Policy entrepreneurs and problem definition

The Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), which was originally developed by John Kingdon in the 1970s, has proven a useful framework for the analysis of decision-making. At its most basic, the model rests on the confluence of three streams: “problems,” “policy,” and “politics” which can be “coupled” together where a “policy window” opens. In the early version of the model, problems, defined as such by government officials, are brought to light via focusing events like crises; policy proposals are floated, though only some survive to be given serious consideration where they can be presented as policy solutions; and the political arena affects agendas though shifts in national mood or legislative turnover (Kingdon Reference Kingdon2003, 19–20). These developments may be exploited by actors known as policy entrepreneurs.

Over time, key concepts from the MSF have entered the wider academic conversation on the policy process. These concepts are often divorced from the specifics of the framework that was originally proposed by Kingdon. In this vein policy, entrepreneurship has been both substantively and theoretically analyzed (see Petridou and Mintrom (Reference Petridou and Mintrom2021) for an extensive review of the current state of research on policy entrepreneurship). In this literature, policy entrepreneurs are taken to be actors who use their knowledge of the policy process to further their own policy ends. They “lie in wait in and around government with their solutions at hand, waiting for problems to float by to which they can attach their solutions, waiting for a development in the political stream they can use to their advantage” (Kingdon Reference Kingdon1984, 65–66). At the same time, policy entrepreneurs exploit windows of opportunity to promote the solutions they favor, while drawing on resources such as access and credibility (Dahl Reference Dahl1961; Kingdon Reference Kingdon1984). They may be politicians, civil servants, experts, or business leaders as long as they share a common interest in a policy and recognize an opportunity to intervene (Zahariadis Reference Zahariadis2008, 518).

There are certain characteristics and personal skills that policy entrepreneurs tend to exhibit. For example, they are likely to possess a “perceptiveness in understanding others and engaging in policy conversations” (Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009, 652). This is consistent with Kingdon’s conceptualization of policy entrepreneurs as being able to understand others’ concerns and ideas and to recognize opportunities before introducing policy innovations. Moreover, they are likely to exhibit strengths in leadership, communication, team-building and networking, and an “ability to work effectively with others” (Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009, 653). Policy entrepreneurs are also able to lead by example, which “involves engaging with others to […] demonstrate the workability of a policy proposal” (Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009, 654). By analyzing 229 articles on policy entrepreneurs’ characteristics and strategies, Aviram, Cohen, and Beeri (Reference Aviram, Cohen and Beeri2019, 17) found that policy entrepreneurs exhibit three key attributes, namely the power of persuasion, the ability to build trust, and social acuity.

Policy entrepreneurs may also have access to political and institutional resources, which help their policy ambitions. These resources are often connected to the formal role they perform, which might give them a clearly defined part to play in the policy process, access to specific venues, which open channels of influence, the support of an effective, well-qualified team, and in some cases, financial support. Informal, personal networks might also be an important resource for policy entrepreneurs, especially where networks derive from experiences gained from previous roles. The credibility that derives from having held such roles in the past might also be an important resource.

The role of policy entrepreneurs has been also explored with reference to how they might define a policy problem (Mintrom and Luetjens Reference Mintrom and Luetjens2017; see also Béland and Cox Reference Béland and Cox2016). As noted by Winkel and Leipold, policy entrepreneurs may act as discursive agents “by connecting a specific problematization to a specific problem solution drawing on an available policy discourse” (Winkel and Leipold Reference Winkel and Leipold2016, 123). Thus, problems are not waiting to be discovered and solved; they pass through a process of discursive construction to become problems in the first place. It is through this process – which is inherently ideational – that problems become apprehensible and amenable to a solution. We are interested in how this process works in practice.

However, in the current policy entrepreneurship literature, policy entrepreneurs are more likely to “pay close attention to problem definitions” (Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009, 652) than to engage actively in a process of problem definition. Knaggård (Reference Knaggård2015) is one of the few authors to address in some detail the issue of this ideational aspect of policy entrepreneurship (or what she terms as “problem brokerage”). She argues that it is important to examine the process by which actors first frame “conditions” as “public problems,” drawing on knowledge, values, and emotions, and then work to make policymakers accept those frames. However, for Knaggård, it is especially important to separate analytically the framing of problems (problem brokerage) from the making of policy suggestions (policy entrepreneurship) (Knaggård Reference Knaggård2015, 451).

We argue, by contrast, that bringing an ideational perspective to the analysis of policy entrepreneurship in a more integrated way has the potential to shed new light on the role of agency in the policy process. In other words, we argue that policy entrepreneurs do not only “pay close attention to problem definitions” (Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009, 652) but they actively define problems. This can be done by means of rhetorical strategies, such as storytelling or narratives, by suggesting for instance that a crisis is imminent (Stone Reference Stone2002) or by emphasizing the failure of current policies and seeking support from other actors through the building of coalitions (Schattschneider Reference Schattschneider1960; Baumgartner and Jones Reference Baumgartner and Jones1993).

Framing is a key strategy used to promote a particular problem definition. It is generally considered “a way of selecting, organizing, interpreting, and making sense of a complex reality to provide guideposts for knowing, analyzing, persuading, and acting” (Rein and Schön Reference Rein, Schön, Fischer and Forester1996, 146). Dewulf and Bouwen (Reference Dewulf and Bouwen2012), in emphasizing the “interactional” nature of framing, claim that it “works through arranging and rearranging the elements of an issue such that its meaning is altered, a process that involves selecting certain issue elements as part of the frame while leaving out others” (p. 170). This understanding of framing casts policy actors as active conversationalists who construct the meaning of situations through discussion with others. These conversations are facilitated by means of personal skills and political and institutional resources.

Despite some limited recognition of the importance of policy entrepreneurs in the definition of policy problems (Boushy, Reference Boushy2010), it is still not clear when or how these actors engage with framing, nor the conditions under which they are successful. This is why it is important to bring ideas into consideration and to acknowledge what policy entrepreneurs do to include ideational agency. In essence, the framing of a problem is a social construction process, which implies an acknowledgment that problems are not real or exogenous to the policy process (Saurugger Reference Saurugger2013, 896–989).

Drawing from public policy analysis (Kingdon Reference Kingdon1984) and from the literature on the role of ideas in the policy process, we derive theoretical expectations in which to embed our research (see also Schmidt Reference Schmidt2002; Kamkhaji and Radaelli Reference Kamkhaji and Radaelli2022). First, and central to our theoretical argument, we expect ideas to matter as templates used by key actors to inform their decision-making. This conceptualization assumes that ideas can have causal effects, which help actors to decide on a “correct” course of action. Policy entrepreneurs may express a commitment to certain ideas that provide both a diagnosis of a condition and a prognosis, the latter comprising a view of what would happen should change not occur, and the reforms or policy proposals that would mitigate against or resolve the problem. Policy entrepreneurs may not only be attached to these ideas in the abstract but may also assert them in a proactive manner. This allows them to translate ideas into workable policy solutions.

Thus, policy entrepreneurs are attached to and associated with a particular idea or set of ideas. There is likely to be evidence that the policy actor has held beliefs consistent with these ideas in previous roles, or that in some way the ideas prefigured the start of the policy process. These ideas are causal in the sense that they might, explicitly or implicitly, provide a template for ensuing policy, though without necessarily framing the problem at this point. These ideas are likely to be new or different from those held in the past. They would be identified by means of an analysis of speeches and other statements made by the policy actor, as well as in policy documents. Policy entrepreneurs put these ideas into practice by defining a policy problem and using one or more problem frames to advocate for a specific policy solution that will, subsequently, if successful, achieve a change in policy. Although there may be different frames for different audiences, we expect the underlying idea(s) to remain consistent.

A second step requires the problem frames to be put to good use in the policy process. As is also true of policy entrepreneurs in the mainstream literature, policy entrepreneurs also use their personal skills and political and institutional resources to turn their ideationally informed frames into decisions. Personal skills might include determination and persistence, leadership, good communication, team-building abilities, intelligence, and commitment. We would expect to see evidence of these skills in the policy actor’s ability to mobilize support for their ideas and build a supportive consensus around them. Political and institutional resources, by contrast, might include the authority that actors bring to the task, drawing on their past experience and/or expertise and the credibility that derives from the institutional roles they hold or have held in the past. We would expect to see evidence of these resources by examining the policy entrepreneur’s career and present role and the wider institutional and situational context in which they work.

Yet even where a policy entrepreneur fulfills these criteria, holding ideas that they can use as templates, building a new problem definition, and advocating for change by using their skills and resources, this is not enough to guarantee policy change. We also need to take into consideration the wider structural context, which will either facilitate or deter successful agency. Thus, we also consider essential the existence of a policy window at the early stages of the policy process. Within our framework, this policy window is a necessary scope condition. Policy windows may arise out of changes in material conditions or shifts in the political climate. For example, a change in the zeitgeist may allow actors to turn a “condition” into a “problem” and trigger some action (Kingdon Reference Kingdon1984; Mintrom and Norman Reference Mintrom and Norman2009). Economic crises (Hall Reference Hall1993) and other focusing events (Birkland Reference Birkland1997) have high visibility and can be expected to gain public attention, provoking a response from policymakers (Zahariadis Reference Zahariadis2008). Policy windows may also be thrown open as a result of cognate policy initiatives and reforms (Aydin Reference Aydin2014). We maintain, therefore, that structural factors are crucial for enabling actors to bring to the fore specific ideas about how a problem should be understood and framed, as well as what solutions are possible. As such we also need to consider the existence or absence of policy windows when examining the conditions under which problem entrepreneurship occurs.

To apply these theoretical expectations to our case, we use a process tracing methodology that allows us to trace key decisions in this policy area from the 1970s to the mid-1980s. Process tracing links a condition with an outcome, providing a clear theorization of the causal mechanisms that connect them. Applying process tracing to the study of ideas poses a number of challenges, however; not least that it is difficult to distinguish the influence of ideas from “the material parameters of the choice situation” (Campbell Reference Campbell, Nedergaard and Campbell2008, 163). In other words, process tracing needs to show that ideas have an influence of their own, even if this influence is not completely detached from the influence of other conditions (Jacobs Reference Jacobs, Bennett and Checkel2015).

To do this, we draw on Jacobs’ (Reference Jacobs, Bennett and Checkel2015) three empirical strategies: (1) analyzing private communication; (2) expanding the temporal scope of the analysis; and (3) tracing ideational diffusions and the role of ideas carriers. First, we looked at the ideas underpinning student mobility, drawing from official European documents, the private papers of key protagonists, and confidential sources found in the Historical Archives of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Second, we used an analysis of these texts to reconstruct the narrative on EU mobility programs, stretching that narrative beyond our specific focus on the events of 1985. Third, we identified key actors and reconstructed the process through which mobility was closely tied to European competitiveness and used that data to make the empirical case for problem entrepreneurship. To detect a mechanism of influence between actors and ideas (Jacobs Reference Jacobs, Bennett and Checkel2015), we again checked the archival sources seeking evidence that decision-makers possessed particular ideas, and that those ideas shaped their choices. We identified their ideational commitment by establishing that the relevant ideas were applied to the choice we sought to explain (Jacobs Reference Jacobs, Bennett and Checkel2015).

To test our theoretical argument, we applied this methodology to the case of European student mobility. The next section provides some background to the case and sets the scene for our subsequent discussion and analysis of problem entrepreneurship and problem definition.

European mobility in the 1970s and 1980s

It was not until 1973 that education was officially recognized as an area of European cooperation. Considered a prerogative of national governments, education was framed as an exercise in cultural and social integration (Cino Pagliarello Reference Cino Pagliarello2022). After the European Commission set up an education directorate in 1973, there were some attempts to get a European-level education policy off the ground. These efforts led to the publication of the Janne Report, which included proposals for student exchanges as well as other initiatives to harmonize education across the European Community (EC) (Janne Reference Janne1973, 35). However, as education was a domestic competence, national governments rejected the proposals (Interview 1).

In 1974 Hywel Ceri Jones, a senior official working within the Commission, picked up some of the report’s recommendations in a Commission Communication, Education in the European Community (CEC, 1974). This document, which was to inform Commission policy for the rest of the 1970s, provided the basis for the European Community’s Action Program on Education (see Ministers of Education, 1976; see also Pépin, Reference Pépin2006). This in turn led to plans for more Europe-wide cooperation on higher education. Specifically, it sought to put in place a framework for short study visits for teaching, administrative staff, and researchers in the higher education sector. However, it excluded any reference to harmonization as this was still opposed by certain Member States, including the UK and Denmark (Interview 1). It culminated in a modest initiative on Joint Study Programmes, which comprised a system of grants enabling students and teaching staff to fund short visits. The aim of these visits was to encourage the comparative study of European higher education systems (Corbett, Reference Corbett2005, 97) and to facilitate the transfer of European funds to higher education institutions, which would allow them to plan and organize mobility exchanges (Corradi Reference Corradi2015, 62).

The Joint Study Programmes were of limited ambition and had very narrow participation. Between 1976 and 1985 only 586 grants were cofinanced by the European Commission (Neave Reference Neave1984; Corradi Reference Corradi2015). Moreover, the scheme had no formal budget and no legal basis (Pépin Reference Pépin2006). The European Commission had no ownership of the programs and no capacity to develop any strategy around them. Even where the Commission might have had a role to play, Member States were reluctant to allow it to take control. For example, meetings of an Educational Committee representing the ten Member States and the Commission, which should have coordinated and overseen the implementation of policy, were canceled in both 1978 and 1979. These decisions came at the request of France and Denmark, who were strongly opposed to what they considered to be supranational interference in matters of education (Beukel Reference Beukel1994; Corbett Reference Corbett2005, 97–106).

The European Commissioner for Education at the time, Ralf Dahrendorf, did not push the issue but rather acknowledged that while education had “to promote the process of EU integration, for instance by […] promoting initiatives for cooperation between institutions from different member countries,” it was clear that “the Community can make only a very limited contribution partly because the Community is not necessarily the appropriate political framework” (Dahrendorf Reference Dahrendorf1973, see also Corbett Reference Corbett2005, 81 on this point). Ivor Richard, Commissioner for Education between 1981 and the end of 1984, reflected a similar sentiment when he declared that: “[w]e have to work rather gradually, bearing in mind that we do not have a strong base for community educational activity in the Treaty” (Richard Reference Richard1981, 7). Thus, although the Joint Study Programmes were an attempt at cooperation in European education, they also revealed the difficulty of undertaking initiatives in this sensitive policy area.

All this would change in the mid-1980s. Over the course of the early 1980s, emphasis on the social contribution of education was gradually replaced by a discourse highlighting the economic benefits that a European-level education policy might bring (Fogg and Jones Reference Fogg and Jones1985; Brown and Lauder Reference Brown and Lauder2001). This reflected the growing influence of neoliberal ideas in Europe, particularly prevalent in the UK, but also taking hold in Ireland and elsewhere in the EC. National politicians and officials working in the EC were effective carriers of those ideas. Although its President, Jacques Delors, preferred to talk of a “Social Europe” rather than of neoliberalism, it was in this context that he proposed and saw accepted the Single Market agenda in 1985–1986 (Schmidt Reference Schmidt2008; Schmidt and Thatcher Reference Schmidt and Thatcher2013).

In the previous decade, political and economic indices showed the EC to be lagging behind the USA and East Asia (Brown and Lauder Reference Brown and Lauder2001, 120–1). A preoccupation with the competitive threat posed by Europe’s global competitors made Member States more receptive to educational agendas that sought to achieve economic competitiveness via investment in human capital, skills, and lifelong learning (Leclerq and Rault Reference Leclercq and Rault1990, 12). With unemployment rates continuing to rise, the argument frequently heard in the elite discourse was that technological change required training for workers to take a different, more flexible form (Fogg and Jones Reference Fogg and Jones1985; Brown and Lauder Reference Brown and Lauder2001). For European businesses to compete, workers would need to be able to access employment opportunities across the European continent. This would only be possible if workers’ educational credentials were recognized across the EC; if they had experience of living abroad; and had a knowledge of foreign languages. Numerous reports at the time pointed to the importance of nonphysical investment – human capital – on the assumption that investment in knowledge was the main driver of a country’s growth (Leclerq and Rault Reference Leclercq and Rault1990, 12). Thus, as an important element in what eventually formed the EC’s free movement agenda, education came to be seen as a vital instrument for economic development (Jones Reference Jones1987, 3).

Within this context, the promotion of student mobility was part of the Single Market project. Advocating freedom of movement became one of the most important educational objectives for the Community, concluding with several recommendations for intensifying the EC’s approach (Council of the European Communities 1983; European Parliament 1984). It was not until 1985, however, that these ideas produced policy effects. The Comett programme was based on a communication produced in April 1985, which aimed to strengthen cooperation between universities and industry across the EC, launching in the process a seven-year mobility program (European Commission 1985). In strengthening cooperation between the higher education sector and industry, Comett was designed to allow Europe to be better able to respond to the challenges posed by technological and social change. It included a focus on the initial training of undergraduate and graduate students and, as one of several initiatives, proposed the introduction of student mobility programs. The Comett programme was approved by the Council of Ministers on 5 December 1985. In the space of less than a year, the Commission had managed to establish a student mobility program that had its own budget, a legal basis in the Treaty, and, in contrast to the earlier Joint Study Programmes, the opportunity for the European Commission to issue its own guidelines, and thereby develop a strategic purpose for the program (Corbett Reference Corbett2005, 97). What accounts for this change? Why were student mobility programs that had been rejected in the 1970s accepted in 1985 over the course of few months? We answer this question by examining the role played in the policy process by the Commissioner for Education, Peter Sutherland.

Peter Sutherland as policy entrepreneur

Peter Sutherland was an Irish businessman and lawyer (barrister) who had previously held the senior position of attorney-general. He was affiliated to Fine Gael, the Irish liberal-conservative party, and was a fervent pro-European who, in the early 1970s, had taken an active part in the campaign to promote Ireland’s membership of the EC (Sutherland Reference Sutherland and Laffan2011, 4). On 6 January 1985, he was appointed by Commission President, Jacques Delors, to the post of Commissioner for Competition. To cover a gap until the Spanish accession took place the following year, Sutherland also agreed to take temporary charge of the Directorate-General (DG) responsible for Social Affairs, Employment, Education, Training and Youth (Sutherland Reference Sutherland and Laffan2011, 4).

From the outset, Sutherland’s thinking on student mobility was embedded in new ideas on education and competitiveness. These ideas were nested within a broader set of neoliberal ideas that predated his arrival in the European Commission, but which were very quickly applied to education policy. They were thus in line with his liberal political stance in embracing a “market dynamics theory of economic development” and his belief in “the gradual increase in the powers of the European Union” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland and Laffan2011, 7). As he stated: “I was convinced at an early stage that there was a legal basis in the Treaty of Rome for action in the field of education although a number of Member States were opposed to any commission initiatives” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland and Laffan2011). Indeed, in his first appearance as Commissioner for Education, Sutherland stated that “we must transform – together – our whole approach to education” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985a). This was not only a reference to the economic rationale for education policy but was also an argument for a more Europeanized approach. Thus, in contrast to the skepticism and cautious attitudes of former Education Commissioners, Sutherland approached education policy differently, arguing that there was room for the Commission to become more involved (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985a). Although aware of the difficulty in undertaking initiatives in the sensitive policy area of education, Sutherland was from the outset determined to push for further European cooperation in this area.

As early as January 1985, Sutherland told a meeting with social partners that: “We are all of us in this room fully committed to the reemergence of Europe as a major first-class industrial power” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985b). In line with his vision of the economic purpose of education, he saw student mobility as “an Italian student training in France and becoming familiar with French products and technical standards, establishing strong friendly ties with French engineers or researchers and developing the habit of thinking European first and not American or Japanese before making economic decisions” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985c). As he put it: “Education, for me, is about the development of basic human resources, which we all know is the Community’s most valuable natural asset, and upon which depend all other Community policies” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985d). Within his vision, the lack of university-industry cooperation and the lack of student mobility were considered the main weaknesses of European education systems (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985e). In other words, the promotion of a European dimension in education was strongly linked to the development of human resources required by European companies.

Sutherland was able to transform these ideas about higher education and student mobility and their relationship to the economy into policy practice by virtue of the personal skills and the political and institutional resources he had at his disposal as Commissioner for Education (and Competition). He knew that his oversight of education policy was likely to be short-lived, and that he had limited time to make his mark. In recalling the events that led to the program’s approval, one of the members of his personal office (cabinet), Hywel Ceri Jones, defined Sutherland as “a man who had the fire in his belly” (Interview 1), while another cabinet member, André Kirchberger, remembers him as “creative, ingenious, and courageous” (Interview 2). He applied his personal skills to getting a deal done quickly.

Sutherland’s dual role as Commissioner for Education and Competition gave him privileged access to multiple political venues as well as credibility when talking about the importance of education for Europe’s competitiveness (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985f). Sutherland was aware of this, and frequently underlined his dual mandate; for instance, he would often start with education and then later switch the discourse toward economic concerns by saying: “let me now put on my competition hat” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985d, 5), implying a connection between and consistency across these two ostensibly very different policy areas.

In translating his ideas into policy practice, Sutherland also sought to build a strong and like-minded team around him. He relied on a small but capable group of experts. Two of his cabinet members, Hywel Ceri Jones and André Kirchberger, were instrumental in drafting the background proposals for the Comett programme during the early phase of work between January and March 1985. Michel Richonnier, Sutherland’s chief of cabinet, was also an extremely important actor, particularly during the negotiation phase. He was especially instrumental in pushing for an expanded budget for the initiative (Interviews 1 and 2). As well as working in the same DG for the same ends, the cabinet members also had shared interests, namely being enthusiastic rugby players and supporters (Interviews 1 and 2). The Sutherland cabinet was, therefore, characterized by capable individuals “who [got] along well […] and by being well connected […] [were] […] more likely to achieve their policy goals” (Mintrom Reference Mintrom2019, 312).

In contrast to previous Education Commissioners, Sutherland also went out of his way to attend meetings with the social partners (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985b), with the aim of building consensus around his proposals. He worked extremely hard to mobilize support for this new agenda in April and May 1985 by initiating consultations with advisory bodies, groups of experts, and interest groups, such as the European Round Table of Industrialists, Ministers of the Member States, the social partners, the Advisory Committee for Vocational Training, universities, the European Parliament, Chambers of Commerce of several Member States, and the European Students’ Association (Interview 1; Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985e; Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985f). The recourse to a narrative presenting Comett as a way of strengthening cooperation within the Community, enabling Europe to keep pace with Japan and the USA in the area of industrial innovation, and the framing of student mobility as a tool to foster European integration, was instrumental in rallying wide support for the Comett proposal. For instance, in his speech to the European Students’ Association in April 1985, Sutherland claimed that the Comett programme would “promote a strong European identity among students who are the decision makers of tomorrow in their economic and social fields” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985c, 1); whereas in his address to the Advisory Committee on vocational training in May 1985, Comett was framed as an initiative to help workers to update their skills (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985g, 2). To the Liaison Committee of Rectors, representing university leaders, the program was presented in terms of the benefits arising from the setting up of joint training packages across Member States (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985g). In other words, Sutherland was able to frame the issue of students’ mobility and cooperation with industry differently depending on the audiences he was addressing by binding together different objectives and instruments related to mobility.

Putting his ideas into practice would take both personal skills and political and institutional resources. These skills and resources were especially important in the latter stages of the legislative process when Sutherland was trying to get his version of the Comett initiative accepted by the Council. While the proposal had had a relatively smooth passage through the first Council meeting in July (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985h), it came under greater scrutiny at the October Council and in the weeks that followed. At this point there was intense debate and strong resistance to the legal basis for the legislation, the role of the advisory committee that would issue guidelines on the program, and the scale of the program’s budget (Interviews 1 and 2).

Regarding the legal basis, Sutherland had argued that the Comett programme should be approved under Article 128 of the EEC Treaty, which required only a qualified majority vote. However, several Member States were opposed to this suggestion. In an internal Commission note, Michel Richonnier noted that Denmark, Belgium, the UK, and West Germany all wanted to see the program decided under Article 235, which required unanimity on the part of the Member States. While the Council ultimately rejected the Commission’s insistence on the use of Article 128 at a meeting on 3 December 1985 (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985g; Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985i), the impact of this decision was diminished as the Council, having won this important argument, then agreed that the Commission could provide guidelines on the priority themes for the program. In the words of Sutherland: “For the first time, as far as I know, the Council agreed to yield some of its political power concerning the selection of guidelines to a committee in which the Commission has fantastic power, since it can be opposed only with qualified majority” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985g, para 2). This meant that the European Commission was now empowered to manage the program, with much greater discretion than in the past. Finally, while the principle of having a European budget had been accepted by the Council, some Member States challenged its scale. After some to-ing and fro-ing, Sutherland was able to negotiate a compromise, which meant that while the budget was subsequently reduced, it remained substantial. One of the witnesses to the budget negotiation, André Kirchberger, stated that it was “the voluntarism, if not the audacity” of Peter Sutherland that resulted in the Commission agreeing to an “estimated amount of 85 million ECU, almost 15 times the annual budget for all the activities of DGV” (Kirchberger, quoted in Pépin et al. Reference Pépin2006, 133; Interview 2). This was a remarkable achievement.

While there is ample evidence of Sutherland’s commitment to a package of ideas, and use of personal skills and political and institutional resources to see those ideas translated into policy, Sutherland himself acknowledged that the approval of the Comett programme would not have been possible without the SMP, which was launched in 1985 by Commission President, Jacques Delors. The SMP sought to create an integrated European market based on the four freedoms (of goods, services, capital, and labor) by the end of 1992. The buzz around this initiative meant that Sutherland’s educational plans were proposed in an “atmosphere of optimism and creativity supported by the Delors project” (Interview 1), as well as in a more “general atmosphere of moving ahead” (Interview 2). As Sutherland had declared to the European Parliament in April 1985: “I am convinced that the moment is now ripe since we have a rather fortunate juxtaposition of circumstances” (Sutherland Reference Sutherland1985d, 2). He went on to say that:

Sutherland’s ideas about education are, therefore, situated within a broader set of ideas and policies on the Single Market. While this section demonstrates how Peter Sutherland was instrumental in drawing on his personal skills and political and institutional resources to push through a policy based on a novel set of ideas, it is also important to recognize that this was unlikely to have happened without the emergence of a policy window that allowed for those ideas to take hold.

To sum up, we can convincingly describe Peter Sutherland as not only a policy entrepreneur, in the classical sense, drawing on his skills and resources to promote a specific policy solution, used to solve a problem, externally generated, but as a policy entrepreneur who was able to use his ideas to redefine the problem to which mobility was a solution, and to mobilize support and build consensus in favor of policy change. The Single European Market policy window was a necessary condition for the success of Peter Sutherland’s efforts at problem definition; without the Single Market initiative, he would not have been successful. That said, however, it was through the agency of Sutherland himself, via a form of policy leadership that was very much grounded in an underpinning set of ideas, that the Comett programme came into being at the end of 1985.