European Policy Analysis
subsequent developments of the field have highlighted that the MSA can be applied to the entire policy formulation process ( Blankenau 2001 ).
The model breaks down causality across three paths or streams : policy , politics , and problems . This is already more sophisticated than the crisisresponse model . In addition , the model presents three necessary conditions for change ( Herweg , Huß , and Zohlnhöfer 2015 ):
( 1 ) Each stream must be “ ripe ”, meaning that there is a perceived problem , that the policy stream comprises at least one viable alternative and that policymakers embrace a proposal .
( 2 ) A policy window opens following a change in the politics or the problem stream .
( 3 ) A policy entrepreneur couples politics , policy , and problem streams .
Using the MSA brings agency back into the study of institutional emergence : policy entrepreneurs have policy solutions which they try to link to changes in the preferences of policymakers or to the emergence of new problems . However , in the case of the ECDC , there is no figure that emerges as a policy entrepreneur . Some ideas were championed by different actors ; however , rather than one idea emerging , bits and pieces of different ideas seem to have been recombined in a proposal of the European Commission . How can organizational change be explained without a policy entrepreneur ? Can the MSA be refined to present coupling the streams as something other than the result of policy-entrepreneurs ? How can we explain that ideas , sometimes presented as contradictory , may be identified in the institutional features of the ECDC ?
This paper makes two conceptual moves . First , this paper presents a critical approach to the MSA and looks for an alternative to the policy entrepreneur . I will define a new type of agency based on the search for solving a problem rather than the advancement of a solution . Second , this paper presents a different relationship between policy ideas and the agent ; as such it contributes to the development of the MSA and to the literature on the creation of European agencies .
The recent literature on the MSA ( Ackrill , Kay , and Zahariadis 2013 ; Cairney and Jones 2015 ) shows that there is an appetite for refinements of the model : “ there is a need for a study to specify MSA ’ s theoretical benchmarks and hypotheses to clearly identify the potential and limits of conceptual stretching ” ( Jones et al . 2015 , 29 ). This paper contributes to refining our understanding of coupling the streams and suggests a critical approach to agency in the MSA .
Agency in the MSA is usually incarnated in the figure of the policy entrepreneur . Walker ( 1974 , 113 ) defines policy entrepreneurship as the advancement of solutions that are tied closely with the maintenance of entrepreneurial needs and interests . Zahariadis ( 2008 , 18 ) presents the policy entrepreneur as the proactive element of the MSA capable of developing strategies to promote her solutions . In the MSA , policy entrepreneurs are successful when
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