What is Metamedia?
Problems and solutions Policy Entrepreneurs

Joining the streams

         

'In the policy stream, proposals, alternative, and solutions float about, being discussed, revised, and discussed again. In contrast to a problem-solving model, in which people become aware of a problem and consider alternative solutions, solutions float around in and near government, searching for problems to which to become attached or political events that increase their likelihood of adoption.'

John Kindgon in Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies

 

 

Policy streams: a theoretical model of Urban Wilds advocacy

It is often assumed that once a policy problem, such as how to protect the Urban Wilds from development, has been identified, the solution will then be found through a rational and linear problem solving process. To a degree, the rational model has been applied by the Boston city agencies engaged in Urban Wild preservation and management, but non-profit and citizen driven advocacy has not followed this model. The political scientist John Kingdon provides a alternative model of how policy is created in which policy problems and policy solutions are generated separately and then joined. Urban Wilds advocacy has frequently occurred in situations that fit this model, where a problem exists, such as how to block an unwanted development, and advocacy for the preservation of specific Urban Wild then provides a possible solution to this problem (Kingdon, 1995)

 

 

Independently generated proposals, solutions, alternatives, and problems