According to the famous “garbage can” model of political decision-making, there isn’t much rationality in politics. Minted in the 1970s, this model resists the idea that collective choices are the outcome of political professionals intentionally looking for optimal solutions for well-defined problems. Rather, it casts these choices as the result of contests between different elite factions who try to convince citizens — and each other — that their preferred “solution” can at least beat their competitors in answering whatever issue presents itself.

Half a century later, this model still explains many striking and long-enduring political phenomena.

First, that policies never disappear but reappear again and again, zombie-like — or, to stick to the metaphor, reappear as if spewed out by an overfull garbage can. Second, that policies can constantly be adapted to changing political winds by being relabeled and rehashed. Third, at the end of the day, nothing ever seems to be solved at all. Ultimately, the success of an elite faction in peddling its preferred “solution” depends not on it actually solving anything but on its being able to endlessly identify problems that it can at least claim to do something about.