Conditional Nature of Policy as a Stabilizing Force: Erin’s Law and Teacher Child Abuse Reporting Practices

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Joel Vallett,Luke Fowler
• DOI: 10.1177/0095399720976534
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399720976534

Administration & Society

2021, Vol. 53(6) 937 –962

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0095399720976534

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Article

Conditional Nature of

Policy as a Stabilizing

Force: Erin’s Law and

Teacher Child Abuse

Reporting Practices

Luke Fowler1 and Joel Vallett2

Abstract

This article uses Erin’s Law, a law establishing consistent teacher reporting

practices for child abuse, to test the multiple streams framework (MSF)

implementation hypothesis in a policy area where inconsistent state-

level policies have been the norm. Findings indicate that Erin’s Law has a

conditional impact on teacher reporting that are dependent on problems

and politics streams. While the conditional relationship between the

streams in affecting implementer behavior is consistent with previous tests

of the MSF implementation hypothesis, findings indicate that this conditional

relationship manifests differently when the intended goals of new policies

are to establish a consistent norm for administrative behavior.

Keywords

multiple streams, child abuse, policy implementation

Although originally developed to explain agenda-setting, multiple streams

framework (MSF) has since expanded to account for the dynamics of policy

1Boise State University, ID, USA

2Southern Utah University, Cedar City, USA

Corresponding Author:

Luke Fowler, Associate Professor & MPA Director, School of Public Service, Boise State

University, MS 1935, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725, USA.

Email: lukefowler@boisestate.edu

976534AASXXX10.1177/0095399720976534Administration & SocietyFowler and Vallett

research-article2021

938 Administration & Society 53(6)

adoption (Herweg et al., 2018). More recently, scholars have applied MSF to

policy implementation and developed a model that includes both policy

adoptions and implementation as nested processes (Fowler, 2019, 2020;

Howlett et al., 2015; Zahariadis & Exadaktylos, 2016). Proponents argue that

this begins to address a key gap in the MSF literature by conceptualizing both

how collective choices are made and how those choices lead to collective

actions, which better positions MSF to provide guidance on democratic gov-

ernance (Fowler, 2020). Despite advances, one area in need of further theo-

retical development and empirical testing concerns how new policy adoptions

affect implementer behavior, where either policy was nonexistent or a patch-

work of policies create inconsistencies across time or venues. Developing

theory in this area provides important insights into how status quos are estab-

lished in administrative decision-making and how new policies challenge

those status quos. In practical terms, this also sheds light on why policies do

not always have the impact intended, and how bureaucrats respond to varying

political and problem conditions.

As such, we seek to further this line of inquiry by asking the following: Is

there a conditional relationship by which new policies affect implementer

behavior? To do so, we first provide background on MSF and review litera-

ture on its application to policy implementation. Then, we discuss Erin’s

Law, a novel law that has spread across U.S. states over the last several years

meant to create consistency in child abuse reporting practices by teachers, as

a test of the MSF implementation hypothesis in a policy area where inconsis-

tent state-level policies have been the norm for several decades. We use a

pooled dataset of states between 2011 and 2015 to examine teacher reporting

rates. Findings indicate that Erin’s Law has a conditional impact on teacher

reporting practices that are dependent on problems and politics streams.

While the conditional relationship between streams in affecting implementer

behavior is consistent with previous tests of the MSF implementation hypoth-

esis, our findings indicate that this conditional relationship manifests differ-

ently when the intended goal of new policies is to establish a consistent norm

for administrator behavior where one may have not existed previously.

Finally, we discuss how these findings link with other developments in this

area of MSF scholarship.

MSF

The foundation of MSF is that policy processes are steeped in ambiguity as

different ways of thinking about similar circumstances compete among deci-

sion-makers as they choose what to do and how to do it. Ambiguity tends to

arise from fluid participation in policy communities, problematic preferences