Participation in Policy Streams: Testing the Separation of Problems and Solutions in Subnational Policy Systems

The multiple streams theory of national policymaking has been influential in the study of public administration and public policy—if not without a fair bit of controversy. While some laud the model for its openness to the important role of policy entrepreneurs and the irrationalities of the decision‐making processes, others criticize the model for its lack of readily testable propositions. This article identifies a series of testable propositions in the multiple streams model (particularly that discussed by Kingdon). We assess whether participation in local policymaking (focusing on school district policymaking related to violence prevention) is characterized by “separate streams” of participants or is dominated by organized participants like interest groups or policy specialists. We found evidence of unity (rather than separation) in the policymaking process and scant evidence of elite, organized interests dominating the policymaking process. The results call into question a key assumption of the multiple streams model.     

Framing,agency and multiple streams– a case study of parks policy in the Northern Territory

ABSTRACT

There is increasing interest in the role of agency in policy processes for creating effective change. In this paper I explore the critical role of policy entrepreneurs in both creating and capitalising on windows of opportunity through creative framing of issues. I combine Kingdon’s multiple streams framework of the policy, problem and politics streams with the three types of social movement framing – diagnostic, prognostic and motivational – to analyse a case study of pragmatic and innovative policymaking in Australian Indigenous policy. I find that pragmatic policy entrepreneurs used framing to actively refine available policy solutions, particularly in response to structural barriers, and played an active role in brokering the problem in ways to make it politically acceptable. This confirms the importance of ideational processes, and the critical role of framing, in creating windows of opportunity for significant reform.     

Cultural Worldview and Preference for Childhood Vaccination Policy

In the face of the reemerging threat of preventable diseases and the simultaneous vaccine risk controversy, what explains variations in Americans’ policy preferences regarding childhood vaccinations? Using original data from a recent nationwide Internet survey of 1,213 American adults, this research seeks to explain differing public opinions on childhood vaccination policies and related issues of governance. As Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky's grid‐group cultural theory of policy preference formation suggests, cultural biases have a significant impact on the formation of preferences toward various vaccination policies. Hierarchs are in support of mandatory vaccination, oppose religious and philosophical exemption, and believe the government should preside over vaccination‐related decisions. Fatalists strike a bold contrast in their opposition to mandatory vaccination policy and support for religious and philosophical exemptions and the role of parents in deciding on vaccinations. Falling between hierarchs and fatalists, egalitarian support for vaccinations is stronger than individualists‘.     

Who governs culture? Actors,federalism and expertise in Swiss regional cultural policy

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a novel approach to cultural policies and cultural policy change, drawing on public policy and institutional analysis to study how decision-making power is distributed between actors in the public and private sectors and at different state levels, as well as the precise roles of public administrations, elected officials and cultural actors. Indeed, rather than directly defining cultural policy, laws on culture mostly designate actors in charge of policy implementation. Based on an empirical application of this analytical framework to the case of Swiss cantons and focusing specifically on the positions of cultural actors, findings show that cultural policies are transformed in different ways, affording more or less power to actors from the cultural sector in implementation arrangements generally dominated by administrative actors.     

国民经济恢复时期北京的失业知识分子救济政策及其成效

国民经济恢复时期,面对失业和人才需求关系的矛盾,城市失业知识分子受到党和政府的高度关注。北京市的失业知识分子虽人数不多,但呈现出一定程度的复杂性。为此,北京市根据党和国家的政策,从首都社会秩序的稳定和首都建设的人才需求出发,在较短的时间内,有计划有步骤地对失业知识分子进行了必要的社会救济,达到了预期的目标。同时,实际操作中也遇到了一些不容回避的问题。     

清末新式知识分子的文化心态及现代启示

19世纪末20世纪初,在中国形成了具有新的知识结构与价值取向的知识分子群体,他们对中国文化进行了许多有益的探索。然而,在晚清时期,由于诸多社会矛盾相互交织,社会改造任务紧迫,因而新式知识分子群体形成了矛盾、急躁和激进的文化心态,并成为一种根深蒂固的传统,对现实社会产生了不可估量的影响。     

Cultural participation in Europe: shared problem or shared problematisation?

Europe has a ‘problem’; it is becoming a ‘less cultural continent’ as fewer Europeans are ‘engaging in cultural activities’. This conclusion has been reached due to the findings of the latest cross national cultural participation survey. This paper questions the existence of this ‘problem’ and instead suggests that there is a shared problematisation across Europe sustained by common discursive archaeology that employs various discursive strands in relation to a dominant institutional discourse. The argument is that the ‘problem’ of ‘non-participation’ legitimates a ‘solution’ that predates its emergence: the state subsidy of arts organisations. The paper recaps the comparable problematisations that the researchers have previously identified in the policy texts of their respective countries. It progresses to consider three distinct but interwoven discursive strands upon which the problem representation in both countries, and potentially across Europe, appears to rely.