I like this term “Policy Window”. It feels smart; you can see the framework that is not always visible to most of people. As a Health Policy Maker, you have to be able to see this window in your journey for increasing the public value, addressing public health problems and making a difference. So what does really mean the policy window?
Buse et al in their book “making health policy” describe the policy window based on John Kingdon’s (1984) approach. The model emphasis on the role of policy entrepreneurs inside and outside government who take advantage of agenda-setting opportunities known as policy windows to move items onto the government’s formal agenda. The model talks about three streams of policy process, the problem stream, policy stream, and politics stream. The problem stream refers to the perceptions of problems as public matter, for example uninsured citizens in the US, is an ongoing problem. Officials learn about socio economic condition of this problem using indicators, feedbacks, debates, and pressure group perceptions and etc. The policy stream refers to ongoing analysis of the problem and their proposed solutions. The politics stream operates quite separately and independent of the other two streams and is comprised of events such as swings of national mood, changes of government and campaigns by interested groups.
According to Kingdon’s model, the three streams work along different, largely, independent channels until at particular time, which become policy window, they flow together or intersect. This is the policy window or window of opportunity for delivering a change and move items onto the government’s formal agenda.
We can use this model for understanding what is going on in Health Care debate in the US presidential Campaigns, do you think policy stream, the stream of solutions, is ready enough with identical force to intersect with other streams? I don’t know the answer, since I don’t know the details of candidates’ solutions for increasing health care coverage for American people.
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This is a very helpful article. How often do the three intersect each other? Is it a common occurrence, or more of a “once in a blue moon” type thing?
Almost, all the time when a policy is created such a model is applied. You need the widow of opportunity to have a new a policy.
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