In his 1984 book, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, John Kingdon offered a new framework for understanding policy change. According to Kingdon, an opportunity for a policy change occurs only when three streams – “problems,” “solutions,” and “political circumstances” – come into alignment to create a moment of opportunity, or a “policy window,” when a “policy entrepreneur” can influence a policy change. Kingdon explains that there are always many known problems that are not being addressed, many known solutions that already exist, and many government officials with legitimate interests that they seem powerless to promote. Some changes occur because of a crisis: Airplane crashes lead to heightened interest in safety and bridge collapses shine a light on inadequate infrastructure funding. Other changes are not precipitated by crises, but just develop over time and through the push and pull of forces.

What really happened

The City Manager’s story offers a perfect illustration of Kingdon’s framework: The problem was a road that had become unsafe for pedestrians, the solution was the construction of a sidewalk along the side of the road, and the political circumstance was a lack of urgency on the part of elected officials with many interests competing for scarce resources to fund that solution. In this case, the city was growing more rapidly, and the county’s capital improvement program had not caught up to reflect the recent development of two new apartment buildings on a county road without a sidewalk. The political circumstances changed, and the policy window opened when the City Manager – the policy entrepreneur – emailed his simple, blurry photo to county officials, getting their attention and causing them to act.

Another Example

Consider rise of the “Defund Police” movement following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers. The problem was old, well-known, and systemic: Police brutality, racial bias, and the militarization and over-funding of police departments. Potential solutions included the reallocation of police funds to other social services and programs that would reduce the need for police, community policing, accountability reforms, and de-escalation training. The political circumstances changed when a teenager’s nine-minute video clip of Floyd’s murder went viral, leading to civil protests in many American cities and the opening of a new policy window. This moment made instant policy entrepreneurs of Minneapolis city council members and elected officials throughout the country who represented diverse communities, by providing the justification to make bold proposals to strip police departments of funding and reallocate funds to other programs and functions. Since 2020, few, if any, police departments have actually been defunded, in fact police budgets have risen on average. But for the first time ever, four police officers were sent to prison for killing a black man, and more police are being held accountable

around the country.