Policy entrepreneurs searching for the open-minded skeptic: a new approach to engagement in difficult policy areas

Abstract

The necessity for reducing the run-off of nitrogen from the sugar industry into Queensland’s Great Barrier Reef has been recognized by governments and scientists for decades. Governments have unsuccessfully attempted to address this problem through legislation, regulation, and educating stakeholders. Officials have also understood that farmers’ resistance was a problem because reform involved asking them to change the farming methods of a lifetime. This paper examines an innovative program, the Burdekin nitrogen trial (RP20) that significantly changed industry practices in an important sugar cane growing region in Australia. One of the key challenges to achieving success was the public servants – the policy entrepreneurs – and their ability to convert a farmer – an open minded skeptic – into a policy champion. Through the adoption of a risky and previously untried collaboration strategy between public servants and this open-minded skeptic, an entrenched and formally opposing group of stakeholders began working with government to implement RP20, an innovative plan to overcome farmer resistance and reduce nitrogen runoff. As RP20 unfolded we gain insight into how the bureaucrats shed old ways of doing business, and became effective agents of policy change. These public servants grasped the window of opportunity that opened unexpectedly, reframed the policy problem and replaced the cane farmers’ skepticism and resistance with high levels of trust and rapport.