Centering Critical Race Theory in Policy Design: A Reframing of Multiple Streams Framework

ABSTRACT Recognition of social and racial equity in policy outcomes has garnered increasing attention in policy studies. However, limited scholarship examines how these outcomes can inform policy design itself. By reviewing racial disparities in policy outcomes, this paper contends that such disparities persist partly because race and the social construction of race have received limited attention within mainstream approaches to policy design. This paper argues that the use of mainstream policy process theories, such as the Multiple Streams Framework, can inadvertently contribute to racial disparities through a reliance on race‐neutral, scientifically framed methodologies that marginalize race as a meaningful factor. The absence of race consciousness and inadequate attention to social structures have delayed the development of an equitable policy environment. This paper presents a critical and theoretical approach that draws on Critical Race Theory to reexamine how race is conceptualized, or omitted, in dominant policy process theories. Rather than critiquing MSF, this paper uses it as an illustrative case to show how race‐conscious perspectives can clarify how agenda‐setting, as an upstream process, shapes the foundations of policy design. It demonstrates how applying CRT to MSF can surface racialized assumptions in agenda‐setting that shape policy design outcomes.