How Policy Entrepreneurs Fail in Implementing Smart Policy

Policy Entrepreneurs is one of the most critical actors that sets a certain policy objective in Smart Cities. In 2010 for example, the initiative of Automated Vehicles (AVs) as part of the Smart Mobility agenda was successfully set by the Policy Entrepreneurs from private companies, academics, and other various sector of stakeholders. However, AVs faced a setback due to several mistakes that the Policy Entrepreneurs failed to prepare, that leads to its collapse of this initiative in the implementation stage. Gironés (2020) explained three causes for this failure. 

First is the lack of concrete commitment about the implementation and policy outputs. Despite successfully create coalition in proposing the AVs initiatives, the Policy Entrepreneurs did not legitimise the commitment with clear direction and responsibility division. Lack of clear direction of the initiative was also cause by the absence of explicit definition of the terms. The problem definition and concrete measure were not easily identified due to the vague terms that are used by the Policy Entrepreneurs. Lastly, there was a skepticism on the benefit for the society. The AVs initiative that the Policy Entrepreneur brought in this case was seen only oriented towards economic and business interests with little to no attention to the societal demand.

Reference:

Gironés, E. S., van Est, R., & Verbong, G. (2020). The role of policy entrepreneurs in defining directions of innovation policy: A case study of automated driving in the Netherlands. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 161, 120243.

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