and Simon 1972) before solutions can be generated and evaluated in terms of preferences or beliefs. Problem definition is then an indispensable precursor to choice. Another alternative is the conceptualization of problem definitions by Dery (1984) as “gaps” or “opportunities.” Policymakers compare the current policy to current conditions and define that discrepancy as either a gap in policy that needs filling or an opportunity to expand policymaking in a given area. Using the twin notions of problem definition as dimensions of choice and as an opportunity for steering policy agendas, Workman (2015) identifies bureaucratic problem attention as the key to understanding and structuring how the governing system understands problems and sets policy agendas. Policy Feedback Theory The most prominent perspective on policy feedback examines how current policies constrain the types of policies available in the future with attention to history and institutional development (Pierson 2004). Historical institutionalism influenced the early feedback literature, exploring the impact of institutions on political behavior and policymaking dynamics (Béland 2010). This approach is different from the classic version of historical institutionalism to the extent that it has an explicit behavioral component and a microfoundation that allows for a complete explanation of policy processes. From this, it follows that the policy feedback literature also recognizes the relationship between policy and politics, as stated by Lowi (1964).The important role of institutions – conceived in broad terms and involving previously enacted policies – in this approach makes it compatible with comparative politics. In empirical terms, this approach has been especially useful in comparative public policy for studying the welfare state (Hacker 2002) and inequality (Hacker and Pierson 2011). Most empirical applications of the policy feedback theory draw on incrementalism and share similarities with the forms of institutional change identified by Streeck and Thelen (2005). More broadly, the early literature paid particular attention to processes of state-building, interest groups, and lock-in effects. In contrast, the recent topics in this literature comprise private benefits and institutions, the role of political behavior, and ideational and symbolic components of policy feedback (Béland 2010). However, the design of policies can have feedback effects on individuals, not only in terms of how they view the particular policy but also more broadly with implications on their attitudes toward politics and the political system in general (Mettler and Soss 2004).This is the perspective emphasized in the chapter by Mettler and SoRelle (Chapter 3 in this volume). Policies that focus on broad population segments can pique interest in politics, for example, as political outcomes may create personal stakes and thus influence how attentive one is to the political process (Jordan 2013; Kumlin and Stadelmann-Steffen 2014; Shore 2016).

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  339 This scholarship mostly connects public policy to future policy change or individual behavior through positive feedback. However, there is also considerable work in mass opinion that makes similar connections through negative feedback mechanisms. The thermostatic model of mass opinion posits that governments pursue policies in a left or right fashion, progressively farther away from the general preferences of the public (Soroka and Wlezien 2010). Once beyond some threshold, citizen preferences serve as negative feedback on governing party choices, even so far as replacing them if necessary. The thermostatic model is remarkably resilient across substantive policy issues and governing systems. A slightly different application of the policy feedback theory concerns the strategic use of policy decisions as a tool to move public opinion (Soss and Schram 2007). A final point worth mentioning regarding this approach is the increasing scholarly attention backed to negative policy feedback (Béland 2010).Weaver (2010), for instance, regards the turn to negative feedback as a correction to the emphasis historical institutionalism and path dependency literature placed on positive feedback. To be sure, positive feedback is associated with stability and negative feedback with policy change. Therefore, the burgeoning attention paid to negative feedback concurs with the general increase in interest in the comparative empirical assessment and explanation of policy change. Note how these feedback definitions are the opposite of how they are characterized in PET, where positive feedback is the driver of policy change. The perspective of negative feedback also fits better with robust findings in communication sciences and political psychology that mass media tend to display a negative bias, affecting democratic politics accordingly (Soroka 2014). All in all, the policy feedback theory displays remarkable proximity to comparative politics research, so extending it to comparative research should be straightforward. However, existing studies that explicitly draw on this approach are mostly context-specific. While the literature stressing the knock-on effects of existing policies on new ones has produced relatively coherent findings, research on the relationship between public policy and public opinion is less so (Larsen 2019). For both strands, we can state that the empirical potential of this approach has not been exploited for comparative policy process research and represents an avenue worth exploring in future research. Advocacy Coalition Framework and Narrative Policy Framework The ACF is one of the most influential approaches to policy change. Essentially, it views policymaking as the result of the competition between coalitions of actors who advocate beliefs about certain policy options. This competition between advocacy groups occurs within policy subsystems, that is, semi-autonomous networks of policy participants that focus on a particular policy issue and aim to affect public policy in such ways that the issue becomes addressed. As Nohrstedt et  al. (Chapter 4 in this volume) show,

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340  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman the ACF argues that actors process information according to various cognitive heuristics that guide complex decision-making situations. In this regard, belief systems guide how a social problem is structured and how to address it. The belief systems consist of deep-core beliefs, that is, ontological and normative world views, a policy core, causal perceptions for achieving deep-core beliefs in a given policy subsystem, and a set of secondary beliefs comprising instrumental considerations on how to implement the policy core. A central assumption of the framework is that these structural categories of belief systems show decreasing resistance to change. Compared to deep-core and policy-core beliefs, the framework predicts that secondary beliefs are most likely to change over time (Weible, Sabatier, and McQueen 2009). Advocacy coalitions try to make governmental institutions behave in accordance with their policy cores by using venues provided by the institutional structure. Against this background, policy change may principally result from two sources. First, policy change can occur due to learning processes, which induce a hegemonic advocacy coalition to transform its behavioral intentions concerning the attainment of policy objectives due to experience or new information. Second, non-cognitive events outside the policy subsystem may lead to changes in the power distribution among advocacy coalitions. These perturbations in non-cognitive factors can include single, extraordinary events, such as disasters, or repeating and less drastic events, such as critical elections. What matters is that these kinds of external events or shocks entail profound changes in public opinion, socio-economic conditions, governing coalitions, and other subsystems. Depending on the intensity of these external events, major policy change – defined as modifications to the policy core – becomes likely. In contrast, policy-oriented learning drives only minor policy change since the policy core remains intact. The revision of the advocacy coalition framework by Sabatier and Weible (2007) identifies two more sources of policy change. One source refers to internal events within the subsystem and highlights failures in current subsystem practices. The other source represents cross-coalition learning, where professional forums provide an institutional setting that allows coalitions to negotiate and implement agreements. The NPF is quite similar to the ACF, but also more complex in terms of the analytical concepts (see Jones et al., Chapter 5 in this volume; Schlaufer et al. 2022). As a result, the empirical work compares policy narratives used by different advocacy coalitions in the same institutional contexts. Since the theoretical perspective is relatively new, comparative research using the NPF is only emerging (e.g., Tosun and Schaub 2021). Institutional Analysis and Development Framework and Ecology of Games The IADF offers an analytical tool that concentrates on action situations and institutional settings (Blomquist and deLeon 2011). More precisely, the framework includes considerations about the set of actors and their respective

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  341 positions on an issue, the set of allowable actions, the potential outcomes, the level of control over choice, the information available, and the costs and benefits of actions and outcomes. Moreover, it rests on assumptions about rules “individuals use to order their relationships, about attributes of states of the world and their transformations, and about the attributes of the community within which the situation occurs” (Ostrom 2011, 17). Numerous rules exist that refer to the actors, their positions and actions, as well as information, control, net costs and benefits, and outcomes.The institutional dimension of the framework makes it particularly useful for comparative analyses, especially in the study of over-harvesting in a common-pool resource situation. Similar to the policy feedback theory, the actions are systematically connected to cost-benefit analyses of individuals, which strengthens this approach’s connection to comparative politics research. This approach allows for producing data according to comparable measurement standards and therefore it is of an inherently comparative nature (Ostrom 2011). However, Clement (2010) contends that research based on the IADF mostly studies local communities, not higher institutional ones. He gives an interesting conceptual reason for the empirical limits of the IADF, which is related to the insufficient attention it pays to power mechanisms stemming from the political and economic structures that shape power distribution. This thought is interesting as Clement further argues that institutions are not neutral but emerge, sustain, or collapse in political-economic contexts. This perspective is different from neo-institutionalist research, which posits that politics occurs in a neutral institutional context. From this, it follows that the challenge in comparative analysis using the IADF is studying more complicated governing arrangements e.g., at the subsystem or political system level of analysis), where the rule typology and description of action situation become unwieldy. The EGF is a recent approach and shares with the IADF that it aligns with the work by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom (Ostrom 2010; Ostrom, Tiebout, and Warren 1961). Lubell first proposed the framework of EGF in its current form (see Lubell and Mewirther, Chapter 8 in this volume). The approach is inherently comparative since the objects of analysis are policy games, which comprise actors, forums, and issues. In polycentric systems, several policy games exist and produce different results depending on cooperation, conflict, and strategy. Lubell and Mewirther provide comparative insights in the theory chapter, but the literature applying the EGF is still small and just starting to deploy comparative designs. Diffusion of Innovation The diffusion literature is comparative by definition and benefits from the availability of a common set of explanatory variables – learning, imitation, economic competition, and coercion – and metric (see Porto de Oliveira, Chapter 7 in this volume).While these variables are sometimes labeled differently, the underlying causal mechanisms are the same and can be summarized as follows.

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342  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman Transnational learning is a process in which governments search for a solution to the problem they find in another jurisdiction. Emulation emphasizes the desire of policymakers to attain international acceptance by demonstrating conformity with the behavior of states that are considered leaders. Coercion assumes a power asymmetry between two jurisdictions, in which the more powerful one can force the other to adopt certain policy measures. Economic competition induces policymakers to adopt policies elsewhere if these may affect the national industry’s ability to compete in the global market (Holzinger, Knill, and Arts 2008). An impressive amount of policy diffusion research concentrates on the most diverse policy areas. However, work also concentrates on diffusion processes at the subnational level. For example, Boushey (2010) uses agenda setting and epidemiology research to characterize the process of policy diffusion among the American states. This research refutes the notion that diffusion is a thought-out, incremental process; instead, it embodies the characteristics of an outbreak of disease. The proliferation of diffusion studies also stems from the agreement on measuring the dependent variable.Typically, the dependent variable is binary and takes the value one when a policy becomes adopted and zero otherwise. The measurement has produced a remarkably coherent body of research offering comparative insights on vertical diffusion (i.e., across levels of government) and horizontal diffusion (i.e., across spatial jurisdictions). What is also characteristic of this literature is that it recognizes the importance of domestic politics, relying on concepts and measurements coming from comparative politics. Perhaps the most robust empirical finding refers to the diffusion of environmental standards (e.g., air quality standards) in developed and developing states. In environmental policy, “races to the bottom” enter the discussion of economic interests and regulatory standards. The main mechanism relates to investors relocating their polluting industries to “pollution havens” in parts of the world where the environmental standards are less strict. According to the theory, this can induce governments to deliberately lower their standards to a level below what is possible given the available technology (race to the bottom). Empirically, however, there is a remarkable coherence in the absence of such dynamics (Holzinger, Knill, and Arts 2008;Tosun 2013), which means that there is no indication that governments adopt less stringent environmental standards when confronted with competitive pressure.We observe the opposite scenario, known as the “race to the top,” where developing countries adopt increasingly strict environmental standards (e.g., Saikawa 2013).

What We Have Learned from Comparative Policy Process Research The overview in the previous section has revealed three important findings. First, some policy process theories have an inherent comparative dimension. This is most obviously the case of policy diffusion research, the IADF,

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  343 and the EGF, which were developed as comparative approaches. The third theory with a comparative dimension – albeit one that can be observed less immediately – is the NPF, which compares the policy narratives delivered by the individual advocacy coalitions. Second, scholars using the MSF have begun to explore the possibilities for comparative research. Scholarship on the PET has already completed the comparative turn by capitalizing on concepts borrowed from comparative politics. Third, the ACF has been applied to a great number of different causes, which already allows for drawing some comparative conclusions. In particular, we have learned that issues characterized by stable coalitional structures opposing one another operate similarly across issue areas and governing systems. However, advocacy coalitions vary across political contexts in their structure, stability, and impact, but we do not know whether stable patterns exist. Nevertheless, the ACF is increasingly attempting to produce comparative insights. While much work remains in developing theories that accommodate comparative research designs, we can draw some generalizable lessons from applying the policy process theories in comparative contexts. These relate to the behavior of citizens and mass publics, institutional information processing, the types of issues governments face, and the importance of coalitional politics within substantive policy issues. First, within the set of Western-style democracies, there are remarkable similarities in how citizens behave and evaluate public policy. In general, the lessons of this work are that governments pay attention to citizen demands for attention to substantive policy issues. In general, what citizens think is important, governments also think important. This is not to say that lawmaking approximates public opinion in all cases, but there is remarkable congruence between public priorities and institutional policy agendas. Likewise, the thermostatic model by Soroka and Wlezien (2010) is explicitly comparative in design and establishes that democratic systems are very successful in representation and responsiveness, though with some variation associated with institutional configurations across Western democracies. It is the institutional differences that policy process theories such as the MSF have recently started to pay more attention to, and judging from the insights yielded from existing research, this appears to be a promising perspective for future research. Second, the nature and types of issues that governments face are remarkably similar, and this finding spans Western democracies, developing nations, and authoritarian regimes. The Comparative Agendas Project has emerged as a useful measurement system for understanding the types of problems characterizing the agenda of diverse governing systems (Jones 2016). Using this policy topic coding scheme, these scholars have demonstrated systematic similarities in the number and nature of problems confronting Western democracies and, increasingly, other types of governments. Third, the dynamics of policy change are remarkably similar across governing systems, within governing systems across political institutions, and even across policymaking within substantive issues. The characteristic

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344  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman slip-stick dynamics with long periods of incrementalism punctuated by bursts of larger-scale policy change have become an empirical law of policy dynamics. The shape of change owes to the shifting nature of political attention, institutional differences, and the dependencies and trade-offs implicit in public budgets. The more recent expansions of this research link similar causal mechanisms, such as institutional friction and limited attention, to the same dynamics even in authoritarian regimes.

Conclusions and the Way Forward Our systematic literature overview drawing on the policy process theories yielded two overarching findings. First, policy process research accumulates a growing number of cases, which allows for identifying more general empirical patterns and a more demanding test of theoretical expectations. Second, theoretical perspectives in policy process research have become noticeably comparative, including classic comparative approaches like cross-country studies and newer ones like comparing different policy sectors in one country to each other. Moreover, our analysis suggests that the body of comparative policy process research will expand even further soon. Among the various theories, the PET forms the basis of literature that has developed the most visible comparative dimension, albeit the IADF has also produced many comparative studies. Diffusion research holds a specific position since this research is comparative by definition. Nevertheless, even diffusion research has developed in a fashion that includes greater country samples and additional dimensions for comparison, such as policy sectors. Regarding the MSF, we could identify a group of international scholars who mostly discuss how this approach can be adapted to comparative research at a conceptual level. However, there also exist some first comparative empirical studies applying the MSF. Comparative insights are possible in the ACF due to the sheer number of cases generated. Finally, we found that the NPF conceptually draws on a comparative logic, which may not become apparent at first sight. We alluded to the inherently comparative nature of the EGF, which is a new theoretical perspective, and the empirical literature drawing from it is still emerging. We must remember that the comparative dimensions of the policy process theories critically depend on adopting a broad definition of what comparison means. Several avenues appear worth pursuing in future research to strengthen the comparative dimension of policy process research. The first point relates to the PET and why it has successfully mastered the comparative turn. We would argue that one of the reasons is that the PET community has elaborated on isolated concepts of this approach rather than on it as a whole. However, there also exist studies that treat PET holistically. By concentrating on individual theoretical components, the researchers involved in the comparative study of political agendas managed to bring their expertise and knowledge about measuring the key concepts and amenable data.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  345 Our second point is about the need for systematic data gathering and coding to strengthen comparative policy process research. Designs should be explicitly comparative, and data logistics should follow to facilitate comparative research. The availability of reliable and valid data is critical for pushing further the comparative dimension in policy process research. Third, we identified that formal political institutions offer a possibility for conceptually and empirically advancing comparative policy process research. Our reasoning builds on institutions as a key concept in comparative politics, which offer a methodological toolbox and data for policy process research. There are two ways to incorporate institutions in comparative policy process research. First, institutions are the decision context. The more ambitious approach is to identify the role institutions play in the case-based approaches and address them more systematically. At any rate, policy process theories offer a value-added in their treatise of institutions since they pay more attention to how they structure and shape the relationship between actors than approaches in comparative politics do. It is also related to the policy process theories’ broader definition of institutions, which can also refer to previous policy decisions that have been taken previously and affect current policy decisions. To conclude, it is clear that comparative research both widens and deepens our understanding of political processes. However, when we decide to compare, we need to develop ideas about collecting the appropriate evidence to test the empirical implications of the theoretical models. This leads to the question of what we should compare, and this is not an easy one to answer. This chapter showed that comparative research is not limited to country-comparative research. Nonetheless, we must not think comparisons yield additional insights under all circumstances. Instead, to provide additional insights, comparative research must start with comparative design and theorizing.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  349 Analysis: Research and Practice 21 (2): 151–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/1387698 8.2017.1405551. Herweg, Nicole, Nikolaos Zahariadis, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer. 2022. “Travelling Far and Wide? Applying the Multiple Streams Framework to Policy-Making in Autocracies.” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 63 (2): 203–223. https://doi. org/10.1007/s11615-022-00393-8. Holzinger, Katharina, Christoph Knill, and Bas Arts, eds. 2008. Environmental Policy Convergence in Europe: The Impact of International Institutions and Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511491962. Howlett, Michael, Allan McConnell, and Anthony Perl. 2015. “Streams and Stages: Reconciling Kingdon and Policy Process Theory: Streams and Stages: Reconciling Kingdon and Policy Process Theory.” European Journal of Political Research 54 (3): 419–434. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12064. Howlett, Michael, and Jeremy Rayner. 2008. “Third Generation Policy Diffusion Studies and the Analysis of Policy Mixes: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back?” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 10 (4): 385–402. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876980802468816. Howlett, Michael, and Jale Tosun, eds. 2019. Policy Styles and Policy-Making: Exploring the Linkages. Routledge Textbooks in Policy Studies. London, New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Hughes, Tyler, and Deven Carlson. 2015. “Divided Government and Delay in the Legislative Process: Evidence From Important Bills, 1949–2010.” American Politics Research 43 (5): 771–792. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X15574594. Immergut, Ellen M. 1990. “Institutions, Veto Points, and Policy Results: A Comparative Analysis of Health Care.” Journal of Public Policy 10 (4): 391–416. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00006061. Jahn, Detlef. 2011. “The Veto Player Approach in Macro-Comparative Politics: Concepts and Measurement.” In Reform Processes and Policy Change, edited by Thomas König, Marc Debus, and George Tsebelis, 16:43–68. Studies in Public Choice. New York: Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-44195809-9_3. Jahn, Detlef, and Sebastian Korolczuk. 2012. “German Exceptionalism: The End of Nuclear Energy in Germany!” Environmental Politics 21 (1): 159–164. https://doi. org/10.1080/09644016.2011.643374. Jones, Bryan D. 1994. Reconceiving decision-making in democratic politics: Attention, choice, and public policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . 2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice: Bounded Rationality and Governance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. . 2003. “Bounded Rationality and Political Science: Lessons from Public Administration and Public Policy.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13 (4): 395–412. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mug028. . 2016. “The Comparative Policy Agendas Projects as Measurement Systems: Response to Dowding, Hindmoor and Martin.” Journal of Public Policy 36 (1): 31–46. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X15000161. Jones, Bryan D., Frank R. Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, Christopher Wlezien, Stuart Soroka, Martial Foucault, Abel François, et al. 2009. “A General Empirical Law of Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 53 (4): 855–873. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00405.x. Jordan, Jason. 2013. “Policy Feedback and Support for the Welfare State.” Journal of European Social Policy 23 (2):134–148.https://doi.org/10.1177/0958928712471224.

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350  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman Jotzo, Frank, Joanna Depledge, and Harald Winkler. 2018. “US and International Climate Policy under President Trump.” Climate Policy 18 (7): 813–817. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2018.1490051. Kenworthy, Lane. 2003.“Quantitative Indicators of Corporatism.” International Journal of Sociology 33 (3): 10–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/15579336.2003.11770269. Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co. Knill, Christoph. 2005. “Introduction: Cross-National Policy Convergence: Concepts, Approaches and Explanatory Factors.” Journal of European Public Policy 12 (5): 764–774. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501760500161332. Knill, Christoph, Marc Debus, and Stephan Heichel. 2010. “Do Parties Matter in Internationalised Policy Areas? The Impact of Political Parties on Environmental Policy Outputs in 18 OECD Countries, 1970–2000.” European Journal of Political Research 49 (3): 301–336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2009.01903.x. Knill, Christoph, Kai Schulze, and Jale Tosun. 2012. “Regulatory Policy Outputs and Impacts: Exploring a Complex Relationship: Regulatory Policy Outputs and Impacts.” Regulation & Governance 6 (4): 427–444. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1748-5991.2012.01150.x. Knill, Christoph, and Jale Tosun. 2012. Public Policy: A New Introduction. Houndmills, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. . 2020. Public Policy: A New Introduction. Houndmills, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kumlin, Staffan, and Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen, eds. 2014. How Welfare States Shape the Democratic Public: Policy Feedback, Participation,Voting and Attitudes. Globalization and Welfare. Cheltenham, Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Larsen, Erik Gahner. 2019. “Policy Feedback Effects on Mass Publics: A Quantitative Review.” Policy Studies Journal 47 (2): 372–394. https://doi.org/10.1111/ psj.12280. Lijphart, Arend. 1999. Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press. Lowi,Theodore J. 1964.“American Business, Public Policy, Case-Studies, and Political Theory.” World Politics 16 (4): 677–715. https://doi.org/10.2307/2009452. Manow, Philip, and Simone Burkhart. 2008. “Delay as a Political Technique under Divided Government? Empirical Evidence from Germany, 1976–2005.” German Politics 17 (3): 353–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/09644000802300650. May, Peter J., Joshua Sapotichne, and Samuel Workman. 2006. “Policy Coherence and Policy Domains.” Policy Studies Journal 34 (3): 381–403. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2006.00178.x. May, Peter J., S. Workman, and B. D. Jones. 2008. “Organizing Attention: Responses of the Bureaucracy to Agenda Disruption.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 18 (4): 517–541. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/mun015. Mettler, Suzanne, and Joe Soss. 2004. “The Consequences of Public Policy for Democratic Citizenship: Bridging Policy Studies and Mass Politics.” Perspectives on Politics 2 (1): 55–73. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592704000623. Newell, Allen, and Herbert A. Simon. 1972. Human Problem Solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Newton, Kenneth, and Jan W. van Deth. 2016. Foundations of Comparative Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/ product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781316554029.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  351 Nohrstedt, Daniel. 2005. “External Shocks and Policy Change: Three Mile Island and Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy.” Journal of European Public Policy 12 (6): 1041–1059. https://doi.org/10.1080/13501760500270729. Nohrstedt, Daniel, and Christopher M. Weible. 2010. “The Logic of Policy Change after Crisis: Proximity and Subsystem Interaction.” Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy 1 (2): 1–32. https://doi.org/10.2202/1944-4079.1035. Osei-Kojo, Alex, Karin Ingold, and Christopher M. Weible. 2022. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Lessons from Applications in African Countries.” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 63 (2): 181–201. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-022-00399-2. Ostrom, Elinor. 2010. “Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems.” American Economic Review 100 (3): 641–672. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.3.641. . 2011. “Background on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework: Ostrom: Institutional Analysis and Development Framework.” Policy Studies Journal 39 (1): 7–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2010.00394.x. Ostrom,Vincent, Charles M. Tiebout, and Robert Warren. 1961. “The Organization of Government in Metropolitan Areas: A Theoretical Inquiry.” American Political Science Review 55 (4): 831–842. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952530. Peters, B. Guy. 2018. “Comparative Politics and Comparative Policy Studies: Making the Linkage.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 20 (1): 88–100. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2017.1414409. Petridou, Evangelia, and Michael Mintrom. 2021. “A Research Agenda for the Study of Policy Entrepreneurs.” Policy Studies Journal 49 (4): 943–967. https://doi. org/10.1111/psj.12405. Pierson, Paul. 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Radin, Beryl A., and David L. Weimer. 2018. “Compared to What? The Multiple Meanings of Comparative Policy Analysis.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 20 (1): 56–71. https://doi.org/10.1080/13876988.2017.141 4475. Restad, Hilde Eliassen. 2020. “What Makes America Great? Donald Trump, National Identity, and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Global Affairs 6 (1): 21–36. https://doi.org/10. 1080/23340460.2020.1734955. Sabatier, Paul A, and Christopher M. Weible. 2007. “The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Innovations and Clarifications.” In Theories of the Policy Process, edited by Paul A Sabatier, 189–220. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Saikawa, Eri. 2013. “Policy Diffusion of Emission Standards Is There a Race to the Top?” World Politics 65 (1): 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0043887112000238. Sanjurjo, Diego. 2020. “Taking the Multiple Streams Framework for a Walk in Latin America.” Policy Sciences 53 (1): 205–221. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11077-020-09376-1. Scharpf, Fritz W. 1997. “Introduction: The Problem-Solving Capacity of MultiLevel Governance.” Journal of European Public Policy 4 (4): 520–538. https://doi. org/10.1080/135017697344046. Schattschneider, E. E. 1974. The Semisovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Schlaufer, Caroline, Johanna Kuenzler, Michael D. Jones, and Elizabeth A. Shanahan. 2022. “The Narrative Policy Framework: A Traveler’s Guide to Policy

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352  Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman Stories.” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 63 (2): 249–273. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11615-022-00379-6. Schmidt, Paul Wickham. 2019. “An Overview and Critique of US Immigration and Asylum Policies in the Trump Era.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 7 (3): 92–102. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502419866203. Shanahan, Elizabeth A., Michael D. Jones, and Mark K. McBeth. 2011. “Policy narratives and policy processes.” Policy Studies Journal, 39 (3): 535–561. Shore, Jennifer. 2016. “Political Inequality: Origins, Consequences, and Ways Ahead.” In Understanding Inequality: Social Costs and Benefits, edited by Amanda Machin and Nico Stehr, 225–240. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-11663-7_11. Smith-Walter,Aaron, and Michael D. Jones. 2020.“Using the Narrative Policy Framework in Comparative Policy Analysis.” In Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Comparative Policy Analysis, edited by B. Guy Peters and Guillaume Fontaine. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788111195.00029. Soroka, Stuart Neil. 2014. Negativity in Democratic Politics: Causes and Consequences. New York: Cambridge University Press. Soroka, Stuart Neil, and Christopher Wlezien. 2010. Degrees of Democracy: Politics, Public Opinion, and Policy. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. Soss, Joe, and Sanford F. Schram. 2007. “A Public Transformed? Welfare Reform as Policy Feedback.” American Political Science Review 101 (1): 111–127. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0003055407070049. Spohr, Florian. 2016. “Explaining Path Dependency and Deviation by Combining Multiple Streams Framework and Historical Institutionalism: A Comparative Analysis of German and Swedish Labor Market Policies.” Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 18 (3): 257–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/13 876988.2015.1122210. Stauffer, Bettina, and Johanna Kuenzler. 2021. “Introduction—Stories of the old world: The Narrative Policy Framework in the European context.” European Policy Analysis 7 (S2): 268-75. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1128 Stone, Deborah A. 1989. “Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas.” Political Science Quarterly 104 (2): 281–300. https://doi.org/10.2307/2151585. Strebel, Michael Andrea, Daniel Kübler, and Frank Marcinkowski. 2019. “The Importance of Input and Output Legitimacy in Democratic Governance: Evidence from a Population-based Survey Experiment in Four West European Countries.” European Journal of Political Research 58 (2): 488–513. https://doi. org/10.1111/1475-6765.12293. Streeck, Wolfgang, and Kathleen Ann Thelen. 2005. “Introduction: Institutional Change in Advanced Political Economies.” In Beyond Continuity: Institutional Change in Advanced Capitalist Economies, edited by Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Ann Thelen, 1–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tosun, Jale. 2013. Environmental Policy Change in Emerging Market Democracies: Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America Compared. Studies in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy 41. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tosun, Jale, and Marcus A. Koch. 2021. “Policy Mixes for Biodiversity: A Diffusion Analysis of State-Level Citizens’ Initiatives in Germany.” Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, October, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15239 08X.2021.1992265. Tosun, Jale, and Simon Schaub. 2021. “Constructing Policy Narratives for Transnational Mobilization: Insights from European Citizens’ Initiatives.” European Policy Analysis 7 (S2): 344–364. https://doi.org/10.1002/epa2.1125.

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Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process  353 Tosun, Jale, and Julia Schnepf. 2020. “Measuring Change in Comparative Policy Analysis: Concepts and Empirical Approaches.” In Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Comparative Policy Analysis, edited by B. Guy Peters and Guillaume Fontaine. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/97817 88111195.00017. Tsebelis, George. 2002. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vliegenthart, Rens, Stefaan Walgrave, Frank R. Baumgartner, Shaun Bevan, Christian Breunig, Sylvain Brouard, Laura Chaqués Bonafont, et al. 2016. “Do the Media Set the Parliamentary Agenda? A Comparative Study in Seven Countries: Do the Media Set the Parliamentary Agenda?” European Journal of Political Research 55 (2): 283–301. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12134. Volkens,Andrea, Pola Lehmann, Nicolas Merz, Sven Regel,A Werner, and H Schultze. n.d. The Manifesto Data Collection. Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR) (Version 2013b.). Berlin:Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB). Walgrave, Stefaan, Stuart Soroka, and Michiel Nuytemans. 2008. “The Mass Media’s Political Agenda-Setting Power: A Longitudinal Analysis of Media, Parliament, and Government in Belgium (1993 to 2000).” Comparative Political Studies 41 (6): 814–836. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414006299098. Waslin, Michele. 2020. “The Use of Executive Orders and Proclamations to Create Immigration Policy: Trump in Historical Perspective.” Journal on Migration and Human Security 8 (1): 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/2331502420906404. Weaver, Kent. 2010. “Paths and Forks or Chutes and Ladders?: Negative Feedbacks and Policy Regime Change.” Journal of Public Policy 30 (2): 137–162. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0143814X10000061. Weible, Christopher M., and Tanya Heikkila. 2016. “Comparing the Politics of Hydraulic Fracturing in New York, Colorado, and Texas: Comparing the Politics of Hydraulic Fracturing.” Review of Policy Research 33 (3): 232–250. https://doi. org/10.1111/ropr.12170. Weible, Christopher M., Tanya Heikkila, Karin Ingold, and Manuel Fischer, eds. 2018. Policy Debates on Hydraulic Fracturing: Comparing Coalition Politics in North America and Europe. Softcover reprint of the original 1st edition 2016. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Weible, Christopher M., Daniel Nohrstedt, Paul Cairney, David P. Carter, Deserai A. Crow, Anna P. Durnová, Tanya Heikkila, Karin Ingold, Allan McConnell, and Diane Stone. 2020. “COVID-19 and the Policy Sciences: Initial Reactions and Perspectives.” Policy Sciences 53 (2): 225–241. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s11077-020-09381-4. Weible, Christopher M., Paul A. Sabatier, and Kelly McQueen. 2009. “Themes and Variations: Taking Stock of the Advocacy Coalition Framework.” Policy Studies Journal 37 (1): 121–140. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2008.00299.x. Wenzelburger, Georg, and Carsten Jensen. 2022.“Comparative Public Policy Analysis: Shortcomings, Pitfalls, and Avenues for the Future.” Politische Vierteljahresschrift 63 (2): 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-022-00390-x. Workman, Samuel. 2015. The Dynamics of Bureaucracy in the U.S. Government: How Congress and Federal Agencies Process Information and Solve Problems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107447752. Workman, Samuel, Frank R. Baumgartner, and Bryan D. Jones. 2022. “The Code and Craft of Punctuated Equilibrium.” In Methods of the Policy Process, edited by Christopher M. Weible and Samuel Workman, First edition, 51–79. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003269083-3.

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11 Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories Christopher M.Weible

The ambiguous, complex, multifaceted, and evolving policy processes have attracted research with rich historical traditions and an increasingly diverse community whose science pivots around public policy’s continuous interactions with contexts, events, actors, and outcomes. By bringing public policy to the forefront of teaching, analysis, research, and engagement, this field maintains its ascent to higher plateaus of knowledge and efforts to contribute to a better world.1 This conclusion ends this volume by summarizing and assessing the changes to the theories since the last edition in 2018. While the changes vary by chapter, most pertain to clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments, expanding and extending the theoretical scope, confirming and strengthening theoretical arguments, and bridging knowledge and action. It then suggests ways to enhance the policy process research community, including broadening the ways to contribute, developing publication outlets that can serve its increasing diversity, and focusing on removing barriers to entry and learning.

Categories for Advancing Policy Process Theories Given innumerable interactions involving public policy, theories have been, and continue to be, essential to studying policy processes. In its fifth edition, the chapters in this volume offer the most established and utilized policy process theories circa 2022 written by the theories’ creators or leaders with updates from the fourth edition.2 This section summarizes and assesses the changes within and across the theories into four categories.3 Clarifying Concepts and Theoretical Arguments Concepts serve as the building blocks of theories, and their interactions form theories’ arguments and hypotheses (along with other forms of conjectures and propositions). Consequently, all theories report clarifications consistent with this first category. Possibly the most changes came with the Narrative Policy Framework, as illustrated by its clarifying and renaming causal mechanisms to narrative DOI: 10.4324/9781003308201-14

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356  Christopher M.Weible causal strategies and the devil-angel shift to devil-angel-solidarity shift. This research program also better specified the theory’s pathways to policy change and offered a new conceptual figure.4 In addition, the Multiple Streams Framework now offers a helpful checklist of factors associated with their holistic hypotheses for the problem and political windows. The Ecology of Games Framework and Diffusion and Innovation also include new conceptual figures or flow diagrams to help communicate their arguments. Alternately, in the situation of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, its flow diagram has been checked with caveats that the shown relationships represent but one scenario under its purview. Ongoing efforts to clarify concepts and theoretical arguments indicate a field trying to communicate its ideas better. The core challenge involves words (i.e., concepts) with meanings often not understood by people within a research program and even less by those outside it. To complicate things further, sometimes the identical words vary in meanings across theories. Even when words have agreed-upon meanings, those meanings are often tacitly understood with deep roots in the literature. Moreover, some words change meaning over time, vary meaning by context, or fail to translate reliably across languages. The results include some of the most well-recognized limitations of the field: inconsistent empirical applications and barriers to learning and applying any theory and entering this field. All of this amounts to a fundamental need to communicate better. A Dictionary of Public Policy (Howlett et al., 2022) might be a step in the right direction, but it too easily slips to assuming uniformity – when there is none. Furthermore, some words in this volume cannot be defined or described in a single sentence or paragraph (consider the concept “policy processes”). There is no way to resolve such a situation. An imposed uniformity in language for the entire field might stifle theory development, given that the continued specificity and growth of a theory’s language might be esoteric but is also another signifier of development. Nevertheless, recognizing the critical role that the lexicon plays, the continued investment in elucidating and communicating concepts remains essential, as is the continued effort to learn that vocabulary and recognize the changing and different meanings, possibly over time or across contexts.5 Hopefully, the changes in this volume will lead to more clarifications than confusion. Regardless, this category of change across the chapters represents a laudable commitment by these research programs to modify their approach to communicate their ideas better and reach their audiences. Expanding and Extending the Theoretical Scope Theoretical fit matters, and applying a single theory to all research questions, designs, and contexts is a flawed strategy. Instead, a theory’s canon directs research to a particular scope, including a preferred range of research questions, research designs, and contextual settings (Cairney and Heikkila,

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  357 2022). Subsequently, two interdependent issues arise: first, if, when, and how to expand a theory’s canonical scope; second, if, when, and how to extend a theory by applying it outside its canonical scope. In this volume, all chapters expand the theory’s canonical scope to various extents and ways. Most notably, the Multiple Streams Framework continues to expand into more stages of the policy cycle with applicability well beyond its initial scope of agenda setting and alternative selection. Changes in scope can also come by bridging previously divided sets of literature. A prime example is Diffusion and Innovation’s new international orientation that offers a more inclusive take on this approach by encapsulating literature on policy transfer, circulation, and mobilities.Whereas expanding scope pertains to claimed areas suitable for the theories’ applicability, all theories report empirical applications that continue to extend and apply the approaches to new or relatively new areas, particularly beyond Western democracies. Expanding and extending theoretical scope can be viewed with top-down and bottom-up subtleties. From a top-down perspective, a theory’s canonical scope expands first with the empirical applications following. Changes to a theory’s canonical scope do not immediately indicate new knowledge but rather a charge to conduct empirical research in that new area. From a bottom-up perspective, empirical research first extends and applies a theory outside its canonical scope, with changes to the theory’s scope following. Of course, distinguishing top-down and bottom-up perspectives on changing theories’ scope oversimplifies far more complicated and iterative processes. However, isolating instances of both can be instructive. The empirical extensions in applications of the Advocacy Coalition Framework, for example, continue in collaborative subsystems (outside its scope) and not just adversarial subsystems (inside its scope), which dates back to Leach and Sabatier (2005) and more recently with Koebele (2019). Yet, this theory’s canon has hardly been revised or expanded, possibly indicating a tendency to maintain its traditions or a need for more evidence. In contrast, the Multiple Streams Framework top-down expansion in scope to include implementation without much bottom-up empirical support is a situation of a theory hoping for research to follow. The choice to expand a theory’s scope in its canon requires acumen. Any theory likely has an inverted relationship between scope size and knowledge claims. For example, Punctuated Equilibrium Theory’s relatively narrow scope might be a source of its success. It does not aim to explain vast swaths of the policy process, and what it seeks to understand, it does so exceptionally well.6 Whether to expand or not is an issue of balancing the tension between breadth and depth in allocating time, attention, and resources to advancing a theory. Theoretical immutability is not the answer. Theories should be extended and applied in different environments, in substantively new topics, and with varied methods. If theories are similar to any human artifact with an internal structure (e.g., the concepts and stipulated relations) and a function

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358  Christopher M.Weible to understand and explain a part of the world (i.e., the canonical scope), then one reason for applying a theory to new areas is to learn something about their strengths and limitations. As Herbert Simon (1996, 12) states, In a benign environment we would learn from the motor [policy process theory] only what it had been called upon to do; in a taxing environment we would learn something about its internal structure—especially about those aspects of the internal structure that were chiefly instrumental in limiting performance. Following Simon’s advice requires thoughtfulness and humility. In applying theories outside Western democracies, a researcher might inadvertently force observations into predefined conceptual categories, impose Western concepts inappropriately, ignore vital aspects of the policy process, crowd out other emerging ideas and theories, and misinterpret the magnitude and constancy of interactions (see discussions in Bandelow et al., 2022).There are ways to mitigate these threats, such as creating representative research teams, maintaining the theoretical malleability to contexts, and creating research designs that foster contextual and data expressions with minimal theoretical impositions. Even with these efforts, these threats will remain in some capacities. A theory’s scope can and sometimes should expand, and a theory can and sometimes should be applied and extended outside its scope.When done, the first step is learning about a theory’s canonical scope, including the accompanying explicit and implicit assumptions, concepts, and hypotheses. The second step is learning about the new area and the meaning of expanding or extending a theory there. In other words, and in using Simon’s metaphor, get to know the motor and its new environment. Take both steps mindfully, recognizing the motivations, tradeoffs, and potential contributions, if and when done. Finally, and even more importantly, consider choosing not to expand or extend theory; in some situations, investing in its canonical scope is the best strategy. Confirming and Strengthening the Theoretical Arguments A touchstone for any theory lies in what original insights it provides about the policy process. As mentioned in the introductory chapter, all theories should be assessed by what they know about the policy process today compared to the past. All theories in this volume continue to make theoretical advancements, yet the theoretical refutations and inconsistencies are still worth studying and exploring. All theories report expanding their generalizability through extending applications to varied governing, geographic, and substantive contexts. The Punctuated Equilibrium Theory expands its scope geographically through more applications to local policy agendas and different political and governing systems. This approach is one that gradually expands its scope based on the

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  359 ongoing empirical applications that continue to confirm its arguments (i.e., akin to the bottom-up perspective in the previous section). Similarly, the Advocacy Coalition Framework continues to confirm some of its hypotheses, particularly around its explanations of policy change and the nature of coalitions, through more sophisticated methods and diversified contexts. While some theories describe the generalization of their arguments as something new, the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework builds on its existing strengths in applications that span the globe with increasing applications beyond environmental concerns. Many theories also report deeper understandings and sometimes new explanations within their scope of research questions. The Policy Feedback Theory identifies federalism, partisanship, and structural inequality as moderating effects of policy feedback.The new theory to this volume, the Ecology of Games Framework, builds and expands upon its theoretical and empirical arguments about the complexity of polycentric governance (compare to Lubell, 2013). Conversely, some theories report inconsistent findings or a lack of confirmation of hypotheses. The Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Narrative Policy Framework report inconsistent results for some hypotheses and refutations in some settings, partly because of unclear theoretical conceptualization or varying conceptual interpretations and operationalizations in the empirical research. Examples of the Advocacy Coalition Framework’s main troubles lie in its inconsistently applied belief system concept and unclear definitions of dominant and minority coalitions. Similar troubles arise in the Narrative Policy Framework, for example, with its unclear conceptualizations of winning and losing coalitions and problematic measurement and modeling of the devil-angel-solidary shift. Other hypotheses in this volume are never tested, hardly testable, or vapid in their contributions. Most glaringly, some of the Advocacy Coalition Framework’s hypotheses remain mostly untested for more than thirty years and still stay in its canon.The Multiple Streams Framework posits that policy entrepreneurs are more likely to be successful in opening windows when they are “more persistent,” which begs the question of the meaning, measurement, and source of comparison for being more persistent.The Narrative Policy Framework offers a hypothesis that “media are contributors (a policy actor) in policy debates,” which is an instance of a theory offering obvious and inconsequential conjectures.7 Theoretical arguments written in hypotheses or other types of conjectures serve as the foundation for the field’s continued growth and success. Hypotheses start as empty vessels and, over time, become filled with research successes and failures and a reference for what is known and unknown. If no one pays attention to them, discard them. If everyone interprets or applies them unreliably, clarify and revise them. If no one learns from them, revise them and make them count or discard them. Most importantly, hypotheses matter in guiding research, setting agendas, and directing new students’ and experienced scholars’ time and attention.

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360  Christopher M.Weible Ensuring the clarity, relevance, refutability, applicability, and significance of such foundations becomes an essential task for anyone who cares and is involved in this field. Finally, this change category might be the hardest to report across the chapters. It is hard because the field lacks discussions, norms, or best practices for many critical decisions in nurturing and developing theories. For example, all theories are unclear in how they make knowledge claims about policy processes, along with the confidence and generalizability of those claims. In other words, how many applications should there be and how “good” should they be for a theory to expand its scope with genuine knowledge claims. Similarly, how should the theories assess the tome of empirical research to revise theories, and what are the decision rules for adding or rejecting hypotheses or other theoretical arguments? Of course, no easy answers exist, but, at the moment, no one even asks these questions. Bridging Knowledge and Action Bridging knowledge and action equates to achieving “broad impacts,” generally defined as benefits from research to society.8 Achieving broad impacts is a fundamental criterion used by many granting agencies for assessing the quality of research, increasingly expected by universities and the public, often students’ primary interest, and a concern of many scholars. Broad impacts have also been one of the most enduring debated themes in the study of public policy (Lasswell, 1956; Easton, 1969; deLeon, 1997). These debates typically center on the purpose of scholarship, be it for practical or scientific reasons, and whether and how scholars should engage in the policy process, such as taking positions as political advocates or remaining neutral. All chapters in this fifth edition focused more on issues related to societal contributions than in the fourth edition. They do so in many ways, one of which is by incorporating normativity into their arguments. For example, two theories with normativity forged into their infrastructure include the Policy Feedback Theory’s emphasis on democracy and the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework’s inclination for self-governance and inclusion of evaluative criteria, including equity and security.9 Other approaches are taking similar steps.The Narrative Policy Framework re-emphasizes its commitment to democracy (Jones and McBeth, 2020), the Advocacy Coalition Framework directs research on issues of power and representation (Nohrstedt et al., 2022), the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory explores government mistakes and over- and under-reactions (Fagan, 2021), and Diffusion and Innovation incorporates normative arguments in policy circulation (Porto de Oliveira, 2022). Incorporating normative facets (issues of morality, right and wrong, good and bad) into theories can advance policy process theories and help link knowledge and action (Ingram et al., 2016; Heikkila and Jones, 2022). However, embracing normativity should not mar the science of asking research questions answerable through scientific methods. Take the Policy

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  361 Feedback Theory and the Institutional Analysis and Development Theory as examples; both ask questions answerable through scientific methods. Their trick is to evaluate their scientific research through normative lenses with hopes of then contributing to society. All theories in this volume could emulate the Policy Feedback Theory and the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework by incorporating normative lenses via evaluation criteria. Such evaluation criteria could direct measurements and assessments of policy processes and might pertain to political and social equity, security, accountability, effectiveness, representativeness, government responsiveness, rectitude among political allies and opponents, rectitude for targeted, disempowered, and marginalized populations, capacity for information production and processing, the health of the public discourse, consensus on democratic norms, shared rules for legitimizing and delegitimizing knowledge, and other policy-targeted outcomes.10 In addition to incorporating normative evaluation criteria in policy theories, recent developments in the field also point to efforts to draw practical lessons from policy theories, which typically focus on sifting through the theoretical and empirical publications to glean the most important lessons for students or people outside the field. Recent examples include Shipan and Volden’s (2012) practical lessons from Innovation and Diffusion, Schlager and Heikkila’s (2011) summary of some practical insights from the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework’s Common-Pool Resource Theory, Cairney et al.’s (2022) lesson-drawing from policy process theories for equity in health, education, and gender policy, and Weible and Cairney’s edited volume aptly titled, Practical Lessons from Policy Theories (2022). As mentioned in the introductory chapter, this field does not provide ironclad advice applicable across all contexts or for a particular decision in a specific place and time. Instead, the advice tends to give an orientation for approaching an issue, highlighting common trends and patterns, and helping focus attention on factors deemed important. Nonetheless, more can be done to summarize and share lessons from this field with those inside and outside it. Along with strategies related to normativity and drawing practical lessons, the most significant impact most academics will have on the world is most likely through students, who tend to learn from the published science. Thus, along with a need to develop even better teaching skills, the field must maintain its commitment to publishing to academic audiences to reach instructors and students. Broadening and deepening knowledge embedded in theories through empirical applications vetted through peer-review processes and published in academic outlets helps fill course syllabi, offer fodder for classroom discussion, and foster learning among students, who, in their multitudes and might, probably stand a far better chance of making an immediate difference than any academic instructor.11 Finally, linking knowledge and action with policy process theories in myriad ways might contribute beyond the academic world but not immediately, and nothing is guaranteed. For any theory and whether it valorizes

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362  Christopher M.Weible normativity or not, if the goal is to use the approach to contribute to the policy process in the near term, it matters more how it is applied (e.g., co-producing knowledge, advocating, evaluating). In other words, applications of theories intending to serve directly non-academic audiences necessitate employing various forms of engaged scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007) and promoting human dignity in research. For instance, a researcher could work with a policy community attempting to understand the complexity of its polycentric governing structures by employing the Ecology of Games, which would provide an image of that structure and the varied ways people and organizations engage and the interdependencies of the decision-making venues. The Ecology of Games might not dictate what’s “good” or “bad” about the results; the interpretation, instead, would hinge on the presentation, discussion, and lessons learned by the people engaged in the issue and collaborating with the research.12 The point is not to discount the potential or need to incorporate normativity into policy process theories but to emphasize that the ultimate utility of theories depends more on how they are utilized. The four categories advance policy process theories through different means and magnitudes, sometimes directly or indirectly.13 For example, confirming and strengthening theoretical arguments might signify nontrivial advances in knowledge. Other categories of change lay the foundations for future advances in knowledge, including clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments and sometimes expanding and extending scope.14 Finally, elucidating how theories can bridge knowledge and action serves as a lodestone and suggests original ways to think about the theories and new research agendas.

Strategies for Advancing the Policy Process Research Community In some respects, the policy process research community has never been stronger or more diverse. One way to think about development in this field is by imagining what theories might comprise this volume if published four decades ago. In the early 1980s, it might have included the issue-attention cycle (Downs, 1972), incrementalism (Lindblom, 1959), arenas of power (Lowi, 1964, 1972), issue networks (Heclo, 1978), the funnel of causality (Hofferbert, 1974), a top-down approach to implementation (Mazmanian and Sabatier, 1983), and the Policy Sciences Framework (Lasswell, 1971).15 Compared to these older theories, today’s theories show nontrivial advances in methods, data, hypotheses and conjectures, and knowledge of the policy process. Additionally, the field now supports several high-quality journals and many networking and learning opportunities. In other respects, the field faces serious challenges, particularly in supporting the various ways to contribute to the field, ensuring publishing outlets support the increasingly global field, and finding ways to maintain and grow the policy process research community.16

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  363 Broadening the Ways to Contribute One of the implications of this volume’s success is the perception that the only way to contribute to policy process research is through its theories, perhaps via the four change categories in the last section. Or to contribute, a new student or experienced scholar must establish a new theory with hopes that others will follow in the formation of a research program.17 There are, of course, other ways to contribute to policy process research, but they are usually not recognized enough or lack respect and, hence, can be challenging to publish or attract attention. One way involves looking outside this volume and contributing there. No one reading this volume should conclude that the policy process’s alpha and omega lie in these theories. As mentioned in the introduction and re-emphasized here, a scan of the journals catering to policy process research runs replete with rich content on themes rarely mentioned or approached differently in this volume, including public opinion and policy (Sato and Haselswerdt, 2022), social constructions (Schneider and Ingram, 1993; Kreitzer and Smith, 2018), interpretive and critical approaches (Durnová, 2022), policy design (Fernandez-i-Marin et al., 2021), policy success and failure (McConnell, 2010), morality policy (Tatalovich and Wendell, 2018), gender (Lombardo and Meier, 2022), global issues (Porto de Oliveira, 2022), and more. For anyone wanting to learn about the policy process, look in this volume but also look outside it. A second way to contribute is by developing better methods for one or more theories, the key to fulfilling this field’s comparative agenda (Tosun and Workman, 2022). As mentioned, the institutional grammar offers one of the most important innovations in methods. While built with terminology and some of the theoretical logic associated with the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework, the institutional grammar could operate across any theory (see Herzog et al., 2021; Frantz and Siddiki, 2022). Another good example is Discourse Network Analyzer software tool for analyzing public discourse, which is applicable and often used by theories in this volume (Leifeld, 2017). A third way is to invest in “theoretical modules,” units that offer a narrow and distinct theory (ideally with a method) capable of being uploaded into one or more of these theories for a particular purpose or applied towards its own development without the theories in this volume.18 Opportunities exist to develop a theoretical module on learning applicable to many of the theories in this volume (consider starting with Heikkila and Gerlak, 2013 or Dunlop and Radaelli, 2018). Other theoretical modules might be adaptations from other theories, such as Cultural Theory (Swedlow, 2014), or different literature sets, such as Policy Analytical Capacity (Elgin, 2015). There is also space to develop theoretical modules centered on actor types, including brokers, entrepreneurs, and more (Petridou and Mintrom, 2021). Theoretical modules could help bridge this field with others or develop concepts in this field that deserve more attention.

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364  Christopher M.Weible There are more ways to contribute. The spirit underlying the thinking of different ways to contribute to policy process research is to encourage innovation and recognize the plurality of ways people can make a difference. Developing Publication Outlets Serving the Diverse Community Investing creative energies within and outside policy process theories, in methods, or in theoretical modules also requires the availability of sympathetic and quality outlets. The recent growth and success of policy process research coincide with the growth and success of its journals.19 Since Sabatier (1991, 153) urged the development of suitable and respected outlets, the Policy Studies Journal emerged as the premier outlet for theorybased policy process research. However, one journal is not enough; fortunately, additional outlets have also risen in stature and willingness to support the research in this volume. A short list includes Policy Sciences, Review of Policy Research, Policy & Politics, Journal of Public Policy, European Policy Analysis, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Asian Public Policy, and the new International Review of Public Policy – all of which offer different yet overlapping homes for policy process research. Although the quality of scholarship and impact of these journals can improve, scholars have more legitimate choices than ever before for publishing their work. Today, the more significant challenge is less the availability and adequacy of quality policy process journals but whether and how these journals can support the increasingly diverse community of policy process research spanning the globe.The success of journals supporting policy process journals can lower the acceptance rates, often advantaging the most conventional theoretical and methodological arguments and disadvantaging new, different, and emergent ideas. As a result, scholars outside of the traditional areas who seek to enter sometimes face insurmountable barriers in proving the value of their work, which can frame their scholarship as less worthy of attention. In addition, some ideas in policy process theories continue to reverberate the priorities of Western democracies, thereby making it difficult for concepts relevant in other parts of the world to gain a foothold. Finally, many of the most pertinent and vital questions, topics, and locales deal with intractable circumstances, often marked by extreme social and political inequities. By some standards, the quality of the science in such intractable circumstances might not equate to the science in more tractable circumstances, which, unfortunately, lowers the odds of such research surviving the peer review process and appearing in top journals. The path forward is not to jettison standards or narrow the scholarship’s scope. Instead, it requires forming more diverse editorial teams of policy journals representing the diversity of the field’s global scholarship, listening to and learning more about the barriers to entry, removing or lowering those barriers, and maintaining and growing the community of policy process research.20

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  365 Investing in the Policy Process Research Communities Any path forward involves the decisions and actions of the policy process research community, echoing the well-recognized notion that “science at its best is a social enterprise” (King et al., 1994, 9). As mentioned in the introductory chapter, all theories in this volume involve engaged communities that form their research programs. Such research programs provide the foundation for nurturing and maturing the theories by applying, testing, and refining for years, sometimes decades. They also create cultures that can be welcoming, encouraging, and supporting to those inside and outside the community. However, there is also a dark side to such research programs. Research programs naturally create a coterie with silo effects that produce tacit knowledge, difficult-to-learn lexicon, group-think mentalities, and halo effects that exaggerate the theories’ value and quality.The consequences include stunted growth within research programs, theories hermetically sealed from outside critiques, and misunderstanding and lost opportunities. The typical response to silos is to “break down the walls” between them, but this is a counterproductive way to think. Silos allow for the focus and expertise necessary for progress. A more effective response is to “bridge” silos by supporting specialization without silo-ization. Dealing with silo-ization is less of a problem for some people, especially those with access to workshops, conferences, and seminars with the active participation of people from the policy process research community.21 These events increasingly provide opportunities to learn and engage with people using different theories and methods, perhaps formally on cross-cutting panels or informally at receptions. However, most of these occur in North America and Western Europe. For people outside of these regions attending becomes far more difficult, and it can also be difficult for some who live in these regions for other reasons. One of the promising developments is the emergence of online and hybrid conferences, seminars, and workshops, with more equitable opportunities for people worldwide to learn from each other. While not the same as in-person events, online options can significantly create, maintain, and grow the policy process community. Of course, the challenge remains how to offer a combination of online and in-person opportunities with similar levels of quality. In all, the strength of the policy process research lies in its global community. Over decades, this increasingly diverse community has devoted time to improving the field’s theories, journals, and events. However, work remains in providing space for new ideas and ways of contributing, supporting applied scholarship, lowering and removing barriers to publishing for those on the boundaries or outside the policy process research community, and providing the means for the global community to engage each other.

Conclusion This volume offers comprehensive summaries and a critical comparison of the policy process’s most established and utilized theories. For those new

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366  Christopher M.Weible to or familiar with the ideas in this volume, the hope is that these theories will help reduce the ambiguities, simplify the complexity, reveal some of the many faces, and track the evolving nature of policy processes. Any such hope depends on the diverse people comprising the policy process community, from those devoting their careers to its development to those experiencing it with just this volume.This field gains life through all of their willingness to share their individuality, intellects, and imaginations.This field advances through all of their commitments and varied ways of contributing to teaching, questioning, learning, writing, presenting, researching, reviewing, and critiquing. Finally, this field gives reasons to endure all its inevitable frustrations and realize successes via an openness to engage each other in collaborations and companionships. With a diverse and vibrant community and the theories in this volume, there is reason to aspire for more knowledge about policy processes for the betterment of society and the greater realization of human dignity.

Notes  

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Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories  369 Likewise, the newly formed Conference on Policy Process Research (COPPR) will be the first event exclusively focused on supporting policy process theories and methods worldwide with both online and in-person options. I am pleased to say that nearly 400 people from 40 countries attended COPPR 2023 in Denver, Colorado.

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37

Index

Note: Bold page numbers refer to tables; italic page numbers refer to figures and page numbers followed by “n” denote endnotes. Aamodt, Solveig 137 ACF see Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) Ackrill, Robert 38, 48 action situation: focal 212; IAD and 198–204, 199, 203, 207, 212–214, 213; linked 212–214, 213; physical and material conditions 200–201; three worlds of 202 active research community 10–11 actors 3–4, 39, 115; ACF 132–141, 144–145, 326–327 (see also Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF)); assumption 159; attributes of 139; conceptual and theoretical challenges 326–327; EGF 265, 268, 269; IAD 196, 198–201, 204, 208; identify 137; during implementation 45; institutional arrangements design 204; making choice 293; NPF 174–176, 178; political entrepreneurs 37; problem brokers 33; role of 3, 4, 115; students and 6; theories 4; types of 137; typology 144–145 Adam Smith Institute 39 adaptation interdependency 269 Adler, E. Scott 75 administrative capacity 245 adoption 42, 43, 44; anti-abortion policies 230; determinants and mechanism of 301; formal 45; international organizations influences 244; patterns and mechanisms of 235; regional patterns 233 Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) 6, 12–13, 74, 130–131, 148n1, 295, 343;

actors 326–327; advocacy coalitions 135–139, 160; assumptions 131–134, 159; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 356; comparative perspective 339–340; comparative research designs 145; conceptual categories and relations 134–135; contexts 330; diversity 146; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; elevating subsystem typology 144; emerging areas and continued development 143–145; empirical study 147; expanding and extending theoretical scope 357; flowchart 135, 135; forums and venues 148n4; hypotheses 135, 160; internal vs. external events 141–142; locus of discussion 132, 148n4; policy change 141–143, 160; policyoriented learning 139–141, 160; policy process, elements of 307–308, 309; public policies 324; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; research program 145–147; technical and normative criteria 311–316; theoretical emphases 135–143; time 325–326 AFDC see Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) Affordable Care Act (ACA) 118, 120–121 Africities Summit 244 agenda: comparative policy agendas project 84–90; coupling 41–43; European Union Policy Agendas Project 89; local policy 89; Policy Agendas Project 84–86, 89; problem definition and policy 104–105

374

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374 Index Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (Kingdon) 29 Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Baumgartner and Jones) 86 agenda setting 8–9, 12, 14, 30, 36, 243, 295, 301, 334, 336, 342, 357; analyze pattern of 50; to broader policymaking system 304; crucial for 327; decision-making 41, 42; MSF 36, 40, 40, 41; non-democracies 48; PET 66–69, 83–86, 88–89, 337; political stream 36 agenda (policy) window 32, 37–39, 40, 50, 54, 250 aggregation rules 208 agora narrans, meso-level NPF 174, 174–179 Agrawal, Arun 201 Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) 117, 119 Albright, Elizabeth A. 138 Alegre, Porto 242 ambiguity 29–30, 45, 295; institutional 48 American Campus Health Association 209 American Political Science Association 7 American Pragmatism 367n8 American Rifleman 176 analysis 5–6; NPF 180–181; systematic empirical 55–56; three levels of 162, 169–180, 185n9; see also event history analysis; Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework angel shifts 134, 149n6, 176 applications: IAD family of tools and 205–218; international and comparative 45–50; meso-level NPF 174–179; micro level NPF 171–173; NPF 180–181; of policy cycle 41–45 Armstrong, Elizabeth M. 69 Arnold, Gwen 175–177 assumptions: ACF 131–134, 159; compilation about actors 4; MSF 30–32; NPF 162–163 attention 168–169, 184n8, 262 attentiveness 74 audience, narrator and 167–168 Auer, Matthew R. 17n11 authoritarian system 70, 76, 77, 138, 145, 182, 315, 344 authority 3, 111, 119, 132, 139, 265, 268, 269, 271, 274 auxiliary coalition actors 144–145 Babayan, Ararat 48 backfire effect 171

Badie, Bertrand: The Imported State:The Westernization of the Political Order 236 Bandelow, Nils C. 143 Barabasi, Albert-László 90 Barcelona regeneration model 239 Bardach, Eugene 267 Barnes, Carolyn 123 Basurto, Xavier 208, 209 Baumgartner, Frank R. 12, 17n13, 66, 67, 72, 74, 75, 79, 81, 84, 88, 90, 294, 313, 315, 334, 337; Agendas and Instability in American Politics 86; Politics of Information 77 Bay Adapt 271, 275, 276, 278 Bayart, Jean-François 236 Bay Conservation Development Commission (BCDC) 269, 271, 274–276 Bay-Delta case studies 268–273, 270, 272 Bay Restoration Regulatory Integration Team 275 BCDC see Bay Conservation Development Commission (BCDC) Becoming a Citizen (Bloemraad) 109 Béland, Daniel 325, 333 Belgium 46, 81, 84, 86, 87, 143 belief homophily hypothesis 137 beliefs 132–134, 137–142, 144, 165–167, 171–173, 177, 294, 306, 308, 340; ACF 133–134, 139–140, 144, 159; NPF 177; policy narratives 165–167 Berardo, Ramiro 265 Berglund, Oscar 368n20 Berlin Wall 234 Berry, Bill 18n19 Berry, F. S. 233 Berry, W. D. 233 bias 49, 232; cognitive 295; confirmation and disconfirmation 170; normative 109; self-selection 122; status quo 66, 76; in studying diffusion success 234; systemic and persistent 182 big data 183 Birkland, Thomas A. 33, 328 Bloemraad, Irene: Becoming a Citizen 109 Blum, Sonja 165 Bolukbasi, H. Tolga 53 Boolean algebra 54 Bossong, Raphael 50 boundaries 217; jurisdictional 31, 67; policies traverse jurisdictional 245–246; of policy subsystem 131, 142; rules 208 bounded rationality 4, 68, 74–75, 79, 170, 199, 300–301

375

Index  375 bounded relativity 162 Bourdieu, Pierre 236 Boushey, Graeme 83, 254n10, 342 Brady Campaign 176 Brady, Henry 113 Brandeis, L. D. 253n2 Brazilian agrarian techniques 249 breach 171–173 Brekken, Katheryn C. 178 Breunig, Christian 81 Brewer, Adam M. 167 Brexit 249 brokers: policy 132, 135, 145; political 327; problem 33–34, 38, 49, 327 Brown, Sarah 368n20 budgets 79–80, 344; changes 81–82, 82; government 333; outcomes 77; PET 80–82, 82; theories, punctuations in 80–81; US federal 106 Buffalo Field Campaign 177 bundles of property rights 210–212, 211, 217, 220n10 Bush, George W. 51 Cairney, Paul 6, 14, 29, 273, 361; Practical Lessons from Policy Theories 361 Calanni, John 137 California 31; Bay-Delta 268–273, 270, 272 Callon, Michel 237 Campbell, Andrea Louise 114–116 Canada 46, 83, 88, 109, 111, 180, 215 Canaday, Margot: The Straight State 111 CAP see Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) cascading effects 275–276 causal mechanisms 55, 184n6, 323, 341, 344; NPF 167, 177–178, 184n6; policy narratives 166 Cazcarro, Ignacio 214 Chang, Katherine T. 175, 176 Chan, Kwan Nok 76 Chaqués-Bonafont, Laura 88 characters: NPF 164; power of 172–173 Chen, Jowei 114 chess game 5–6 childcare policy 110 children 112, 180, 248 China 245, 248 choice: actors making 293; IAD 199–200; organizational 30; QCA 55; requirement 337; rules 202, 203, 206, 208, 266, 300; situations 79 citizenship, meaning of 108–112 Civic Voluntarism Model 112–113

civil rights 109, 110, 114 Clement, Floriane 341 Clemons, Randy S. 171 climate change policy 172, 337 Clinton, Bill 105 coalition affiliation scores 138 coalitions 74, 105, 132–139, 160; see also Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) Cobb, Roger W. 328 coercion 32, 249, 342 cognition 170–171, 265, 332, 337; effects 113; heuristics 168, 340; kinds of 170 Cohen, Michael D. 14, 30, 77 collective action problem 198, 201, 203, 204, 208, 264–269, 271–273, 277, 299, 300, 311 collective choice rules 202, 203, 266, 300 Colville, Kathleen 185n10 common-pool resources 197, 199, 200, 204, 205, 207, 210, 262, 266, 267, 305, 341 communities 10–11; ACF’s research 131, 145–147; active research 10–11; attributes of 201; international 84; policy 34–37, 39, 47, 49, 53; political 108, 109, 111, 113; specialists 68 Comparative Agendas Project (CAP) 84–90, 304, 313, 322, 343 comparative analysis: MSF 45–50; NPF 180–181 comparative policy agendas project 84–90, 86, 87 Comparative Political Studies 91n1 comparative politics 236, 322, 326, 327, 329, 331, 333–335, 339, 341–343, 345 comparative public policy 180–181, 322, 323, 328, 329, 338 comparative research 11, 145 comparativists 116 competition 138, 248, 339–340; economic 342; party 88–89; unequal 315 complex adaptive systems 90 complex governance, theories of 273–278 concrete policy 46, 242, 243 Conditional Cash Transfers 242, 247, 250–251 Confederate flag 165 Conference on Policy Process Research (COPPR) 368n21 confirmation bias 170 conflict 337; expansion model 84; international 57; level of 139–141, 144; management strategies 74; with multiple permitting requirements 275; political 77; scope of 132, 166; theories of 66

376

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376 Index Congressional Bills Project 85 congruence 167–168, 171–172 consequential coupling 38 constituent policies 333 constitutional choice rules 202 constructivist institutionalism 294 contexts 4, 196, 294, 329–330 Cook, Nathan J. 208 coordination 136–139, 149n7, 198, 267 coupling mechanism, agenda window 37–38 COVID-19 30, 70, 181, 205, 328 Cox, Michael 220n7, 220n12 Cox, R. 220n7, 220n12 Crawford, Sue E. S. 196, 208, 209, 219 crime 71–72 criminal justice 71–72, 103, 117, 243–244 cross-coalition learning 136, 139, 141, 340 Crow, Deserai A. 175, 178, 184n3 cultural differences 245 Cultural Theory 166, 179, 365 custodial citizenship 117 Dahl, Robert A. 110, 367n10 Danforth, Scot 179 DAS shifts see devil-angel-solidarity (DAS) shifts Daugbjerg, Carsten 325 Davis, Otto A. 80 Daviter, Falk 76 Debus, Marc 334 decision coupling 42 decision functions 9, 18n15 decision-making: collective 266; MSF 41–44, 42, 44; PET 73–75 deep core beliefs 133, 149n5 deLeon, Peter 9, 16n7, 17n11, 367n10– 367n11, 367n15–368n15 DeLeo, Rob A. 33, 55 Deleuze, Gilles 238 Delta “science enterprise” 271, 272, 273–275, 278 Delta Science Program 271, 272, 275, 278 Delta Stewardship Council 271 De Micheli, David 121 democracy 7, 88, 101, 161, 181, 182, 242, 315, 322, 360 Dempster, M. A. H. 80 Denmark 86, 87, 89 Department of Social Welfare and Development 250 dependent variables 45, 55, 233, 325, 326, 342 Dery, David 338

Deschaux-Dutard, Delphine 333 development: ACF 143–145; intellectual, of policy feedback theory 101–103; see also Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework devil-angel-solidarity (DAS) shifts 166–167, 358 devil shifts 133, 149n6, 176 Dewey, John 7 Dezalay,Y. 237 Dictionary of Public Policy (Howlett) 356 Diehl, Paul F. 49 diffusion see innovation and diffusion models disconfirmation bias 170 Discourse Network Analyzer 363 distributional equity 267 distributional fairness 267, 268 distributive policies 333 diversity: ACF 146; NPF 182–183 doctrinal coupling, agenda window 37–38 Dolan, Dana A. 38 Dolowitz, D. P. 235, 236, 246, 250, 252 domestic policy 49 dominant coalition, ACF 136 Downs, Anthony 67 Dryzek, John S. 367n10 Duarte, Alex 33, 55 Duit, A. 273, 277 Dumont, Patrick 84 Dunajevas, Eugenijus 209 Dunlop, Claire 368n20 Dunn, William N. 367n8 Durant, Robert F. 49 Dutch government 230 dynamic external events 134 earthquake budget model 79 Easton, David 9, 130 ecology of games framework (EGF) 13, 262–268, 264, 343; actors 326–327; cascading effects 275–276; case studies 268–273; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 356; comparative perspective 340–341; contexts 330; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; exploration vs. exploitation 277–278; hypotheses 264, 285–286, 286–287; path dependence 273–274; policy games 266; policy process, elements of 307–308, 311; prescriptive focus of crucial problems 263; principled engagement concept 267; public policies 324; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303;

37

Index  377 simple processes 267–268; structure 265–266; surprise 276–277; technical and normative criteria 311–316; theory and research 285–287; theory of complex governance 273–278; threshold effects 274–275 education: GI Bill 112, 114; Higher Education Act of 1965 107; policies 112; student loans 114; vouchers 115, 175 Elder, Charles D. 328 element’s duration effect 54 Elizabeth A. Koebele 12–13 Eller, Warren S. 50 empirical analysis 51, 55–56, 285; agenda (policy) window 38; policy core beliefs 133; policy feedback theory 103 empirical research 102, 134, 163, 331, 357, 359, 360 energy policy 181, 337 Engeli, Isabelle 337 Engel, Stephen M. 111 Engel, Steve 110 enlightenment function 142 entrepreneurs see policy entrepreneurs entropic search 77 Epp, Derek 69, 77 Equal Pay Act 105 equal rights 105, 108 equity 202–203, 268, 278, 361 Ertas, Nevbahar 172 Esping-Andersen, Gøsta 101, 110 EU see European Union (EU) European Citizen Initiatives (ECIs) 176 European Consortium for Political Research 368n21 European Union (EU) 31, 47–48, 236; EU Policy Agendas Project 85, 89 event history analysis 54, 233, 234 events 4–5, 294; conceptual and theoretical challenges 328; examples of 4; focusing 33, 39, 56, 306, 328, 336; internal vs. external 141–142 Exadaktylos, Theofanis 45 expert-based information, policy change 141 exploitation, EGF 277–278 exploration, EGF 277–278 external source, policy change 141–142 Fagan, Edward J. 78, 81, 328 Fast Policy 250 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 114–115 federalism theory 119–120, 197

feedback: effects, public policies 100; “free rider” problem, policy feedback theory 107; negative 66, 69, 71–73, 294, 300, 339; positive 66, 71–73, 106, 339; racialized effects 121; see also policy feedback theory (PFT) felon disenfranchisement laws 110 FEMA see Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) femtorisks 275 Fenley,Vanessa M. 178 Fløttum, Kjersti 172 fluid participation 31 focal action situation 212 focusing events 33, 39, 56, 306, 328, 336 foreign policy, MSF in 49–50 form: IAD 201–202; PET 68; PFT 100, 101, 106, 107, 109, 112; policy narratives 164–165, 168, 170 formal policy adoption 45 forums, ACF 148n4 Foster, Tim 211 Foucault, Michel 236 Fowler, Luke 45 Fox, Cybelle 120 frameworks 13, 18, 308; see also specific theories framing techniques 178; MSF 33; NPF 176, 178, 178, 179 France 89, 244; policymakers in 329 Frantz, Christopher K. 219 free rider problem 107 French policy circulation 236–237 friction: dual role of 77–78; institutional 309; in policymaking 77–78 Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster, Japan 143 Fullerton, Allegra 18n15 funnel of causality 362, 368 Galaz,V. 273, 277 Galès, P. L. 236 game theoretic analyses 209 game theory 197, 220n4, 312 garbage can model 30, 32 Garth, B. G. 237 Gates Foundations 247 gender 110–111, 185n13, 205, 315, 363; equality 41 Gender-Based Analysis Tool (GBAT) 182, 185n13 general public 3, 106, 171 Germany 143, 231, 244, 329 gestation period, policy stream 34 GI Bill 112, 114

378

378 Index Gjerstad, Øyvind 172 Glick, H. R. 254n9 Goertz, Gary 366n5 Gong,Yanqing 217 Goss, Kristin A. 123; The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice 108 Gottlieb, Madeline 175–177 governance: in California Delta 271–273, 272; complex, theories of 273–278 governments: attention 306; PDI 248– 249; PET 75, 78–80; PFT 105–106; political stream element 36 Graham, E. R. 253n4 grammar of institutions 208–210 Grammar of Institutions tool (IGT) 207, 217–219 grand narratives, NPF 179–180 Great Society programs 107 Greek foreign policy 49 Green Party 329 Green-Pedersen, Christoffer 86–89, 334, 337 Gronow, Antti 140 Grossman, Emiliano 89 groups: interest group campaigns, political stream 36; power of 106–108; Public Interest Research Group 108 Guattari, Felix 238 Guinaudeau, Isabelle 89 Guiraudon,Virginie 83 Hacker, Jacob 106 Hackett, Ursula 115 Hadjiisky, M. 235 Hall, Peter A. 325 Halpern, C. 236 Hart-Celler Act 109 Hays, S. P. 254n9 Head Start program 112 health care 86, 108, 143, 162, 242 Heaphy, Janina 50 Heclo, Hugh 131 Heichel, Stephan 334 Heikkila, Tanya 14, 209, 333, 361 Henry, Adam Douglas 144 Herd, Pamela 117 heresthetic approach 175–176 Hern, Erin 118 Herweg, Nicole 12, 36, 37, 39, 42, 48, 50, 52, 304, 313, 324, 333, 336 heuristics 168, 170, 199, 233, 300; cognitive 168, 340; valuable 233 hidden participants 34 Higher Education Act of 1965 107

Hill, Capitol 108 historical institutionalism 53, 101–102 Hofferbert, Richard I. 367n15–368n15 homo narrans model 162, 168–173, 185n10, 300 homosexuality 111 hot cognition 170 Howlett, Michael 250, 325, 333; Dictionary of Public Policy 356 Huda, Juhi 173 Human Problem-Solving (Newell and Simon) 77 Huß, Christian 33, 36, 37, 39, 42, 48, 50, 333, 336 Husmann, Maria 168, 173 hypotheses 2, 16n3, 367n7; ACF 135, 160; belief homophily 137; EGF 264, 285–286, 286–287; MSF 40, 51, 52 ideas 1, 8–9, 13, 32, 34–35, 43, 54, 101, 104, 171, 232, 243, 250, 294 identity 110–111 identity-protective cognition 170 images 72–74; narrative 169 immigration 83, 84, 109, 328 implementation 44–45; policy 201–202, 213, 267, 331 The Imported State:The Westernization of the Political Order (Badie) 236 impotent shift 167 incarceration 101, 110, 112 inclusion, NPF 182–183 incongruence 171–172 incrementalism 73, 75, 78, 80, 82, 301, 325, 344, 362 independent variables 54, 55, 233 individuals 68, 117, 118, 170, 199–200, 210, 247, 327; see also homo narrans model information: expert-based 141; IAD 199; PET 75–77; rules 206, 208; scientific, assumption 159 Ingold, Karin 12, 136, 138 Ingram, Helen M. 113, 367n10; Routing the Opposition 123 innovation and diffusion models 13, 18n18; best practices 242; bridgebuilding efforts 253; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 356; comparative perspective 341–342; conceptions of 231; elements of policy process 307–308, 310–311; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; expanding and extending theoretical scope 357; how public

379

Index  379 policies travel across borders 232–239; internal determinants 230; life cycle of 250; organizing principles 232, 239–251, 251; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; research traditions 232–239, 240–241; “S” shaped curve 250; technical and normative criteria 311–316 institutional ambiguity 48 Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework 6, 7, 13, 18n18, 196–197, 199, 295; action situation 198–204; actors 199–200, 326–327; applications 205–218; “box and arrows” version of 204–205; bundles of property rights 210–212, 211; challenges 217–218; comparative perspective 340–341; contexts 330; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; grammar of institutions 208–210; linked action situations 212–214, 213; natural resource management 198, 200, 201, 211, 214, 220n11; policy process, elements of 307–308, 310; problemsolving orientation 197; public policies 324; purpose of 197; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; rule typology 206–208, 207; SESF 214–217, 216; technical and normative criteria 311–316; tools 197, 205–218 institutional externalities hypothesis, EGF 285, 286–287 institutional friction 309 Institutional Grammar Research Initiative (IGRI) 218 institutions 16n5, 53, 293, 294; ambiguity 48; grammar of 208–210; longitudinal study of 65; political 53, 65; role of 306 Integrated Operational Teams 50 intellectual development, of policy feedback theory 101–103 Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) 274 Inter-American Development Bank 247 interest group campaigns, political stream 36 interests 14, 36, 47, 246 interim conclusions 331–332 international applications, MSF 45–50 International Conferences on Policy Diffusion and Development Cooperation 254n6 International Journal of the Common 205

International Monetary Fund (IMF) 231, 249 International Observatory of Participatory Democracy 244 international organizations 56, 138, 234, 235, 242, 244, 246, 247, 252 International Public Policy Association 368n21 international relations, MSF in 49–50 interpretive effects 113–119 intra-coalition diversity, policy beliefs 177 Iron Triangles 131 irrigation systems 198, 212, 213 Isenberg, P. L. 268, 278 Jacobs, Lawrence R. 120 Jang, Sojin 145 Jenkins-Smith, Hank C. 9, 13, 17n10, 17n13, 144, 149n5, 367–368n15 Jenness,Valerie: Routing the Opposition 123 Jennings, Will 88 John, Peter 88 Johnson, Lyndon 71, 106 Jones, Bryan D. 12, 17n13, 66–68, 72, 74, 75, 79, 81, 84, 90, 182, 313, 315, 332, 334, 337; Agendas and Instability in American Politics 86; Politics of Information 77 Jones, Michael D. 13, 29, 171–173, 177, 181, 182, 313, 315, 316, 333 Jordan, Meagan 81 journals: International Journal of the Common 205; PET 85, 87; Policy Studies Journal 91n1, 364, 368n17 Karch, Andrew 13 Kay, Adrian 38, 48 Kingdon, John W. 14, 17n13, 30, 34–35, 37–38, 41, 48, 51, 53, 72, 77, 250, 306, 328, 336; Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies 29 King, Paula J. 37 Kiser, Larry L. 16, 17n13, 202, 367–368n15 Knaggård, Åsa 33 Knill, Christoph 325, 334 knowledge of the policy process 7 Koebele, Elizabeth A. 138, 175, 176, 357, 368n20 Koski, Chris 81 Kuenzler, Johanna 333 Kuhlmann, Johanna 51, 165 Kumlin, Staffan 115 Kusko, Elizabeth 168, 171, 177 Kuzma, Jennifer 179

380

380 Index Lacombe, Matthew J. 118 Lakatos, Imre 130, 144, 367n13 Lakoff, George 171 Lam, Wai Fung 76 language 2, 51, 71, 115, 218, 356 Larsen, Lars Thorup 337 Lasswell, Harold D. 7, 9, 17n11, 17n13, 367n10; decision functions 9, 18n15; Lasswell’s Policy Sciences 367n8; policy sciences 7–8 Laudan, Larry 130 Laufer, Adrian E. 173 Lawlor, Andrea 178, 184n3 Leach, William D. 134, 140, 357 learning: cross-coalition 136, 139, 141, 340; effects 113; EGF 267, 277; policy narrative 169, 177; policy-oriented 139–141, 160 Le Gouill, C. 217 Leifeld, Philip 363 lens’s explanatory power 54 Leone, Sierra 214 Leong, Ching 176 Lerman, Amy E. 117 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) 111 levels of analysis: IAD 202, 203; NPF 162, 169–180, 185n9 Lijphart, Arend 331 limitations: MSF 50–55; stream independence 50–51 linked action situations 212–214, 213 Lipson, Michael 50 Liu, Xinsheng 54 loans, student 114 local policy agenda 89 locus of discussion, ACF 132, 148n4 logistic regression analysis 54 Long, Norton 264 Lovell, Heather 34 Lowi, Theodore J. 101, 165, 333, 338, 367n14 Lubell, Mark 9, 13, 264–266, 268, 304, 311, 341 Lybecker, Donna L. 165, 168, 172, 173 Lyotard, Jean-Francois 179 macro-level NPF 179–180 macropolitics, PFT 67–69, 71–74 Maesschalck, Jeroen 84 Makse, T. 243 manipulation, narrative mechanisms 168–169

March, James G. 14, 30, 77, 277 Marshall, T. H. 110 Marsh, D. 235, 236, 246, 252 Martin, Cathie J. 116 Mason, Lilliana 367n10 mass publics, mechanisms among 112–119, 113 material conditions 200–201, 310 Mayors Forum 244 Mazzar, Michael J. 49 McBeth, Mark K. 13, 165, 167–168, 171–173, 177, 181 McGinnis, Michael D. 266 media: MSF 53; narratives 178; NPF 178; policy diffusion and innovation 247 Medicare 106, 112 medium-to large-n applications, MSF 54–55 Merry, Melissa K. 176, 185n10 meso-level NPF 174, 174–179 methodological challenges, policy process 197, 217, 330, 332–333 Methods of the Policy Process (Weible and Workman) 11, 14, 366n3 Mettler, Suzanne 12, 18n16, 120, 123, 294, 338 Mewhirter, Jack 13 Mewhirter, Mark 311, 341 Meyer, David S.: Routing the Opposition 123 Michener, Jamila 119; Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity 121 micro-level NPF 169–173 Midwest Political Science Association 368n21 minimal policy narratives 167 minority coalition 136, 142, 143, 359 Mintrom, Michael 167 mobilization 67, 73, 75, 88; political 115; structured 109 model of individual, assumption 159 monopoly, policy 66, 69–70 Mooney, C. Z. 253n3, 254n10 Morais de Sá e Silva, M. 250 moral of policy narratives 165 Mortensen, Peter B. 12, 88–89 most important problem (MIP) 72 Moynihan, Donald 117 Mozambican peasant movement 249 Mucciaroni, Gary 50 multi-functional hypothesis, EGF 285, 286–287 Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) 167 Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) 12, 14, 29–30, 343; actors 326–327; agenda (policy) window 37–39; ambiguity 30;

381

Index  381 assumptions 30–32; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 356; comparative perspective 336; criticism of 53; decision-making 41–44, 42, 44; European Union policy process 47–48; expanding and extending theoretical scope 357; fluid participation 31; in foreign policy 49–50; implementation studies 44–45; international and comparative applications 45–50; limitations 50–55; media’s role 53; medium-to large-n applications 54–55; non-democracies 48–49; parliamentary systems 29, 46–47; policy entrepreneur 39–40; policy process, elements of 306, 307–308; policy stream 32, 34–35; political stream 32, 35–37; problematic policy preferences 31; problem stream 32–34; prospects 55–57; public policies 324; quantitative applications 54; refine hypotheses 55; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; stages of policy cycle 41–45; stream independence 32; structural elements 32–40; technical and normative criteria 311–316; technology 31; theoretical approach, elements of 295, 296–298, 299–302; time 325–326; time constraints 30–31 narrative breach 171 Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) 13, 161–162, 343, 366n4; actors 326–327; assumptions 162–163; big data 183; bounded relativity 162; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 355–356; comparative analysis 180–181; comparative perspective 339–340; diversity 182–183; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; emerging trends 180–183; empirical study of 162; future directions 180–183; generalizable structural elements 162; homo narrans 162; inclusion 182–183; international applications 180–181; issue expansion and containment 174–176; levels of analysis 162, 169–180, 185n9; macrolevel 179–180; media and coalition membership 178; meso-level 174, 174–179; micro-level 169–173; narrator and audience 167–168; normative 181–182; policy actor 174–176; policy change 168, 168–169; policy narratives 163–167, 164; policy process, elements

of 307–308, 309–310; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; social construction 162; technical and normative criteria 311–316 narrative policy learning 169, 177 narrative transportation 172 narrator: and audience 167–168; trust 172 nascent policy subsystems 132, 148n3 national mood 35–36, 49, 306 national policymaking 56 National Rifle Association (NRA) 176 Nation by Design (Zolberg) 109 natural disasters 32, 33, 37 naturalization policy 109 natural resource management, IAD 198, 200, 201, 211, 214, 220n11 negotiation 31, 38, 142 neighbors variable 233 Netherlands 83, 211 networks 137, 174; see also policy subsystem Networks of Action Situations (NAS) 212–214, 213, 217–219 New Deal 120 Newell, Allen: Human Problem-Solving 77 New Public Management 243 Nohrstedt, Daniel 12, 143, 145, 149n8, 313, 339 non-democracies, MSF 48–49 non-focusing events 328 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) 123, 230 non-government policy actors 131, 218 normative NPF 181–182 normative policy core beliefs 133 NPF see Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) NRA see National Rifle Association (NRA) n studies, MSF hypotheses 54–55 Nuamah, Sally A. 117 nuclear power 73, 143, 329 Nwalie, Martin I. 145 Obama, Barack 105, 121, 328 Oberlack, Christoph 214 Ocelík, Petr 137 Oehninger, Ernst Bertone 175–177 Ohno, Tomohiko 145 Older Americans Act 106 Olofsson, Kristin L. 13, 145, 149n8 Olsen, Johan P. 14, 30, 77 Olson, Mancur 107 Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act 72

382

382 Index operational rules 202, 210, 266, 300, 310 organizational choice model 30 organized anarchies 30 Orloff, Ann 110 Ostrom, Elinor 16, 17n13, 18n18, 130, 196, 198–202, 204, 208–210, 214, 215, 218, 219, 219n1, 262, 263, 266, 267, 273, 341, 367–368n15 Ostrom,Vincent 204, 262, 341 Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University 313 outcomes: budgets 77; conceptual and theoretical challenges 330–331; levels of analysis and 202, 203; public policy 5 Palau, Anna M. 88 Pal, L. A. 235 Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) 250 The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women’s Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (Goss) 108 parallel processing, PET 68–70 parliamentary systems 29, 46–47 Participatory Budgeting (PB) 242, 250–251 partisanship 120–121 party ideology 47 party leadership 47 Patashnik, Eric M. 118 Patel,Vidushi 217 path dependence 35, 53, 102, 105, 273–274 pathology, of PET 76–77 pay-as-you-go pension system 35 paying attention, to policy bundles 325 payoff externalities 275–276 payoff rules 206, 208 peacekeeping 50 Peck, Jamie 250 Pell grants 107, 114 persuasion, narrative mechanisms 168–169, 184n8 Peterson, Holly L. 169, 179 Petridou, Evangelia 167 Pieper, Leah 220n9 Pierce, Jonathan 137 Pierson, Paul 17n13, 17n14–18n14, 102, 112 Plugaru, R. 250 pluralism 54, 146 policy see specific theories policy actors see actors policy adoption see adoption

policy analysis 5–6; field of 101; paradigm 145; role of 17n10 policy and programs, assumption 159 policy brokers 132, 145 policy bubble 72 policy bundles, paying attention to 325 policy change 149n10; ACF 141–143, 160; conceptual pathways to 141–142; dynamics of 343; expert-based information 141; major vs. minor 141; NPF 168, 168–169, 184n7 policy circulation 236–237 policy communication 178 policy communities 34, 35, 49 policy core beliefs 133, 140, 141 policy cycle 8–10, 18n15, 18n17; stages of 41–45 policy diffusion 34, 230–232, 231, 233–234; bridge-building efforts 253; life cycle of 250; research question and organizing principles 239–251, 251; research traditions 232–239, 240–241; “S” shaped curve 250; see also innovation and diffusion models Policy Diffusion and Innovation (PDI) see innovation and diffusion models policy disasters 78 policy entrepreneurs 34, 39–40, 40, 246; foreign policy 49; and policymakers 53–55 policy experts 47 Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity (Michener) 121 policy feedback theory (PFT) 6, 7, 12, 14, 17n14–18n14, 100–101; challenges 121–123; citizenship, meaning of 108–112; comparative perspective 338–339; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; empirical approaches 103; federalism 119–120; felon disenfranchisement laws 110; formulation of 102; “free rider” problem 107; government 105–106; historical institutionalist 101–102; intellectual development of 101–103; interpretive effects 115–119; major streams of inquiry 103, 103–112; mechanisms among mass publics 112–119, 113; multi-level feedbacks 123; partisanship 120–121; policy process, elements of 307–308, 309; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303; resource effects 114–115; statistical techniques 122; structural inequality 121; submerged state 112,

38

Index  383 118; technical and normative criteria 311–316 policy formulation 9, 243, 295 policy images see images policy implementation 201–202, 213, 267, 331; MSF 44–45 policy innovation 230–232, 231; see also innovation and diffusion models policymakers 30–31, 38, 78, 248, 253, 327, 338; diffusion in 100; economic competition 342; entrepreneur 39, 43, 53–55; in France 329; in Germany 329; policy stream 34; political stream 35–36; problematic policy preferences 31; problem stream 32–33; senior 293; sense of 294; threat to reelection 43 policymaking 322; dual role of friction in 77–78; national 56; PET 66–68, 77–78; in United States 66, 69 policy mobilities approach 237–239, 250 policy monopoly 66, 69–70 policy narratives 163–167, 164; beliefs and strategies 165–167; causal mechanisms 166; cognition 170–171; content 165– 167; form 164–165; learning 169, 177; minimal 167; moral of 165; narrativity 167; plot 165; settings 164; structural elements 164–165 policy-oriented learning 139–141, 160 policy paradigms 325 policy preferences, problematic 31 policy process: actors (see actors); advance knowledge 11–12; in agenda setting 9; compare theories of 291–318; definition and description of 2–5, 16n9–17n9; empirical and methodological challenges 332–333; European Union 47–48; goals of 5; outcomes of 5; and policy analysis 5–6; and policy cycle 8–10; and policy sciences 7–8; theoretical approaches, comparsion 292–295; theories (see theories); transparency 11; way to interprets 8 policy process research 1, 262, 344; ACF 145–147; advancing 362–366; comparative perspective 11, 145, 335–342; and comparative politics 333–335; empirical 102, 134, 163, 331, 357, 359, 360; policy diffusion 239–251, 240–241, 251; strength of 365; theorydriven 146 policy-relevant actors 39 policyscape 100 policy sciences 7–8, 17n12

Policy Sciences Framework 7, 17, 362 policy sectors 205, 209, 210, 267, 278, 344 policy stream 32, 34–35, 40 policy studies see studies Policy Studies Journal 91n1, 364, 368n17 policy subsystem 214, 293–294, 306, 326, 335, 339–340; ACF 131–140, 142–145, 147–148, 148n3; assumption 159; elevating typology 144; MSF 35; nascent 132, 148n3; NPF 169, 174, 176, 178, 179; PET 67–69, 74, 76, 78; territorial boundaries 142 policy transfer 34, 234–235, 238 policy venue 132 policy window see agenda (policy) window political community 108–109, 111, 113; see also communities political entrepreneurs 37; decisionmaking 42–43 political institutions 53; longitudinal study of 65 political relevance 33 political science 5, 8, 101, 232–236 political stream 32, 35–37, 40; decision coupling 42; party discipline and coalitions 47 political systems 299, 300, 306, 325, 326, 330, 332; ACF 134; MSF 30–32, 35, 41, 43, 45, 46; PET 66–68, 73, 75–78, 81, 82, 87, 89 politics: comparative 236, 322, 326, 327, 329, 331, 333–335, 339, 341–343, 345; macropolitics 67–69, 71–74 Politics of Attention 76 Politics of Information (Baumgartner and Jones) 77 polycentricity 9; EGF 262–264, 267, 274, 278, 304, 311, 341; IAD 204, 214, 219 Porto de Oliveira, Osmany 13, 250, 306, 314, 315 position rules 208 postal rates 107 Poupeau, F. 217 Pow, C. P. 238 power: of characters 172–173; of groups 106–108; lens’s explanatory 54; nuclear 73, 143, 329 Practical Lessons from Policy Theories (Weible and Cairney) 361 Pralle, Sarah 83, 84, 88 primacy of affect, NPF 169, 170 primeval soup policy 34, 51 Princen, Sebastiaan 83, 84 problematic policy preferences 31

384

384 Index problem brokers 33–34, 49 problem definition 337–338; policy agendas and 104–105 problem-focused advocacy 37 problem-solving orientation 197 problem stream 32–34, 40 problem surfing 38 processing, PET: information 75–76; parallel 68–70; serial 68–70 property rights 210–212, 211, 217, 220n10 property systems 200, 210 ProQuest databases 85 prospects, MSF 55–57 prospect theory 133 Protecting Soldiers and Mothers:The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Skocpol) 102 public administration 80, 314, 316 Public Interest Research Group 108 public policy 2, 16n6; black box 112; conceptual and theoretical challenges 323–325; discoursing issue in 3; examples of 2–3; feedback effects 100; large-scale changes in 65; outcomes 5; on society 5; travel across borders 232–239 public policymaking, PET in 66–68 public problem 33, 197–198, 200 Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) 6, 12, 65–66, 169, 179, 343; bounded rationality 74–75; in budget theories 80–81; comparative perspective 82–84, 337–338; Comparative Policy Agendas Project 84–90; contexts 330; decision-making 74–75; distribution of budget changes 81–82, 82; dual role of friction in policymaking 77–78; elements of theoretical approach 295, 296–298, 299–302; empirical and methodological challenges 332; events 328; expanding and extending theoretical scope 357; government decision makers 78–80; information and pathology of 76–77; information processing 75–76; journals and articles in 85, 87; macropolitics 67–69, 71–74; measurement system over time 85, 86; most important problem 72; outcomes 331; policy images 72–74; policy process, elements of 306, 307–308, 309; positive and negative feedback 71–72; public policies 324; in public policymaking 66–68; research activity and coherence 302–306, 303;

serial and parallel processing 68–70; sources of costs 78; technical and normative criteria 311–316; time 325–326 qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 54–55 quantitative applications, MSF 54 race 118–121, 314, 316, 342 racialized feedback effects 121 Radaeilli, Claudio 185n11 Ramesh, M. 250 Rayner, Jeremy 325 Reagan Administration 120 Redford, Emmette S. 67, 76 redistributive policies 333 reform 69, 196; health 105; policy 118; pressure 48; welfare 119 Regional Water Quality Board 275 regressive amendments 144 regulatory policies 333 reinvention 254n9 research see policy process research resources: ACF 132, 134, 136–138, 142, 144, 146; common-pool 197, 199, 200, 204, 205, 207, 210, 262, 266, 267, 305, 341; EGF 265; IAD 197–201, 210, 211, 214, 215; PFT 106–110, 112–115, 119 Rhinard, Mark 83, 84 Richardson, Jeremy 76 rights: bundles of property rights 210–212, 211, 217, 220n10; civil 109, 110, 114; equal 105, 108; social 110 Riker, William H. 176 Rinscheid, A. 143 Ripberger, Joseph T. 149n5 risk hypothesis, EGF 285, 286–287 Robbins, Matthew 13 Roberts, Nancy C. 37 Robinson, Scott E. 50, 81 Rockefeller Foundations 247 Roditis, Maria L. 209 Rogers, E. 253n2 Romano, Giulia 13 Rose, Deondra 123 Rosenthal, Aaron 121 Rose, Richard 234–235 Routing the Opposition (Meyer, Jenness, and Ingram) 123 Ruff, Jonathan W. A. 165 Ruiz, Santiago 220n9 rules: aggregation 208; choice 202, 203, 266, 300; concept of 201–202;

385

Index  385 operational 202, 210, 266, 300, 310; payoff 206, 208; typology 206–208, 207, 217, 324 Sabatier, Paul A. 9, 11, 17n13, 133, 134, 142, 146, 291, 340, 357, 364, 367n14–368n16, 367n16 Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta 265, 268, 271–273, 272 Saddam Hussein 51 Saguin, K. 250 salami tactics 39, 43 San Francisco Bay (SF Bay) 268–273, 272, 275; sea-level rise adaptation in 268–271, 270 Sargent, Jessica M. 168, 172 Satoh, Keiichi 13, 138 Saurugger, S. 250 Schattschneider, Elmer E. 66, 67, 76, 101, 166, 175, 337 Schaub, Simon 176, 333 Schlager, Edella 9, 13, 208, 210, 220n7, 220n9, 220n12, 305, 313, 317, 361, 367n10, 368n17; Policy Studies Journal 368n17 Schlaufer, Caroline 48, 176 Schlozman, Kay Lehman 113, 367n10 Schneider, Anne 113 Scholten, Peter 83–84 Schrad, Mark 83 Schulze, Kai 325 Schwaeble, Kathryn L. 328 Schweik, Charlie 220n9 Science Action Agenda 278 sciences: governance, in California Delta 271–273, 272; policy 7–8, 17n12; political 5, 8, 101, 232–236 scientific information, assumption 159 scientific theory 10 scope of conflict 166 Scopus databases 85, 220n7, 220n12 Security Council 56 selective exposure 170 selectorate’s mood 49 sentiment analysis 178 serial processing, PET 68–70 settings: agenda (see agenda setting); policy narratives 164 Shanahan, Elizabeth A. 13, 172, 176–179, 181, 335 Shanks, Delphia 123 shared vocabulary 299–300 Sheingate, Adam 83 Shipan, Charles R. 252, 253n4, 361

Shklar, Judith 109 Siddiki, Saba 209, 218, 219 silo effect 365 Simon, Herbert A. 9, 68, 300, 358; Human Problem-Solving 77 Singapore model 238 Skocpol, Theda 17n14–18n14, 102, 106, 109, 123; Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States 102 Skuciene, Daiva 209 Smith, Miriam 111 Smith-Walter, Aaron 13, 176, 333 social citizenship 110, 111 social construction 15, 33, 113, 162, 184, 363 Social Construction and Policy Design (SCPD) 314 social-ecological system: EGF 263, 267, 268, 278; framework (SESF) 13, 214–219, 216, 219n3–220n3, 220n11, 306 social insurance program 117 socialization mechanism 249 social movements 16n8 social network analysis techniques 137 social rights 110 social scientists, issue for 249 Social Security 105, 111; recipients 114–115; seniors’ support for 120 Social Security Administration (SSA) 105 Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) 117 social welfare policy 108, 115 softening-up process 34–35, 47 Sommerville, Kylie 149n8 Song, Geoboo 171, 173 SoRelle, Mallory E. 12, 123, 294, 338 Soroka, Stuart N. 343 Soss, Joe 18n16, 111, 117 Soule, S. A. 253n2 South Africa 81, 235, 250, 313 South Korea 313 Spain 81, 214 Special Management Areas 211 Speth, Gustave 90 spill-over effects 134, 269, 309 Spohr, Florian 333, 336 stability: ACF 136, 138, 140, 141; Narrative Policy Framework 177; PET 65–67, 71, 79–80, 88, 89 state recognition 111 statistical techniques, policy feedback theory 122 status quo 66, 75, 333; affect 45; approach 176–177; bias 66, 76; on policy issue 175

386

386 Index Stauffer, Bettina 180, 333 Steenmans, Katrien 211 Stephan, Hannes R. 177 stimuli 132, 133, 139, 170 Stone, Deborah A. 165, 202, 204, 337 The Straight State (Canaday) 111 Strang, D. 253n2 strategic externalities 275–276 strategies 13–15 stream independence 32, 50–51 streams: policy 32, 34–35, 40; of policy feedback inquiry 103, 103–112; political 32, 35–37, 40, 42, 47; problem 32–34, 40; see also Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) Streeck, Wolfgang 325, 338 street-level bureaucrats 3 strong coordination, ACF 136 structural elements: MSF 32–40; policy narratives 164–165 structural inequality 121 structured mobilization 109 structured polity approach 102 structure participant program 117 student loans 114 studies 7; Bay-Delta 268–273, 270, 272; field 234, 254n5; longitudinal study of institutions 65; MSF 44–45; see also Policy Studies Journal subsystem see policy subsystem Sumner, Jane Lawrence 182 surprise, EGF 276–277 Sweden 115, 336 Swinbank, Alan 325 systematic empirical analysis 55–56 systematic testing 56 Taleb, Nissam N. 77 Talisse, Robert B. 367n10 Tang, Shui Yan 198 Tan, Rong 217 target populations 105, 116, 118, 301, 314 Taufa Salome.V. 211 taxes 112, 248 technology 31 Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) 111, 119 terrorist attacks 33, 37, 50 testing 332; ACF 130, 144–146; MSF 52, 55–56; NPF 170, 174–175, 182; PET 70; PFT 111 Thatcher, Margaret 39 Thelen, Kathleen Ann 325, 338 Theodore, Nik 250 theoretical modules 363

theories 2, 12–15, 15n1–16n3, 18n18, 366n1; actors 4; advancing 355–362; bridging knowledge and action 360–362; clarifying concepts and theoretical arguments 355–356; comparison of policy process 291–318; of complex governance 273–278; criteria for 10–12; elements of 295, 296–298; expanding and extending theoretical scope 356–360; IAD 196–197; as policy analysis tools 6; see also Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF); innovation and diffusion models; Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework; Multiple Streams Framework (MSF); Narrative Policy Framework (NPF); policy feedback theory (PFT); Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) Theories of the Policy Process (TotPP) 161, 162, 180, 195, 291 theory-driven research 146 thermostatic model, PET 80 Thomas III, Herschel F. 69, 72 threshold effects 274–275 Thurston, Chloe N. 108, 123 Tiebout, C. M. 253n2 Tilly, Charles 367n10 time 134, 159, 325–326 time constraints 30–31 Timmermans, Arco 83–84 Tosun, Jale 11, 14, 17n14, 176, 291, 325, 333 traditional policy learning 169 transaction cost hypothesis, EGF 285, 286–287 transfer agent 238, 239, 242–248, 250 transnational learning 342 transnational transfer agents 246 Travis, Rick 49 Trounstine, Jessica 119 Trump, Donald 328 Tsebelis, George 82; institutional veto player 322 typology: policy actor 144–145; rules 206–208, 207, 217, 324; subsystem elevation 144 Uldanov, Arrtem 48 unclear technology 31, 39 unified model 233 United Kingdom 81, 84, 89, 181 United States 4, 17n14; policymaking 66, 69; US Student Association 108 unit of analysis 131, 132, 185n9

387

Index  387 University of California system 209 URB-AL Program 231 Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) 247 valuable heuristics 233 Van den Dool, Annemieke 48 variables 207; beekeeping 217; contextual 269, 286; dependent 45, 55, 233, 325, 326, 342; domestic and external 49; explanatory 323, 341; IGT 219; independent 54, 55, 233; neighbors 233 Varone, Frédéric 84 venue shopping 57, 83, 86 Verba, Sidney 113 vernacularization 244 veto player theory 321 Villamayor-Tomas, Sergio 9, 13, 208, 305, 313, 367n10 Vining, Aidan R. 367n10 vocabulary 11, 18n18, 130, 136, 291, 299, 311, 333 Volden, Craig 13, 243, 252, 253n4, 361 voting 29, 73, 110, 117, 121, 208 vulnerability interdependency 269 Wagner, Paul 137 Walgrave, Stefaan 84, 87–88, 334 Walker, Christopher 235 Walker, Jack L. 106–107, 233, 234 waste water treatment, Spain 214 weak coordination, ACF 136, 149n7 Weaver, Kent 339 Weaver,Vesla M. 117 Weber, Max 236 Web of Science 29 Weible, Christopher M. 6, 12, 14, 15n1, 16n7, 138, 140, 142, 144, 149n8, 208–210, 291, 323, 330, 333, 340, 361, 366n2, 367n11; Methods of the Policy

Process 11, 14; Practical Lessons from Policy Theories 361 Weimer, David L. 367n10 welfare programs 116 Westview Press 366n2 Weyland, K. G. 242, 250 “When Effect Becomes Cause” (Pierson) 102 Wildavsky, Aaron 80 wildlife conservation programs 215, 217 Wilkerson, John D. 75 Williams, Teshanee T. 179 Wilson, Woodrow 109 Winett, Liana B. 171 Wlezien, Christopher 81, 343 Wolfe, Michelle 72 Wolton, Laura 175, 178 Wood, Astrid 250 Wood, Robert 74 Workman, Samuel 11, 14, 15n1, 17n14, 291, 338, 366n2; Methods of the Policy Process 11, 14 World Bank 231, 247, 249, 250 World Cities Summit 244 World Trade Organization 336 Worsham, Jeff 74 Yildirim, Deniz 53 Ylä-Anttila, Tuomas 137 Yordy, Jill 367n10 Young, Iris Marion 367n10 Zahariadis, Nikolaos 12, 36, 45, 48–50, 51, 56 Zanocco, Chad 173 Zhao, Shuang 76 Zhu, Ling 120 Zohlnhöfer, Reimut 12, 33, 36, 37, 39, 42, 48, 50, 51, 333, 336 Zolberg, Aristide: Nation by Design 109