Bricolage or Entrepreneurship ?
The lack of preferences beyond looking forward to solving a problem explains why solutions are the result of an oblique mechanism . Bricolage produces a new arrangement of elements that are preconstrained because resources are scarce and cannot be expanded . In our case study , bricolage is performed by the European Commission who pieced together a policy solution that was based on previously consolidated organizational choices . Here the process tracing showed that the Commission ’ s choice relates to the increasing returns of the network of epidemiological surveillance and the evolving ripeness of policymakers to the idea of an agency . Our bricoleur avoided the costs of exit from the network and combined elements of the agency idea to the solution because the member states were ripe to it .
Bringing bricolage into the MSA widens our understanding of agency in policy formulation . Unlike the policy entrepreneur who “ softens-up ” the policymakers to their ideas , the bricoleur makes use of the policy environment to piece a solution . Bricolage is a process of arbitration and recombination that creates bespoke solutions to fit a problem . This paper empirically proved that a bricoleur evaluates policy ideas by the yardstick of two criteria : the ripeness of decisionmakers and the increasing returns of policy ideas .
Who can become a bricoleur ? Is bricolage an individual property , or can a constellation of actors collectively engage in bricolage ? The fact that the bricoleur is a process-oriented actor chimes with the organizational properties of the Commission , which is an actor that follows process goals to outcome goals . In the EU system , other institutions may be problem-minded rather solutionminded depending on the issues at stake – this is an open question for further empirical research . I suspect that the role of bricoleur would suit a single Member of the European Parliament ( MEP ) or a national delegate within a Council formation . Collectively the MEPs could become a bricoleur when the EP identifies problems that the Commission is reluctant to deal with . While the policy entrepreneur is defined by their activities rather than by means of their position , the bricoleur is a concept that rather suits policymakers until empirically proven wrong .
A distinction should be made between bricolage and other concepts with which it shares some features . Cram ( 1993 ) introduced the purposeful opportunist using a very similar empirical case : a policy field in which the EU has reduced competences but in which and there is still a form of European integration . The purposeful opportunist is different from the bricoleur , while both are empirically identified as the Commission , and both can be seen as process goal driven rather than solution goal driven . Important differences remain . Cram ’ s purposeful opportunist is an agent that accumulates knowledge until the moment it can seize an opportunity . The bricoleur is less strategic in cumulating reservoirs of knowledge that can be mobilized when the right moment comes . Bricolage can also be put in relation to models of decision . Prima facie it may resemble muddling through ( Lindblom 1959 ), especially considering the importance of the concept ripeness of the politics stream . Bricolage and muddling through are ,
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