Policy Stages - Agenda Setting

This is the first of our chapters on the policy stages. In this chapter Peters covers the "first" two stages of the policy process (remember, stages theory is a tool to help us think about policies, and in reality the stages aren't so neat and orderly). Agenda setting is commonly thought of as the first stage of the policy process. The ability to place items on the agenda for consideration and keep other items off is one of the most important powers in the policy process. This is why party control of the House and Senate can be so important. Think about how different some of the issues considered by the Republican House are from some of the issues being considered by the Democratic Senate (this difference becomes even greater when we look at the bills coming out of committees in one house versus the other).

Peters talks about two types of agendas: systemic and institutional. Systemic agendas are broader and more stable over time. They include any issue that has been deemed appropriate for consideration by the public sector. Institutional agendas are much more variable and only include those issues that are under active consideration at the time. While some advocacy groups are trying to move their issues onto the systemic agenda, most are attempting to move their issues from the systemic agenda to the institutional agenda. As you can imagine, at any given time most issues are on the systemic agenda with relatively few issues on the institutional agenda.

A lot of debate in political science and public policy studies concern who sets the agenda. The study of public policy really originated with Robert Dahl's Who Governs, a work that takes a pluralist perspective on policymaking. Pluralism emphasizes a marketplace of ideas. Pluralist theory argues that society is made up of different interest group with many divergent ideas, with government acting as the primary mediator between these groups. Individuals join the groups that advocate for things they care about and act as bystanders on other issues. Policies are ultimately decided by competition, and in the marketplace of ideas the best idea wins. 

While pluralism assumes that all groups have equal power in the marketplace of ideas, elitist theory assumes that policy is primarily made by the wealthy and powerful. C. Wright Mills' The Power Elite is often considered the classic of elite theory, and argues that business owners, politicians, and military leaders all engage in the same circles and work together in their various sectors to distribute power and wealth among themselves. Keeping and increasing the power of those who are already powerful is an important aspect of public policy, from the perspective of elite theory (of course elite theorists generally see this as a problem in democratic societies).Other scholars like E.E. Schattschneider point to the difficulties that the poor have in organizing into interest groups and understanding the public sector.

The State-Centric approach tends to center agenda setting with government actors rather than interest groups or other outside actors. Congressional committees and bureaucratic agencies become the key actors in deciding what government should consider at any given time.

Once we have established who can set the agenda, we move to the question of how issues make it onto the agenda. Of course, this will have a lot to do with the political ideologies, personal values, and rational self-interest of those with the power to set the agenda. Emergencies, life or death issues, issues concentrated in districts of powerful policymakers, and visible issues will all likely be included on the agenda. Mancur Olsen's The Logic of Collective Action discusses how the dispersion of costs and benefits across the population influences which issues are included in the agenda and ultimately passed. Where benefits are concentrated and excludable  and costs are dispersed, policies will generally be placed on the agenda and passed. Where benefits are dispersed and costs are concentrated policies will generally be kept off the agenda. Further, where issues can be tied to older issues, national symbols, and existing solutions, they will often be added to the agenda.

From an economic perspective, government should intervene where we find market failure. The private sector will not provide the optimal level of public goods because there is no way to exclude those who do not pay for the good. Public goods are those goods that are non-rival  (my consumption will not limit your consumption) and  non-excludable (there is no way to exclude those who do not pay for the good). We can think of our Fourth of July fireworks as public goods (within a certain range). The private sector would be unlikely to provide the optimal amount of fireworks because there is no way to exclude those who do not pay to see the fireworks from viewing them. Market failure also exists in the case of externalities. Externalities exist when either the full cost or full benefit of a good cannot be privatized. For example, an economist would likely argue that the lightrail should be subsidized by government (ideally from a road toll or tax on driving fuel inefficient vehicles) because the benefits of reduced traffic and emissions cannot be fully privatized. In this day and age, it is hard to think about goods that are entirely private goods and without any external costs or benefits. 

Once an item is placed on the agenda, the second stage of the policy process begins. Government needs to determine how the issue will be solved through policy formulation. As Peters points out, sometimes this is based more on habit and analogy than theory or scientific evaluation. The bureaucracy, think tanks, interest groups, and legislators all participate in policy formulation (often legislators participate much less than you would assume). Two tools are often used in the United States to formulate policy, Cost Benefit Analysis and Decision Analysis. Both of these tools should be covered in an advanced policy analysis class. Briefly, Cost Benefit Analysis is based on the premise that all actions and goods can be converted into a monetary value, and government should choose the policy with the highest ratio of benefits to costs. Decision analysis takes cost benefit analysis and adds uncertainty. Using decision analysis, the action that is the most profitable or the least costly, given the likelihood that a specific event will occur, should be taken.