The trials & tribulations of Ken Mathers, policy entrepreneur

ABSTRACT Ken Mathers, long-time roads bureaucrat in the Victoria Public Service, has been a uniquely influential figure on the state’s transport scene since the late 1990s. His projects have dominated the agenda, sometimes against the initial misgivings of the governments he served. This article argues we can explain Mathers’ influence in terms of policy entrepreneurship. It will show that, contrary to the dominant view in recent scholarship, transport policymaking in Victoria is sufficiently messy that an entrepreneur like Mathers could shift the agenda to get his projects up, looking in particular detail at the case of the now-infamous East-West Link. Finally, examining the failure of East–West, it will suggest some doubts about whether we can really expect entrepreneurs to wrangle all the relevant political actors, and whether they are in fact as central to policy change as the theory leads us to think.