John W. Kingdon Quotes

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

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

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.

Ideas become prominent and then fade.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The opportunity passes if the ready alternative is not available.

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.

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

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.

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