From controversial policy idea to successful program implementation: the role of the policy entrepreneur, manipulation strategy, program design, institutions and open policy windows in relocating Norwegian central agencies.

This is a diachronic comparative case study of three successive efforts by Norwegian governments over several decades to move central agencies in Oslo, Norway, to other locations outside the capital region. The key research question is how to explain the unexpected success of the latest governmental relocation program of the 2000s, in view of two previous spectacularly dismal efforts. How was it possible to realize this highly contested policy program against apparently quite adverse odds? We use a modified extended version of the MS framework through three full policy cycles to demonstrate how a remarkably audacious policy entrepreneur in cabinet position employed manipulation strategies within an open policy window to fashion a legislative optimal policy program design by organizing adversely affected stakeholders out of the policy formulation process, thus ensuring its adoption and implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]