Strategies for environmentalist public policy entrepreneurs: Combining Kingdon and Rose

Combining the Multiple Streams Framework and Rose et al.’s (2020) tips for environmentalists to approach policy windows, we examined which strategies policy entrepreneurs from Brazil’s National Cabotage Program and National Biofuels Policy adopted to ensure their approval. In the National Cabotage Program, the employment by the Ministry of Infrastructure of the capacities to foresee and create a policy window, reflected in the decision to create a Navigation and Waterways Department, and to persevere, continuously negotiating the draft bill of the Program with the executive and the legislative branches, contributed to policy approval. In the National Biofuels Policy, the employment of the capacities to respond by the association of sugarcane producers, through sending a market-based proposal to a call for policy proposals opened by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, and to frame, by emphasizing the biofuel policy as a solution for Brazil to attain its climate commitments, was key, sparing the use of other strategies. The findings suggest that more than one combination of strategies can lead to policy approval, whereas it is not necessary to adopt all of them in a single process, with seeming compensation between them. Future studies could investigate the outcomes of different combinations of capabilities and qualities of public policy entrepreneurs in other public policy processes.