Mid Sweden University

We trace the shift from a nascent to a mature policy subsystem by examining a hitherto overlooked aspect in policy process scholarship: the relationship between advocacy coalition beliefs and the narratives they express over time. The empirical focus of this case study is Sweden's Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) policies between 2013 and 2022. We utilize aspects of the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Narrative Policy Framework to examine narrative polarization, coalition density, and agreement in character expression. The findings show two coalitions based on policy core beliefs across three distinct time periods that coincide with the policy subsystem shifting from a nascent to a mature level of development. Furthermore, in the Swedish P/CVE context, the evolution to a mature subsystem coincided with the hardening of coalitions that became more polarized in their narratives with greater division in their character expressions. We conclude with a call for theoretical attention to subsystem development.

 Increasingly, policymaking takes place while extraordinary events threaten fundamental societal values. During turbulent times, policy entrepreneurs emerge as pivotal figures. They are energetic actors who pursue dynamic change in public policy and, whereas we know much about how they promote innovation and change in normal policymaking, we know less about how they behave in crises, and even less about how different crises influence policy entrepreneurial action. This Element focuses on interaction between policy entrepreneurs and crises. It analyzes policy entrepreneurial action in six case studies – three fast-burning and three creeping crises – to ascertain policy entrepreneurs’ strategies and effectiveness during extraordinary events. It proposes crisis policy entrepreneurial strategies, a framework to understand outcomes based on policy entrepreneurial action and type of crisis and suggests avenues for further research on policy entrepreneurs and crises, including implications for crisis managers.

In this chapter, we explore the linkages between policy styles as a theory of policymaking to crisis agenda setting, aiming at understanding how issues are prioritized in the political agenda in the aftermath of crises. We use the Zahariadis et al. (2022, 2023) conceptualization of policy styles to leverage the empirical material for this comparative case study of Greece and Sweden in their handling of forest fires crises. Based on the concepts of administrative capacity and degree of inclusion of societal actors in policymaking, Greece is classified as “administrative” (low administrative capacity, low inclusiveness of societal actors) and Sweden as “managerial” (high administrative capacity, high inclusion of societal actors). The chapter proposes two hypotheses: (H1) the degree of the politicization of the crisis as an issue rising in the agenda is higher in a country with an administrative policy style as opposed to a country with a managerial policy style, and that (H2) the policy solutions offered as remedies to crises in a country with administrative policy style are more symbolic and less substantive compared with those in a country with a managerial policy style. Our data support both hypotheses, contributing both to the literature on policy styles as well as the scholarship of crisis management. 

This article examines the fire and rescue services sector in Sweden in the period 1986–2021, and explains the timing of bureaucratic reforms using the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). In this study, we insert institutions in MSF by employing a two-level analysis; we highlight the interactions among experts acting as policy entrepreneurs over time and during a large window of opportunity, and we show that in a programmatically complex policy during a large window of opportunity open for a long period of time, policymakers may become proactive and engage in commissioning.

Das Kapitel bietet einen Überblick über das politische System Schwedens, einschließlich Verfassung, Parlament und Verwaltung. Die Autorinnen analysieren zentrale Politikfelder wie Wohlfahrt, Migration und Gleichstellung. Trotz des sicherheitspolitischen Wandels durch den NATO-Beitritt und der Erosion des Wohlfahrtsmodells bleibt das Land institutionell stabil und von starkem gesellschaftlichen sowie politischen Vertrauen geprägt.

In this article, we examine concepts that underpin the theories of the policy process. We exemplify the applicability of these concepts in the European policy-making contexts through a systematic scoping review of European applications of the policy entrepreneur. Our findings include that (i) the overwhelming majority of the studies anchored the policy entrepreneur in the Multiple Streams Framework; (ii) more than half of the studies were contextualized at the EU level and in the UK country context; (iii) policy entrepreneurs were identified in a wide range of policy sectors, and (iv) policy entrepreneurs were identified as being individuals as well as organizations but mostly elite actors, often policy-makers. Future avenues for research include policy entrepreneurship in political parties, exploring the interactions of policy entrepreneurs and the role their other identities (public servant, elected official, NGO official, etc.) play in how reactive or proactive they are in seeking opportunities.

 This symposium examines the theoretical and empirical advancement of policy entrepreneurship scholarship, addressing a field that has grown significantly over the past four decades. This symposium contributes to the theoretical advancement of policy entrepreneurship through five papers that integrate modern entrepreneurship literature, synthesize frameworks into new models, and explore policy entrepreneurship across diverse contexts. Contributions include Hand and Birkhead's integration of opportunity creation theories and identification of distinct “species” of policy entrepreneurs, and Arslangulov and Ackrill's Multi-Level Governance and Strategy model for sustainability transitions. Arnold et al. demonstrate that policy entrepreneurship may enhance transformative governance capacity more than fiscal or political resources, while Taylor et al. extend research beyond elite influence to examine public behavior during policy implementation. Finally, Eriksson et al., explore expert-entrepreneurs' persistence in reorganizing Sweden's fire and rescue services. The symposium addresses policy entrepreneurship's relevance in increasingly complex policy environments spanning multiple domains and jurisdictions facing transformation pressures. Future research directions include challenging the normativity of policy entrepreneurship, establishing rigorous identification methods, and developing sophisticated measures beyond binary classifications. The work emphasizes the importance of micro-level policymaking dynamics, particularly when institutions fail to preserve democratic values in crisis contexts.

Theories of the policy process understand the dynamics of policymaking as the result of the interaction of structural and agency variables. While these theories tend to conceptualize structural variables in a careful manner, agency (i.e. the actions of individual agents, like policy entrepreneurs, policy leaders, policy brokers, and policy experts) is left as a residual piece in the puzzle of the causality of change and stability. This treatment of agency leaves room for conceptual overlaps, analytical confusion and empirical shortcomings that can complicate the life of the empirical researcher and, most importantly, hinder the ability of theories of the policy process to fully address the drivers of variation in policy dynamics. Drawing on Merton’s concept of function, this article presents a novel theorization of agency in the policy process. We start from the assumption that agency functions are a necessary component through which policy dynamics evolve. We then theorise that agency can fulfil four main functions – steering, innovation, intermediation and intelligence – that need to be performed, by individual agents, in any policy process through four patterns of action – leadership, entrepreneurship, brokerage and knowledge accumulation – and we provide a roadmap for operationalising and measuring these concepts. We then demonstrate what can be achieved in terms of analytical clarity and potential theoretical leverage by applying this novel conceptualisation to two major policy process theories: the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF) and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF).

A policy entrepreneur is a distinct political actor aiming to affect change. The theoretical narrative regarding policy entrepreneurs is underpinned by their commitment to a policy solution, the multi-dimensional strategies they use to promote that solution, and a suite of attributes and skills facilitating their actions. Policy entrepreneurs reveal themselves through their attempts to transform policy ideas into policy innovations and, hence, disrupt status quo policy arrangements. Indeed, policy entrepreneurs share sensibilities with entrepreneurs in the market, whose conceptualisation serves as a heuristic for their counterparts in policy and politics. The emphasis on change borne out of innovative solutions distinguishes policy entrepreneurs from many other actors who aim to maintain current institutional settings and power relations. The growing scholarship on policy entrepreneurship assumes intentionality as inherent to the policy entrepreneur and their actions, foregrounding the image of the tenacious political actor set on steering their a priori pet policy to a suitable problem. This article draws from the market theory on entrepreneurship, contrasting proactive policy entrepreneurship (entrepreneurship by opportunity) and reactive policy entrepreneurship (entrepreneurship by necessity). We conduct a comparative social network analysis of three municipalities in southern Sweden focused on flood risk mitigation. We demonstrate two different logics of policy entrepreneurship (as a result of seizing opportunities versus as a reaction to vertical pressure), and we explore the consequences for enhancing our understanding of policy entrepreneurship