scholarly journals Agenda-setting and Public Policy in Private Foundations

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Kate Williamson ◽  
Belinda Luke

AbstractThis paper examines advocacy, agenda-setting and the public policy focus of private philanthropic foundations in Australia. While concerns have been raised regarding advocacy and public policy influence of foundations in countries such as the U.S., less is understood on this issue in other contexts. Interviews were conducted with 11 managers and trustees of 10 Private Ancillary Funds (PAFs) in late 2014. Analysis of publicly available data on the participating PAFs was then undertaken comparing PAF information available at the time of the interviews with that available approximately five years later, to consider any changes in the public communication of their agendas. Findings reveal PAFs’ agendas were largely consistent with public policy but may vary in the approaches to address social causes. Further, a preference for privacy indicates the PAF sector may be characterised as ‘quiet philanthropy’ rather than having a visible public presence. As such, PAFs’ advocacy focused on promoting philanthropy, rather than altering or influencing public policy. Our main contention is that the conceptions of advocacy in structured philanthropy are dominated by the obvious, the outliers and the noisy. Our contribution to the philanthropic literature is a more nuanced and broader discussion of how advocacy and agenda-setting occurs and is understood in the mainstream.

2021 ◽  
Vol 165 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth A. Lloyd ◽  
Naomi Oreskes ◽  
Sonia I. Seneviratne ◽  
Edward J. Larson

AbstractStandards of proof for attributing real world events/damage to global warming should be the same as in clinical or environmental lawsuits, argue Lloyd et al. The central question that we raise is effective communication. How can climate scientists best and effectively communicate their findings to crucial non-expert audiences, including public policy makers and civil society? To address this question, we look at the mismatch between what courts require and what climate scientists are setting as a bar of proof. Our first point is that scientists typically demand too much of themselves in terms of evidence, in comparison with the level of evidence required in a legal, regulatory, or public policy context. Our second point is to recommend that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommend more prominently the use of the category “more likely than not” as a level of proof in their reports, as this corresponds to the standard of proof most frequently required in civil court rooms. This has also implications for public policy and the public communication of climate evidence.


2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles T. Kozel ◽  
Anne P. Hubbell ◽  
James Dearing ◽  
William M. Kane ◽  
Sharon Thompson ◽  
...  

Policy makers take action largely on issues that attain the pinnacle of the policy agenda (Pertschuck, 2001). As a result, how decision makers choose which issues are important has been the subject of much research. Agenda-setting conceptualizes the process of how issues move from relative unimportance to the forefront of policymakers’ thoughts (Dearing & Rogers, 1996). An area within agenda-setting research, Health Promotion Agenda-Setting, provides Health Promotion practitioners with an innovative framework and strategy to set agendas for sustained courses of action (Kozel, Kane, Rogers, & Hammes, 1995). In this interdisciplinary and bi-national exploratory study, funded by the Center for Border Health Research of the Paso del Norte Health Foundation, we examine agenda-setting processes in the Paso del Norte Region and evaluates how the public health agenda is determined within the U.S.-Mexico border population. Integrating both quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, the current research is focused on identifying deficiencies in the public health infrastructure in the U.S.-Mexico border area, and identifying channels that exist for working toward the bi-national goals presented in Healthy Border 2010 (U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission, 2003). Research directions, design, and methodologies for exploring health promotion agenda-setting in applied settings, such as Healthy Border 2010, provide health practitioners and policy makers the potential to improve public health leadership by influencing the public health and policy agendas.


Author(s):  
Ted Glenn

This chapter aims to clarify the roles that legislatures play in Canadian public policy and its analysis by looking at the institution as it functions in the country’s parliamentary system of government. The chapter begins by describing the four core functions that legislatures perform in Canada’s parliamentary system, namely making government, making government work, making government behave, and making alternative governments. The chapter then explains how and where these functions fit into the public policy process, most significantly in the agenda-setting, implementation and evaluation stages. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on what this fresh perspective on Canadian legislatures and public policy offers for policy analysis in this country.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Sabl

Liberal democracy is often viewed by its supporters as a system of government that responds to the informed and rational preferences of the public organized as voters. And liberal democracy is often viewed by its critics as a system that fails to respond to the informed and rational preferences of its citizens. In this book Larry Bartels and Chris Achen draw on decades of research to argue that a “realistic” conception of democracy cannot be centered on the idea of a “rational voter,” and that the ills of contemporary democracies, and especially democracy in the U.S., must be sought in the dynamics that link voters, political parties and public policy in ways that reproduce inequality. “We believe,” write the authors, “that abandoning the folk theory of democracy is a prerequisite to both greater intellectual clarity and real political change. Too many democratic reformers have squandered their energy on misguided or quixotic ideas.”


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 498-499
Author(s):  
Kuhika Gupta

In a number of important articles and books—most notably Agendas and Instability in American Politics (1993), The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (2005)—Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones have pioneered a distinctive approach to the study of agenda setting that has shaped research in both the U.S. politics and comparative politics subfields. The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America further expands on the theme of the political determinants, and implications, of “the organization and prioritization of information.” And so we have invited a number of political scientists from a range of subfields to comment on the book and on the research agenda more generally.


2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (6) ◽  
pp. 1498-1512
Author(s):  
Ana Cláudia Niedhardt Capella

Abstract This article aims to present a brief reflection on the studies in the field of the public policy agenda. To this end, the text presents the main theoretical and methodological developments on the subject found in the international literature, with an emphasis on three fundamental contributions: the studies developed by Cobb and Elder in the 1970s; John Kingdon’s multiple streams model in the 1980s; and Baumgartner and Jones’ propositions from the 1990s until the present. Next, we seek to understand how policy agenda-setting studies have been developed in Brazil. To do so, we conduct a mapping of the Brazilian academic production, considering theses, dissertations, and articles published in journals between 2000 and 2018. In conclusion, we note the growing expansion of agenda studies in Brazil, and we draw attention to some of the characteristics of these works, such as the preferred policy areas and the theoretical and methodological frameworks favored by researchers, among other aspects.


2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn B. Levine ◽  
Richard C. Sansing

ABSTRACT This study examines the public policy rationale for the minimum distribution requirement that requires private foundations to spend at least 5 percent of their assets on charitable purposes. The study explicitly models an objective function that the government tries to maximize and a population of heterogeneous contributors that care about both distributions to charity and assets under their control. An increase in the minimum distribution requirement increases the rate of charitable distributions from some foundations, but deters other contributors from forming foundations. The level of the minimum distribution requirement reflects a trade-off between these two effects.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 357
Author(s):  
Dan Cohen, MA/LS

To further the public policy objectives of Congress and the country, legislators should now insist that abuse-deterrent formulations (ADFs) be deployed for every C-II opioid and stimulant. The need for these innovative technologies has never been greater. And to most efficiently incentivize innovators to develop and deploy the most effective and modern deterrents, a new and simpler regulatory approval standard for ADF should be adopted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That standard, based on a concept of “Noninterference” increases the potential for a much earlier deployment of ADFs in a broad range of products and allows deterrence to play its most effective role in combatting the national opioid crisis.


2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-160
Author(s):  
Isabela Mares

Liberal democracy is often viewed by its supporters as a system of government that responds to the informed and rational preferences of the public organized as voters. And liberal democracy is often viewed by its critics as a system that fails to respond to the informed and rational preferences of its citizens. In this book Larry Bartels and Chris Achen draw on decades of research to argue that a “realistic” conception of democracy cannot be centered on the idea of a “rational voter,” and that the ills of contemporary democracies, and especially democracy in the U.S., must be sought in the dynamics that link voters, political parties and public policy in ways that reproduce inequality. “We believe,” write the authors, “that abandoning the folk theory of democracy is a prerequisite to both greater intellectual clarity and real political change. Too many democratic reformers have squandered their energy on misguided or quixotic ideas.”


2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 502-504
Author(s):  
Eric Patashnik

In a number of important articles and books—most notably Agendas and Instability in American Politics (1993), The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems (2005)—Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones have pioneered a distinctive approach to the study of agenda setting that has shaped research in both the U.S. politics and comparative politics subfields. The Politics of Information: Problem Definition and the Course of Public Policy in America further expands on the theme of the political determinants, and implications, of “the organization and prioritization of information.” And so we have invited a number of political scientists from a range of subfields to comment on the book and on the research agenda more generally.


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