The Garbage Can Model & the Study of Policy Making: A Critique

John Kingdon adapted the "garbage can model" of organizational choice to explain the agenda-setting process in the making of public policy. While this use of the model has many virtues, this article argues that it is ultimately too indeterminate to provide fully satisfactory explanations for why some problems receive serious consideration by government while others do not. Using tax reform and deregulation as illustrative cases, the author points to several sources of the model's indeterminacy and suggests how these problems can be overcome while preserving the strengths of the model.