Multiple Streams and Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory

1. Multiple Streams and Punctuated-Equilibrium Theory Chapters 4 and 5

2. Multiple Streams Formulation • Multiple streams (MS) is an approach explaining how policy is designed • MS approach, developed by Kingdon in 1995, and used it to illuminate two predecision processes: • Agenda setting • Alternative specification

3. Fundamental Elements of MS • Level and unit of analysis– MS, a systemic level approach, incorporates the entire system or a separate decision as the unit of analysis. The MS lens is sensitive to the way information affects choice. Choice is viewed as collective output formulated by push and pull of several factors.

4. Fundamental Elements of MS (cont’d) • Ambiguity– MS deals with policymaking only under conditions of ambiguity (many ways of thinking about the same circumstances or phenomena). It is different from uncertainty in that it is thought of as ambivalence and more information does not reduce ambiguity.

5. Fundamental Elements of MS (cont’d) • Three properties of organizations where ambiguity is widespread: • Fluid participation (high turnover affecting decision making) • Problematic preferences (unclear preferences, people don’t know what they want) • Unclear technology (an organization’s processes that turn inputs into products)

6. Fundamental Elements of MS (cont’d) • Temporal Sorting – because problems and preferences are not well known, i.e. ambiguous, selecting the alternative that yields the most net benefit becomes an impossible task. Since time is a unique scarce resource, the primary concern of decision makers is to manage time effectively rather than to manage tasks.

7. Kingdon’s Three Streams • Three streams flowing through the system: • Problems • Policies • Politics

8. Problem stream • There are three ways to identify conditions of the problem: • Indicators that assess the existence and magnitude of a condition • Crises • Feedback from existing programs • People define conditions as problems by letting their values and beliefs guide their decisions

9. Policy stream • Wide variety of ideas floating around, and generated by specialists in policy communities. • Ideas are tried out in different ways, including hearings, papers, etc. • Some ideas survive unchanged, others are combined into new proposals, others just disappear. • Proposals that appear difficult to implement have less chances of surviving this process.

10. Politics stream • Politics stream consists of three elements: • The national mood • Pressure group campaigns • Administrative or legislative turnover • Of the three elements in the political stream, the combination of national mood and turnover in government exerts the most powerful effect on agendas.

11. Kingdon’s argument • Issues rise on the agenda when these streams are joined together at critical moments in time (or “policy windows”). • Policy windows are looked at as opportunities for advocates of proposals to push attention to their special problems. • Such windows are opened by compelling problems or by events in the political stream.

12. Kingdon’s argument (cont’d) • Timeliness to react – when windows open, policy entrepreneurs must immediately take the opportunity to initiate action, otherwise the opportunity is lost. • An issue’s chances are dramatically increased when all three streams – problems, policies, and politics – are coupled in a single package.

13. Specific Issues and Concerns • Are the streams really independent? • What is the precise role of policy windows in coupling? • How does entrepreneurial strategy affect coupling? • Do solutions always follow an incremental evolution in the policy stream? • Is the MS approach merely a heuristic device?

14. Are the streams really independent? • Although streams are not completely independent, each stream can be viewed as having its own life. • Each stream obeys its own rules and flows largely independently of the others. • Streams interact only during open windows when policy entrepreneurs attach problems to solutions and present them to receptive political audiences. • Critics question the independence of streams, and view them more as interdependent, i.e. changes in one stream can trigger or reinforce changes in another, so the process is more strategic.

15. What is the role of policy windows in coupling? • A policy window is a temporal stimulus for choice. Kingdon identified 2 types of windows: • those that open in the problem stream; • those that open in the politics stream. • Critics argue when windows open in the problem stream, coupling is likely to be consequential (finding a solution to a given problem), and when windows open in the politics stream, coupling is likely to be doctrinal (finding a problem for a given solution).

16. How does entrepreneurial strategy affect coupling? • Coupling involves the matching of problems and solutions by policy entrepreneurs with receptive audiences. • Well-connected and persistent entrepreneurs are most likely to be successful at coupling. • Entrepreneurs employ various strategies to join streams together and try to use manipulation of dimensions, agenda control, or strategic voting.

17. Do solutions always follow an incremental evolution in the policy stream? • Kingdon argued that the generation of specific alternatives in the policy stream remains incremental and that ideas are constantly recombined. • There is a debate over the issue of incrementalism in public policy. Numerous studies show the policy change is incremental with occasional major shifts. • More empirical work is still needed to examine this.

18. Is the MS approach merely a heuristic device? • Policymaking lenses have two aims: description (how policies are made) and prediction (forecasts future policies). • Multiple Streams (MS) focus on understanding and explanation more than prediction. • Therefore, critics argue that MS resembles more a heuristic device than an empirically falsifiable guide to policy analysis.

19. Punctuated-Equilibrium (P-E) Theory • Political processes are usually driven by a logic of stability and incrementalism. • Political processes are also largely relying on departures from the past. • Most policy areas are characterized by stability vs. crisis. However, crises often occur. • Punctuated-equilibrium theory is designed to explain both the stability and the change.

20. P-E Theory (continued) • Two related elements of the policy process are emphasized by P-E theory: issuedefinition, and agenda setting. • As issues are defined in different ways, and as issues rise and fall in the public agenda, existing policies can either be reinforced or questioned. • Reinforcement creates great obstacles to anything but modest change, but the questioning of policies creates opportunities for dramatic reversal in policy outcomes.

21. P-E Theory (continued) • Institutional structures provide an important basis for the P-E idea, and the agenda-setting process provides another. • Discussions of political issues are usually disaggregated into a number of issue-oriented policy subsystems. • These subsystems can be dominated by a single interest (policy monopoly), can undergo competition among several interests, can be disintegrating over time, or maybe building up their independence from other

22. P-E Theory (continued) • P-E theory includes periods of equilibrium, when the issue is captured by a subsystem, and periods of disequilibrium, when an issue is forced onto the marcopolitical agenda. • When issue area is macropolitical agenda, small changes in the objective circumstances can cause large changes in policy, and system is undergoing a positive feedback process.