Selling British Rail

Abstract

Using a multiple streams model, which is based on work by Kingdon, the study explains the quest to sell British Rail. It argues that privatization depends on the interplay of three streams or factors in opportune moments: problems, solutions, and politics. The key to understanding the process is coupling, the notion that the effects of these factors are not additive; rather, only a combination of all three at the same time can produce the desired outcome. The essential features of the answer to the privatization puzzle, therefore, are the institutional position and strategy of policy entrepreneurs who join the streams together and the effect of policy windows on impeding or enhancing the coupling chances of specific solutions. The study refines Kingdon's argument by specifying the conditions under which a policy may be in search of a rationale.