What Makes a Changemaker? Policy Entrepreneurs in German, EU, and US Food Policy

• In Event: Poster Session: Presidents and Executive Politics & Public Policy
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Public Policy

Abstract

What drives policy change and innovation when food policy meets health promotion and prevention? This article studies contemporary and historical policy change in the context of obesity-related food and public health policies in Germany, the EU, and the US, from 1990 to the present. It frames the question in the context of existing literature on policy entrepreneurship and theories of policy change, and it builds on them to develop a novel typology of policy entrepreneurship based on the entrepreneurs’ motives, extent of policy change, and levels of issue salience. To illustrate the typology’s application, I use a multi-method approach involving quantitative content analysis, archival research of legislation and health records, and process tracing via elite interviews of various state and non-state actors. The paper serves to improve understanding of the mechanisms at play in bringing about policy change generally, and specifically with regard to anti-obesity public health policies in the given context.

Author

• Renu Singh, Georgetown University