(8) Policy is the second of Kingdon's streams.
It is here where policy alternative are generated to address emerging problems.
Participants in the policy stream are represented by both "visible" and "hidden cluster" actors (Kingdon 1995, 199).
The visible cluster represents prominent policy actors such as the president and members of Congress.
The hidden cluster tends to be composed of policy specialists operating deep within federal or state agencies that set the available alternatives upon which policy decisions are made Like Heclo, Kingdon described the policy entrepreneur as highly influential in the policy process, capable of determining policy outcomes by manipulating and narrowing the number of policy alternatives.
This differs from the role of visible participants, who are less effective in the policy stream but more important in the problem stream and in getting items on the government agenda (Kingdon 1995, 30).
Kingdon (1995, 116) described the policy stream as consisting of a "policy primordial soup" in which multiple ideas are just "floating" around, waiting to be scooped up by prominent government actors.
The primordial soup is akin to the garbage can put forth by Cohen, March, and Olsen (1972).
Both problems and solutions get dumped into the same policy can, resulting in an unpredictable process of policy change.