Huitema and Meijerink: Water Policy Entrepreneurs
Dave Huitema and Sander Meijerink are editors of the 2009 book Water Policy Entrepreneurs: A Research Companion to Water Transitions Around the Globe, and have guest edited a special feature on the topic in the open-access journal Ecology and Society.
From the introductory editorial, "Realizing water transitions: the role of policy entrepreneurs in water policy change":
Water managers have a complicated task. … Many changes tend to occur only after the existing paradigm on water management has been put to the test by disastrous events and resulting serious damage of some sort, for instance through floods. This means that “transitions” and “transition management”, that is, ways of inducing radical changes which hinge less on external shock events are warranted. …
Our take on transitions is special in the following respects. First, we equate transitions with radical or fundamental change in government policy or public policy. … Second, our focus is on policy change at the level of the nation state. … Third, we specifically wish to investigate the role of individuals or groups of individuals in instigating transitions, thus asking questions about leadership (see Olsson et al. 2006). …
From the synthesis paper, "Policy Entrepreneurs and Change Strategies: Lessons from Sixteen Case Studies of Water Transitions around the Globe":
This article presents the results of 16 in-depth analyses of the role of policy entrepreneurs in realizing major change in national water policies. For each of these transitions, we assess whether or not radical policy change was indeed affected by individuals, and if individuals did play a role, which strategies they have used to affect change.
Table 3: Findings on water policy transitions, policy entrepreneurs, and change strategies:
On patterns of change
1. New policy ideas (paradigms, discourses, or ways of knowing) do not replace the “old” ones, rather they are placed alongside them or are integrated with them.
2. After new policies have been adopted, those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo have ample opportunities to delay or frustrate policy implementation.
On policy entrepreneurs
3. Policy entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, but what they have in common is a good reputation within their respective communities, good networking skills, and perseverance.
4. Successful entrepreneurship often is collective entrepreneurship in which individuals play complementary roles.
On strategies (and institutions)
5. A combination of bottom-up and top-down strategies makes most transitions happen, and their relative importance depends largely on the particular institutional context or opportunity structure.
6. Successful (individual or collective) entrepreneurs are able to balance advocacy and brokerage strategies.
7. Successful policy entrepreneurs build networks across different ways of knowing water (different meanings).
8. Successful policy entrepreneurs use narratives to frame issues strategically and thereby justify change and attract supporters.
9. Successful policy entrepreneurs anticipate windows of opportunity by developing and testing attractive policy alternatives and demonstrating their feasibility.
10. Successful policy entrepreneurs employ strategies of venue manipulation and venue-shopping, and/or create new venues to be able to insert new ideas into decision-making processes.
11. Successful policy entrepreneurs manage to institutionalize new ideas (discourses, images, or ways of knowing), and in this way create barriers to future change.
12. Successful policy entrepreneurs have a full and thorough knowledge of the institutional system they are working in and know how to use that system.
(Hat tip: Daniel A.)