Street-level policy entrepreneurship

Abstract

Research on policy entrepreneurs typically identifies these individuals as high-level government officials or actors who lobby such elites, largely ignoring low-rung bureaucrats whose entrepreneurship concerns policy implementation. These lacunae may exist because street-level bureaucracy scholarship does not necessarily expect implementing bureaucrats to be entrepreneurial. This article argues the contrary. The existence of street-level policy entrepreneurship and its influence on policy innovations pursued by public bureaucracies is illuminated via two US state case studies. The cases describe efforts by state bureaucrats to adopt and entrench a science policy innovation for wetland management into regulatory practice.