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John W. Kingdon Quotes

John Wells Kingdon is Professor Emeritus and was Acting Chair of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is a graduate of Oberlin College and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was a Guggenheim fellow. He resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Behavioral Studies at Stanford. He served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan and as President of the Midwest Political Science Association, and has often been a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution. Wikipedia  

✵ 1940
John W. Kingdon: 22 quotes0 likes

Famous John W. Kingdon Quotes

“Participants perceive swings in national mood, elections bring new administrations to power and new partisan or ideological distributions to Congress, and interest groups of various descriptions press (or fail to press) their demands on government.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 9, Wrapping Things Up, p. 196

“Public opinion may sometimes direct government to do something, but it more often constrains government from doing something.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 3, Outside Government, But Not Just Looking In, p. 65

“We still encounter considerable doses of messiness, accident, fortuitous coupling, and dumb luck.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 9, Wrapping Things Up, p. 206

“The mere fact of being behind in "the greatest country on earth" is enough to constitute a problem for some people.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 5, Problems, p. 111

“Setting the agenda and getting one's way, however, are two very different things.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 2, Participants on the Inside of Government, p. 23

“Ideas come from anywhere, actually, and the critical factor that explains the prominence of an item on the agenda is not its source, but instead the climate in government or the receptivity to ideas of a given type, regardless of source.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 4, Processes: Origins, Rationality, Incrementalism, and Garbage Cans, p. 72

John W. Kingdon Quotes about people

“The agenda, as I conceive of it, is the list of subjects or problems to which government officials, and people outside of government closely associated with those officials, are paying some serious attention at any given time.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 1, How Does an Idea's Time Come?, p. 3

“People in and around government sense a national mood.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 7, The Political Stream, p. 146

“People are sometimes reluctant to take big steps. Apprehensive about being unable to calculate the political fallout, politicians shy away from grand departures.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 4, Processes: Origins, Rationality, Incrementalism, and Garbage Cans, p. 80

John W. Kingdon Quotes

“A good idea catches on, snowballing as it picks up adherents. Sometimes a bad idea does the same.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 7, The Political Stream, p. 161

“The phrase "an idea whose time has come" captures a fundamental reality about an irresistible movement that sweeps over the politics and our society, pushing aside everything that might stand in its path.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 1, How Does an Idea's Time Come?, p. 1

“It seemed to me that we knew something about how issues were decided, but that we knew much less about how they got to be issues in the first place.”

John W. Kingdon

Preface To The First Edition, p. xvii
Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition)

“There is nothing automatic about campaign pledges finding their way into public policy.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 3, Outside Government, But Not Just Looking In, p. 63

“Consensus is built, sometimes very rapidly, by cutting in many and diverse interests.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 7, The Political Stream, p. 161

“Flowing along independently of the problems and policy streams is the political stream, composed of such things as public mood, pressure group campaigns, election results, partisan or ideological distributions in Congress, and changes of administration.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 7, The Political Stream, p. 145

“Ideas become prominent and then fade.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 6, The Policy Primeval Soup, p. 117

“Somehow, open heart surgery means more to most of us then the Alton, Illinois, Lock and Dam 26.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 5, Problems, p. 95

“One goal of a senator or representative is satisfying constituents. Publicity is essential, and one way to get publicity is to push for new policy initiatives.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 2, Participants on the Inside of Government, p. 38

“The chances for a problem to rise on the decision agenda are dramatically increased if a solution is attached.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 6, The Policy Primeval Soup, p. 143

“The opportunity passes if the ready alternative is not available.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 8, The Policy Window, and Joining the Streams, p. 170

“Public policy changes in very large leaps, as in the New Deal of the 1930's, the Great Society of the mid-1960's, and the Reagan revolution of 1981. These spasms of reform are interspersed with periods of rest and stasis, as if the participants are exhausted from their exertion and catching their breath. But in any event, this does not look like Darwinian, gradualistic evolution.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 10, Some Further Reflections, p. 226

“A fair body of scholarship has come to challenge the view that elected officials reign supreme.”

John W. Kingdon

Source: Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies - (Second Edition), Chapter 2, Participants on the Inside of Government, p. 43

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