Does Entrepreneurship Work? Understanding What Policy Entrepreneurs Do and Whether It Matters

Abstract: When a major policy change occurs, policy entrepreneurs—advocates who devote substantial time, energy, and resources to campaigning for a specific policy outcome—are often credited as critical influences. However, there has been a little quantitative, large-n cross-sectional study of whether policy entrepreneurship effectuates policy change, how policy entrepreneurs pursue their goals, and whether particular entrepreneur attributes are more or less facilitative to that end. This paper aims to fill that gap by investigating policy entrepreneurship in municipalities across the State of New York, where between 2008 and 2012 hundreds of local jurisdictions passed policies to ban or restrict high-volume hydraulic fracturing (fracking), often encouraged by anti-fracking advocates. It demonstrates that policy entrepreneurs have a consequential, positive impact on policy adoption; that their characteristics, strategies, and goals classify into distinct archetypes; and that archetypes vary in their policy impact.