(6) Analyzing the agenda-setting process and alternative selection,
Kingdon incorporated the "garbage can model" of Cohen, March and Olsen(1972).
This model is centered on the concept of "organized anarchies" (Kingdon 1995, 84), or organizations that share three general characteristics:
problematic preferences,
fluid participation,
and unclear technology.
People routinely move in and out of organizations or organizational subunits and thus rarely understand the organization's purpose or their role within the organization.
Various participants work autonomously to provide independent solutions to similar problems.
In the process, ideas are jumbled together, with solutions actually searching for problems, rather than the reverse, as would be suggested by the stages model of public policy or the rational comprehensive model(Kingdon 1995, 85).
According to the garbage can model, policy entrepreneurs learn by trial and error regarding alternative selection.
The end result is that both problems and solutions are "dumped" into the policymaking garbage can.
What does this mean for Kingdon's model and the agenda-setting process? In essence, the policy process is not linear nor does it always move in incremental stages. Rather it is best described as relative chaos among competing policy communities.
Kingdon revised the garbage can model to include three separate "streams": problems, policies, and politics. Each stream, as we discuss below, contributes to our understanding of why government pays attention to some problems more than others.