Policy entrepreneurs and individuals: Influence and behavior in pandemic response

Abstract

Policy entrepreneurs have traditionally been recognized for their ability to influence policymakers by framing policy problems and pairing them with preferred solutions. Does their influence extend to the public? We examine this question in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic in the United States. We analyze whether an individual's perception of a visible, national‐level policy entrepreneur, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci, influences their perceived risk of contracting the virus and their uptake of recommended COVID‐19 risk mitigation behaviors. Findings indicate that approval of Dr. Fauci predicts individual risk perceptions and uptake of mask wearing practices, with his influence particularly strong among conservatives. However, Dr. Fauci's influence as a policy entrepreneur waned over time and was moderated by a host of factors such as an individual's worldview, perceptions of policy environment, and media consumption.

Street-Level Policy Entrepreneurship and Digital Technology Promotion for Migrant Health Risk Communication Policy Implementation

“…For the theoretical contribution, this research extends policy entrepreneurial theory beyond agenda or legislative settings. Moreover, research on policy entrepreneurship is commonly focused on the performance of individuals especially among political leaders or chief executive officers (such as Taylor et al, 2023), while studies on groups of street-level policy entrepreneurs are underexamined (Zeigermann, 2020). Hence, this research filled this gap by investigating the work of groups of Street-level-Bureaucrats (SLBs) and Street-level Quasi-Bureaucrats (SLQBs) as SLPEs which revealed their entrepreneurial qualities to promote digital technology for migrant health risk communication.…”

Urban resilience, digital technologies, and the economic recovery of a city from the pandemic

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has deleteriously affected the world for more than 3 years, causing the public administration community to rethink the future of urban governance (Ansell et al, 2021;Moon, 2020;O'Flynn, 2020;Roberts, 2020;Taylor et al, 2023;Yang, 2020). Since the pandemic was first acknowledged, the public sector has been plagued by numerous problems characterized by inconsistency, unpredictability, and uncertainty (Ansell et al, 2021).…”

Energy efficiency, housing, and economic policy

“…One of them are so-called change agents, which can be conceptualized as different types of individual policy actors. Besides the notion of policy entrepreneurs, which is commonly referred to in public policy research (Arnold, 2022;Harvey-Scholes et al, 2022;Petridou et al, 2021;Tang & He, 2023;Taylor et al, 2023), Liefferink and Wurzel (2017) have introduced the concepts of leaders and pioneers. In this EPA issue, Watanabe (2023) provides an in-depth analysis of wind energy policy-making within the context of the German energy transition ("Energiewende").…”