Explaining the Policy Process Underpinning Public Sector Reform: The Role of Ideas, Institutions, and Timing

This article provides theoretical elaboration of the policy process underpinning the emergence of public sector reform. It reviews the three predominant models for understanding, namely the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), Institutional Theory Approaches (ITA), and the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF). Rather than treating these frameworks as competing, the article identifies their complementary and interdependent contributions to explaining the policy process underpinning public sector reform, specifically the central driving role of ideas, institutions and timing. The article provides a case for combining the three frameworks - and their identified drivers - to inform an integrated and elaborated model of public sector reform processes. The utility of the model is evidenced via an ex-post analysis of the ten-year ‘NHS Plan’, which operated in the UK from 2000 to 2010. Discussion considers implications for key theoretical issues in researching and explaining the policy process underpinning public sector reform.