Problems, policy and politics: making sense of Australia's ‘ice epidemic’

Abstract

Drug policy is a complex and controversial policy domain and traditional models of the policy process which present policy making as a process of authoritative problem solving by governments deny the complexity of the policy process in the real-world. An alternative perspective is to engage with the idea of policy-making as an ongoing process of managing the problematic, with multiple participants and competing perspectives. Kingdon's ‘multiple streams’ is a heuristic for understanding policy-making in this way. This article critically considers to what extent Kingdon's heuristic is a useful tool for drug policy analysis, in so far as it may offer an approach to better understanding the complexity of the drug policy process, which extends beyond authoritative problem solving. We apply Kingdon's ‘multiple streams’ to a case study examining the emergence of methamphetamine (an illicit, synthetic psychostimulant drug) as a policy issue in Australia from the late-1990s to the late-2000s. We find strengths in Kingdon's approach as applied to drug policy but also identify a number of ways in which this case study differed from Kingdon's propositions. We question Kingdon's assertion that the ‘streams’ operate independently, whether policy windows are necessary for action, the role of the media and the temporal frame for analysis.

Keywords:

• policy processes
• drug policy
• methamphetamine
• Kingdon
• multiple streams

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Colonial Foundation Trust as part of the Drug Policy Modelling programme. Alison Ritter is a recipient of a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellowship.

Notes on contributors

Kari Lancaster is a Senior Research Officer and PhD Candidate at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. She works as part of the multi-disciplinary Drug Policy Modelling Program which aims to improve Australian drug policy by generating new evidence, translating that evidence into policy-relevant information, studying how policy actually gets made and evaluating policy processes. Since joining the Drug Policy Modelling Program in 2009, Kari has undertaken research investigating policy processes and media reporting on illicit drugs. Research projects include investigating strategic advocacy processes in the establishment of the Australian Capital Territory overdose prevention and management program, analysis of the emergence of methamphetamine as a policy issue in Australia, and measuring research influence on drug policy. Kari has collaborated with the Australian Injecting & Illicit Drug Users League (AIVL) to investigate how people who use drugs perceive drug policy, and also the Australian National Council on Drugs to explore young people's ideas about responding to alcohol and other drug problems. Recently, Kari has undertaken research examining ‘problematisation’ and how drug policy problems are represented and constructed through policy.

Alison Ritter is a leading drug policy researcher and Director of the Drug Policy Modelling Program (DPMP) at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. She is an NHMRC Senior Research Fellow (2012 to 2016) leading a collaborative, multi-disciplinary program of research on drug policy. The goal of the work is to advance drug policy through improving the evidence-base, translating research and studying policy processes. Professor Ritter worked as a clinical psychologist in the alcohol and drug treatment sector prior to commencing full-time research. She was the Deputy Director of Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre from 1995 to 2005. She has contributed significant policy and practice developments in the alcohol and drug sector over many years. She is the President of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, Vice-President of the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia and an Editor for a number of journals, including Drug and Alcohol Review, and the International Journal of Drug Policy.

Hal K. Colebatch is a political scientist whose field of interest is the architecture of public authority – that is, the forms and practices through which areas of collective concern are governed. He draws on analytical approaches from political science, public administration and organizational analysis to focus on the way that policy is used to shape thinking and practice in the managing of public concerns. His current research is concerned with policy as an area of specialist practice, the way that people learn to do ‘policy work’, and with the relationship between ‘policy professionals’ and other professionals (such as health professionals). He has taught and researched policy and administration in East Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and came to the University of New South to set up the Graduate Program in Social Science and Policy. He has edited a number of books on policy work, including Working for Policy (Amsterdam University Press, 2010), and his book Policy (Open University Press, 3rd ed. 2009) has been translated into four languages. He is the Chair of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Public Policy and Administration.

Notes

1. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy was the peak policy and decision-making body in relation to licit and illicit drugs in Australia, represented by the Australian and State and Territory Ministers of Health, Law Enforcement and Education.

2. A ‘precursor’ is a chemical used in the manufacture of an illicit drug. For example, pseudoephedrine (a cold and flu medication available in pharmacies) is a primary precursor chemical for the manufacture of methamphetamine in clandestine laboratories.