Why do some solutions become serious policy contenders while others simply fade away? Utilizing the Multiple Streams Framework (MSF), in this chapter I unpack the concept of ‘value acceptability’ and explore the politics of what Kingdon (1995) calls the ‘process of alternative specification’. I focus on and reconceptualize value acceptability – defined as congruence around principles or qualities of collective action with intrinsic importance – as building discursive coalitions (Hajer 1993). Each solution is supported by a coalition of actors built around a relative convergence of preferences, values, and frames. Policy values are differentiated from political values (Stewart 2009, p 14). The latter underpin the design of governments and change slowly, if any, for example freedom or equality, while the former permeate specific governance measures and may change frequently, such as zero-tolerance policy as a form of being tough on crime. Frames are highlighted selections of aspects of perceived experience to create meaning and structure social reality (Entman 1993). Hence, the crafting of solutions not only creates meaning ‘in action’ but also brings together disparate actors in a single ‘package’ replete with interpretations of the past, expediencies of the present, and estimates of the future. I examine how that process works and argue that four factors make solutions likely contenders for serious consideration and final adoption: side payments, institutional rule manipulation, short time horizons, and advocacy/ framing. Political coalitions are forged around each solution by policy entrepreneurs, who mainly (but not exclusively) take part in the process through argumentation, partly the result of political conflict and partly the consequence of discursive meaning contestation.

The argument informs MSA by adding a dynamic element to the process of generating policy solutions (ideas or alternatives; I use the terms interchangeably), but it also goes beyond it by adding elements of pragmatic constructivism. It stresses the importance of agency and context in policy formulation. Policy actors deliberate over ideas to craft solutions in particular contexts. Meaning and symbols are integral parts of the process, transmitted through language and argumentation (Fischer 2003). Solutions contain politically constructed packages of meaning, preferences, and consequences through shared but often ambiguous contemporaneous understandings of political assumptions.