The Role and Impact of the Multiple-Streams Approach in Comparative Policy Analysis

Abstract

John Kingdon's multiple-streams framework has been widely used since the publication of his book Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies in 1984. The popularity of this agendasetting framework in comparative policy analysis is especially interesting because the book focused exclusively on the United States. It is not clear, however, that a framework developed exclusively on the basis of the examination of a single, somewhat idiosyncratic national case should be able to generate insights useful in comparative research. This article discusses the nature of the multiplestreams framework and its impact on comparative policy analysis, before outlining its contribution to key debates in the field.

Development and implementation of nutrition labelling in Iran: A retrospective policy analysis

“…Therefore, policy entrepreneurs are not only limited to lobbyists, but could be politicians within or outside the government, interest groups, civil servants, researchers or influential persons who pursue strategies to join the three streams which is not limited to lobbying. Political connections, negotiation and advocacy skills are known to be among several resources they use as the results of the present study also showed.…”

“…This model highlights the role of interest groups, advocacy groups and policy entrepreneurs within or outside the governments as agents for coupling the three streams. Lobbying is not the core elements of multiple streams theory, as the Kingdon theory contains five structural elements: problems; policies; politics; windows of opportunity and policy entrepreneurs . Therefore, policy entrepreneurs are not only limited to lobbyists, but could be politicians within or outside the government, interest groups, civil servants, researchers or influential persons who pursue strategies to join the three streams which is not limited to lobbying.…”

Rapidly declining remarkability of temperature anomalies may obscure public perception of climate change

“…Past work has shown that public policy tends to advance during "windows of opportunity" provided by, among other things, focused public attention (12). Without public perception of a problem, the ability of scientific experts and policy analysts to advance a policy agenda will be limited (13). This potentially poses a challenge for addressing chronic environmental problems such as climate change.…”

Comparative Analysis of State Policymaking in Child Welfare: Explaining Policy Choices

“…Although numerous scholars have applied Kingdon's framework to various policy domains (Pierce et al 2014, Béland andHowlett 2016), it has seen limited application in child welfare (Collins and Clay 2009 is an exception). While widely used, the framework has been critiqued for having such fluidity that it lacks explicit hypotheses (Sabatier, 2007) and for its limited predictive capabilities (Zahariadis, 1999).…”