Policy analysis spotlights policy-making as a continuous process of ‘problem-solving’ and thus endogenously takes a time-linked view in studying and explaining policy processes and their results. However, policy analysis – as well as political science in general – has rarely systematically dealt with the ‘time factor’, in contrast to neighbouring disciplines (e.g. sociology). At the same time, the literature has broached the issue of policy-making and time in various ways: For example, the multiple streams framework emphasises ‘critical moments in time’, at which policy windows open and policy entrepreneurs may push their preferred solutions through.
Against this background, this paper asks to what extent and how major theories of the policy process have included the time dimension. To answer this question, in a first step, the literature is critically examined, for instance including the policy cycle, the multiple streams framework, and the punctuated-equilibrium theory. In a second step, the different aspects on the role of time within the policy process, which are included in these different theoretical approaches, are summarised and conceptually compared.
On this basis, the paper develops a classification on the time factor in policy-making: It proposes to distinguish between three dimensions, namely political time, temporal dynamics and temporal moments. Whilst the first dimension comprises political-institutional time rules (e.g. legislative periods), constraining politics but also standing by as a resource, the temporal dynamics denominate different temporal qualities of the policy process (e.g. regarding its duration, timing, or sequence). Finally, temporal moments are critical points or short periods in time (e.g. focusing events), impacting policy-making. In the last section, the paper initiates a discussion whether and in what ways this classification may conceptually and methodically contribute to studying the time factor and public policy.
