Reconciling Streams and Stages:Avoiding Mixed Metaphors in the Characterization of Policy Processes

Abstract

Metaphors have much analytical purchase in the policy sciences - none more so than that of the notions of policy stages and multiple streams. Yet there are difficulties, even allowing for necessary parsimony, in applying these individual metaphors to policy processes. This paper attempts to combine metaphors about policy cycles and policy streams in order to provide a more realistic synthesis that can capture diverse factors such as changing governance norms, detailed program interventions and the sheer complexity of policy drivers – ranging from coalition building to ‘garbage can’ solutions. In doing so it examines the difficulties of mixing these two metaphors and the special difficulty of ascertaining how many streams should be conceptualised. We argue that three-stream models such as Kingdon’s may be well suited to understanding one specific stage of policy-making but require augmentation in order to effectively interpret the full set of variables affecting processes and outcomes occurring through multiple stages of policy making. The paper proposes a five stream ‘confluence’ model which highlights the interactions between and among streams as a more effective metaphorical construction retaining the essence of the Kingdon ‘stream’ image while also incorporating elements of the ‘cycle’ or ‘stages’ one. The confluence model, it is argued, retains the basic thrust and vocabulary developed by Kingdon while offering a more comprehensive and relevant metaphor for capturing the dynamics of public policy-making.

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