Policy entrepreneurs and agenda setting

While agenda setting is not the only element of policy entrepreneurship, it is perhaps the most crucial and important stage in the process of policy entrepreneurship, one that involves translating ideas into feasible policies. Given that agenda setting is the basis for any change in public policy, establishing a solid agenda that has a reasonable chance of succeeding is crucial in determining whether or not the entrepreneur can proceed to the next step – investing resources to promote and ultimately change public policy. Successful policy entrepreneurs invest a great deal of effort in garnering attention for their proposed policies. Defining problems and placing their proposed solutions to them on the political agenda are among the main challenges policy entrepreneurs face. Nevertheless, even when they are successful in these endeavors, experienced policy entrepreneurs know that they must keep up the pressure to formulate policies in the direction they desire, legitimize them, facilitate their implementation, and promote their evaluation. In order to provide a better grounding for policy entrepreneurs and agenda setting, we began with outlining the history and intellectual development of the concept of policy entrepreneurship. Next, we present a categorization of the characteristics, strategies, and motivations of policy entrepreneurs. Finally, we focus on public entrepreneurs and agenda setting. The chapter concludes that while policy entrepreneurs are not present in all policy changes, their role is often instrumental in understanding how new policy agendas emerge and translate into concrete outcomes.