MSF MSA Virtual Research Community Newsletter - Fall 2024
Welcome to Our Fall Edition: Celebrating 40 Years of MSF
Dear MSF MSA Community Members,
Welcome to the fall edition of our newsletter, highlighting the 40th anniversary of the Multiple Streams Framework. We're excited to bring you updates on recent events, upcoming opportunities, and recommended readings in the field.
We value your input! If you have suggestions for future newsletter content, please don't hesitate to reach out. Your ideas help shape our community and keep our discussions vibrant and relevant.
Upcoming Event: Virtual MSF Seminar on November 1, 2024
40 Years of the Multiple Streams Framework: Legacy and Future Outlook
Mark your calendars for November 1, 2024! Our first virtual MSF MSA seminar will take place at 10:00 AM EDT / 4:00 PM CEST / 10:00 PM CST, focusing on "The Multiple Streams Framework at 40 years: Looking back and ahead."
This event will introduce and discuss recent publications by Nikolaos Zahariadis and Rob DeLeo and their coauthors/coeditors: Nicole Herweg, Evangelia Petridou, and Reimut Zohlnhöfer. The panel is chaired by Dana Dolan, with panel discussion led by Annemieke van den Dool.
Get the details & Sign up here:
Recent Event: ECPR Roundtable Discussion
Reflections on 40 years of MSF
At the ECPR General Conference in August 2024, Evangelia Petridou moderated a roundtable discussion on four decades of MSF studies. Participants included Nikolaos Zahariadis, Vilém Novotný, Theofanis Exadaktylos, Nils Bandelow, Johanna Hornung, Ilana Schröder, and Annemieke van den Dool.
The discussion highlighted MSF's expanding reach, from its origins in US agenda-setting to its current global applications, including nondemocracies. Participants noted the EU as a particularly versatile context for MSF application. Looking to the future, the roundtable identified several key directions for the field: building a more integrated community, addressing research challenges, standardizing definitions and measurements, synthesizing lessons learned, and enhancing the framework's relevance for students and practitioners.
Read the full summary here.
Three Recommended Reads
As we prepare for our upcoming virtual seminar, we've selected three insightful articles written by coauthors of the two books that will be discussed: "A Modern Guide to the MSF" and "Multiple Streams and Policy Ambiguity." These articles, spanning from 2016 to 2018, collectively demonstrate the versatility and evolving applications of the MSF across different political contexts and policy areas.
Nicole Herweg's work on European natural gas regulation showcases the MSF's adaptability to supranational policymaking in the EU. Reimut Zohlnhöfer's study of German labor market reforms illustrates how the framework can be modified to explain significant policy changes in national contexts. Finally, Evangelia Petridou's examination of entrepreneurship in Swedish municipal planning extends the MSF's application to local governance and routine policy processes. Together, these articles highlight a common thread: the MSF's flexibility in explaining policy processes across various levels of governance - from local to national to supranational - while maintaining its core concepts of problem, policy, and politics streams, as well as the crucial role of policy entrepreneurs in coupling the streams.
These readings not only provide a solid foundation for understanding the MSF's wide-ranging applications but also offer insights into how the framework has been refined and extended by key scholars in the field. They serve as an excellent primer for the upcoming seminar discussions on the legacy and future outlook of the Multiple Streams Framework.
The next edition of our newsletter will highlight the MSF’s diversity with respect to scholars and case locations.
Herweg, N. (2016). Explaining European Agenda-Setting Using the Multiple Streams Framework: The Case of European Natural Gas Regulation. Policy Sciences, 49, 13-33. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11077-015-9231-z
Zohlnhöfer, R. (2016). Putting Together the Pieces of the Puzzle: Explaining German Labor Market Reforms with a Modified Multiple‐Streams Approach. Policy Studies Journal, 44(1), 83-107. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12135
Petridou, E. (2018). Entrepreneurship in the Swedish Municipal Polis: The Case of Mer [*] Östersund. Policy Studies, 39(1), 70-89. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2018.1434872
Upcoming Conferences
Mark your calendar for conferences where MSF MSA scholars often congregate! For example:
International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP7), July 2-4, 2025, in Chiang Mai, Thailand. https://www.ippapublicpolicy.org/conference/icpp7-chiang-mai-2025/21
European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference, Aug 26-29, 2025, in Thessaloniki, Greece. https://ecpr.eu/GeneralConference
For more conferences, visit our Google Spreadsheet at: https://tinyurl.com/MSF-CF
In Closing
We hope you find this newsletter informative and engaging. We welcome your suggestions and requests! Don't forget to register for our upcoming virtual seminar, and we look forward to your continued participation as we build a vibrant research community.
Warm regards,
Dana Dolan, Annemieke van den Dool, and Evangelia Petridou — Founding Community Leads
Nikolaos Zahariadis, Reimut Zohlnhöefer, Rob DeLeo, Paul Cairney, Kristin Taylor, Luke Fowler, Nicole Herweg, and Tom Birkland — Founding Advisory Board
P.S. Please share the link to this site (msfmsa.substack.com) widely, both by email and on all your favorite social media platforms. Ask others to share it as well!