Bricolage or Entrepreneurship ?
their efforts for entrepreneurship lead to coupling the streams in accordance to their preferences . Policy entrepreneurship is thus defined as efforts made by the policy entrepreneur to promote solutions consistent with her needs and interest . From these definitions , I infer that the actions of the policy entrepreneur are a solution-driven process from softeningup to coupling the streams . Nevertheless , Zahariadis ( 2003 , 73 ) identifies two types of coupling : “ when windows open in the politics stream , coupling is likely to be doctrinal ( finding a problem to a given solution ),” and “ when policy windows open the problem stream , coupling is likely to be consequential ( finding a solution to a given problem ).” While doctrinal coupling suits the traditional assumptions on the activities of the policy entrepreneur ( a solution-driven process or an outcome process ), consequential coupling underlines that coupling can be seen as a problem-driven process . Therefore , let us turn to the literature on the problem stream that is eloquent on the notion of focusing events and how they lead to policy windows . This notion , first introduced by Kingdon ([ 1984 ] 2003 ), was then adapted by Birkland ( 1998a ; 1998b ) to study the effect of accidents and natural disasters as drivers of change . In the literature , new research venues appeared recently , inspired by the financial and budgetary crisis , such as Saurugger and Terpan ( 2015 ), refining the MSA to demonstrate that the stronger the crisis , the more important the change . While the literature informs us on drivers and scope of change , there is room for studying a type of agency in the MSA that is defined as a problem-driven process rather than a solution-driven one .
I thus suggest the introduction of a new type of agency in the MSA . My argument is that coupling is not necessarily the result of the efforts of a policy entrepreneur , but rather arises out of a different type of agency : bricolage , in which the one who couples the streams combines different policy ideas to formulate a bespoke solution to a problem .
The bricoleur as a type of agent distinct from the policy entrepreneur does not have clear or fixed preferences for one solution over another . Her choice is thus dictated by a consequential search for fit ( Zahariadis 2003 , 73 ). Put bluntly , the bricoleur looks for policy ideas that would be useful in crafting a new solution : policy ideas as a resource to create solutions . Here enters the second theme : how does the bricoleur select these policy ideas ? Why are bricoleurs drawn to some ideas rather than others ? The emergence of ideas in the MSA is likened to a process of natural selection ( Kingdon [ 1984 ] 2003 ) in which the “ survival ” of ideas is arbitrated by two criteria : value acceptability ( compatibility with the values of the policy network ) and technical feasibility ( to what extent can the idea be translated into the real world ?). These criteria are relevant to understand what ideas are at the disposal of the bricoleur and why they survived the natural selection process , but do not offer explanatory leverage on why the bricoleur selects some ideas rather than other ones . On what does the bricoleur base her judgement ? I suggest two criteria that the bricoleur uses when she arbitrates different policy ideas .
• The first one is an important element of the MSA : the ripeness of the politics stream ( Herweg , Huß , and
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