Agenda-setting Phase Research Articles

Influence of News Media Contents on Policy Makers

The research explores the influence of news media content on policymakers, using Indexing Theory and the Cascade Model to provide an empirical basis. Policymakers were interviewed, and the resulting data was analyzed through thematic analysis. The study found that media content has a significant, multifaceted impact on policy-making, particularly during the agenda-setting phase. Policymakers noted an increasing trend of media interactions affecting their decisions. While media attention can shape policy priorities, there is also a concern about the sensationalism prevalent in Pakistani media. Policymakers believe that if this sensationalism can be regulated and brought under control, the media could become a more credible and valuable source of information. This would enhance its role in contributing to sustainable governance. The study highlights the dual role of media as both an influencer and a potential partner in governance. Further research is recommended to delve deeper into these dynamics and to develop strategies for leveraging media influence constructively. The findings underscore the importance of understanding media's impact on policy-making and the need for a balanced approach to media consumption and regulation to support informed and effective governance.

National Quality Policy and Strategy of the Health Services in Health Systems of Developing Countries: A Scoping Review.

It has always been argued that countries should not be inactive about the quality of health services. Therefore, a clear policy needs to be created regarding how quality of health services should be. The present scoping review was aimed to identify and map the available evidence regarding the National Quality Policy and Strategy (NQPS) of the health services in health systems of developing countries, graphically and tabularly. We followed the published methodological guidance of the Joanna Briggs Institute reviews. Also, we employed a narrative thematic synthesis integrated with the systematic analysis using the World Health Organization's approach of NQPS, and the multiple-streams framework of Kingdon. We included 33 records that met the inclusion criteria; these records were published between 2010 and 2019. Meanwhile, government documents were the most frequent records (61%). Zimbabwe, Indonesia, and Sudan were the most frequent locations (each one 8%). The Ministry of Health was in charge of the ultimate responsibility for developing the NQPS in all identified countries. Besides, 82% of the countries were in the development phase of NQPS formulation, and convergence of three streams was observed in Indonesia, Sudan, and Tanzania. It seems that the African countries were informed about their quality issues, and the need for having NQPS have been more popular with them. We recommend that future research focuses on examining NQPS in terms of prioritizing in the agenda-setting phase of the policy-making cycle, and also, document analysis of all identified NQPS based on the core eight interdependent elements related to the NQPS approach.

The role of governance models in the development of transport infrastructure megaprojects in Greater Montreal: The case of the Réseau express métropolitain

This article focuses on mobility issues in Montreal, whose metropolitan transportation policies are presented as one of the major ambitions of large North American metropolitan areas. Empirically, we are interested in a recent transportation megaproject: the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) in Montreal, an electric light-rail transit network spanning 67 kilometers in the Greater Metropolitan Area. These types of megaprojects involve significant governance challenges and certain criticisms due to the involvement of several actors from different backgrounds and defending different interests, which places. This is why we believe that it is important to address this issue from the point of view of metropolitan governance through the agenda-setting of urban megaprojects. The originality of this article is that it demonstrates how presenting the REM project as a public-public partnership, between the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and the Government of Québec, opened the door to favoritism for the Caisse which influenced the choice of a political solution in Greater Montreal. By mobilizing Kingdon's model, we conclude that windows of opportunity cannot open without choosing a governance model during the agenda-setting phase.

Digital Twin for Active Stakeholder Participation in Land-Use Planning

The active participation of stakeholders is a crucial requirement for effective land-use planning (LUP). Involving stakeholders in LUP is a way of redistributing the decision-making power and ensuring social justice in land-management interventions. However, owing to the growing intricacy of sociopolitical and economic relations and the increasing number of competing claims on land, the choice of dynamic land use has become more complex, and the need to find balances between social, economic, and environmental claims and interests has become less urgent. These facts reflect a paradigm shift from top-down, noninteractive, and one-directional policymaking approaches to a more negotiable, bottom-up, deliberative, and responsible one. Geospatial industries claim that digital twin technology is a potential facilitator that improves the degree of stakeholder participation and influences land-use planning. The validity of this claim is, however, unknown. By adopting the integrative literature review, this study identifies where in LUP is stakeholder participation much needed and currently problematic, as well as how digital twin could potentially improve. The review shows that digital twins provide virtual visualisation opportunities for the identification of land-use problems and the assessment of the impacts of the proposed land uses. These offer the opportunity to improve stakeholder influence and collaboration in LUP, especially in the agenda-setting phase, where land-use issues could be identified and placed on the LUP agenda. This relies on the ability and willingness of local planning institutions to adopt digital twins, and stakeholders’ perception and willingness to use digital twins for various land-use goals. Despite the assertion that digital twins could improve the influence of stakeholders in LUP, the focus and the development of digital twins have not accomplished much for those features of the technology that could improve stakeholder influence in LUP. By adopting the principles of the social construction of technology, this study proposes a “technological fix” of digital twins to focus more on improving stakeholder influence on land-use planning.

Why are Indigenous Affairs Policies Framed in ways that Undermine Indigenous Health and Equity?

The 2007 Australian Northern Territory Emergency Response policy was harmful to the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We thematically analysed 72 speech acts and reports from the three prominent perspectives: a Northern Territory government inquiry report, the Federal government, and an Aboriginal civil society coalition to examine how framings during the policy agenda setting phase constrained or supported scope for equitable health outcomes. The report authors and the coalition emphasised colonisation and other social determinants of Indigenous health. The Federal government used a discourse of pathology and white sovereignty. Our findings highlighted the need for Indigenous voice in policy making, and the need to address colonial assumptions underpinning policy framings to achieve Indigenous health equity.

Coalitions in climate mitigation policy re-design processes: The case of the regional greenhouse gas initiative

Using the recently proposed concept of “design coalitions,” this paper analyzes stakeholder participation in a subnational U.S. climate change mitigation policy redesign process. We demonstrate the utility of design coalitions for analyzing policy design processes, contending that it provides an opportunity to examine the understudied “secondary beliefs” of actors as described by the advocacy coalition framework. Our case study consists of an iterative, inductive content analysis of written input to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative’s 2016 policy redesign process. We developed a typology of 12 distinct stakeholder types who coalesced in 19 separate design coalitions, each espousing a stance on one of 11 elements of the policy design. These coalitions were dynamic, with radically different sets of stakeholder types participating simultaneously in many different design coalitions without coordination, usually for their own unique reasons. We observe that, although the updated policy reflected many stakeholder’s stances, their influence was limited by their exclusion from the agenda-setting phase of this policy redesign process. In this critical era of climate mitigation policy proliferation, it is important to develop a better understanding of climate policy design coalitions and how they engage in and influence climate mitigation policy design processes.

Using Social Media to Analyze Public Concerns and Policy Responses to COVID-19 in Hong Kong

The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused huge economic and societal disruptions. To fight against the coronavirus, it is critical for policymakers to take swift and effective actions. In this article, we take Hong Kong as a case study, aiming to leverage social media data to support policymakers’ policy-making activities in different phases. First, in the agenda setting phase, we facilitate policymakers to identify key issues to be addressed during COVID-19. In particular, we design a novel epidemic awareness index to continuously monitor public discussion hotness of COVID-19 based on large-scale data collected from social media platforms. Then we identify the key issues by analyzing the posts and comments of the extensively discussed topics. Second, in the policy evaluation phase, we enable policymakers to conduct real-time evaluation of anti-epidemic policies. Specifically, we develop an accurate Cantonese sentiment classification model to measure the public satisfaction with anti-epidemic policies and propose a keyphrase extraction technique to further extract public opinions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which conducts a large-scale social media analysis of COVID-19 in Hong Kong. The analytical results reveal some interesting findings: (1) there is a very low correlation between the number of confirmed cases and the public discussion hotness of COVID-19. The major public concern in the early stage is the shortage of anti-epidemic items. (2) The top-3 anti-epidemic measures with the greatest public satisfaction are daily press conference on COVID-19 updates, border closure, and social distancing rules.

Agenda-setting instruments: means and strategies for the management of policy demands

ABSTRACT Students of public policy have spent considerable effort setting out the types of policy instruments or tools available to policymakers in different stages of the policy process. A nascent strand of this important work concerns the agend-asetting phase, where scholars aim to understand the instruments – procedural and substantive – that government uses to shape the issues that it has to address. There is however limited engagement between scholarship on interest groups and this ongoing discussion around agenda-setting tools. This paper aims to fill this gap by identifying different types of agenda-setting tools deployed by government which are used to shape engagement from organised interests. These tools are classified as those which governments use to routinise demands, regularise demands, generate demands, and impose issues onto the agenda. The paper refocuses attention of policy scholars onto the means and strategies that policymakers deploy to manage government agendas, a process which has clear implications for what becomes a policy problem and thereafter potentially subject to governmental action.

A view through the lens of policy formulation: the struggle to formulate Swedish moose policy

ABSTRACT Policy formulation refers to how problems identified in the agenda-setting phase transform into government programs. As the process of designing policy alternatives expresses and allocates power among different interests, policy formulation affects both implementation and outcomes. This paper examines the Swedish moose policy of 2010, revealing that the policy portrays the issue of moose as an ecological problem, while motivations for adopting policy measures are largely described in economic terms. Because of this incongruity, the policy may not achieve its goals. Furthermore, implementation principles stemming from different design strategies clash in the attempt to incorporate both local and ecosystem-based levels of management into a single system, leaving the policy implementation with many uncertainties and tensions. To deliver the policy’s goal, the government could consider clarifying the operationalization of the ecosystem-based management approach and identifying the prerequisites necessary for building capacity, dealing with strong stakeholders, and ensuring fair representation of key actors. Future research should further explore the consequences of policy imbalances in relation to intended goals, the importance of understanding the rationales and design strategies underpinning implementation principles, and the need to discuss operationalization of EBM in relation to different types of objects of management and to issues of scale.

Determinants of using children\u2019s mental health research in policymaking: variation by type of research use and phase of policy process

BackgroundResearch use in policymaking is multi-faceted and has been the focus of extensive study. However, virtually no quantitative studies have examined whether the determinants of research use vary according to the type of research use or phase of policy process. Understanding such variation is important for selecting the targets of implementation strategies that aim to increase the frequency of research use in policymaking.MethodsA web-based survey of US state agency officials involved with children’s mental health policymaking was conducted between December 2019 and February 2020 (n = 224, response rate = 33.7%, 49 states responding (98%), median respondents per state = 4). The dependent variables were composite scores of the frequency of using children’s mental health research in general, specific types of research use (i.e., conceptual, instrumental, tactical, imposed), and during different phases of the policy process (i.e., agenda setting, policy development, policy implementation). The independent variables were four composite scores of determinants of research use: agency leadership for research use, agency barriers to research use, research use skills, and dissemination barriers (e.g., lack of actionable messages/recommendations in research summaries, lack of interaction/collaboration with researchers). Separate multiple linear regression models estimated associations between determinant and frequency of research use scores.ResultsDeterminants of research use varied significantly by type of research use and phase of policy process. For example, agency leadership for research use was the only determinant significantly associated with imposed research use (β = 0.31, p < 0.001). Skills for research use were the only determinant associated with tactical research use (β = 0.17, p = 0.03) and were only associated with research use in the agenda-setting phase (β = 0.16, p = 0.04). Dissemination barriers were the most universal determinants of research use, as they were significantly and inversely associated with frequency of conceptual (β = −0.21, p = 0.01) and instrumental (β = −0.22, p = 0.01) research use and during all three phases of policy process.ConclusionsDecisions about the determinants to target with policy-focused implementation strategies—and the strategies that are selected to affect these targets—should reflect the specific types of research use that these strategies aim to influence.

The origins of EU legislation: agenda-setting, intra-institutional decision-making or interinstitutional negotiations?

This article traces the origins of European legislation during the legislative policy-making process. It identifies three phases where parts of the text of legislative acts can be developed: (1) agenda-setting; (2) intra-institutional decision-making and (3) interinstitutional negotiations, depending on whether the content of the legislation originates respectively in the Commission proposal, the co-legislators’ positions or trilogue negotiations. Using a newly developed text-mining technique which computes in which phase each word of a legislative act originally appears, the article examines the relative importance of each phase and explores how it is affected by interinstitutional conflict. Applying this method to 219 legislative acts adopted between 2012 and 2018, it finds that most EU legislation originates in the agenda-setting phase, and that the new content developed during trilogue negotiations is limited. However, the importance of the agenda-setting phase decreases in cases with high levels of interinstitutional conflict.

Policy Process And Non-State Actors' Influence On The 2014 Mexican Soda Tax.

In January 2014, Mexico introduced a soda tax of 1 Mexican Peso (MXP) per litre. The aim of this paper is to examine the political context out of which this policy emerged, the main drivers for the policy change, and the role of stakeholders in setting the policy agenda and shaping the policy design and outcomes. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, and 145 documents, including peer-reviewed papers, policy briefs, press releases, industry, government, and CSO reports, were analysed. An iterative thematic analysis was conducted based on relevant theories of the policy process using a complementary approach, including Stages Heuristic Model, Policy Triangle Framework, and Multiple Streams Model. Results showed that a major motivation was the new administration seeking funds as they entered government. The soda tax was supported by a key group of legislators, civil society actors and by academics promoting evidence on health effects. However, the policy measure was challenged by the food and beverage industries (F&BI). Non-state actors were both formally and informally involved in setting the agenda, regardless of some of them having opposing interests on the soda tax policy. Approaches used by non-state actors to influence the agenda included: calls for action, marketing strategies, coalition building, challenging evidence, and engaging in public-private partnerships (PPPs). The effectiveness of the soda tax was highly debated and resulted in public polarization, although the framing of the outcomes was instrumental in influencing fiscal policies elsewhere. This study contributes to the debate around implementing fiscal policies for health and how power is exercised and framed in the agenda-setting phase of policy development. The article examines how the F&BI sought to influence the national strategy for obesity prevention. It argues that the experience of the soda tax campaign empowered policy advocates, strengthening national and international civil society networks.

Civil society organizations in China: Navigating the local government for more inclusive environmental governance

This article examines how civil society organizations navigate local government to secure more inclusive environmental governance. Based on an in-depth case study of water governance in Zhejiang Province between 2012 and 2018, we find that Green Zhejiang, a civil society organization, exercised informal power to hold the local government accountable based on two strategies: mobilizing citizens to collect information on water pollution and strategically leveraging the authority of provincial government to find citizen-focused solutions. Most existing studies foreground one stage of the policy process – advocacy in the agenda-setting phase, policy entrepreneurship during the design phase, or monitoring during the implementation phase; however, we examine strategies of civil society organizations throughout this policy lifecycle. With this approach, we are able to analyse the strategic interactions between different levels of the government and civil society organizations and locate the positive outcomes and limits under the current governance system. Despite policy successes, Green Zhejiang still acts informally, which limits long-term effectiveness. However, incorporating citizens into public administration in a meaningful way requires sharing policymaking power formally, and thus far, local governments are only willing to share power in an ad hoc and informal way. More institutionalized citizen participation is necessary to develop innovative solutions to the severe environmental degradation in China.

Application of policy analysis frameworks in tobacco control research: A systematic review of qualitative literature.

Background: Tobacco consumption is still considered as the first preventable cause of death in the world. In order to influence tobacco policy process, researchers and policymakers must use frameworks of policy-making to understand the process to provide them insights for influence the process. This systematic review aims to review the application of policy analysis frameworks in the field of tobacco control. Methods: A systematic search for articles was performed using four databases (Ovid Medline, Scopus, Cochrane Library, and PubMed) up to December 19, 2016. The articles were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. All research studies focusing on tobacco policy and on one or more specified frameworks of policy analysis included in this study. Finally, thematic analysis was used to synthesize the findings. Results: 17 studies based on eligibility criteria were included in this study. The findings of this study showed that most of the studies were in North America, published in the Health journals, conducted to analyze the national and state policies, focused on analyzing agenda-setting phase. Multiple streams model was the most widely used framework within the literature. Few studies had used advocacy coalition framework. From the three agenda setting frameworks and theories (MSF, PEF, ACF), the ACF framework is the most detailed framework in terms of elements and factors affecting the dynamics of political sub-system the reasons for models selection and suitability for the study was noted only in a small number of studies. The results of this study showed underuse and the incomplete or improper use of policy analysis models and frameworks in the field of tobacco research. Conclusion: The study showed that a number of theories and frameworks have been used but their use was limited and have significant methodological weaknesses.

Setting the policy agenda for combating the abuse of new psychoactive substances in the republic of croatia

Although the Early Warning System on New Psychoactive Substances in the Republic of Croatia was established in 2007, the phenomenon of new psychoactive substances only recently began garnering attention. This surge in attention is largely due to reports from other EU countries on intoxications and deaths connected to these, as well as the increased availability of these substances in specialized shops (“smart shops”) and on the internet. This paper demonstrates the agenda-setting process in relation to the policy for combating new psychoactive substances abuse in Croatia by using the phase model or the policy-cycle model of policy-making process. The agenda-setting phase is characterized by a presentation of a specific problem as an important public policy issue; therefore, the aim of this paper is to discuss activities, circumstances and actors that are important for agenda setting of the policy for combating new psychoactive substances in Croatia.

Investigating strategies used by hospital pharmacists to effectively communicate with patients during medication counselling

BackgroundMedication counselling opportunities are key times for pharmacists and patients to discuss medications and patients’ concerns about their therapy. Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) describes behavioural, motivational and emotional processes underlying communication exchanges. Five CAT strategies (approximation, interpretability, discourse management, emotional expression and interpersonal control) permit identification of effective communication.ObjectiveTo invoke CAT to investigate communication strategies used by hospital pharmacists during patient medication counselling.DesignThis was a theory‐based, qualitative study using transcribed audiorecordings of patients and hospital pharmacists engaged in medication counselling.Setting and participantsRecruited pharmacists practised in inpatient or outpatient settings. Eligible patients within participating pharmacists’ practice sites were prescribed at least three medications to manage chronic disease(s).Main outcome measuresThe extent to which pharmacists accommodate, or not, to patients’ conversational needs based on accommodative behaviour described within CAT strategies.ResultsTwelve pharmacists engaged four patients (48 total interactions). Exemplars provided robust examples of pharmacists effectively accommodating or meeting patients’ conversational needs. Non‐accommodation mainly occurred when pharmacists spoke too quickly, used terms not understood by patients and did not include patients in the agenda‐setting phase. Multiple strategy use resulted in communication patterns such as “information‐reassurance‐rationale” sandwiches.Discussion and conclusionsMost pharmacists effectively employed all five CAT strategies to engage patients in discussions. Pharmacists’ communication could be improved at the initial agenda‐setting phase by asking open‐ended questions to invite patients’ input and allow patients to identify any medication‐related concerns or issues.

Transaction costs in the evolution of transnational polycentric governance

Polycentric systems of governance may help address two key challenges in the transnational governance of socioecological systems, the problems of fragmentation and fit, but there is limited understanding of the processes through which polycentric governance systems emerge. This paper draws on institutional economics and accounts of international regime formation to develop an ideal-type model of the evolution of transnational polycentric governance. In particular, the model highlights systematically different transaction costs across different phases of polycentric governance evolution. These costs result in important trade-offs between building a broad coalition during agenda setting and addressing complexity in implementation. The plausibility of the model is probed using the case of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), drawing on global-level data on REDD+ collaboration, as well as fieldwork in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia. This case suggests that low transaction costs in the agenda-setting phase led to a confused vision for what REDD+ should be, ultimately hampering implementation.

Integrating societal concerns into research and development (R&amp;D) on geological disposal at the national level

AbstractThe European InSOTEC project aims to identify remaining socio-technical challenges for the implementation of geological disposal of radioactive waste in European countries. Geological disposal has been recognized as the reference solution in radioactive waste management by the European Commission, which has set up the IGD-TP as a platform to foster exchanges between authorities on research and development (R&amp;D) on this topic. This paper turns to the national level to analyse national R&amp;D programmes on radioactive waste management (RWM) and particularly, geological disposal (GD) in order to assess to what extent there are national platforms that broaden interaction beyond an expert community. For this, we focus on identifying those practices and structures that reflect a degree of inter- and transdisciplinarity in the design and implementation of national R&amp;D programmes. Our argument, embedded in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) literature, is that the way GD is framed by the research and policy community has important implications for the processes of developing and governing a technology. From our empirical case studies, we will explore the extent to which social-science research is integrated and the way stakeholders may have an impact on the development of R&amp;D programmes. Overall, including social science research as an integral part in R&amp;D programmes on GD and fostering collaboration between different types of knowledge in the R&amp;D agenda-setting phase may help in the consideration of GD as a socio-technical problem, where the social and the technical are inextricably linked.

The ‘powerless parliament’? Agenda-setting and the role of the UK parliament in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008

This article uses a case study of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 to examine the legislative role of the UK Parliament. Parliament is often considered to be a weak legislative actor, although this view has increasingly been challenged by legislative scholars. In this case, Parliament exercised agenda-setting powers at the pre-legislative stage that produced a significant impact on legislative outcomes. The article demonstrates the value for legislative studies of disaggregating the legislative timeframe and thereby examining the power of legislatures beyond the formal decision-making process. It also identifies a set of enabling conditions – for example, extended pre-legislative scrutiny, low political salience, and synchronisation of committee timelines with the legislative process – under which legislatures might exercise agenda-setting power in other areas of policy. The case study finds that those parliamentarians who engaged with policy in the agenda-setting phase exerted greater influence over policy outcomes than those who engaged at the decision-making stage.

Oppose, Support, or Hedge? Distributional Effects, Regulatory Pressure, and Business Strategy in Environmental Politics

What explains the choice of corporate political strategy in environmental politics? Drawing on recent models of actor strategy formation in political economy, this article argues that basic material interests of firms are translated into strategies in the context of institutional environments. I advance a typological model that posits how distributional effects—positive versus negative—and perceived regulatory pressure—low versus high—interact in leading firms to adopt one of four ideal-type strategies: opposition, hedging, support, and non-participation. This article examines the model through the case of corporate strategies in the making of the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme. The article contributes to theory-building on business strategy in environmental politics by offering a probabilistic explanatory model, and it flags hedging strategies as an increasingly prevalent form of business behavior.