Abstract
This paper presents a case study of a participatory agenda setting process in rural areas, with the aim of establishing at which points participation was achieved and via which channels and processes the results of said participation were introduced into local and overarching policy agendas. We argue that participatory agenda setting involves two central challenges, namely the development of dialogue formats and procedures that enable members of the public to take part in the process, and the selection and use of the appropriate channels for conveying their input to the relevant decision-makers. Agenda setting is thus a process during which concepts and issues are collaboratively uncovered or developed and then integrated, via networks, into policy and research strategy. Accordingly, this process encompasses the actors involved in the agenda setting process, the procedures that make participation possible, and the channels via which the results are then transferred.
Highlights
Agenda setting is a process in which the streams of problems, policy and politics come together to place an issue on the policy agenda [23]
By means of a case study of a participatory agenda setting process as implemented via a social foresight lab, this paper explores two aspects of the above, namely the integration of members of the public into agenda setting processes and the interlinking of policy agendas, research agendas and regional agendas in the development of visions for rural spaces
Conclusion and suggestions for further research The above analysis and discussion demonstrated that participatory agenda setting can have various—in this case, spatio-political—levels of impact
Summary
Agenda setting is a process in which the streams of problems, policy and politics come together to place an issue on the policy agenda [23]. Agenda setting can be described as “design-oriented foresight” [22]. Given this normative component, what is especially pertinent to agenda setting—as compared to probabilistic methods for investigating the future—is the question of which perspectives and whose voices to include in the Schroth et al European Journal of Futures Research (2020) 8:6 being incorporated into national and regional policy agendas. Especially for participatory agenda setting processes, two challenges are of key importance: the development of dialogue formats and methods that enable members of the public to contribute their perspectives, and the deliberate selection and use of particular channels for conveying the public’s contributions and findings to the relevant decision-makers
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