Multiple Streams and couplings in Uruguay: The formation of the Responsible Firearm Ownership Law

Abstract

This research adopts theories of the policy process to study changes in gun control policies in Uruguay. The first goal is to explain the little relevance of the gun problematic in the Uruguayan political agenda, as well as the policy decisions that followed and gave way to the 2014 Responsible Firearm Ownership Law. For this purpose, we resort to John Kingdon’s (1995) Multiple Streams Framework and adopt a series of modifications that bring additional variables into the analysis. The evaluation of the conceptual framework in the Uruguayan context supposes the second goal of this research. Despite the challenge, the msf and its modifications were able to decode the studied changes and identify the main factors that explain them.