European Policy Analysis Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2016 | Page 205

European Policy Analysis

we do to be more policy-relevant?” It
turned out that combining the network
perspective with Kingdon’s Streams made
for appealing narratives that instantly
rang true to those involved in (health)
policy networks. Looking back, there
may have been more of a need to act
ourselves as policy entrepreneurs than we
ever anticipated—and our adoption of a
Participatory Action Research perspective
would possibly have had an impact on the
local policy games (e.g., Quoss, Cooney,
and Longhurst 2000). We also learned an
important lesson on choosing and applying
theory: adopting hybrid frameworks
in which several commensurate and
complementary theories are applied may

yield important new insights (see also, for
instance, Greenhalgh and Stones 2010).

Based on our theoretical,
methodological
and
empirical
foundations we thus developed IMPolS:
the Interactive Mapping of Policy
Streams tool. In a number of sessions
with practitioners, policymakers and
academics we presented and tested the
dummy version, which evolved as a
consequence. IMPolS operates, still in its
alpha version, on a secure internet URL.
One of the key considerations in possible
implementation is that its management
and operation is essentially driven by
the end users themselves, and that very
little “theoretical debris” or “text ballast”

Figure 2: IMPolS main visualisation screen with switchable problems, politics and
policies networks. Actor/stakeholder descriptions visualise when the cursor is hovered over the actor icon (in this case “Medecins Sans Frontieres”)
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