Connecting policy change, experimentation, and entrepreneurs: advancing conceptual and empirical insights

Belinda K Mcfadgen

doi:10.5751/es-10673-240130

Abstract

With global environmental problems worsening, policy makers and nonstate actors are looking for viable solutions through policy innovation, entrepreneurship, and experimentation. Research into the use of experiments to innovate is increasing, but the role of experimentation in policy change has yet to be specifically addressed in the context of climate governance. My aim is to improve understanding by examining how entrepreneurs, key agents of change, might use experiments to advance their climate innovations. Policy entrepreneurs can benefit in several ways from using experiments, including assessing public response to new ideas and learning. I address the question: What role can experiments play in an entrepreneur’s change strategies? To answer this, a set of 18 policy experiments from Dutch water management was analyzed to understand how the policy experiments functioned as 4 different policy change strategies. The results revealed that organizers use experiments to evaluate their preformed ideas, to soften local communities to the idea of experimentation, to build broad but centrally controlled coalitions, and to link with influential political actors and national programs to maintain visibility and relevance. These insights formed a list of suggestions that the experiment organizers identified as key to the change strategies. Based on this, a number of recommendations about design choices were made for entrepreneurs who want to experiment. Analyzing experiments as change strategies contributes a novel perspective on how policy experiments function as venues for invention and provides useful suggestions on how experiments can be designed to improve their influence over policy-making processes.

Highlights

There is a very strong spotlight currently shining on the use of experiments in environmental governance
I address the question: What role can experiments play in an entrepreneur’s change strategies? To answer this, a set of 18 policy experiments from Dutch water management was analyzed to understand how the policy experiments functioned as 4 different policy change strategies
The criteria were developed by operationalizing the “policy experiment” definition used in this article (McFadgen and Huitema 2017) and included testing for real-world effects, being innovative, and having a clear relevance to policy

Summary

INTRODUCTION

There is a very strong spotlight currently shining on the use of experiments in environmental governance. Policy makers use academic expertise for their decision making, whereas the experts need the government “to test out [their] claims” (John 2017:484) In these experiments, societal actors are excluded and instead play the role of spectator or experimental subject (Weiland et al 2017). They might assemble a new solution out of a mix of existing solutions to address multiple problems in an act of bricolage (Martí and Mair 2009, Olsson et al 2017) They will try to build political support for their idea by gaining the attention of political actors or taking advantage of a change in government or other political upset that swings support in favor of the solution (Huitema and Meijerink 2010). Experiments are vulnerable if the public and/or politicians lose interest in the problem the experiment hopes to solve

METHODS

Design Recommendation

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Considerations when setting an experiment’s institutional rules

Findings

How experiments are used to influence a policy network