Agenda Setting PSU 08208

INSTRUCTOR: MR.SANCHAWA,DHdsanchawa@mnma@.ac.tz

Introduction

• Public Policy making can be considered to be a set of processes, including

1. Agenda setting2. Policy formulation3. Policy adoption 4. Policy implementation5. Policy evaluation (Kingdon, 2003).

Introduction

• This lecture presents on the first process ; the agenda setting

Agenda

• Kingdon (2003) has defined the agenda as the list of subjects or problems to which governmental officials, and people outside of government closely associated with those officials, are paying some serious attention at any given time.

Agenda

• 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

What is agenda setting?

• The agenda setting is the process or behavior to adopt social issue or problem as a policy problem; in the process, social issue or problem is chosen as a governmental issue

• Agenda setting is the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite attention.

Agenda setting

• 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

• 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.

Levels of agenda setting

• 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.

Levels of agenda

• 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.

Types of agenda

• Rogers and Dearing (1988) identify three types of agenda setting:

1) public agenda setting, in which the public's agenda is the dependent variable (the traditional hypothesis)

2) media agenda setting, in which the media's agenda is treated as the dependent variable (aka agenda building)

Types of agenda

3) policy agenda setting, in which elite policy makers' agendas are treated as the dependent variable . It is some times called political agenda setting

Actors involved in policy agenda

• Many individuals and institutions are involved in shaping policy agenda, including:-

• Political officials, • Civil society organizations, • United nations Agencies, such as UNDP

Actors involved in policy agenda

• Political administrative officials such as Prime Minister and other Ministers such as Minister of finance ,

• Legislators, • Academicians • The Media as well as the Public

Kingdon model: how an issue get on the political agenda?

• Three steamsa) A problem steam; marked by systematic

indicators of problem by a sudden crises, or by a feedback that is not working as intended –the issue get on agenda

b) Policy stream ; relate to those policy actors and communities who attach their solutions( policies) to emerging problems. This concept also relate to the actual policy being promoted

Three steam

• C) political steam; this consists of the public mood, pressure group campaigns, elections results, partisan or ideological distribution etc

Other factors????