Barbara Nelson: The process of agenda setting is “public officials learn about new problem, decide to give them their personal attention, and mobilize their organizations and respond to them.”

1. Politics and Policy Process:
Agenda Setting
Kan Yuenyong: September 14, 2020.
DA8020 Policy Studies and Analysis.
GSPA/NIDA

2. Public Policy: An Evaluationary Approach
by
Joseph Stewart, JR.; David M. Hedge; James
P. Lester
Agenda Setting: Chapter 5, PP. 67-87.

3. The Policy Cycle

4. The Evolution of Policy Studies, 1950 - 2000

5. Contrasting Positivist and Naturalist Axioms
Axioms About Positivist Paradigm
Naturalist Paradigm
(Post-positivist Paradigm)
The nature of reality
Reality is single, tangible,
and fragmentable
Realities are multiple,
constructed, and holistic
The relationship of knower
and the known
Knower and known are
independent, a dualism
Knower and known are
interactive, inseparable
The possibility of
generalization
TIme- and context-free
generalizations (nomothetic
statements are possible)
Only time- and context-
bound working hypotheses
(idiographic statements) are
possible
The possibility of causal
linkages
There are real causes,
temporally precedent to
or simultaneous with their
effects
All entities are in a state o
mutual simultaneous shaping,
so that it is impossible to
distinguish cause and effects
The role of values Inquiry is value-free Inquiry is value-bound

6. Conditions to filter agenda that will be proceeded to policy formation
• Why are some issues more likely to get onto the agenda than others?
• It has reached crisis proportions and can no longer be ignored
• It has achieved particularity, in which the issue exemplifies and dramatizes a larger issue,
such as ozone depletion an global warming
• It has emotive aspect, or attracts media attention because of a “human interest angle”
• It has wide impact
• It raises questions about power and legitimacy in society
• It is fashionable

7. Definition of “agenda setting”
• Cobb and Elder: “a set of political controversies that will be viewed as falling within
the range of legitimate concerns meriting the attention of the polity; a set of items
schedule for active and serious attention by a decision-making body.”
• John Kingdon: “the list of subjects or problems to which government officials … are
paying some serious attention at any given time”.
• Baumgartner and Jones: To distinguish between “Policy images” vs “Policy venues”
• Barbara Nelson: The process of agenda setting is “public officials learn about new
problem, decide to give them their personal attention, and mobilize their
organizations and respond to them.”

8. Types of Agendas
• Systemic Agenda (Popular agenda): (subjected to action / by government)
include the universe of issues that might be considered for governmental
action, (considered by mass public or professional class)
• Institutional Agenda (Public agenda): those sets of issues explicitly up for active
and serious consideration by decision-making bodies, such as the legislative
calendar or the court docker.

9. Types of Issues
• Subject issues: i.e air pollution, water pollution
• Project issues: newly emergent event/idea
• Cyclical issues: i.e. annual budget
• Recurrent issues: reemerge because of the seeming failure of previous policy
choice, i.e. health care issues.

10. Process of agenda
• Issue recognition (the problem must be important enough)
• Issue adoption (conditions: shared perception and possible solution)
• Issue prioritization
• Issue maintenance
• (Defined by Babara Nelson)

11. The Agenda Setting Process: A Model
Antecedent
Variables
Nascent
perceptions of
policy problems,
ideas and reforms
Independent
Variables
Factors that
constrain or
engender the
development of
policy ideas
Intervening
Variables
Conditions that
enable developed
ideas to enter the
agenda
Dependent
Variables
Point when an idea
becomes a
proposed law
Problem Stream
• Indicator change
• Focusing events (crises)
• Feedback
• Budget constraints
• Problem definition
Societal
Predispositions
• Sociocultural beliefs
• Constitutional Structures
Policy Stream
• Technical feasibility
• Value congruence
• Technology
• Public acceptance
• Fads or knowledge
Intervening
Variables
• Policy windows
• Policy entrepreneurs
• Spill overs
Agenda Setting
Political Stream
• National mood
• Public opinion
• Electoral politics
• Regime change
• Jurisdictional authority
• Interest groups
• Consensus building

12. The Elitist Model
Elite
Political Understructure
Ordinary Citizens
PolicyOutcomes
FlowofPower

13. The Pluralist Model
Economic
Groups
Civic
Groups
Government
Groups
T1
T2
T3
T4 A’ = Policy is a result of Bargaining /
Compromise among groups
A B C D E F
A B C D E F
A B C D E F

14. The Subgovernment Model
Senators Representatives
Staffers
Political Appointees
Career Officials
Corporate representatives
Professional Representatives
Congressional Apex
Administrative ApexSpecial Interest Apex
The Iron
Triangle Players

15. Examples: Taksinomics vs Drafting of a new constitution
• The problem stream: How problems come to be recognized? How conditions
come to be defined as a problem?
• The policy stream: Bill introduction, speeches, testimony, papers, and
conversation.
• The political stream: Swing of national mood, administrative or legislative
turnover, and interesting-group pressure.

16. Q/A?
END