Focusing events, Agenda-setting and Mobilization of Anti-corruption law-making: Focusing on Tone Measures for Policy Attitude Evaluation

Agenda setting is a crucial aspect of the public policy process. Sudden, rare, and harmful events, known as focusing events, can be important influences on the policy process. Such events can reveal current and potential future harms, mobilize people and groups to address the policy failures that may be revealed by such events, and open the “window of opportunity” for intensive policy discussion and potential policy change. But focusing events operate differently at different times and in different policy domains. Although the idea of focusing events is firmly rooted in Kingdon’s “streams approach” to the policy process, focusing events are an important element of most contemporary theories of the policy process. But not every event works as a focusing event. The process by which a focusing event can yield policy change is complex and involves attention to the problems revealed by the event as well as evidence of learning from the event on the part of policymakers. Although focusing events are important, in many ways the concept remains underdeveloped, with few researchers seeking to understand the dynamics of these important events.

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After disaster: agenda setting, public policy, and focusing events

Choice Reviews Online ◽

10.5860/choice.35-4778 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 35 (08) ◽

pp. 35-4778-35-4778

Keyword(s):

Public Policy ◽

Agenda Setting ◽

Focusing Events

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The 2030 Agenda as Agenda Setting Event for Water Governance? Evidence from the Cuautla River Basin in Morelos and Mexico

Water ◽

10.3390/w12020314 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (2) ◽

pp. 314 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Anita Breuer ◽

Ursula Oswald Spring

Keyword(s):

River Basin ◽

Agenda Setting ◽

Water Governance ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Global Environmental Change ◽

Policy Science ◽

Paradigm Shifts ◽

Focusing Events ◽

2030 Agenda ◽

Starting Point

Policy science has developed various approaches, such as agenda-setting and goal-setting theory, aimed at explaining the emergence of policy shifts and behavioural changes. The 2030 Agenda sets an ambitious vision for human development in times of global environmental change and makes for an interesting subject to study the explanatory power of these approaches. While the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) enshrined in the 2030 Agenda resulted from a process of intergovernmental negotiations, they will ultimately have to be implemented by national governments. Using the case of Mexico, we take the governance of water as a starting point to investigate whether the 2030 Agenda has indeed become a focusing event for sustainability transformation. Building on data from 33 expert interviews and findings of a Social Network Analysis of communications between water stakeholders from different sectors in the Cuautla River Basin, we conclude that major paradigm shifts in water governance in Mexico are thus far rather attributable to domestic focusing events and windows of opportunity than to the motivating impact of globally set goals. The Mexican case also illustrates that the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is strongly dependent on political will at the highest level. Ensuring the continuity of its implementation across administrations will, therefore, require mainstreaming and anchoring the SDGs into the sectorial strategies that determine activities at the lower working level of government.

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Eventos focalizadores e a pandemia da COVID-19: a renda básica emergencial na agenda governamental brasileira

Revista de Administração Pública ◽

10.1590/0034-761220200619 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 55 (3) ◽

pp. 644-661

Author(s):

Felipe Gonçalves Brasil ◽

Ana Cláudia Niedhardt Capella ◽

Leandro Teodoro Ferreira

Keyword(s):

Agenda Setting ◽

Focusing Events ◽

Politica Publica

Resumo Observar e analisar as causas, os efeitos e as múltiplas consequências econômicas, sociais e sanitárias da pandemia da COVID-19 têm sido primordiais não apenas para a compreensão desse fenômeno mundial, mas também para a elaboração de alternativas e soluções que minimizem os impactos na vida das populações ao redor do mundo. Este artigo tem como principal objetivo entender a ascensão da renda básica emergencial como alternativa viável de política pública no cenário brasileiro, por meio do Auxílio Emergencial. Baseado na literatura de agenda-setting, em específico no conceito de eventos focalizadores (focusing events), recuperamos um breve histórico das políticas de transferência de renda e de combate à pobreza e os principais atores envolvidos, para entender mudanças, adaptações e soluções propostas para que a alternativa de renda básica emergencial pudesse ser considerada e aceita neste momento específico de crise.

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Estudos em Políticas Públicas e a COVID-19: Indicativos de uma agenda de pesquisa

Interseções Revista de Estudos Interdisciplinares ◽

10.12957/irei.2020.56785 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Felipe Gonçalves Brasil

Keyword(s):

Policy Process ◽

Agenda Setting ◽

Policy Making ◽

Policy Learning ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Focusing Events ◽

Evidence Based Policy

A pandemia causada pela Covid-19, que se prolonga desde os primeiros meses de 2020 ao redor de todo o mundo, marcada por irreparáveis impactos sociais, econômicos, sanitários e humanitários, tem despertado a atenção de acadêmicos que se dedicam a entender e analisar as ideias, escolhas e prioridades dos tomadores de decisão num momento caracterizado pela extrema necessidade de atuação governamental. Seja no seu papel de fonte oficial de informações que orientem e informem a população, seja na atuação direta na elaboração de estratégias de redução do contágio, no estabelecimento de regras de funcionamento de equipamentos públicos e privados, ou na elaboração de políticas que minimizem os efeitos catastróficos da pandemia e garantam a sobrevivência de seu povo, o “estado em ação” vem sendo observado por diferentes lentes teóricas inseridas no interdisciplinar campo das políticas públicas. Este estudo tem o objetivo de apresentar, ainda que brevemente, dois referenciais teóricos e analíticos com grande potencial para apoiar estudos que buscam entender melhor a forma como o processo de políticas públicas pode sofrer importantes alterações em momentos de crise como essa. O primeiro referencial analisado é o dos “efeitos focalizadores” (focusing events), presentes na literatura de policy process e agenda-setting. Outra lente analítica relevante está relacionada com o aprendizado em políticas públicas e a formulação de políticas baseadas em evidência (policy learning and evidence-based policy making). As escolhas por essas três linhas teóricas não têm a intenção de limitar os estudos em políticas públicas, mas de lançar luz a novas abordagens com grande potencial explicativo para novas agendas de pesquisas.

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The rise and fall of global health issues: an arenas model applied to the COVID-19 pandemic shock

Globalization and Health ◽

10.1186/s12992-021-00691-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Stephanie L. Smith ◽

Jeremy Shiffman ◽

Yusra Ribhi Shawar ◽

Zubin Cyrus Shroff

Keyword(s):

Alzheimer’S Disease ◽

Alzheimer's Disease ◽

Global Health ◽

News Media ◽

Agenda Setting ◽

Systematic Investigation ◽

Health Issues ◽

Focusing Events ◽

Health Agenda ◽

Hiv Aids

Abstract Background The global health agenda is ill-defined as an analytical construct, complicating attempts by scholars and proponents to make claims about the agenda status of issues. We draw on Kingdon’s definition of the agenda and Hilgartner and Bosk’s public arenas model to conceptualize the global health agenda as those subjects or problems to which collectivities of actors operating nationally and globally are paying serious attention at any given time. We propose an arenas model for global health agenda setting and illustrate its potential utility by assessing priority indicators in five arenas, including international aid, pharmaceutical industry, scientific research, news media and civil society. We then apply the model to illustrate how the status of established (HIV/AIDS), emergent (diabetes) and rising (Alzheimer’s disease) issues might be measured, compared and change in light of a pandemic shock (COVID-19). Results Coronavirus priority indicators rose precipitously in all five arenas in 2020, reflecting the kind of punctuation often caused by focusing events. The magnitude of change varied somewhat by arena, with the most pronounced shift in the global news media arena. Priority indicators for the other issues showed decreases of up to 21% and increases of up to 41% between 2019 and 2020, with increases suggesting that the agenda for global health issues expanded in some arenas in 2020— COVID-19 did not consistently displace priority for HIV/AIDS, diabetes or Alzheimer’s disease, though it might have for other issues. Conclusions We advance an arenas model as a novel means of addressing conceptual and measurement challenges that often undermine the validity of claims concerning the global health agenda status of problems and contributing causal factors. Our presentation of the model and illustrative analysis lays the groundwork for more systematic investigation of trends in global health agenda setting. Further specification of the model is needed to ensure accurate representation of vital national and transnational arenas and their interactions, applicability to a range of disease-specific, health systems, governance and policy issues, and sensitivity to subtler influences on global health agenda setting than pandemic shocks.

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From meditation to action – a research agenda for studying informal global rule-making: remarks on ‘Cosmopolitanism, publicity, and the emergence of a “global administrative law”’

International Theory ◽

10.1017/s1752971920000639 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Oliver Westerwinter

Keyword(s):

Global Governance ◽

Comparative Research ◽

Research Agenda ◽

Institutional Design ◽

Administrative Law ◽

Democratic Legitimacy ◽

Institutional Architecture ◽

Global Law ◽

Rule Making ◽

Law Making

Abstract Friedrich Kratochwil engages critically with the emergence of a global administrative law and its consequences for the democratic legitimacy of global governance. While he makes important contributions to our understanding of global governance, he does not sufficiently discuss the differences in the institutional design of new forms of global law-making and their consequences for the effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance. I elaborate on these limitations and outline a comparative research agenda on the emergence, design, and effectiveness of the diverse arrangements that constitute the complex institutional architecture of contemporary global governance.

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