Thibaud Deruelle (Exeter):The Engineer and the Bricoleur: alternative policy solutions in the Multiple Streams Framework

This paper investigates the viability of alternative policy solutions before the decision-making process. Building on the literature about the Multiple Streams Framework, new conceptual elements are used to explain the lock-in of policy solutions. While policy solutions are generally perceived to be mere ideas, specific organizational elements of the policy network show that concrete initiatives can play the same role. In order to make sense of these engineered solutions, the decision-makers have to act as bricoleurs. They recombine initiatives and ideas to develop a fully fleshed policy. This paper is designed as a plausibility probe to determine whether the engineers and the bricoleur can be reasonably considered a relevant conceptual addendum in the field of organizational theory in public policy. It aims to reconstruct the process that led to the creation of a European policy for Disease Prevention and Control. More specifically the process tracing developed should lead to a clearer understanding of the formation of policy solutions, by identifying the work done by policy entrepreneurs and by labelling them either advocates or engineers. Then the role of the Bricoleur will be assessed in the light of the policy that was eventually adopted.