Book review: Policy Entrepreneurs and Strategies for Change: The Case of Water Management in the Netherlands

Abstract

Stijn Brouwer’s study of policy entrepreneurs in the Dutch water sector is an excellent example of how an investigation into these political actors needs to be conducted. In this investigation the author was very thoughtful in how he defined policy entrepreneurs (pp. 3–8). The treatment of the theoretical dimensions of policy entrepreneurs and the strategies they can employ were also well developed and presented. The fact that Stijn investigates a number of policy process theories was for me an indication that he had investigated the subject matter from a solid theoretical foundation. I particularly enjoyed reading the theoretical section, since I am interested in the theoretical side of water governance and management. Stijn investigates four policy process theories: process streams and windows of opportunity, policy images and policy venues, the advocacy coalition framework and the network approach (pp. 22–32). He then goes on to indicate the ‘room for policy entrepreneurs’ in the four theories (pp. 33–34). What I also found interesting and a useful learning experience is the way Stijn treats these theories after he had outlined them. He revisits the four theories and distils, so to speak, 10 strategies from the theories. The 10 strategies are Stijn’s ‘new typology’ of policy entrepreneur strategies (pp. 54–64), under four categories: attention- and support-seeking strategies, linking strategies, relational management strategies and arena strategies (p. 64). I am not sure whether Stijn was mindful of the fact that he employed analytic eclecticism while elaborating on the 10 strategies that formed the foundation of his enquiry. Nevertheless, here the study scores top points in the application of analytic eclecticism in a well thought through and structured manner. Analytic eclecticism is not only the combination of theoretical frameworks, but the innovative integration of theoretical assumptions and helps us to understand complex social, political, environmental and psychological processes in governance (Katzenstein & Okawara, 2001–2002; Meissner, 2015) by avoiding the theoretical compartmentalisation of investigations into one theory (Sil & Katzenstein, 2010). The 10 strategies in Stijn’s new typology is an indication of this integration.