Navigating policy dynamics : focusing events, multiple streams framework, discourses and crisis-driven agenda setting in public policy

english

2026

volume 63, issue 2

Karst   Multiple Streams Framework   natural hazards   policy discourse   Slovenia   wildfires

Univerza v Ljubljani, Fakulteta za družbene vede
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

The article explores how policymakers respond to focusing events like pandemics, natural disasters, and other critical incidents. Using the “multiple streams framework”, “windows of opportunity” for policy change created from the convergence of political, problem and policy streams are identified. The research primarily brings the Streams concept together with policy discourse approaches to form a combined framework. Special attention is paid to the way the media, social networks, and various policy actors construct the ‘disaster’ reality. The presented case study concerns wildfires that spread across Slovenia in 2022, which were among the worst natural disasters to affect the Karst region and Slovenia generally, exposing institutional and structural weaknesses in organising a response to manage such events. An essential foundation is provided for future research since it is established that focusing events can accelerate agenda setting when discursive coalitions, policy entrepreneurs and stream coupling align around a dominant narrative of urgency. In the Karst wildfires case, this mechanism facilitated selective policy institutionalisation and implementation, but not a radical restructuring of the broader disaster-governance system.

22.07.2026