SOCS3100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Steven Lukes, Blue Arrow, Neoliberalism
25 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCS3100
Policy Development, Program Management, and Evaluation
March 14, 2018
WEEK 3
Agenda Setting and Policy Change: Barriers and Opportunities
Need to understand how power operates in different situations
Parts of Policy Cycle
1. Agenda setting
2. Policy formulation
3. Decision making
4. Implementation
5. Evaluation
Why are some issues addressed by policy makers and others ignored?
• Part 1
o Agenda. Does it matter?
o Objective fact or socially constructed?
o Theories of power
o Dimensions of Policy Change – big scale, small scale, short term, long-
term
• Part 2: Agenda Setting in the Short term
o Barriers to change
o Do the powerful always win?
o Strategies and opportunities for change
o Advice to policy analysts
• Part 3: Factors Shaping Long Term
o External events and political mobilization
o Power of ideas
o What drives big changes in societal direction?
o Models that integrate big scale shifts with small scale effects
PART 1
Agenda
• Literally – formal list of issues to be addressed in a meeting
• Metaphorically
o Topics, problems, issues that are receiving attention within:
▪ General public, political actors, society (societal agenda)
▪ Media (media agenda)
▪ Government
o …for which there is a sense that something needs to be done about it
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Birkland
o Idea needs to get prominence
include red arrow going outward from decision agenda to start of blue arrow
• Why is it important?
o Only a small proportion of potential issues receive attention
o It is the foundation step in the policy process
o The form in which problems are identified and recognized, if at all, often
determines how they are ultimately dealt with by policy makers
o Billions spent on influencing the agenda:
▪ Public relations firms, lobbyists, party donations, media
campaigning, polling, etc.
▪ So, someone thinks its important
o Never precise/clear cut situation
▪ Some issues are half on half off the agenda
▪ Issues gain/lose/gain public interest over time
▪ Governments do not publicly disclose everything on their agenda
o It is a contested social/political process
▪ Policy makers bring their own values and ideologies to the task of
selecting what is important, what warrants attention, and what does
not
▪ Problems are socially constructed through a frame of interpretation
(EXAMPLE: Curing gay people)
• Ideologies – explanations of the world and integrated notions
of how to change it
o Everyone consciously or unconsciously has an
ideology on how to live
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Discourses – less visible and less conscious ways of
thinking that underpin ideologies; thought of as systematic
bodies of knowledge that entail regimes of power
o Stories
o Taught, fed to us
Steven Lukes Three Faces of Power
• Organizational power exercised in three ways:
1. Deciding which of the items on a formal agenda will be supported or not
supported
a. Same could apply to any organization
2. Issues that are consciously advocated by some social actors which are kept off
the government agenda (non-decisions)
a. People agree its important
3. Issues that are experienced by people but not consciously articulated even in the
social agenda
a. People think its just something that affects them
b. People start talking about it and realize they are issue
Dimensions of Policy Change
• Big – big societal direction
o Social democracy or neo-liberalism
• Small – incremental modification
o Extending policy affecting one segment of population to other segments
o EXAMPLE: Activity test added hoops and barriers people had to jump
through or else you have things cut off
• Punctuated equilibrium – long period of stability/incremental change punctuated
by radical shifts in direction
Factors Triggering Change
• Big change
o External shocks (wars, natural disasters, economic crises)
▪ EXAMPLE: OPEC raising oil process 4X
o Accumulation of internal pressures (the straw that breaks the camels
back)
▪ EXAMPLE: Mass shootings
o Following long periods of one party in office
▪ EXAMPLE: 1972 Its Time
• Small change
o Often result of internal competition between policy actors
▪ EXAMPLE: Politicians backstabbing each other
PART 2: Agenda Setting in the Short Term
Barriers to change: Policy Monopolies / Agenda Denial
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Agenda setting and policy change: barriers and opportunities. Need to understand how power operates in different situations. Parts of policy cycle: agenda setting, policy formulation, decision making, implementation, evaluation. Why are some issues addressed by policy makers and others ignored: part 1, agenda. Agenda: literally formal list of issues to be addressed in a meeting, metaphorically. Part 1: topics, problems, issues that are receiving attention within, general public, political actors, society (societal agenda, media (media agenda, government, for which there is a sense that (cid:1688)something needs to be done about it(cid:1689, birkland. Part 2: agenda setting in the short term. Increasing disruption by new technologies: examples: webcasts, foreign media. But the policy process is subject to contestation at each of its stages United nations: windows of opportunity, reports, focusing events (expected and unexpected, coalesce: forge links with other activists on common interests, example: swedish social democrats full employed welfare state also good for farmers and domestic-market focused businesses.
