Audience: Policymakers

This study aims to define “political will” (as a concept) in a more useful way. The proposed definition is made up of four components: Political will is (A) a sufficient set of decision-makers with (B) a common understanding of a particular problem on the formal agenda (C) who are committed to supporting (D) a commonly perceived, potentially effective policy solution. The authors argue that this understanding of all four components allows for a clearer diagnosis of which element(s) of political will are most lacking when performing political strategy analysis—and therefore which element(s) should be most targeted in an attempt to make political progress on an issue.