How do policy entrepreneurs influence policy change? Framing and boundary work in EU transport biofuels policy

Drawing on in-depth qualitative research exploring EU biofuels policy, this article aims to advance understandings of the role and influence of policy entrepreneurs within Kingdon’s (2011) multiple streams framework (MSF). Focusing on one entrepreneurial policy official, the article analyses both, the particular discursive techniques this official deployed in seeking to influence EU biofuels policy, and the wider contextual factors that impinged on those techniques’ ability to actually attain policy influence. Persuasive framing is shown to have enabled the entrepreneur to influence initial agenda setting processes, whilst boundary work is shown to have enabled the same official to subsequently defend an existing policy in the face of widespread criticism. Critical interactions between all three streams of the MSF, however, were outside the control of this policy entrepreneur, implying that discursive techniques alone are insufficient to open (or close) policy windows.