LECTURE 7 - Agenda setting
1) What is agenda setting?
Looking for definitions
- K&T: ‘Put simply, this stage is about getting an issue on the agenda’
- Birkland (not in readings): ‘(...) the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain
or lose public and elite attention’
- Alternative solutions => All kind of solutions
- Many different kind of actors
- When are things made public?
- A process in which public interest is being defined
- Gain or lose => Lose: people forgetting (?)
- Elite attention: political elite, leaders in communities
- Can reoccur, even at implementation level
What is an agenda?
- Birkland (not in readings): ‘An agenda is a collection of problems, understandings of causes,
symbols, solutions, and other elements of public problems that come to the attention of
members of the public and their government officials’
- Problems = core element
- Governmental and non-governmental actors => (members of public)
- Agenda changes, adapts, develops
Four types of agenda’s - Phases/level (in literature, it says types of agendas)
- Agenda universe - Diffuse/abstract concept (most abstract level)
- All matters possibly up for discussion
- Systemic agenda
- Problems worthy of public attention (KT: all societal matters that demand public
attention)
- When it moves from the agenda universe to discussion in parliament (“Discussion
agenda”)
- If stays too long on systemic agenda => might fade
- Still lacks precise definition
- Institutional agenda
- Problems up for spending time and resources
- Debate has transpired and legislation is considered
- KT:
- Problems up for serious consideration by decision-makers
- Hardly recognised by public => Because often detailed/technical knowledge
is required
- Decision agenda - Most concrete and tangible
- Problems that will be acted upon
- Hardest agenda to reach
- KT:
, - Will only reach decision-agenda if problem reaches multiple institutional
agendas
- When government has agreed a draft proposal
- Putting issue on agenda of responsible decision-making problem
- E.g. lowering speed limit
=> Why does it take so long for something to become a decision?: Has to move up the levels.
=> Moving up = competition between various commons problems (higher the level, tougher the
competition)
Getting on the right agenda
- Moving up the agenda is competition between potential public interests
- The higher you get, the more competition between interest groups, NGOs, SMOs,…
- Core executive system (centralised, unitary system, e.g. NL): small time window (to influence
agenda, in particular to influence decision agenda) (because: often coalition agreement (once
in 4 years)
- Federal system such as U.S.: more opportunities
=> Getting on the agenda: depends on polity and how they differ
2) The how and why of agenda-setting
The how of agenda-setting - theoretical models
- Outside initiative model
- Bottom up: NGOs, SMOs (or private firms) putting things on agenda
- Women’s rights through #MeToo
- KT:
- Dynamics of public attention
- Pressuring decision makers to place issue on institutional agenda
- Mobilization model
- Top down: politicians move topic between agenda’s (politicians ideas) => Mobilising
citizens on these ideas (thus voters influence agenda)
- Example: Aids (was not on agenda): Doctors observing, talking to politicians (not
large awareness in public) => Politicians convinced of the public problem => THEN
awareness (mobilising society through politicians/government)
- KT:
- Moving issue from systemic to institutional agenda
- Public may have little knowledge of the issue
- Inside access model
- Top down: focus on stakeholders, discussion only in small circles (behind closed
doors?)
- Focus on stakeholders and how they can control problems
- Not always too important to public
- What should people know? Nanotechnology in phones (toxic?).
- Example: accountability hospitals
- KT:
- Seeking to exclude public participation
- “private” decisions inside government
Three dimensions of power
- Dahl:
, - A has power over B to the extent that she or he can have B do something that B
would not otherwise do
- Barach & Baratz:
- A creates or reinforces social and political values and institutional practices that limit
the scope for B to raise issues that would be detrimental to A's preferences
- What can you express/articulate
- Lukes:
- A also has power over B by influencing, shaping and determining his or her desires
through control over information, mass media, and socialization processes
The why of agenda-setting
- K&T: three perspectives
- Power distribution perspective - Interest in direct and indirect exercise of power
- First dimension: pressure on government through lobbying, protest and media
attention (example given of Kim Kardashian on black facing in the
Netherlands => Big influence, big power)
- Second dimension: how topics are kept off the agenda, banning certain issues
from the agenda
- Institution based perspective - Interest in history of policy determine slow process
(relate to incremental perspective)
- Punctuated equilibrium => theory that reiterates this theory: only slow change
in policy making, minimal changes, only limited changes to agenda setting.
Policy stability and change is determined by policy venues and policy images
- Policy venues: institutional arena
- Policy images: shared views of policy communities concerning given
public problem
- => Policy stability and change is determined by the institutional
structure and the views of the policy community.
- How organisational structures + formal rules limit access to institutional or
decision agenda
- Contingency perspective
- Assumes the Garbage can model
- KT: Only put on agenda if issue and pre-existing solutions can be
coupled
- ^ Affected by independent streams of problems and
proposals + politics streams
- When streams of: politics + policy + problems come together
at critical time => Policy window opens
- Not strategic but contingent (subject to change) phenomenon
- All kinds of things can influence agenda-setting
Læs KT
3) Problem definitions and different actors
Constructivism and problems
- Policy making as deeply political
- Not one truth, fact or proof
- Multiple visions of reality (about same facts, proof i.e.)
