PPA 503 The Public

Policy-Making Process
Lecture 5a Agenda Setting
 Introduction
Schattscheider The definition of the
alternatives is the supreme instrument of
power.
The definition of alternative issues, problems,
and solutions is crucial, because it established
which issues, problems, and solutions will gain
the attention of the public and decision
makers and which, in turn, are most likely to
gain broader attention.
 Introduction
Elite theory suggests that relatively few people
in key positions in government, industry,
academe, the media, and other institutions
control a disproportionate share of the nations
economic and political resources.
However, while the system is biased, often the
disadvantaged interests can coalesce and, when
the time is right, find avenues for the promotion
of their ideas.
 Agenda Setting
Agenda setting is the process by which problems and
alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite
attention.
Group competition to set the agenda is fierce because
no society or political system has the institutional
capacity to address all possible alternatives to all
possible problems that arise at any one time.
Groups must therefore fight to earn their issues places
among all the other issues sharing the limited space on
the agenda or to prepare for the time when a crisis
makes their issue more likely to occupy a more
prominent space on the agenda.
 Agenda Setting
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 governmental officials.
Agendas exist at all levels of government. Every
community and every body of government has a
collection of issues that are available for
discussion and disposition.
 Agenda Setting
Levels of the agenda.
Agenda universe all ideas that could possibly be
brought up and discussed in a society or a political
system.
Systemic agenda all issues that are commonly
perceived by members of the political community as
meriting public attention and as involving matters
within the legitimate jurisdiction of existing
governmental authority.
Institutional agenda the list of items explicitly up for
the active and serious consideration of authoritative
decision-makers.
Decision agenda items about to be acted on by a
governmental body.
Agenda-Setting
 Agenda Setting
Because the agenda is finite, interests
must compete with each other to get their
issues and their preferred alternative
policies, on the agenda.
They must also compete with each other
to keep their issues off the agenda, using
the power resources at their disposal.
 The Idea of Political Power
We know instinctively that some groups are more
powerful than others.
But, what does power mean in this context.
Two faces of power.
One face the power to compel people to do things, even
against their will, a coercive power.
Second face the ability to keep a person from doing what he
or she wants to do, a blocking power.
In the first face of power, A participates in the making
of decisions that affect B, even if B does not like the
decisions or their consequences.
In the second face of power, A prevents Bs issues and
interests from getting on the agenda or becoming policy,
even when actor B really wants these issues raised.
 The Idea of Political Power
The blocking form of power does not arise
simply because of As superior resources,
but usually because the system itself (the
nature and rules of the game) is biased
against B.
Mobilization of bias Schattschneider.
 Groups and Power in Public Policy
Issues are more likely to be elevated to agenda status if the scope
of conflict is broadened.
Two key ways that disadvantaged groups expand the scope of
conflict.
Going public by using symbols and images to induce greater media and
public sympathy.
Appeal to a higher decision level.
Conversely, dominant groups work to limit the scope of conflict.
The dominant groups do so through policy monopolies, which
attempt to keep problems and underlying policy issues low on the
agenda.
Policy monopolies use agreed-upon symbols and images to construct
their visions of problems, causation, solution. These agreements limit
agenda access for other groups, symbols and ideas.
 Groups and Power: Overcoming
the Power Deficit
Baumgartner and Jones argue that when
powerful groups lose their control of the
agenda, less powerful groups can enter
policy debates and gain attention to their
issues.
This greater attention tends to increase
negative public attitudes toward the status
quo, which then allows lasting institutional
and agenda changes.
 Groups and Power: Overcoming
the Power Deficit
Several ways that groups can bring issues to public
attention.
Kingdons streams metaphor.
Policy, politics, problem streams.
Crossing of streams windows of opportunity.
Driven by group action and policy entrepreneurs.
Indicators, focusing events, and agenda change.
Kingdon suggests that changes in indicators and focusing events
are two ways in which groups and society as a whole learn of
problems in the world.
Changes in indicators are usually changes in statistics about a
problem.
Focusing events are sudden, relatively rare events that spark
intense media and public attention because of their sheer
magnitude or, sometimes, because of the harm they reveal.
Can energize new problems or existing, dormant problems.
 Groups and Power: Overcoming
the Power Deficit
Several ways that groups can bring issues to
public attention.
Group coalescence and strategies for change.
Disadvantaged groups are not all passive and elite groups
are not all monolithic.
Pro-change groups will often coalesce into advocacy
coalitions (groups with shared interest in a particular
problem definition).
Brings countervailing power to bear.
Venue shopping.
Institutional executive (rulemaking), legislative (hearings),
judicial (litigation).
Vertical federal (scope expansion), state, local (grassroots).
News media.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Humans and their governments are problem
solvers.
Many of the social and technological advances are
solutions to social problems.
At the same time, there are many social problems
that people believe should be solved or, at least,
made better. Poverty, illiteracy, racism, immorality,
disease, disaster, crime, and any number of other ills
will lead people and groups to press for solutions.
Many of the these problems are public goods or
bads.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
The process of defining problems and of
selling a broad population on this
definition is called social construction.
How we structure and tell stories about how
problems come to be the way they are.
A group that can create and promote the
most effective depiction of an issue has an
advantage in the battle over what, if anything,
will be done about a problem.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Stone People tell stories about how problems
come to be by using symbols, numbers, and
stories about causes.
The key to problem definition is not just reducing
policy uncertainty because one persons solution
is another persons problem.
The key to problem definition is persuading
others that the problem is real or that the
problem cited is the real problem.
The social construction of a problem is linked to
the existing social, political, and ideological
structures at the time.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Conditions and problems.
Conditions can develop into problems as
people develop ways to address conditions.
The advancement of technology turned polio from
an unavoidable condition into a social problem.
The interruption of a solution (power failure) can

lead to a problem.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Symbols.
A symbol is anything that stands for something else.
Politics and policy are full of symbols.
Stone- four elements of the use of symbols.
Narrative stories told about how things good or bad
happen. Things are getting worse or declining. Simple
solutions to complex problems.
Helplessness and control something could not be done in
the past, but now it can.
Synecdoche a figure of speech in which the whole is
represented by one of its parts. Use of anecdotes or
prototypical cases. Cheating welfare queens, etc.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Causal stories.
The telling of causal stories. These stories
attempt to explain what caused a problem or
an outcome. Four categories of causes:
mechanical, accidental, intentional, and
inadvertent.
Contestants in policy disputes will fight over
the depiction of the cause of a problem that is
most consistent with their goals.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Causal stories
(contd.).
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Causal stories.
Exxon-Valdez.
Act of God (accident).
Drunken captain (inadvertent).
Willfully negligent company (intentional).
Numbers as indicators of problems.
Aggregate data appears to give problem legitimacy.
The decision to use numbers is a policy decision in
itself.
Political pressure to keep gathering numbers so that
we can see if problems are getting better.
 Social Construction of Problems
and Issues
Numbers as indicators of problems.
But numbers are not necessarily objective
indicators of a problem.
Numbers are only indicators, not the problem.
Numbers are of questionable accuracy (census,
achievement tests, UCR).
Is the indicator the best (most valid) measure of the
problem?
The choice of statistic has a big impact on how the
problem is portrayed (median versus mean income).
Numbers are political weapons and a number is not the
same as its interpretation.