So you want to be a policy entrepreneur?

Abstract

Policy entrepreneurs are energetic actors who engage in collaborative efforts in and around government to promote policy innovations. Given the enormous challenges now facing humanity, the need is great for such actors to step forward and catalyze change processes. Academic research on policy entrepreneurs has flourished over recent years and, as a result, we know a lot about what makes for effective policy entrepreneurship. This article summarizes that research and offers insights for those who aspire to be policy entrepreneurs. The work of policy entrepreneurs involves various strategies, including (1) problem framing, (2) using and expanding networks, (3) working with advocacy coalitions, (4) leading by example, and (5) scaling up change processes. These strategies call for sophisticated deployment of a range of attributes and skills enumerated here, many of which can be nurtured and taught. ARTICLE HISTORY

When dialogue doesn’t work: school reforms and lessons from Denmark

“…The process involved the Minister of Education, Antorini, acting as a policy entrepreneur from 2011 to 2015, where she introduced the reform and created a broad coalition in parliament, but the design, link to the collective bargaining process, and subsequent implementation were met with resistance from the Danish Union of Teachers. Acting as a policy entrepreneur in accordance with Mintrom's (2019) theory on attributes, skills and strategies, Antorini (1) was ambitious and had credibility as a new minister due to policy insights into the area accrued over many years in parliament; (2) demonstrated skills in strategic thinking in terms of the content of the new school reform, i.e. longer school days and a new mission statement containing three overarching goals, but also engaged in team and coalition building within the three-party government, in addition to crafting a strong narrative as to why a new school reform was needed; and 3) acted strategically by framing the problem in terms of improving the school based on the mediocre PISA results, by promoting the narrative of the New Nordic School initiative that preceded the reform, by working with broad advocacy coalitions in parliament, and by leading by example by visiting schools and reform projects across Denmark.…”

Policy Entrepreneurs in Public Administration: A Social Network Analysis

“…Finally, the public entrepreneur is not an individual working in isolation; rather the milieu in which they operate is very important (Mintrom 2000) and often the entrepreneur is a group of actors or even an organization (Frisch‐Aviram, Cohen, and Beeri 2019; Zahariadis and Exadaktylos 2016). In recent work, Mintrom (2019, 2020) has noted that sociability and credibility are attributes policy entrepreneurs possess. Credibility can be achieved by demonstrating expertise or holding certain positions, or generally appearing as having “what it takes.” Sociability may be interpreted as likeability, the ability to consider others and their ambitions and desires in the process of trying to achieve one's own purposes (Mintrom 2020).…”

“…Understanding the factors and mechanisms leading to policy change is a key concern of policy studies (Capano and Howlett 2009; Sabatier 2007; Weible and Sabatier 2014). Policy entrepreneurs have long been recognized within the public policy scholarship as agents of change in general (Carter and Scott 2010; Mintrom 2000; Mintrom and Norman 2009; Mintrom and Thomas 2017; Schneider and Teske 1992; Schneider, Teske, and Mintrom 1995; Sheingate 2003), and environmental policy change in particular (Huitema, Lebel, and Meijerink 2011; Ingold and Christopoulos 2015; Mintrom 2019; Kalafatis and Lemos 2017; Verduijn 2015). Further, policy entrepreneurs are integral to both canonical and more recently established theories of the policy process (Mintrom and Norman 2009; Petridou and Mintrom 2020).…”

The Programmatic Action Framework: An empirical assessment

“…In other studies, their role goes beyond that policy sequence to “operate throughout the formulation stage” (Gunn, 2017, p. 277). The notion has therefore been extended and more closely related to policy change—policy entrepreneurs are now more often generally defined as individual actors seeking policy change and mobilizing their resources for that purpose, in association to potential rewards (Mintron, 2019; Mintrom & Norman, 2009; Wampler, 2009).…”