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Agenda Settting, Public Policy in
Agenda Settting, Public Policy in Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Abstract It is not until recent decades that an extensive empirical research tradition has emerged in relation to policy agenda-setting. The starting point for this research has been the agenda-setting models of Kingdon as well as Baumgartner and Jones. The concepts and ideas of these two models have led to empirical investigations of many aspects of policy agenda-setting. In recent years, the policy agenda-setting literature has developed a broader focus which includes questions relating to the traditional comparative public policy literature like the role of political parties.
The agenda-setting tradition is one of the most established research traditions in public policy studies (see Public Policy). It is often referred to as ‘policy agenda-setting theory’ (Baumgartner et al., 2006), a description that distinguishes it from other agenda-setting traditions, which do not directly study public policy, for instance, studies of how the media influence the public agenda or studies how control of the formal agenda provides opportunities to influence the outcome of voting processes in parliament (see Agendas: Political). The core claim of the policy agenda-setting tradition is that changes in attention generate policy changes. If we want to understand why and how some policy changes – and why it does not – it is crucial to study what issues or policy questions the decision makers pay attention to and what makes them change their attention. A fundamental idea of the tradition is that attention is a scarce commodity in politics and the existence of problems and solutions does not by itself generate decisions. You need the scarce thing called the actors’ attention. The following describes how this very general understanding of policy making has been unfolded into empirical research. We outline the intellectual origins of the tradition and the research tradition with focus on the two books that have shaped it: John Kingdon’s (1984, 1995) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, and Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones’ (1993, 2009) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. (Both have appeared in several editions. The new editions are primarily updates of the empirical material from the first editions. The 1995 version of John Kingdon’s book and the 2009 version of Baumgartner and Jones’ book are used here.) We also outline some of the findings from a number of recent comparative studies which show how an understanding of agenda-setting dynamics is crucial for explaining comparative differences in public policy.
The Roots of Policy Agenda-Setting Research The intellectual roots of the policy agenda-setting tradition are two seminal pieces in political science. One is Bachrach and Baratz’s article on the Two Faces of Power (1962), where the second face of power points to the crucial role of agendas (see Power). The other and probably the most important one is Schattschneider’s (1960) The Semisovereign People. Many of
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 1
the central insights from the book like: ‘Organization is the mobilization of bias,’ ‘The definition of alternatives is the supreme instrument of power’ and ‘A conflict is likely to change profoundly as it becomes political’ are core insights in policy agenda-setting research today. Or, put simply, current research within the policy agenda-setting tradition can be considered attempts to turn Schattschneider’s ideas into empirical research. Though the intellectual roots of the policy agenda-setting tradition are 50 years old, policy agenda-setting research as an empirical research tradition did not take off until the 1970s and has not really flourished until the last 15–20 years. Part of the reason is probably that the founding works of the tradition, i.e., Schattschneider and Bachrach/Baratz, focused more on presenting the importance of agenda-setting as a critique of the pluralist view of the openness of the political system. Thus, the starting point for the tradition was focused on highlighting the importance of keeping issues away from the agenda rather than – empirically – researching the issues that did receive political attention.
Studies of Policy Agenda-Setting The First Studies The first example of more ‘positive’ and empirically oriented policy agenda-setting research was Cobb and Elder’s book (1972, 1983) Participation in American Politics. (The book was published in a second edition in 1983. References are made to the second edition.) Besides being the first book-size example of empirical studies of agenda-setting, the book raised at least two theoretical issues that have been central in the tradition since. One is the question ‘What is an agenda?’ In the policy agenda-setting tradition, the political agenda is broadly understood as the set of issues that are debated and considered for decision in a political system at a given time (Baumgartner, 2001: p. 288). Though broadly agreed on, such a definition is too general as guidance for empirical research. Thus Cobb and Elder (1983: pp. 14–16) introduced a distinction between a systemic and an institutional agenda. The systemic agenda is issues discussed in society, whereas the institutional agenda is the agenda of a particular political institution. The distinction opened a question about the relationship between the issues debated in society and in the institutions in the political system
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as well as a discussion about the relationship between the agendas of different institutions in the political system. The other theoretical question was the importance of issue characteristics. In the policy agenda-setting tradition issues are mostly understood as relatively broad policy issues like energy, the economy, health, or education, but sometimes also more narrowly as particular policy questions like abortion, nuclear power, or inflation. No matter how broadly issues are defined, their policy content varies enormously. From a policy perspective, the economy or inflation is very different from transportation or railways. By focusing on issue characteristics like technical complexity and the size of the affected public, Cobb and Elder (1983: pp. 94–109) offered the first attempt to theorize how agenda-setting processes were affected by an issue’s characteristics. Though Cobb and Elder’s book contained many questions for future agenda-setting research, few were actually taken up. Simultaneously with Cobb and Elder’s book, Downs (1972) published the article ‘Up and down with ecology. The issue attention cycle.’ The article has been influential with its analysis of the public or systemic agenda and how attention to a particular issue – in this case the environment – may suddenly be triggered, but disappear again as people realize that problems like the environment cannot be solved. The idea of an issue attention cycle thus highlights how attention is very volatile if it is not in some way institutionalized as it rarely is when we study the public or systemic agenda.
Kingdon’s Model of Agenda-Setting The next major study is Kingdon’s seminal book, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, first published in 1984, which presents a theory or a framework for understanding how attention affects political decision making that is still central within the policy agenda-setting tradition. A useful starting point for presenting Kingdon’s agenda-setting model is his distinction between what he labels the governmental agenda and the decision-making agenda (1995: pp. 3–4). The governmental agenda is basically the issues that government officials and the actors surrounding them (experts, lobbyist, politicians, and journalists) pay attention to, whereas the decision-making agenda is the issues on the governmental agenda that are actually up for decision. To put it simply, Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting can be considered a model of how issues move from the governmental agenda to the decision agenda or what it takes to move issues from just being considered by political actors toward actually being decided on. This also implies that Kingdon when compared with for instance Cobb and Elder focuses on a subsequent aspect of the policy making process. The question of how the governmental agenda relates to the systemic agenda is not Kingdon’s central focus. Questions relating to the systemic agenda are mainly considered when they are important for understanding the relationship between the governmental agenda and the decision-making agenda. Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting also draws extensively on organizational and decision-making theory, especially the garbage can model (1995: pp. 84–86). Key concepts in Kingdon’s model are the three streams of problems, alternatives and politics. Problems (1995:
pp. 90–115) are basically societal problems. Alternatives (1995: pp. 116–144), or ‘the policy primeval soup,’ consist of the different policy solutions that actors within the policy communities surrounding most issues are trying to promote. Finally, the politics stream consists of political factors like the public mood, election results, and changes of administration – or government outside the US context (1995: pp. 145–164). According to Kingdon, the streams are normally not connected. Thus the mere existence of problems and alternatives, i.e., solutions, does not move issues from the governmental to the decision-making agenda, nor does the existence of politics besides problems and alternatives. Further, there is no logical connection between the three streams. For instance, actors in the alternatives stream may be actively looking for problems with which to connect their preferred alternatives. The streams are connected by policy windows (Kingdon, 1995: pp. 165–195), which may appear in the problem stream or the political stream. In the problem stream, focusing events – unpredictable events like earthquakes or terrorist attacks – may open policy windows, but policy windows that open in the problems stream are not necessarily unpredictable. Measuring societal conditions is an important aspect of defining them as political problems and the release of new measures, for instance unemployment statistics, constitutes an often predictable policy window. In the political stream, windows may open both predictably and unpredictably as well. A change of administration is predictable, but other aspects like the retreat of a minister and the appointment of a new one can be very unpredictable. Policy windows rarely open from the alternatives stream. New alternatives of course emerge, but that does not in itself open a policy window. Rather, new alternatives emerge in the policy primeval soup and then have to wait for a policy window to open where they might be connected with a problem. The coupling of the independent stream is not an automatic process even when a policy window has opened. The coupling of the three streams takes a ‘policy entrepreneur’ (pp. 172– 183) who can use a political platform to couple the streams and thus move issues from the governmental to the decisionmaking agenda. As Mucciaroni (2012) has pointed out, Kingdon’s model is widely cited, but rarely directly tested and used as foundation for systematic empirical research. This may be an indication of the model’s weaknesses. A frequent critique of Kingdon is that the model portrays the policy process as basically unpredictable, which of course makes it difficult to use it as a basis for predicting policy decisions. Kingdon’s model clearly stresses the unpredictability of the agendasetting process. No actor controls the process. However, Kingdon also points to many predictable aspects of the process. Policy windows can often be predicted by actors and certain actors are much more likely to be successful policy entrepreneurs than others. For instance, the US president has a privileged position (1995: pp. 23–26). Kingdon has also been central in developing a literature on focusing events (cf Birkland and DeYoung, 2012). That being said, the strength of his model is that it describes when and how rather than why issues move from the government agenda to the decisionmaking agenda.
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Baumgartner and Jones’ Model of Agenda-Setting Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting is an important part of the intellectual foundation of Baumgartner and Jones’ work on agenda-setting, which has been pivotal in the development of the policy agenda-setting tradition over the past 20 years. Compared to Kingdon’s agenda-setting model, Baumgartner and Jones’ work initiated by the 1993 book has a somewhat different focus. Kingdon’s model focused on how issues move onto the decision-making agenda during the short periods when policy windows open. Baumgartner and Jones’ work focuses on long-term patterns of attention to policy issues and its effect on policy making. Whereas Kingdon – and Cobb and Elder – based their agenda-setting models on case studies, Baumgartner and Jones base their work on systematic longterm – often decades – tracking of attention to particular issues on the entire agenda. Likewise, attention was tracked on the systemic agenda – media attention and public opinion – and on institutional agendas like Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court; see www.policyagendas.org. The long-term perspective is a central feature of Baumgartner and Jones’ work because it has been the foundation of the punctuated equilibrium model. The core idea of this model is that attention and public policy are characterized by long periods of stability and short periods of dramatic change. Such a pattern can only be observed when attention or policy is tracked over long periods. To understand what lies behind the punctuated equilibrium pattern, Baumgartner and Jones (1993) have developed an agenda-setting model that explains both stability and change. Stability or equilibrium is generated by the existence of what Baumgartner and Jones describe as ‘policy monopolies’ (2009: pp. 6–12) (see Issue Networks: Iron Triangles, Subgovernments, Policy Communities, Policy Networks). Such monopolies will develop around policy issues like nuclear power or tobacco. They contain both a venue like a congressional committee where actors interact, and a ‘policy image’ or a shared understanding of the particular policy problem. A policy image consists of both a causal understanding of the policy problem and a positive or negative view of it (pp. 25–38). One example is nuclear power in the US, which for a long time enjoyed a positive policy image. Nuclear power was seen a clean and efficient way of solving energy problems; it was linked to a causal understanding that nuclear power was safe and without major negative side effects like waste (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009: pp. 60–82). Policy monopolies – consisting of venues and policy images – generate stability or equilibrium. If new information – for instance information about nuclear waste problems – challenges the policy image, the policy monopoly will able to ignore or diffuse the information. Such ‘negative feedback mechanisms’ ensure a policy monopoly long-term stability. However, nothing lasts forever and a central point in Baumgartner and Jones’ agenda-setting model is that equilibriums are always ‘local.’ The political system in general is never in equilibrium, which implies that it is the interaction with the surrounding political system that is potentially destabilizing for a policy monopoly. There are always actors in the political system surrounding a policy monopoly who want to destabilize it, and one option is to use focusing events. Such a ‘Schattschneider mobilization’ where attention to a policy issue is expanded beyond an existing policy monopoly
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may also be related to what Baumgartner and Jones (2009: pp. 86–102) label ‘venue shopping.’ A policy monopoly is linked to a particular venue and generating attention in another venue is a way to challenge the monopoly. The policy monopoly surrounding US tobacco policy – which was based on tobacco as an exportable agricultural product – was also linked to the agricultural committees in Congress. This monopoly has been overthrown by a process that started at the US state level. States like California had no interest in tobacco as an agricultural product, but had to bear the health care costs of smoking. US states thus began to regulate smoking and took the issue to the courts in order to reclaim health care costs. This expanded the tobacco issue to the broader political system and led to the breakdown of the original tobacco monopoly (2009: pp. 264–281). Policy monopolies thus create local equilibriums, which may last long, but in the long run they will not stay isolated from the surrounding political system and may thus be overthrown. According to Baumgartner and Jones such periods are characterized by positive feedback processes where challenges to monopolies become self-reinforcing and policy monopolies that have existed for a long time may quickly disappear. Baumgartner and Jones call these short periods of changes ‘punctuations.’ The idea of policy monopolies raises a number of questions; for example, what happens when new policy issues emerge, i.e., when there is prior policy monopoly? Policy monopolies do not emerge automatically, but are generated by what Baumgartner and Jones label a ‘Downsian mobilization,’ referring to Downs’ analysis of the emergence of the environment on the systemic agenda. Downs’ issue attention cycle implied that attention to issues disappears again. However, periods of intense attention to an issue leaves behind policy monopolies as actors are able to institutionalize their preferred policy image linked to certain policy venues. Periods of sparks in attention to new issues thus have long-term implications. Baumgartner and Jones’ work as first presented in the 1993 book has been pivotal in the flourishing of the policy agendasetting tradition during the last decades. The most direct application of Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993) book is testing the idea of punctuated equilibrium through studies of the distribution of changes in both attention and budgets. Punctuated equilibrium entails the idea of either stability or few dramatic changes, but few gradual changes. If we study the distribution of changes, we should thus see a picture of many very small changes, i.e., stability, and a few substantial changes. This distribution can be compared with a normal distribution and we can test whether it is leptokurtic, i.e., has a higher peak and more slender shoulders than a normal distribution. Changes in attention and budgets have been found to exhibit this pattern across different political systems (Baumgartner et al., 2009; Jones et al., 2009), but the pattern has also been found to be more pronounced the further we move down the policy cycle (see Policy Cycle). Policy decisions – budgets – are more leptokurtic than inputs to the political process like elections or media attention, which are closer to a normal distribution. The universal finding of punctuated equilibrium of course raises the question of what can explain it. Here Jones and Baumgartner (2005) point to the idea of friction in terms of information processing at both the individual level and the institutional level. Individuals and institutions tend to either over- or underattend problems.
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Agenda-Setting and Comparative Public Policy The work of Baumgartner and Jones has shaped the policy agenda-setting tradition fundamentally. In recent years, the tradition has thus been characterized by a ‘comparative turn’ based on the establishment of major datasets on attention in a number of countries similar to one developed by Baumgartner and Jones on the US, see www.comparativeagendas.info. One the one hand, the development of these datasets have broadened the scope of policy agenda-setting theory beyond public policy to traditional comparative politics questions about party competition, federalism, coalition government, and the functioning of political systems (Green-Pedersen and Walgrave, 2014). One the other hand, the development of these comparative datasets has also moved policy agendasetting literature closer to more traditional comparative public policy literature. In terms of interacting with comparative public policy literature, the policy agenda-setting tradition has traditionally been limited by its very strong US focus. The work of Kingdon and Baumgartner and Jones has only been based on studies of US policy making. With the comparative expansion of the policy agenda-setting tradition, the empirical foundation for interacting with the comparative public policy literature exists and there are a number of examples of this. One example is Engeli et al.’s (2013) study of cross-national differences in policy permissiveness with regard to morality issues (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.). The article argues that to understand such comparative differences, we must first understand whether the issues are politicized, i.e., are part of party competition. Whether or not morality issues are politicized can again be explained by whether or not there is a preexisting conflict in the party system between confessional and secular political parties (see Church and State). In the affirmative, morality issues are seen as yet another example of this conflict, which brings it into party competition. In countries where morality issues are politicized, permissive policy decisions are passed by secular governments, whereas confessional – often Christian Democratic – governments try to delay permissive decisions. In countries where morality issues are not politicized due to the absence of a conflict between confessional and secular parties, which parties govern is not decisive for permissive policy decisions. These decisions are rather generated by policy entrepreneurs like individual MPs or interest groups who manage to push the issues to a decision, often without much attention or political resistance. Another example is Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup (2008) study of attention and policy change in relation to immigration in Denmark and Sweden (see Immigration Policy). Both countries had liberal immigration policies in the 1980s, but from the 1990s and especially during the 2000s, Danish immigration policy became considerably more restrictive. The explanation for this should be found in the in differences in agenda-setting process and party competition in the two countries. In Denmark, the major right-wing parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, increased their attention to the issue when in opposition from 1993 to 2001 supported by the radical right-wing Danish People’s Party. This lead to increasing political attention to immigration and caused the Social Democratic led government to tighten immigration policy. After returning to government in 2001, the Liberals and
Conservatives implemented the very restrictive immigration policy they had argued for when in opposition. In Sweden, the right-wing bloc has always been dominated by center-right parties and the major right-wing party, the Conservatives, have always been forced to cooperate toward the center rather than toward the radical right. Therefore, the party has never tried to make immigration a central issue on the political agenda in Sweden by advocating a restrictive immigration policy. Immigration has thus never been central on the political agenda in Sweden and the country has stayed with its liberal immigration policy. These comparative turn within policy agenda-setting research has also implied that theoretical debates within the comparative public policy literature are engaged more directly like for instance the ‘do politics matter’ debate (see Ideological Constraint: History and Current Status of the Concept). Seeberg’s (2013) study of law and order in Denmark for instance show that politics do not only matter for public policy in terms of the color of the government. The opposition may also, if it is successful in bringing issues high on the political agenda, cause the government to move policy in the opposite direction of what the government would have preferred. Increasing attention to law and order in Denmark generated by the right-wing opposition thus caused the Social Democratic led governments in the 1990s to implement policies like longer sentences, which the Social Democrats had before resisted. A final example of the comparative turn draws more directly on the concept of venue shopping developed by Baumgartner and Jones (2009). Political institutions function not only as arenas or venues of decision making but also as venues of attention. Filing a court case or scheduling a hearing is a way to draw attention to an issue whether or not a decision is made. Further, no political arena or venue is neutral. Tobacco-related questions are treated differently in a health care committee compared to an agricultural committee; and a court is very different from a congressional committee or a parliament. This idea has especially inspired studies of the European Union, where its ‘complex’ institutional structure makes the idea of venue shopping applicable. Guiradon (2000) study of immigration policy in the European Union and Sheingate’s (2000) comparative study of agricultural policy in the European Union and the US are examples of this.
Recent Trends in Policy Agenda-Setting Research Politics in Western countries have over the last decades being characterized by such developments as increased mediatization and rising importance of issue voting. This has made the question of agenda-setting of increasing importance. Today, it is less given which issues should dominate the political agenda and how they should be framed. The increased use of communication strategies and communication experts by political actors is one sign of this. For our understanding of public policy, this makes a theoretical understanding of policy agenda-setting of increased importance. Political attention is still scarce, so most policy decisions are likely to be made with relative limited political attention from a closely defined group of actors – what Baumgartner and Jones describe as ‘subsystem politics.’
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However, the chances of issues and the related policy decision being subject to macropolitical attention have increased substantially. The agenda-setting literature has shown that attention is both scarce and consequential. If issues are brought out of the sub-system context and into macropolitics, the policy processes and decisions are likely to change. Despite its long tradition, the policy agenda-setting literature has only begun to develop a profound theoretical understanding of agenda-setting dynamics and many aspects needs much further investigation. One aspect that is particularly in need of this is the question of framing or issue definition. ‘Policy images’ are a key element in a policy monopoly and more broadly points to the central importance of how policy problems are defined or framed. Baumgartner and Jones (2009 [1993]) were influenced by Deborah Stone’s (1988) seminal book Policy Paradox and Political Reason, which highlighted how policy problems can be defined or constructed differently in terms of ‘causal stories’ with very different implications for policy solutions. The most recent and extensive empirical example of the importance of ‘causal stories’ or framing is Baumgartner et al.’s study of framing of the death penalty in the US (2008). The study is an ideal example of how framing can be studied empirically as it traces the long-term evolution of the framing of the issue in the media. It is also an ideal example of how powerful a reframing of an issue can be. Whereas the death penalty was long seen and supported as a morally justified sentence in case of particularly brutal crimes, it was increasingly framed as a policy tool that often led to wrongful convictions with huge costs for society. DNA tests proved the innocence of convicted and sometimes executed prisoners and raised serious questions about the death penalty as a reliable policy instrument. Further, the costs of long trials with numerous appeals often followed by long periods on death row for convicts were linked to widespread skepticism toward government in the US. The death penalty was framed as yet another example of an expensive government that makes too many mistakes. Support has declined; the number of executions has dropped; and many states have abolished the death penalty. This development came about because the issue was reframed as yet another example of government failure – not because public belief in death penalty as morally justified changed. This study clearly demonstrates how consequential a reframing of a policy question can be, but it is also a unique example and many more of such studies are needed. The importance of agenda-setting dynamics for democratic political system has been recognized for decades. However, developments like mediatization and increased importance of issue voting have made it increasingly important to study agenda-setting process. In recent years the agenda-setting tradition has gained momentum and started to engage more directly with research within both the comparatively public policy tradition like the ‘do politics matter’ question and political science more broadly. Thus as agenda-setting is becoming more important, the research tradition has broadened its theoretical platform and has expanded its empirical basis much beyond the US.
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See also: Agendas: Political; Church and State; Ideological Constraint: History and Current Status of the Concept; Immigration Policy; Issue Networks: Iron Triangles, Subgovernments, Policy Communities, Policy Networks; Policy Cycle; Power; Public Policy.
Bibliography Bachrach, P., Baratz, M.S., 1962. Two faces of power. American Political Science Review 56, 947–952. Baumgartner, F.R., 2001. Political agendas. In: Smelser, N.J., Baltes, P.B. (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Science. Political Science. Elsevier Science and Oxford: Pergamon, New York, pp. 288–290. Baumgartner, F.R., Jones, B.D., 2009[1993]. Agendas and Instabilities in American Politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Baumgartner, F.R., Green-Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., 2006. Comparative policy agendas. Journal of European Public Policy 13, 959–974. Baumgartner, F.R., de Boef, S., Boydstun, A., 2008. The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Green-Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., Mortensen, P.B., Nuytemans, M., Walgrave, S., 2009. Punctuated equilibrium in comparative perspective. American Journal of Political Science 53, 603–620. Birkland, T., DeYoung, S.E., 2012. Focusing events and policy windows. In: Araral Jr., E., Fritzen, S., Howlett, M., Ramesh, M., Wu, W. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Public Policy. Routledge, London, pp. 175–188. Cobb, R.W., Elder, C.D., 1972, 1983. Participation in American Politics. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Downs, A., 1972. Up and down with ecology. The issue attention cycle. Public Interest 28, 38–50. Engeli, I., Green-Pedersen, C., Larsen, L.T., 2013. The puzzle of permissiveness. Understanding policy processes concerning morality issues. Journal of European Public Policy 20, 335–358. Green-Pedersen, C., Krogstrup, J., 2008. Immigration as a political issue in Denmark and Sweden. How party competition shapes political agendas. European Journal of Political Research 47, 610–634. Green-Pedersen, C., Walgrave, S., 2014. Agenda Setting, Policies, and Political Systems: A Comparative Approach. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Guiradon, V., 2000. European integration and migration policy: vertical policy-making as venue shopping. Journal of Common Market Studies 38, 251–271. Jones, B.D., Baumgartner, F.R., 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Jones, B.D., Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Wlezien, C., Soroka, S., Foucault, M., François, A., et al., 2009. A general empirical law of public budgets. A comparative analysis. American Journal of Political Science 53, 855–873. Kingdon, J.W., 1984, 1995. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Harper Collins, New York. Mucciaroni, G., 2012. The garbage can model and the study of the policy making process. In: Araral Jr., E., Fritzen, S., Howlett, M., Ramesh, M., Wu, W. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Public Policy. Routledge, London, pp. 320–328. Schattschneider, E.E., 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. A Realist’s Guide to Democracy in America. Holt, New York. Seeberg, H., 2013. The opposition’s policy influence through issue politicisation. Journal of Public Policy 33, 89–107. Sheingate, A., 2000. Agricultural retrenchment. Issue definition and venue change in the United States and European Union. Governance 13, 335–363.
Relevant Websites www.comparativeagendas.info. www.policyagendas.org.
Abstract It is not until recent decades that an extensive empirical research tradition has emerged in relation to policy agenda-setting. The starting point for this research has been the agenda-setting models of Kingdon as well as Baumgartner and Jones. The concepts and ideas of these two models have led to empirical investigations of many aspects of policy agenda-setting. In recent years, the policy agenda-setting literature has developed a broader focus which includes questions relating to the traditional comparative public policy literature like the role of political parties.
The agenda-setting tradition is one of the most established research traditions in public policy studies (see Public Policy). It is often referred to as ‘policy agenda-setting theory’ (Baumgartner et al., 2006), a description that distinguishes it from other agenda-setting traditions, which do not directly study public policy, for instance, studies of how the media influence the public agenda or studies how control of the formal agenda provides opportunities to influence the outcome of voting processes in parliament (see Agendas: Political). The core claim of the policy agenda-setting tradition is that changes in attention generate policy changes. If we want to understand why and how some policy changes – and why it does not – it is crucial to study what issues or policy questions the decision makers pay attention to and what makes them change their attention. A fundamental idea of the tradition is that attention is a scarce commodity in politics and the existence of problems and solutions does not by itself generate decisions. You need the scarce thing called the actors’ attention. The following describes how this very general understanding of policy making has been unfolded into empirical research. We outline the intellectual origins of the tradition and the research tradition with focus on the two books that have shaped it: John Kingdon’s (1984, 1995) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, and Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones’ (1993, 2009) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. (Both have appeared in several editions. The new editions are primarily updates of the empirical material from the first editions. The 1995 version of John Kingdon’s book and the 2009 version of Baumgartner and Jones’ book are used here.) We also outline some of the findings from a number of recent comparative studies which show how an understanding of agenda-setting dynamics is crucial for explaining comparative differences in public policy.
The Roots of Policy Agenda-Setting Research The intellectual roots of the policy agenda-setting tradition are two seminal pieces in political science. One is Bachrach and Baratz’s article on the Two Faces of Power (1962), where the second face of power points to the crucial role of agendas (see Power). The other and probably the most important one is Schattschneider’s (1960) The Semisovereign People. Many of
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 1
the central insights from the book like: ‘Organization is the mobilization of bias,’ ‘The definition of alternatives is the supreme instrument of power’ and ‘A conflict is likely to change profoundly as it becomes political’ are core insights in policy agenda-setting research today. Or, put simply, current research within the policy agenda-setting tradition can be considered attempts to turn Schattschneider’s ideas into empirical research. Though the intellectual roots of the policy agenda-setting tradition are 50 years old, policy agenda-setting research as an empirical research tradition did not take off until the 1970s and has not really flourished until the last 15–20 years. Part of the reason is probably that the founding works of the tradition, i.e., Schattschneider and Bachrach/Baratz, focused more on presenting the importance of agenda-setting as a critique of the pluralist view of the openness of the political system. Thus, the starting point for the tradition was focused on highlighting the importance of keeping issues away from the agenda rather than – empirically – researching the issues that did receive political attention.
Studies of Policy Agenda-Setting The First Studies The first example of more ‘positive’ and empirically oriented policy agenda-setting research was Cobb and Elder’s book (1972, 1983) Participation in American Politics. (The book was published in a second edition in 1983. References are made to the second edition.) Besides being the first book-size example of empirical studies of agenda-setting, the book raised at least two theoretical issues that have been central in the tradition since. One is the question ‘What is an agenda?’ In the policy agenda-setting tradition, the political agenda is broadly understood as the set of issues that are debated and considered for decision in a political system at a given time (Baumgartner, 2001: p. 288). Though broadly agreed on, such a definition is too general as guidance for empirical research. Thus Cobb and Elder (1983: pp. 14–16) introduced a distinction between a systemic and an institutional agenda. The systemic agenda is issues discussed in society, whereas the institutional agenda is the agenda of a particular political institution. The distinction opened a question about the relationship between the issues debated in society and in the institutions in the political system
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as well as a discussion about the relationship between the agendas of different institutions in the political system. The other theoretical question was the importance of issue characteristics. In the policy agenda-setting tradition issues are mostly understood as relatively broad policy issues like energy, the economy, health, or education, but sometimes also more narrowly as particular policy questions like abortion, nuclear power, or inflation. No matter how broadly issues are defined, their policy content varies enormously. From a policy perspective, the economy or inflation is very different from transportation or railways. By focusing on issue characteristics like technical complexity and the size of the affected public, Cobb and Elder (1983: pp. 94–109) offered the first attempt to theorize how agenda-setting processes were affected by an issue’s characteristics. Though Cobb and Elder’s book contained many questions for future agenda-setting research, few were actually taken up. Simultaneously with Cobb and Elder’s book, Downs (1972) published the article ‘Up and down with ecology. The issue attention cycle.’ The article has been influential with its analysis of the public or systemic agenda and how attention to a particular issue – in this case the environment – may suddenly be triggered, but disappear again as people realize that problems like the environment cannot be solved. The idea of an issue attention cycle thus highlights how attention is very volatile if it is not in some way institutionalized as it rarely is when we study the public or systemic agenda.
Kingdon’s Model of Agenda-Setting The next major study is Kingdon’s seminal book, Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, first published in 1984, which presents a theory or a framework for understanding how attention affects political decision making that is still central within the policy agenda-setting tradition. A useful starting point for presenting Kingdon’s agenda-setting model is his distinction between what he labels the governmental agenda and the decision-making agenda (1995: pp. 3–4). The governmental agenda is basically the issues that government officials and the actors surrounding them (experts, lobbyist, politicians, and journalists) pay attention to, whereas the decision-making agenda is the issues on the governmental agenda that are actually up for decision. To put it simply, Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting can be considered a model of how issues move from the governmental agenda to the decision agenda or what it takes to move issues from just being considered by political actors toward actually being decided on. This also implies that Kingdon when compared with for instance Cobb and Elder focuses on a subsequent aspect of the policy making process. The question of how the governmental agenda relates to the systemic agenda is not Kingdon’s central focus. Questions relating to the systemic agenda are mainly considered when they are important for understanding the relationship between the governmental agenda and the decision-making agenda. Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting also draws extensively on organizational and decision-making theory, especially the garbage can model (1995: pp. 84–86). Key concepts in Kingdon’s model are the three streams of problems, alternatives and politics. Problems (1995:
pp. 90–115) are basically societal problems. Alternatives (1995: pp. 116–144), or ‘the policy primeval soup,’ consist of the different policy solutions that actors within the policy communities surrounding most issues are trying to promote. Finally, the politics stream consists of political factors like the public mood, election results, and changes of administration – or government outside the US context (1995: pp. 145–164). According to Kingdon, the streams are normally not connected. Thus the mere existence of problems and alternatives, i.e., solutions, does not move issues from the governmental to the decision-making agenda, nor does the existence of politics besides problems and alternatives. Further, there is no logical connection between the three streams. For instance, actors in the alternatives stream may be actively looking for problems with which to connect their preferred alternatives. The streams are connected by policy windows (Kingdon, 1995: pp. 165–195), which may appear in the problem stream or the political stream. In the problem stream, focusing events – unpredictable events like earthquakes or terrorist attacks – may open policy windows, but policy windows that open in the problems stream are not necessarily unpredictable. Measuring societal conditions is an important aspect of defining them as political problems and the release of new measures, for instance unemployment statistics, constitutes an often predictable policy window. In the political stream, windows may open both predictably and unpredictably as well. A change of administration is predictable, but other aspects like the retreat of a minister and the appointment of a new one can be very unpredictable. Policy windows rarely open from the alternatives stream. New alternatives of course emerge, but that does not in itself open a policy window. Rather, new alternatives emerge in the policy primeval soup and then have to wait for a policy window to open where they might be connected with a problem. The coupling of the independent stream is not an automatic process even when a policy window has opened. The coupling of the three streams takes a ‘policy entrepreneur’ (pp. 172– 183) who can use a political platform to couple the streams and thus move issues from the governmental to the decisionmaking agenda. As Mucciaroni (2012) has pointed out, Kingdon’s model is widely cited, but rarely directly tested and used as foundation for systematic empirical research. This may be an indication of the model’s weaknesses. A frequent critique of Kingdon is that the model portrays the policy process as basically unpredictable, which of course makes it difficult to use it as a basis for predicting policy decisions. Kingdon’s model clearly stresses the unpredictability of the agendasetting process. No actor controls the process. However, Kingdon also points to many predictable aspects of the process. Policy windows can often be predicted by actors and certain actors are much more likely to be successful policy entrepreneurs than others. For instance, the US president has a privileged position (1995: pp. 23–26). Kingdon has also been central in developing a literature on focusing events (cf Birkland and DeYoung, 2012). That being said, the strength of his model is that it describes when and how rather than why issues move from the government agenda to the decisionmaking agenda.
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Baumgartner and Jones’ Model of Agenda-Setting Kingdon’s model of agenda-setting is an important part of the intellectual foundation of Baumgartner and Jones’ work on agenda-setting, which has been pivotal in the development of the policy agenda-setting tradition over the past 20 years. Compared to Kingdon’s agenda-setting model, Baumgartner and Jones’ work initiated by the 1993 book has a somewhat different focus. Kingdon’s model focused on how issues move onto the decision-making agenda during the short periods when policy windows open. Baumgartner and Jones’ work focuses on long-term patterns of attention to policy issues and its effect on policy making. Whereas Kingdon – and Cobb and Elder – based their agenda-setting models on case studies, Baumgartner and Jones base their work on systematic longterm – often decades – tracking of attention to particular issues on the entire agenda. Likewise, attention was tracked on the systemic agenda – media attention and public opinion – and on institutional agendas like Congress, the Presidency, and the Supreme Court; see www.policyagendas.org. The long-term perspective is a central feature of Baumgartner and Jones’ work because it has been the foundation of the punctuated equilibrium model. The core idea of this model is that attention and public policy are characterized by long periods of stability and short periods of dramatic change. Such a pattern can only be observed when attention or policy is tracked over long periods. To understand what lies behind the punctuated equilibrium pattern, Baumgartner and Jones (1993) have developed an agenda-setting model that explains both stability and change. Stability or equilibrium is generated by the existence of what Baumgartner and Jones describe as ‘policy monopolies’ (2009: pp. 6–12) (see Issue Networks: Iron Triangles, Subgovernments, Policy Communities, Policy Networks). Such monopolies will develop around policy issues like nuclear power or tobacco. They contain both a venue like a congressional committee where actors interact, and a ‘policy image’ or a shared understanding of the particular policy problem. A policy image consists of both a causal understanding of the policy problem and a positive or negative view of it (pp. 25–38). One example is nuclear power in the US, which for a long time enjoyed a positive policy image. Nuclear power was seen a clean and efficient way of solving energy problems; it was linked to a causal understanding that nuclear power was safe and without major negative side effects like waste (Baumgartner and Jones, 2009: pp. 60–82). Policy monopolies – consisting of venues and policy images – generate stability or equilibrium. If new information – for instance information about nuclear waste problems – challenges the policy image, the policy monopoly will able to ignore or diffuse the information. Such ‘negative feedback mechanisms’ ensure a policy monopoly long-term stability. However, nothing lasts forever and a central point in Baumgartner and Jones’ agenda-setting model is that equilibriums are always ‘local.’ The political system in general is never in equilibrium, which implies that it is the interaction with the surrounding political system that is potentially destabilizing for a policy monopoly. There are always actors in the political system surrounding a policy monopoly who want to destabilize it, and one option is to use focusing events. Such a ‘Schattschneider mobilization’ where attention to a policy issue is expanded beyond an existing policy monopoly
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may also be related to what Baumgartner and Jones (2009: pp. 86–102) label ‘venue shopping.’ A policy monopoly is linked to a particular venue and generating attention in another venue is a way to challenge the monopoly. The policy monopoly surrounding US tobacco policy – which was based on tobacco as an exportable agricultural product – was also linked to the agricultural committees in Congress. This monopoly has been overthrown by a process that started at the US state level. States like California had no interest in tobacco as an agricultural product, but had to bear the health care costs of smoking. US states thus began to regulate smoking and took the issue to the courts in order to reclaim health care costs. This expanded the tobacco issue to the broader political system and led to the breakdown of the original tobacco monopoly (2009: pp. 264–281). Policy monopolies thus create local equilibriums, which may last long, but in the long run they will not stay isolated from the surrounding political system and may thus be overthrown. According to Baumgartner and Jones such periods are characterized by positive feedback processes where challenges to monopolies become self-reinforcing and policy monopolies that have existed for a long time may quickly disappear. Baumgartner and Jones call these short periods of changes ‘punctuations.’ The idea of policy monopolies raises a number of questions; for example, what happens when new policy issues emerge, i.e., when there is prior policy monopoly? Policy monopolies do not emerge automatically, but are generated by what Baumgartner and Jones label a ‘Downsian mobilization,’ referring to Downs’ analysis of the emergence of the environment on the systemic agenda. Downs’ issue attention cycle implied that attention to issues disappears again. However, periods of intense attention to an issue leaves behind policy monopolies as actors are able to institutionalize their preferred policy image linked to certain policy venues. Periods of sparks in attention to new issues thus have long-term implications. Baumgartner and Jones’ work as first presented in the 1993 book has been pivotal in the flourishing of the policy agendasetting tradition during the last decades. The most direct application of Baumgartner and Jones’ (1993) book is testing the idea of punctuated equilibrium through studies of the distribution of changes in both attention and budgets. Punctuated equilibrium entails the idea of either stability or few dramatic changes, but few gradual changes. If we study the distribution of changes, we should thus see a picture of many very small changes, i.e., stability, and a few substantial changes. This distribution can be compared with a normal distribution and we can test whether it is leptokurtic, i.e., has a higher peak and more slender shoulders than a normal distribution. Changes in attention and budgets have been found to exhibit this pattern across different political systems (Baumgartner et al., 2009; Jones et al., 2009), but the pattern has also been found to be more pronounced the further we move down the policy cycle (see Policy Cycle). Policy decisions – budgets – are more leptokurtic than inputs to the political process like elections or media attention, which are closer to a normal distribution. The universal finding of punctuated equilibrium of course raises the question of what can explain it. Here Jones and Baumgartner (2005) point to the idea of friction in terms of information processing at both the individual level and the institutional level. Individuals and institutions tend to either over- or underattend problems.
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Agenda-Setting and Comparative Public Policy The work of Baumgartner and Jones has shaped the policy agenda-setting tradition fundamentally. In recent years, the tradition has thus been characterized by a ‘comparative turn’ based on the establishment of major datasets on attention in a number of countries similar to one developed by Baumgartner and Jones on the US, see www.comparativeagendas.info. One the one hand, the development of these datasets have broadened the scope of policy agenda-setting theory beyond public policy to traditional comparative politics questions about party competition, federalism, coalition government, and the functioning of political systems (Green-Pedersen and Walgrave, 2014). One the other hand, the development of these comparative datasets has also moved policy agendasetting literature closer to more traditional comparative public policy literature. In terms of interacting with comparative public policy literature, the policy agenda-setting tradition has traditionally been limited by its very strong US focus. The work of Kingdon and Baumgartner and Jones has only been based on studies of US policy making. With the comparative expansion of the policy agenda-setting tradition, the empirical foundation for interacting with the comparative public policy literature exists and there are a number of examples of this. One example is Engeli et al.’s (2013) study of cross-national differences in policy permissiveness with regard to morality issues (abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.). The article argues that to understand such comparative differences, we must first understand whether the issues are politicized, i.e., are part of party competition. Whether or not morality issues are politicized can again be explained by whether or not there is a preexisting conflict in the party system between confessional and secular political parties (see Church and State). In the affirmative, morality issues are seen as yet another example of this conflict, which brings it into party competition. In countries where morality issues are politicized, permissive policy decisions are passed by secular governments, whereas confessional – often Christian Democratic – governments try to delay permissive decisions. In countries where morality issues are not politicized due to the absence of a conflict between confessional and secular parties, which parties govern is not decisive for permissive policy decisions. These decisions are rather generated by policy entrepreneurs like individual MPs or interest groups who manage to push the issues to a decision, often without much attention or political resistance. Another example is Green-Pedersen and Krogstrup (2008) study of attention and policy change in relation to immigration in Denmark and Sweden (see Immigration Policy). Both countries had liberal immigration policies in the 1980s, but from the 1990s and especially during the 2000s, Danish immigration policy became considerably more restrictive. The explanation for this should be found in the in differences in agenda-setting process and party competition in the two countries. In Denmark, the major right-wing parties, the Conservatives and the Liberals, increased their attention to the issue when in opposition from 1993 to 2001 supported by the radical right-wing Danish People’s Party. This lead to increasing political attention to immigration and caused the Social Democratic led government to tighten immigration policy. After returning to government in 2001, the Liberals and
Conservatives implemented the very restrictive immigration policy they had argued for when in opposition. In Sweden, the right-wing bloc has always been dominated by center-right parties and the major right-wing party, the Conservatives, have always been forced to cooperate toward the center rather than toward the radical right. Therefore, the party has never tried to make immigration a central issue on the political agenda in Sweden by advocating a restrictive immigration policy. Immigration has thus never been central on the political agenda in Sweden and the country has stayed with its liberal immigration policy. These comparative turn within policy agenda-setting research has also implied that theoretical debates within the comparative public policy literature are engaged more directly like for instance the ‘do politics matter’ debate (see Ideological Constraint: History and Current Status of the Concept). Seeberg’s (2013) study of law and order in Denmark for instance show that politics do not only matter for public policy in terms of the color of the government. The opposition may also, if it is successful in bringing issues high on the political agenda, cause the government to move policy in the opposite direction of what the government would have preferred. Increasing attention to law and order in Denmark generated by the right-wing opposition thus caused the Social Democratic led governments in the 1990s to implement policies like longer sentences, which the Social Democrats had before resisted. A final example of the comparative turn draws more directly on the concept of venue shopping developed by Baumgartner and Jones (2009). Political institutions function not only as arenas or venues of decision making but also as venues of attention. Filing a court case or scheduling a hearing is a way to draw attention to an issue whether or not a decision is made. Further, no political arena or venue is neutral. Tobacco-related questions are treated differently in a health care committee compared to an agricultural committee; and a court is very different from a congressional committee or a parliament. This idea has especially inspired studies of the European Union, where its ‘complex’ institutional structure makes the idea of venue shopping applicable. Guiradon (2000) study of immigration policy in the European Union and Sheingate’s (2000) comparative study of agricultural policy in the European Union and the US are examples of this.
Recent Trends in Policy Agenda-Setting Research Politics in Western countries have over the last decades being characterized by such developments as increased mediatization and rising importance of issue voting. This has made the question of agenda-setting of increasing importance. Today, it is less given which issues should dominate the political agenda and how they should be framed. The increased use of communication strategies and communication experts by political actors is one sign of this. For our understanding of public policy, this makes a theoretical understanding of policy agenda-setting of increased importance. Political attention is still scarce, so most policy decisions are likely to be made with relative limited political attention from a closely defined group of actors – what Baumgartner and Jones describe as ‘subsystem politics.’
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However, the chances of issues and the related policy decision being subject to macropolitical attention have increased substantially. The agenda-setting literature has shown that attention is both scarce and consequential. If issues are brought out of the sub-system context and into macropolitics, the policy processes and decisions are likely to change. Despite its long tradition, the policy agenda-setting literature has only begun to develop a profound theoretical understanding of agenda-setting dynamics and many aspects needs much further investigation. One aspect that is particularly in need of this is the question of framing or issue definition. ‘Policy images’ are a key element in a policy monopoly and more broadly points to the central importance of how policy problems are defined or framed. Baumgartner and Jones (2009 [1993]) were influenced by Deborah Stone’s (1988) seminal book Policy Paradox and Political Reason, which highlighted how policy problems can be defined or constructed differently in terms of ‘causal stories’ with very different implications for policy solutions. The most recent and extensive empirical example of the importance of ‘causal stories’ or framing is Baumgartner et al.’s study of framing of the death penalty in the US (2008). The study is an ideal example of how framing can be studied empirically as it traces the long-term evolution of the framing of the issue in the media. It is also an ideal example of how powerful a reframing of an issue can be. Whereas the death penalty was long seen and supported as a morally justified sentence in case of particularly brutal crimes, it was increasingly framed as a policy tool that often led to wrongful convictions with huge costs for society. DNA tests proved the innocence of convicted and sometimes executed prisoners and raised serious questions about the death penalty as a reliable policy instrument. Further, the costs of long trials with numerous appeals often followed by long periods on death row for convicts were linked to widespread skepticism toward government in the US. The death penalty was framed as yet another example of an expensive government that makes too many mistakes. Support has declined; the number of executions has dropped; and many states have abolished the death penalty. This development came about because the issue was reframed as yet another example of government failure – not because public belief in death penalty as morally justified changed. This study clearly demonstrates how consequential a reframing of a policy question can be, but it is also a unique example and many more of such studies are needed. The importance of agenda-setting dynamics for democratic political system has been recognized for decades. However, developments like mediatization and increased importance of issue voting have made it increasingly important to study agenda-setting process. In recent years the agenda-setting tradition has gained momentum and started to engage more directly with research within both the comparatively public policy tradition like the ‘do politics matter’ question and political science more broadly. Thus as agenda-setting is becoming more important, the research tradition has broadened its theoretical platform and has expanded its empirical basis much beyond the US.
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See also: Agendas: Political; Church and State; Ideological Constraint: History and Current Status of the Concept; Immigration Policy; Issue Networks: Iron Triangles, Subgovernments, Policy Communities, Policy Networks; Policy Cycle; Power; Public Policy.
Bibliography Bachrach, P., Baratz, M.S., 1962. Two faces of power. American Political Science Review 56, 947–952. Baumgartner, F.R., 2001. Political agendas. In: Smelser, N.J., Baltes, P.B. (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Science. Political Science. Elsevier Science and Oxford: Pergamon, New York, pp. 288–290. Baumgartner, F.R., Jones, B.D., 2009[1993]. Agendas and Instabilities in American Politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Baumgartner, F.R., Green-Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., 2006. Comparative policy agendas. Journal of European Public Policy 13, 959–974. Baumgartner, F.R., de Boef, S., Boydstun, A., 2008. The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Green-Pedersen, C., Jones, B.D., Mortensen, P.B., Nuytemans, M., Walgrave, S., 2009. Punctuated equilibrium in comparative perspective. American Journal of Political Science 53, 603–620. Birkland, T., DeYoung, S.E., 2012. Focusing events and policy windows. In: Araral Jr., E., Fritzen, S., Howlett, M., Ramesh, M., Wu, W. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Public Policy. Routledge, London, pp. 175–188. Cobb, R.W., Elder, C.D., 1972, 1983. Participation in American Politics. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Downs, A., 1972. Up and down with ecology. The issue attention cycle. Public Interest 28, 38–50. Engeli, I., Green-Pedersen, C., Larsen, L.T., 2013. The puzzle of permissiveness. Understanding policy processes concerning morality issues. Journal of European Public Policy 20, 335–358. Green-Pedersen, C., Krogstrup, J., 2008. Immigration as a political issue in Denmark and Sweden. How party competition shapes political agendas. European Journal of Political Research 47, 610–634. Green-Pedersen, C., Walgrave, S., 2014. Agenda Setting, Policies, and Political Systems: A Comparative Approach. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Guiradon, V., 2000. European integration and migration policy: vertical policy-making as venue shopping. Journal of Common Market Studies 38, 251–271. Jones, B.D., Baumgartner, F.R., 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Jones, B.D., Baumgartner, F.R., Breunig, C., Wlezien, C., Soroka, S., Foucault, M., François, A., et al., 2009. A general empirical law of public budgets. A comparative analysis. American Journal of Political Science 53, 855–873. Kingdon, J.W., 1984, 1995. Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies. Harper Collins, New York. Mucciaroni, G., 2012. The garbage can model and the study of the policy making process. In: Araral Jr., E., Fritzen, S., Howlett, M., Ramesh, M., Wu, W. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Public Policy. Routledge, London, pp. 320–328. Schattschneider, E.E., 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. A Realist’s Guide to Democracy in America. Holt, New York. Seeberg, H., 2013. The opposition’s policy influence through issue politicisation. Journal of Public Policy 33, 89–107. Sheingate, A., 2000. Agricultural retrenchment. Issue definition and venue change in the United States and European Union. Governance 13, 335–363.
Relevant Websites www.comparativeagendas.info. www.policyagendas.org.