Within Multiple Streams Approach, one of the two new streams proposed by Howlett et al (2016) to capture the struggles that follow agenda-setting and bleed into policy formulation and decision making…
Process Stream – “designed to examine options, support authoritative decisions and so on, which sets up the future timetable for deliberations and establishes the general course through which the stream will flow.”
(Howlett, et al. 2015:427)
If it were dominant; “Here both problem definitions and programme solutions are weak and the process stream is the key agenda-setter. ‘Placebo’ policies exemplify, such as in social welfare issues where there are multiple and complex causes of problems and no clear solutions to ‘wicked’ problems (Head 2008; McConnell 2010a, b). The very process of addressing an issue and achieving some form of outcome is the key goal. All the other streams are confined by this process.” (Howlett, et al. 2015:428)
Howlett, M. McConnell, A. and Perl, A. 2015. Streams and stages: Reconciling Kingdon and policy process theory. European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 54, pp.419-434.
See also streams
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