Theories of the Policy Process

Citation

Weible, C. M. (Ed.). (2023). Theories of the Policy Process (5th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The fifth edition is an edited volume of about 410 pages. An introduction by the editor is followed by Part I, which gives each major policy process theory its own chapter, and Part II, which compares the theories and looks ahead. Each theory chapter is written by scholars closely associated with the approach and, according to the publisher, sets out the theory's basic propositions, empirical evidence, recent updates and promising directions for further research. This edition revises every chapter, adds an entirely new chapter on the Ecology of Games Framework, and brings new authors into most chapters.

Introduction: The Scope and Focus of Policy Process Research and Theories

Christopher Weible's opening chapter defines what the volume treats as policy process research and why theories are needed to study it. It prepares the reader for the framework chapters that follow.

Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Policy Process Research

The Multiple Streams Framework: Foundations, Refinements, and Empirical Applications

Written by Nicole Herweg, Nikolaos Zahariadis and Reimut Zohlnhöfer. The title promises the foundations of the framework, the refinements made to it since its first statement, and a review of how it has been applied empirically.

Punctuated Equilibrium Theory: Explaining Stability and Change in Public Policymaking

Written by Frank Baumgartner, Bryan Jones and Peter Mortensen. The chapter presents the theory as an account of both long periods of policy stability and sudden episodes of change.

Policy Feedback Theory

Written by Suzanne Mettler and Mallory Sorelle. This chapter treats policies as something that, once adopted, shapes later politics.

The Advocacy Coalition Framework: Progress and Emerging Areas

A chapter with seven authors, led by Daniel Nohrstedt and including the editor. It reviews progress of the framework and points to areas where it is now growing.

The Narrative Policy Framework

Written by Michael Jones, Aaron Smith-Walter, Mark McBeth and Elizabeth Shanahan. The framework gives narratives a place in explanations of how policy is made.

The IAD Framework and Its Tools for Policy and Institutional Analysis

Written by Edella Schlager and Sergio Villamayor-Tomas. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework is presented together with the analytical tools associated with it.

Policy Diffusion and Innovation

Written by Osmany Porto de Oliveira, Giulia Romano, Craig Volden and Andrew Karch. The chapter addresses how policies spread across jurisdictions and how innovations arise.

The Ecology of Games Framework: Complexity in Polycentric Governance

Written by Mark Lubell, Jack Mewhirter and Matthew Robbins. This is the chapter that is new to the fifth edition; its title links the framework to complexity and polycentric governance.

Part II: Comparisons and Conclusions

Three closing chapters step back from individual frameworks: "How Should We Compare Theories of the Policy Process?" (Paul Cairney and Tanya Heikkila); "Struggle and Triumph in Fusing Policy Process and Comparative Research" (Jale Tosun and Samuel Workman); and "Advancing Policy Process Research and Theories" (Weible), which looks at where the field should go next.

Key Concepts

Part I: Theoretical Approaches

• Multiple streams: the framework in the first theory chapter, whose foundations, refinements and applications are reviewed there.
• Stability and change: the pairing at the centre of punctuated equilibrium theory, which seeks to explain both.
• Policy feedback: the idea that adopted policies affect subsequent politics.
• Advocacy coalitions: the unit of analysis named in the title of the Advocacy Coalition Framework chapter.
• Narratives: the focus of the Narrative Policy Framework.
• Institutional analysis: the IAD framework and its tools for policy and institutional analysis.
• Diffusion and innovation: how policies spread and how new ones arise.
• Polycentric governance: the setting in which the Ecology of Games Framework addresses complexity.

Part II: Comparisons

• Comparing theories: a chapter devoted to the question of how theories of the policy process should be compared with one another.
• Policy process and comparative research: the fusion of the two fields, discussed in the second closing chapter.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Authors tied to their theories. The publisher presents the book as a forum in which experts in policy process research present each theory, and the chapter bylines bear this out: the advocacy coalition chapter, for example, includes the editor and co-authors from the Advocacy Coalition Framework research programme.
• A current edition. The publisher states that each chapter was updated for recent empirical work and theorising, that a chapter on the Ecology of Games Framework is new, and that new authors were added to most chapters to widen perspectives and make the volume more international.
• A comparison section. Part II devotes chapters to how theories can be compared and to how policy process research relates to comparative research, which helps readers who must choose among the frameworks rather than learn them one at a time.
• Endorsement from the field. Endorsements on the publisher's page from Evangelia Petridou, Fang Chen and Raul Pacheco-Vega describe it as a gateway for students and researchers, with a wider geographical reach than earlier editions.

Limitations

• Edited, not unified. Each framework is presented by its own proponents, so the book is a set of parallel statements, not a single argument; readers must do the work of connecting them, helped mainly by Part II.
• Written for readers with some background. The publisher aims it at policy process courses at undergraduate and graduate level, and the chapters present whole research programmes in one chapter each, so a reader new to public policy will need a first course or textbook alongside it.
• Selective coverage. The book covers the frameworks it selects; policy process traditions not named in the contents are outside its scope. Readers seeking an account of agenda setting based on interviews or a general introduction to the policy cycle will need separate books.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the public policy and administration course, this is the book for readers who have already finished an introduction and want the theoretical literature. Thomas Dye's Understanding Public Policy and Kraft and Furlong's Public Policy are textbooks that teach models of the policy process and then apply them to policy areas, and Birkland's An Introduction to the Policy Process follows an issue from agenda setting to implementation in a conversational style. Any of these is the right preparation before Weible. Stella Theodoulou and Ravi Roy's Public Administration: A Very Short Introduction covers the administrative side, which this volume does not.

Kingdon's Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies is the original study behind the multiple streams chapter; reading it before or alongside that chapter gives the framework's source material in full. After Weible, the natural next step is the primary literature cited in the chapter that interests the reader most.

How to Use This Book

The book suits graduate students and advanced undergraduates in a policy process or policy theory course, and researchers who want an orientation to a framework before reading its journal literature. A first course in public policy, with some familiarity with the policy cycle, is the useful preparation.

A practical plan:

• Start with the introduction, then read the closing chapters on comparing theories early, so that the frameworks can be read against a common set of questions.
• Read the theory chapters selectively. Choose the frameworks relevant to the research question or course: multiple streams and punctuated equilibrium for agenda setting and change, the advocacy coalition and narrative frameworks for conflict among policy actors, policy feedback for the effects of existing policy, the IAD framework and Ecology of Games for governance and institutions, and diffusion for the spread of policy.
• Treat the new chapter on the Ecology of Games Framework as optional unless polycentric governance is a topic of the course.
• Use the chapters as gateways. The publisher presents the book as an entry point to policy process research, so after a chapter the next step is the framework's own journal literature.