The Agenda-Setting Capacity of Global Networks

2019 ◽  
pp. 452-468
Author(s):  
Laura Chaqués-Bonafont
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Networks ◽  
Global Policy ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
New Ideas

This chapter examines the agenda-setting capacity of global policy networks. It argues that the capacity of global networks to promote new ideas and understanding about issues at the global scale depends on their ability to produce information and indicators, to quantify the magnitude of issues and the consequences of inaction, and to take advantage of the opportunities generated by political transformations and preference shifts. Yet, it recognizes that once global networks are formally institutionalized, they become important gatekeepers, preventing the entry of certain issues and ideas onto the political agenda, by adopting above all a strategy of non-decision. The chapter also highlights some of the theoretical and methodological shortcomings of this line of research, especially those regarding legitimacy and political representation.

Political Agenda Setting

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Maurer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
Political Decision Making

Political agenda setting is the part of agenda-setting research that refers to the influence of the media agenda on the agenda of political actors. More precisely, the central question of political agenda-setting research is whether political actors adopt the issue agenda of the news media in various aspects ranging from communicating about issues that are prominently discussed in the news media to prioritizing issues from the news media agenda in political decision making. Although such effects have been studied under different labels (agenda building, policy agenda setting) for several decades, research in this field has recently increased significantly based on a new theoretical model introducing the term political agenda setting. Studies based on that model usually find effects of media coverage on the attention political actors pay to various issues, but at the same time point to a number of contingent conditions. First, as found in research on public agenda setting, there is an influence of characteristics of news media (e.g., television news vs. print media) and issues (e.g., obtrusive vs. unobtrusive issues). Second, there is an influence of characteristics of the political context (e.g., government vs. oppositional parties) and characteristics of individual politicians (e.g., generalists vs. specialists). Third, the findings of studies on the political agenda-setting effect differ, depending on which aspects of the political agenda are under examination (e.g., social media messages vs. political decision making).

scholarly journals Women’s political representation in the local governance of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasmia Matloob ◽  
Malik Shahzad Shabbir ◽  
Noreen Saher
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Local Governance ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Jammu And Kashmir ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Political Processes

Purpose The purpose of this study to identify the role of women in political agenda at Azad Jammu Kashmir. The political parties are always considered main gatekeepers to women’s political representation. Existing scholarship highlights the significance of centralized political institutions (parties) with structured set up for the effective representation of women at different levels. However, the functioning of these institutions is greatly influenced by the social and cultural context of a country in which they operate. Design methodology/approach This paper mainly analyzes social and cultural practices and those informal ways that operate within the exited democratic government setup and creates serious obstacles for women’s effective political representation at the party level. For this purpose, a qualitative research methodology is used to get the full insight of the issue at hand. The authors conducted 25 in-depth interviews with women members of three different political parties. Findings The results revealed that both (social context and political structure) have a significant impact on women’s nature and level of participation in the political processes in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Originality value Prevailing social and political context of Pakistan does not support a truly democratic and centralized political system. Parties are weak entities with the less democratic organizational structure, which ultimately have a negative impact on women’s political representation.

Political Agenda Setting and the Mass Media

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefaan Walgrave ◽  
Peter Van Aelst
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Individual

Recently, the number of studies examining whether media coverage has an effect on the political agenda has been growing strongly. Most studies found that preceding media coverage does exert an effect on the subsequent attention for issues by political actors. These effects are contingent, though, they depend on the type of issue and the type of political actor one is dealing with. Most extant work has drawn on aggregate time-series designs, and the field is as good as fully non-comparative. To further develop our knowledge about how and why the mass media exert influence on the political agenda, three ways forward are suggested. First, we need better theory about why political actors would adopt media issues and start devoting attention to them. The core of such a theory should be the notion of the applicability of information encapsulated in the media coverage to the goals and the task at hand of the political actors. Media information has a number of features that make it very attractive for political actors to use—it is often negative, for instance. Second, we plead for a disaggregation of the level of analysis from the institutional level (e.g., parliament) or the collective actor level (e.g., party) to the individual level (e.g., members of parliament). Since individuals process media information, and since the goals and tasks of individuals that trigger the applicability mechanism are diverse, the best way to move forward is to tackle the agenda setting puzzle at the individual level. This implies surveying individual elites or, even better, implementing experimental designs to individual elite actors. Third, the field is in dire need of comparative work comparing how political actors respond to media coverage across countries or political systems.

Agenda Setting in Political Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Klüser ◽  
Marco Radojevic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Setting Process ◽  
Policy Agendas ◽  
Political Decision Making

Research on policy agendas and agenda-setting has developed into an important subdiscipline of comparative politics, which seeks to understand how political actors allocate scarce attention. The theoretical origins of the field describe agenda-setting as a “conflict of conflicts,” that is the political struggle over the question of which issues receive attention. Modern scholars have expanded on these ideas and turned them into important theoretical models of the agenda-setting process. The most influential of these models are Kingdon’s multiple streams approach and Baumgartner and Jones’ punctuated equilibrium theory. The former analyses the emergence of issues in the separate streams of policies, politics, and problems, whose coupling is necessary for any issue in order to be considered for political decision-making. In contrast, the latter stresses the importance of negative and positive feedback mechanisms in order to explain long periods of incremental policy change and sudden radical changes, which characterize the policy process. Inspired by the second approach is the Comparative Agendas Project, which is a comprehensive and comparative data collection effort about policy agendas using a unified taxonomy. These data enable scholars to research the entire political process from media inputs via government throughput to legislative output. Studying governmental agendas, it is paramount to stress that—against common wisdom—political ideology does not play a decisive role in the agenda-setting process. Rather, both leftist and rightist governments seek to portray themselves as potent problem-solvers and respond to problematic societal condition in order to prove their competence. Looking at the media as one potentially powerful political agenda-setter, it turns out that newspapers and television channels’ power to steer the political agenda hinges on a variety of conditions. Generally, media outlets are most successful in setting the agenda if they report on issues that otherwise would not have been brought to the public’s attention. But even then, the media’s role appears to be restricted to narrowing down the issue menu from which politicians can choose when setting their agenda. The study of political agendas is by no means limited to these areas, as shown by the hundreds of articles that have been published in major political science journals over the past decades. While the agenda approach has not yet developed into a theory of politics, it has certainly become a major subdiscipline of comparative politics, which has helped make sense of the political world.

scholarly journals Presentation of the Political Agenda in the News Programs of Lithuanian TV channels

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 77-100
Author(s):  
Martyna Bajorinaitė ◽  
Marija Keršanskienė ◽  
Ligita Luščiauskaitė ◽  
Indrė Petronytė ◽  
Valdonė Rudenkienė ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Selection Criteria ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Selection ◽  
News Programs ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Made In

The authors of the article investigate how the parliamentary agenda is reflected in the agenda-setting. They determined the study period and examined how many decisions made in the Parliament are on the agenda of Lithuanian television channels. The study showed that the agenda of the Seimas of Lithuania occupies a very small part of the schedule of media topics. The researchers relied on journalistic criteria for the selection of information – novelty, relevance and conflict. According to them, the criteria by which journalists choose news are not very clear. Sometimes the selected news does not match any –novelty, relevance, or conflict criterion, and sometimes only one of them. However, the criterion of conflict should be considered dominant. Let‘s do it the premise that scandalous news is of most interest to the public. On the other hand, the fact that journalists take the news of a press release already prepared by the Parliament also partly explains the fact of non-compliance with the news selection criteria.

A Centrist Approach to Introducing ICT in Healthcare

2011 ◽  
pp. 1228-1242
Author(s):  
David J. Finnegan ◽  
Wendy L. Currie
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Patient Choice ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
Uk National Health Service ◽  
The Uk

The challenge to provide a nation-wide healthcare service continues unabated in the 21st century as politicians and managers drive through policies to modernize the UK National Health Service (NHS). Established around 60 years ago to offer free healthcare at the point of delivery to all citizens, the NHS now accounts for the largest portion of public expenditure after social security, with total spending around £84 billion in 2006/2007. Over the past 3 decades, the political agenda within healthcare has moved from one of professional dominance, where clinicians and their representative bodies dominated the leadership and management of healthcare organisations, to one where politicians have imposed new ideas in the form of market mechanisms and the “new public management” which extend the use of private sector firms. The political justification for these reforms is to make the NHS more efficient and cost effective and to develop an ethos of patient choice.

scholarly journals The Significance of Business Interest Associations in Economic Policy Reform: The Case of Australian Taxation Policy

2000 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Eccleston
Keyword(s):  
Tax Reform ◽  
Policy Networks ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Policy Network ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Taxation Policy ◽  
Business Politics ◽  
Formation And Evolution ◽  
Political Failure

Taxation reform has dominated Australian politics over the past twenty-five years. Despite this prominence on the political agenda, until recently Australian governments have lacked the capacity to consolidate key elements of this tax reform agenda. While the problematic nature of Australian tax reform can be explained in part by macro-level variables, this protracted policy deadlock has also influenced historical patterns of business-government intermediation. The article argues that the evolution of the Australian tax policy network over the study period was prompted by both associational and state actors reassessing their strategies in the context of the political failure of tax reform proposals. These developments provide empirical insights into the ongoing debate relating to the factors which lead to the formation and evolution of sectoral level policy networks. The article concludes that while the increasing levels of business mobilization experienced over the study period enhanced the electoral viability of reform proposals, these new patterns of sectoral business politics should be regarded as a consequence of the policy deadlock relating to tax reform rather than primary cause of policy change.

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