Tag: emotions

An Emotional Perspective on the Multiple Streams Framework

by Moshe Maor

Policy process theories can be powerful tools for understanding complex policy processes—when they properly account for the emotional context. My latest conceptual research aims to do precisely this with regard to Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), which emerged in 1984 as an approach for studying how policies are formulated and adopted, particularly by examining how problems, policies, and politics align to produce policy change. This conceptual piece demonstrates how integrating emotions can deepen our understanding of the emotional factors that drive policy decisions. Emotions refer here to “reactions to signals about the significance that circumstances hold for an individual’s goals and well-being” (Gadarian & Brader 2023, 192). 

In its original design, the MSF includes the concept of “public mood,” but this is limited to a fleeting, often generalized state of public sentiment. This perspective overlooks more intense, targeted emotional reactions that can significantly impact each stream within the framework. My study sharpens this view by incorporating specific emotional triggers and conditions, introducing new concepts such as emotional agenda (policy) windows, emotional decision windows, and emotional policy entrepreneurs. These elements shed light on how positive and negative emotions, discrete emotions (e.g., anger, hope), and bundles of emotions can create moments when policy change becomes particularly likely.

The concept of emotional agenda (policy) windows describes moments when heightened public emotions make issues seem urgent, creating prime opportunities for policy advocates. This is often observed during crises, where fear or outrage pushes a problem into the spotlight. Similarly, an emotional decision window refers to the period when public and policymaker emotions align, opening an opportunity for adopting new policies.

Another key player in this framework is the emotional policy entrepreneur. Whereas some policy entrepreneurs ignore emotions, emotional policy entrepreneurs employ emotions in addition to ‘salami tactics’ and other strategies in pursuit of their policy goals. Unlike traditional policy entrepreneurs who advocate solutions based on practical needs, emotional policy entrepreneurs use emotional strategies to increase or decrease the intensity of a particular emotion, or to change the type of emotion (e.g., turning anxiety into anger), thereby shifting public opinion and mobilizing support. By leveraging collective emotions, emotional policy entrepreneurs can create emotional needs, control their intensity, and bring them to an end, thereby significantly influencing agenda-setting. This strategy can sometimes achieve rapid policy change, though it may also face challenges in sustaining intense emotions over time.

Through viewing and interpreting the MSF while sharpening its core concepts, my research aims to clarify how emotions interact with each of the MSF’s assumptions (see Table 1) and structural components (e.g., the streams), enhancing the MSF’s capacity to explain agenda-setting and decision-making in emotionally charged contexts. Ultimately, this approach calls for scholars to view policy settings not just as platforms for debate but as spaces deeply affected by emotional dynamics, where policy decisions reflect public sentiments as much as strategic calculations.

This research can help both policymakers and analysts to predict when emotional dynamics might open policy windows and shape the outcomes of political processes—making it a valuable tool in today’s complex, emotionally-loaded policy landscape.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Maor, Moshe. 2024. “ An Emotional Perspective on the Multiple Streams Framework.” Policy Studies Journal 00(0): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12568.

About the Author

Moshe Maor is a Professor of Political Science at Reichman University and past incumbent of the Wolfson Family Chair in Public Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research interests focus on disproportionate policy response, emotions and public policy, and bureaucratic politics. He has published a few books as well as numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals including Democratization, Disasters, European Journal of Political Research, Governance, International Review of Public Policy, Journal of Environment Policy and planning, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Journal of Public Policy, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Policy Design & Practice, Policy & Politics, Policy &Society, Policy Sciences, Public Administration, and Public Administration Review. His current work revolves around developing the Ladder of Disproportionate Policy (European Policy Analysis, forthcoming)—an objective scale of disproportionate policies based on assessing the gap between the scope of the audience that the policy ostensibly serves and how the policy tools are set and adjusted to serve the actual audience. His book, entitled Policy Over- and Underreactions: Collected Essays, is forthcoming (Feb. 2025) in Edward Elgar.

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Examining emotional belief expressions of advocacy coalitions in Arkansas’ gender identity politics

by Allegra H. Fullerton & Christopher M. Weible

Policy studies have increasingly incorporated emotions to better understand a range of essential questions, from how people make sense of their world to why people engage in policy and even how power or legitimacy manifests. However, most established theories of the policy process, including the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), have largely neglected the role of emotions in shaping political behavior.

We develop a distinct means for applying emotional analysis within the ACF. Using the ACF’s conception of belief systems via “dyads”, we create emotion-belief dyads that marry theories of emotions with the theoretical arguments found in the ACF. Specifically, we theorize about the types of discrete (e.g., fear or compassion) or diffuse emotions (e.g., negative or positive) that interact with different categories of ACF’s belief systems (e.g., deep core or policy core) in explaining coalition membership or policy positions.

We analyze the political discourse through legislative testimony on one of the first gender-affirming care (GAC) bans in the United States, the Arkansas legislative debate about the proposed “Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act” (HB2021-1570), which would make GAC for minors illegal in the state. GAC has become one of the battles in the ongoing and intensifying political culture war in the U.S. and remains a policy arena wrought with disinformation. In using GAC as the setting to explore the interplay of beliefs and emotions, this study builds on existing literature showing that emotions are pivotal in how individuals learn, form opinions, and mobilize politically.

To guide our study, we asked ourselves: What combinations of emotions and beliefs explain both 1) coalition membership and 2) member positions on Arkansas’ proposed gender-affirming care (GAC) policy ban?

Utilizing Emotional Belief Analysis (EBA), a coding approach used in past ACF applications of news media and legislative testimony, we gathered self-narrated statements from the audio testimony of all hearings held for the 2021 Arkansas bill. We identified 45 unique actors and classified them into anti-GAC and pro-GAC coalitions using a Girvan–Newman algorithm (further confirmed using three additional approaches) that identified actors based on their emotion-belief dyads.

We then tested two foundational arguments within the ACF (conceptualized in Figure 1): one that states policy core beliefs (compared to deep core beliefs) serve as a principal glue binding coalitions, and the other that advocacy coalitions overcome threats to collective action through negative emotions (i.e., via the devil shift).

By calculating the proportion of the four dyads expressed by each coalition’s members, we obtained a measure of coalition density. We then calculated the Krackhardt E–I Index of each coalition to determine its level of emotion-belief cohesion (with a value of -1 indicating complete cohesion within a coalition). We found that, as expected, coalitions had more cohesion around both policy core belief dyads and negative emotion dyads (Figure 2b). 

Lastly, we sought to determine whether negative and policy core emotion-belief dyads show a bigger effect than positive and deep core emotion-belief dyads in coalition membership and policy position on the anti-GAC bill. Running a series of multiple regression quadratic assignment procedures (MRQAP) as well as two significance models (Table 4), we found that shared negative emotions were more significant than positive emotions in coalition membership and explained expressions about the bill with larger effect sizes than the other belief-emotion combinations.

In using GAC as the setting to explore the interplay of beliefs and emotions, this study shows emotions are pivotal in how individuals learn, form opinions, and mobilize politically. By developing theory around the dyadic expressions of both beliefs and emotions, we pave future pathways for improving understanding of belief systems, coalition dynamics, policy change, and policy learning.

You can read the original article in Policy Studies Journal at

Fullerton, Allegra H. and Christopher M. Weible 2024. “ Examining Emotional Belief Expressions of Advocacy Coalitions in Arkansas’ Gender Identity Politics.” Policy Studies Journal 52 (2): 369–389. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12531.

About the Authors

Allegra H. Fullerton is a PhD Candidate at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. The bulk of her research examines the intricate relationships between emotions, beliefs, and coalition dynamics within marginalized communities. She has published in Policy Studies Journal, Review of Policy Research, International Review of Public Policy, and more on gender policy, policy feedback in the US and Germany, transgender healthcare, power, and policy learning. She teaches courses on policy processes and democracy, as well as negotiation. She sits on the organizing committee for the Conference on Policy Process Research, a community dedicated to advancing policy process theories and methods internationally. She also serves as the Digital Associate Editor at Policy and Politics.

Chris Weible is a professor at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs. His research and teaching center on policy process theories and methods, democracy, and environmental policy. He is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Center for Policy and Democracy (CPD) and Co-Editor of Policy & Politics. He teaches courses in environmental politics, public policy and democracy, policy analysis, and research methods and design. Recent and current research includes studying policy conflicts in energy issues (e.g., siting energy infrastructure and oil and gas development), the role of emotions in public discourse, the institutional configurations of public policies, politics involving marginalized communities, and patterns and explanations of advocacy coalitions, learning, and policy change. He has published over a hundred articles and book chapters and has been awarded millions of dollars in external funding. His edited volumes include “Theories of the Policy Process,” “Methods of the Policy Process,” and “Policy Debates in Hydraulic Fracturing.” He regularly engages and enjoys collaborating with students and communities in research projects. Professor Weible earned his PhD in Ecology from the University of California Davis and a Master of Public Administration and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Washington. He has an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy and a Visiting Professor position at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Sweden.

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