Policy entrepreneurship — how to be entrepreneurial about policymaking
Entrepreneurship is about creating businesses? Not necessarily. In our latest research, Patricia Cabero Tapia, René Mauer and I show that so-called policy entrepreneurs act in interesting ways to create policy change[i]. You may access our full paper here.
What is policy entrepreneurship
Policy entrepreneurs are individuals or groups from the private or public sector that advocate for policy changes. They use innovative ideas and entrepreneurial strategies to form coalitions, leverage resources and exploit opportunities to influence policy outcomes[ii]. Policy entrepreneurs come in different shapes and forms: They may be high-level decision-makers such as local government officials or senators[iii], government employees who work directly with members of the public[iv], or people outside public bodies, such as private citizens[v].
Previous research has found that successful policy entrepreneurs show four key qualities[vi]:
1. They identify and seize opportunities by using their networks and understanding their local policy context
2. They effectively frame problems by presenting evidence in a way that suggests a crisis
3. They build diverse teams through their professional and personal networks
4. They lead by example by taking action and creating working models of the proposed change
What we studied
In order to go beyond what policy entrepreneurs do to how they do it, we analyzed two cases: Tech-Initiative from Bolivia and Business-Initiative from Germany:
The Tech-Initiative is part of the global Free Software Movement that promotes the free access to software source code. Followers of this movement pushed the adoption free software in the Bolivian government. They worked on this both from outside and inside the government, where they created an Information Technology platform, and ran two state agencies.
The Business-Initiative is concerned with steward-ownership and advocating for a new legal form for steward-owned companies in Germany. This initiative was founded by a large number of entrepreneurs and business owners that worked on driving steward-ownership from outside the government.
How policy entrepreneurs shape policymaking
Our main insight from this research is that policy entrepreneurship is all about handling surprises and creating partnerships. We saw that collective action emerges from the interaction and co-creation of individuals. Specifically, we found four ways in which policy entrepreneurs combine handling contingencies and building partnerships to create policy change:
1. Worldmaking: leveraging moments of surprise and building partnerships with committed stakeholders to create transformation
2. Networking: avoiding surprises while building co-creative partnerships with committed stakeholders
3. Positioning: building specific, rather transactional partnerships in a goal-oriented manner, so that partnerships stay focused and rather narrow
4. Outmaneuvering: using contingencies to surpass someone else
Of course, these four ways are not all applicable at the same time. We found that policy entrepreneurs start with worldmaking, then use networking, and then positioning. Outmaneuvering is generally applied at a later stage in order to quickly move ahead when facing negative contingencies.
Main takeaways
Are you a policy entrepreneur? If you want to create change in your wider surroundings, our research suggests that you may be. Try building partnerships and co-creating prototypes of potential solutions for the change that you envision. You could do this in an entrepreneurial team or with colleagues, friends, or family members. When unforeseen things happen, try bringing someone external on board, such as an expert, a politician, or someone from an organization that has a similar objective and helps to develop your prototype. In this process, the exact purpose of the prototype and the vision for a specific policy change is likely to become clearer, and you may want to shift to a more goal-oriented approach, by avoiding further surprises.
Are you a policymaker? You may “try on” these entrepreneurial approaches in order to push political proposals within your party or public body. Moreover, how about actively engaging with entrepreneurial solutions for business, social or institutional problems and including them in policymaking from the start? Just food for thought!
[i] Sophia Marie Braun, Patricia Cabero Tapia, and René Mauer, “Exploring Policy Entrepreneurs’ Modes of Action: Positioning, Networking, Outmaneuvering, and Worldmaking,” Applied Psychology n/a, no. n/a (n.d.), https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12529.
[ii] Neomi Frisch Aviram, Nissim Cohen, and Itai Beeri, “Wind(Ow) of Change: A Systematic Review of Policy Entrepreneurship Characteristics and Strategies,” Policy Studies Journal 48, no. 3 (August 2020): 612–44, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12339.
[iii] Daniel R. Hammond, “Policy Entrepreneurship in China’s Response to Urban Poverty: China’s Response to Urban Poverty,” Policy Studies Journal 41, no. 1 (February 2013): 119–46, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12005; Glen S. Krutz, “Issues and Institutions: ‘Winnowing’ in the U.S. Congress,” American Journal of Political Science 49, no. 2 (2005): 313–26, https://doi.org/10.2307/3647679; Donald Mackenzie, “Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the Construction of Derivatives Markets,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 28, no. 1 (March 2006): 29–55, https://doi.org/10.1080/10427710500509722; Wendy J. Schiller, “Senators as Political Entrepreneurs: Using Bill Sponsorship to Shape Legislative Agendas,” American Journal of Political Science 39, no. 1 (1995): 186–203, https://doi.org/10.2307/2111763; Mark Schneider and Paul Teske, “Toward A Theory of the Political Entrepreneur: Evidence from Local Government,” The American Political Science Review 86, no. 3 (1992): 737–47, https://doi.org/10.2307/1964135.
[iv] Gwen Arnold, “Street-Level Policy Entrepreneurship,” Public Management Review 17, no. 3 (March 16, 2015): 307–27, https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2013.806577; Neomi Frisch Aviram, Itai Beeri, and Nissim Cohen, “From the Bottom-Up: Probing the Gap Between Street-Level Bureaucrats’ Intentions of Engaging in Policy Entrepreneurship and Their Behavior,” The American Review of Public Administration 51, no. 8 (November 2021): 636–49, https://doi.org/10.1177/02750740211023597; Einat Lavee and Nissim Cohen, “How Street‐level Bureaucrats Become Policy Entrepreneurs: The Case of Urban Renewal,” Governance 32, no. 3 (July 2019): 475–92, https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12387.
[v] Scott Ainsworth and Itai Sened, “The Role of Lobbyists: Entrepreneurs with Two Audiences,” American Journal of Political Science 37, no. 3 (1993): 834–66, https://doi.org/10.2307/2111576; Timothy Callaghan and Steven Sylvester, “Private Citizens as Policy Entrepreneurs: Evidence from Autism Mandates and Parental Political Mobilization,” Policy Studies Journal 49, no. 1 (February 2021): 123–45, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12346; Joel David Vallett, “The Diffusion of Erin’s Law: Examining the Role of the Policy Entrepreneur,” Policy Studies Journal 49, no. 2 (May 2021): 381–407, https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12396.
[vi] Michael Mintrom and Phillipa Norman, “Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change,” Policy Studies Journal 37, no. 4 (November 2009): 649–67, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0072.2009.00329.x.
