Agenda setting in
public policy-making:
The policy process
normally starts when one or more stakeholders in society, who feel that the
actions of the government detrimentally affect them or another segment of
society, identify a policy issue, or problem. They then mobilize support to
persuade policy-makers to do something in order to change the status quo in
their favor. This process to change public policy is termed policy
agenda-setting.
An agenda-setting is a collection of problems, understanding
of causes, symbols, solutions and other elements of public problems that come
to the attention of the members of the public and those movement officials. Agenda setting is the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose
public and elite attention. Group competition to set the agenda is fierce
because no society or political system has the institutional capacity to
address all possible alternatives to all possible problems that arise at any
one time. Groups must, therefore, fight to earn their issues’ places among all
the other issues sharing the limited space on the agenda or to prepare for the
time when a crisis makes their issue more likely to occupy a more prominent
space on the agenda.
Kingdon has defined the agenda is the list
of subjects or problems to which governmental officials, and people outside of
government closely associated with those officials, are paying some serious
attention at any given time. The agenda-setting is the process or behavior to
adopt social issue or problem as a policy problem; in the process, social issue
or problem is chosen as a governmental issue. Then, what has caused this shift
in public attention? And how is the issue concentrated by the government and chosen
as the agenda?
Downs has suggested the issue-attention
cycle as the answer of these questions. According to his theory, the cycle has
five stages: (1) the pre-problem stage, (2) Alarmed discovery and euphoric
enthusiasm, (3) Realizing the cost of significant progress, (4) gradual decline
of intense public interest, and (5) the post-problem stage.
Levels of agenda
setting.
Ø Agenda universe – all ideas that could possibly be brought up and discussed
in a society or a political system. This is a primary stage of agenda setting;
here we can get lot of idea from general people, group or party in the society.
Ø Systemic agenda – all issues that are commonly perceived by members of the
political community as meriting public attention and as involving matters
within the legitimate jurisdiction of existing governmental authority.
Ø Institutional agenda – the list of items explicitly up for the active and
serious consideration of authoritative decision-makers. Government is a sole
authority to select a decision from the available ideas which rise in
grassroots level.
Ø Decision agenda – items about to be acted on by a governmental body. Here
all procedures are enclosing through the government involvement. Political
consideration, financial consideration, social and religious consideration
would analyze here concisely through ruling party’s ideology base.
Because the agenda is finite, interests must compete with
each other to get their issues and their preferred alternative policies, on the
agenda.
Figure:
Levels of Agenda setting
They must also compete with each other to keep their issues
off the agenda, using the power resources at their disposal.
Agenda setting
process:
Agenda setting process may outing how group dynamic and
political consideration work.
Pressure group: different kind of pressure group like
business and religious group can influence in policy making on their common
interest. The way of interest achievement process are mere different in Strong
group and weak group.
The process of agenda setting contains four fundamental
elements, which may be termed “the four ‘P’s.” Theoretical attempts to model
the process assign different values and importance to each element but they all
address them in some capacity.
Figure: Four “P”s of agenda setting process
Ø Power is perhaps the most important element of agenda setting. If actionable
items are the result of political contests, the power to Manipulate, persuade,
prevent, or coerce may resolve these contests. Actionable government priorities
reflect the power of some groups or individuals over others in making their
voices heard and by implication turn their own parochial concerns into public
problems that need to be collectively addressed.
Example of power influence, There are no doubt each political system business
group one of the most powerful pressure group. They try to influence government
policy. The last budget of the Bangladesh government they try to run vat act
2012 fully, but government has failed to active this act because of the pressure of
the business group.
Example of Religious group influence in policy consideration
on agenda setting, Religious
group always try to influence in policy making, in this year Bangladesh
government has influenced by religious group, they have changed the primary
textbook in somewhere through the pressure of Hefajot Islam. It was an agenda
of Hefajot Islam to change textbook where contradict with Islam in the view of
them.
Ø Perception crucially affects what issues are deemed important and why.
While many issues deserve government attention at any given time, only few of
them become public problems. The process of turning issues into problems
contains a perceptual element. Quite often policymakers, opinion-makers, and
other personalities of public life selectively report and interpret events so
as to activate empathy or support for an item. For example of the perception in
policy agenda, government try proclaimed largely before making policy to gather
public support. If public take positively the government issues then rolling
party easily makes policy.
Ø Potency refers to the intensity or severity of consequences of a
given issue. In general, the greater the intensity or severity of consequences,
the more salient the issue will be on the government’s agenda. For example, we
can see the 16th amendment of Bangladesh constitution. Some
important issues of the government had organized by 16th amendment.
But Supreme Court has postponed the amendment. Here caretaker government is one
of the most vital and strong issue for government. In this way, government
facing a challenging situation through government vs. Judiciary.
Ø Proximity and potency have indirect effects on the agenda as they are
filtered through power and perception. For example, A government system mostly
handles by administrative authority, political party or rolling party just
exercises power to govern the whole system. In the period of policy making, all
procedures are entailing to the bureaucratic authority. A government can don’t
any work without administration. If we go back last month, when a political
person cased against Tarek Salman who was Upozila Nirbahi officer now senior
joint secretary. For this case here create a dilemma among political,
administrative and Judiciary. Government has taken initiative to recover the
condition to avoid a deadlock situation on administration.
Overall conclusion:
If we have seen in
previous works, critics, economists, philosophers and theorists of many kinds
have tried to develop frameworks and systems for understanding and explaining
the policy process. One of the most important issues within this range of
thought is to examine and explain the ways in which issues come to prominence
and gain a foothold on the formal policy-making agenda. The focus here is on
the role of the public, stakeholder groups and ‘public opinion’, and the ways
in which they are influenced and activated. To analyze the policy
agenda-setting process in Bangladesh. As mentioned above, a political consideration
of the each Government played a major role in the process the policy
making, Bangladesh Government, is seeking a virtuous
circle in the positive feed-back loop to overcome the multiple crisis in state
level’s problems.
Bibliography
3. https://flo.flinders.edu.au/pluginfile.php/1243027/mod_resource/content/5/3
Agenda Setting - General Perspectives.pdf
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