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In a recently published IJHPR article, Cohen and Horev ask whether an individual who holds rightful governmental power is able to effectively "challenge the equilibrium" in ways that might "clash with the goals" of an influential group". This question is raised within the context of a shift in governmental policy that imposed the potential for cost management by HMOs acting as financial intermediaries for pediatric dental care in an effort to provide Israeli children better access to affordable dental care. The influential group referred to consists of Israel's private dentists and the individual seeking to challenge the equilibrium was an Israeli Minister of Health whom the authors consider to be a policy entrepreneur.The Israeli health care system is similar to that of the United States in that private benefit plans and self-pay financing dominate in dental care. This is in contrast to the substantial role of government in the financing and regulation of medical care in both countries (with Israel having universal coverage financed by government and the US having government financing the care of the elderly and the poor as well as providing subsidies through the tax system for the care of most other Americans).Efforts to expand governmental involvement in dental care in both countries have either been opposed by organized dentistry or have suffered from ineffective advocacy for increased public investment in dental care.In the U.S., philanthropic foundations have acted as or have supported health policy entrepreneurs. The recent movement to introduce the dental therapist, a type of allied dental professional trained to provide a narrow set of commonly-needed procedures, to the U.S. is discussed as an example of a successful challenge to the equilibrium by groups supported by these foundations. This is a somewhat different, and complementary, model of policy entrepreneurship from the individual policy entrepreneur highlighted in the Cohen-Horev paper.The political traction gained to change the equilibrium favored by organized dentistry - in both Israel and the U.S. - may reflect aspirations for care that is more accessible, patient-centered, accountable and equitable. Evolving aspirations may lead to policy changes to systematize the disparate, disaggregated dental care delivery system in both counties. A change in payment incentives to provide more value is being explored for medical care, and its expansion to dental care can be anticipated to be among the policies considered in the future.

Policy entrepreneurs are individuals who attempt to influence the policy process and its outcomes through their opportunistic or incremental actions. Their success in the policy-making process has been associated with the convergence of four factors: behavioural traits; institutional factors; network position and political capital. Policy entrepreneurs have received little study in low- and middle-income country policy research despite observations of individualized decision-making, informal institutions and the unequal distribution and exercise of power in policymaking. This article aims to identify whether policy entrepreneurs were present in the policy process around integrated community case management (iCCM) in Burkina Faso, whether they were successful in achieving policy change, and whether success or failure can be explained using existing policy entrepreneur frameworks from high-income polities. This mixed methods policy study collected data from in-depth qualitative interviews and social network surveys of actors involved in iCCM policymaking [known locally as C-integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI)]; data were analysed based on the framework categories. Interview data pointed to one key individual who played a significant role in the inclusion of pneumonia treatment into the country's iCCM policy, an issue that had been a point of contention between government policy elites and development partners. Social network data confirmed that this actor was strategically located in the policy network to be able to reach the most other actors and to be able to control the flow of information. Although some development partner actors were as strategically located, none had the same level of authority or trust as was imbued by being a member of the government civil service. The entrepreneur's mid-level rank in the health ministry may have encouraged him/her to invest political capital and take risks that would not have been feasible or attractive to a more senior actor. This study highlights the convergence of factors needed to be an entrepreneur, as well as the role of development partner actors in creating a facilitating environment., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.)

Most scholars conceive policy integration (PI) as a top-down process steered by governmental bodies and consider the formulation stage to be the decisive step for achieving PI. Adopting a different stance, this article hypothesizes that PI can also occur throughout the implementation stage thanks to "integration entrepreneurs" who are able and willing to bring together policies that were designed in silos. I test this hypothesis by analyzing the evolution of federal legislation intended to curb urban sprawl in Switzerland over four decades (1980–2020) and investigate three major urban renewal projects that concretely reduced urban sprawl in the cities of Zurich, Bern and Geneva. In line with my hypothesis, these urban renewal projects succeeded thanks to an ex post integration of several policies that occurred during the implementation stage. This integrative process was an unintended outcome of the transformation of the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) from a federal government institution into a state-owned company. Since then, the SBB has become an "integration entrepreneur" who brings together three federal policies that were previously poorly integrated: the spatial planning policy, the railway policy and the agglomeration policy. Case study evidence thus shows that PI can also happen unintentionally, namely through coordination mechanisms that were not foreseen by policymakers at the formulation stage. This finding challenges the top-down sequential approach of the policy process that is dominant among PI studies and calls for more research on the role and the strategies of "integration entrepreneurs" throughout the implementation stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of policy stagnation, change is on the horizon for passenger rail in Canada, with the recent federal government's approval of VIA Rail's High-Frequency Rail (HFR) proposal within the Quebec-Windsor Corridor. This study applies the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) to analyze how HFR arrived on the federal government's agenda. Drawing on semi-directive interviews, three expectations based on the MSF are confirmed: evidence of (a) activity in the framework's three streams (problem, policy, politics); (b) a policy window opening because of changes in the politics stream; and (c) a policy entrepreneur who coupled the three streams within that policy window. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We know relatively little about the conditions that encourage people to jump into the political fray as policy entrepreneurs, advocates who devote substantial time, energy, and resources to campaigning for a policy goal. This paper aims to fill that gap by investigating the catalysts of policy entrepreneurship in municipalities across the State of New York, where between 2008 and 2012, hundreds of local jurisdictions passed measures opposing or supporting high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking). These local policy actions were often enthusiastically encouraged and, in some cases, vociferously opposed, by enterprising advocates. I propose a threat-centered theory of policy entrepreneurship, emphasizing the role of loss aversion in pushing actors toward advocacy. The empirical analysis shows that oppositional advocacy within a polity draws would-be policy entrepreneurs into battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the role of the think tank as an intermediary organization in the open innovation system. Think tank has contributed to the policy process as a mediator between government and public and as a symbolic entity of intellectual innovation to produce knowledge to the public. As the innovation system matures, one of the major challenges in research and practice is the openness and collaboration in the science, technology, and innovation system. While previous literature highlighted the think tank as the knowledge arbitrager transforming ideas into policy issues, few studies address the research questions: Is the conventional role of the think tank still persistent in the open innovation system? What are the demanding roles? This paper tackles these questions by reviewing the current role of the South Korean think tank in the science & technology sector. Based on the open innovation framework, we suggest that think tanks need to play a bigger role as policy entrepreneurs, crossing policy borders and interacting with other partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do actors develop entrepreneurial activities to bring about policy change? To what extent do the contexts in which they are embedded shape their behaviors? Relying on three comparative case studies, we use the structure-, institution- and agent-based analytical framework to investigate the complex and dynamic interactions between contexts and actors in the process of policy change initiated by state actors in authoritarian China. We propose a conceptual framework, 'policy entrepreneurship under hierarchy', which highlights the influence of power domination during the policy change process. It allows us to offer a renewed definition of policy entrepreneur and to identify a pattern of successful policy entrepreneurship in contrast to the 'four central elements' suggested by Mintrom and Nomann. We conclude that hierarchical policy entrepreneurship in China is displayed through two kinds of relationship: the proposal-approval between policy entrepreneurs and their superiors; and the instruction-execution between policy entrepreneurs and their subordinates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ken Mathers, long-time roads bureaucrat in the Victoria Public Service, has been a uniquely influential figure on the state's transport scene since the late 1990s. His projects have dominated the agenda, sometimes against the initial misgivings of the governments he served. This article argues we can explain Mathers' influence in terms of policy entrepreneurship. It will show that, contrary to the dominant view in recent scholarship, transport policymaking in Victoria is sufficiently messy that an entrepreneur like Mathers could shift the agenda to get his projects up, looking in particular detail at the case of the now-infamous East-West Link. Finally, examining the failure of East–West, it will suggest some doubts about whether we can really expect entrepreneurs to wrangle all the relevant political actors, and whether they are in fact as central to policy change as the theory leads us to think. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The academic literature has recently started to underscore that the capacity of a policy entrepreneur is not only determined by his conditions as an agent but also by the context in which he/she operates. This article develops a conceptual framework to analyze this kind of context. To test this framework, we develop a qualitative comparative analysis between two policy fields: police and education in Uruguay (2010-2020). These cases offer a fruitful comparison to demonstrate the relevance of context to explain the probability of success of policy entrepreneurs with ambitious reform agendas. In the police sector, we show how the political entrepreneur managed to be successful as an agent of reform due to a series of contextual aspects that were favorably conjugated. In the education sector, this research identified several institutional and political factors that quickly conspired against the possibility to promote change, despite the presence of a reformist policy entrepreneur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With global environmental problems worsening, policy makers and nonstate actors are looking for viable solutions through policy innovation, entrepreneurship, and experimentation. Research into the use of experiments to innovate is increasing, but the role of experimentation in policy change has yet to be specifically addressed in the context of climate governance. My aim is to improve understanding by examining how entrepreneurs, key agents of change, might use experiments to advance their climate innovations. Policy entrepreneurs can benefit in several ways from using experiments, including assessing public response to new ideas and learning. I address the question: What role can experiments play in an entrepreneur's change strategies? To answer this, a set of 18 policy experiments from Dutch water management was analyzed to understand how the policy experiments functioned as 4 different policy change strategies. The results revealed that organizers use experiments to evaluate their preformed ideas, to soften local communities to the idea of experimentation, to build broad but centrally controlled coalitions, and to link with influential political actors and national programs to maintain visibility and relevance. These insights formed a list of suggestions that the experiment organizers identified as key to the change strategies. Based on this, a number of recommendations about design choices were made for entrepreneurs who want to experiment. Analyzing experiments as change strategies contributes a novel perspective on how policy experiments function as venues for invention and provides useful suggestions on how experiments can be designed to improve their influence over policy-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy entrepreneurs were, originally, neither conceived to be active meaning-makers nor did they interact with other actors. They invested other resources such as time, energy, reputation and money in coupling problems, solutions and politics. Adding the interpretive dimension of interactional framing mechanisms turns them into interpretive policy entrepreneurs. This perspective improves our understanding of policy cases in which initial frame conflicts are resolved by extensive meaning-making work by one specific actor. We illustrate this interpretive policy entrepreneur concept with the innovative Sand Motor mega-sand nourishment scheme case, an artificial peninsula of 21 million m3 at the South Holland coast. Designed to achieve multiple aims, this coastal management scheme should serve coastal protection, nature development as well as recreational purposes. In the risk-averse, complex policy domain of Dutch coastal management, the provincial government of South Holland turned out to be an adept meaning-maker by linking other actors' problem definitions to their proposed solution. Fourteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews put the provincial government at the heart of several framing interactions that led to frame convergence and ultimately the resolution of the initial frame conflict. Our interpretive analysis of framing interactions concludes that interactional framing mechanisms can reveal interpretive policy entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While there is a considerable literature concerning policy entrepreneurship and institutional isomorphism, significantly less literature has emerged addressing the impact of context on policy and institutional entrepreneurship and of the interactions between various contexts and agency. In this article, we demonstrate that the actions of entrepreneurs in the public sector are most likely to generate policy and institutional changes when they are reinforced by complementarities arising from context-dependent, dynamic interactions among interdependent structures, institutions and agency-level enabling conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decades, research on policy formulation, especially research on agenda-setting, has demonstrated that the actions of individuals (or groups) labelled 'policy entrepreneurs' constitute a central aspect of the public policy process. Agenda-setting theoretical models (John Kingdon's multiple streams model and Baumgartner and Jones's punctuated equilibrium theory) view those actors from different perspectives, stressing different features of their role in the policy process. Both models consider the policy entrepreneur an essential actor in their explanations of policy maintenance or change. In Brazil, although the study of public policy has experienced periods of strong expansion during the past decades, there is still a lack of detailed data on the application of such models and the role of policy entrepreneurs in such analyses. This paper aims to present and discuss the centrality of policy entrepreneurs in agenda-setting models by analysing this important actor and the limits and contributions of this conceptualization for understanding the policy process. In addition, this research analyses the central role of the policy entrepreneur and presents empirical findings of Brazilian policy studies, thus highlighting implications regarding the concept for these three theoretical approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The literature on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) tends to concentrate on the politics of arts funding or on micro-policy development through individual programs. This article aims to reveal the evolution of agency-wide macro-policy that was undertaken by NEA Chairs acting strategically as policy entrepreneurs in adapting policy goals in response to changes in the political and socio-economic context. This process of policy evolution gradually shaped and institutionalized a triple-bottom line for its organizational grantees – financial sustainability, artistic vitality, and recognized public value. Through legitimation processes in which the agency and the arts community cooperated, these values became field standards and best practices, a meta-policy that influenced all nonprofit arts organizations in the USA. Using policy documents, research reports, the memoirs of NEA chairmen, and journalistic coverage, this article investigates how cultural policy at the micro-, macro-, and meta-levels interacted to shape the triple-bottom line through the policy entrepreneurship of NEA chairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transorganizational Development (TD) is a purposive, planned change strategy concerned with creating and improving the effectiveness of interorganizational coalitions. Unlike bounded, overorganized systems found within most organizations, coalitions frequently exhibit indefinite boundaries and underorganization. As such, they may demand more than the traditional organization development (OD) strategies to effect change. This research focuses on four social problem solving coalitions in an urban setting. Based on field research and a review of recent writings on TD and coalitions, a TD checklist was developed to guide change agents in dealing with coalitions. Borrowing from political science literature, we suggest that a "policy entrepreneur" may possess the centrality and purpose to serve as a TD intervener. Developing or increasing shared norms and values, and establishing predictable, regular structures, roles, and technologies are primary tasks of the policy entrepreneur/TD change agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Implementing research findings into healthcare policy is an enduring challenge made even more difficult when policies must be developed and implemented with the help and support of multiple ideas, agendas and actors taking part in determinants of health. Only looking at mechanisms to feed policy-makers with evidence or to interest researchers in the policy process will simply bring partial clues; implementing evidence-based policy also requires organisations to lead and to partner in the production and intake of scientific evidence from academics and practical evidence from one another.Main Body: This Commentary argues for the need to better understand the capacities required by organisations to foster evidence-based policy in a dispersed environment. It proposes a framework of 11 brokering capacities for organisations involved in evidence-based policy. Eight of these capacities are informed by streams of research related to the roles of knowledge broker, innovation broker and policy broker. Three complementary brokering capacities are informed by our experience studying real-life evidence-based policies; these are capturing boundary knowledge, trending know-how on scientific and practical evidence-based policy, and conveying evidence outward.Conclusions: Previous guidelines on brokering capacities focused on the individual level more than on the organisational level. Beyond the individual capacities of managers, designers and implementers of new policies, there is a need to identify and assess the brokering capacities of organisations involved in evidence-based policy. The three specific organisational brokering capacities for evidence-based policy that we present offer a means for policy-makers and policy designers to reflect upon favourable environments for evidence-based policy. These capacities could also help administrators and implementation scholars to think about and develop measurements to assess the quality and readiness of organisations involved in evidence-based policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]