Readings for American politics core seminar, on agenda-setting
Profs. Aldrich and MacKuen
November 23, 2010
Frank Baumgartner, UNC

Purpose: Introduce some of the background on agenda setting and then explore the policy agendas project, its development over time and current foci. Please read the articles hyperlinked below and get familiar with the two large web sites listed at the bottom.

Classics (not necessary to read these, but read the summary in Baumgartner 2001 below):
Schattschneider, E. E. 1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Cobb, Roger W., and Charles D. Elder. 1972. Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kingdon, John W. 1984. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown.

These are summarized here:

Baumgartner, Frank R. 2001. Political Agendas. In Niel J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes, eds. International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences: Political Science (New York: Elsevier Science and Oxford: Pergamon), pp. 288-90.

Agendas and Instability in American Politics introduces the ideas of image and venue and the concept of positive feedback explaining dramatic policy shifts, with negative feedback explaining periods of stability, aka the punctuated equilibrium model. It is summarized here:

Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 1991. Agenda Dynamics and Policy Subsystems. Journal of Politics 53, 4 (November): 1044-74.

Politics of Attention exemplifies the policy agendas project approach, looking comprehensively at all policy domains and issues over a long period of time. This approach has many elements, but it has incorporated a lot of attention to the politics of budgeting, in particular the shape of distributions of annual percentage change in budgets. Here is a series of work on these topics including efforts to model it mathematically as well as efforts to summarize it empirically in many countries. The first reading gives the conceptual model that underlies it all.

Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press., Ch. 1, 2.

Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner. 2005. A Model of Choice for Public Policy. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 15, 3 (July): 325-51.

Four articles address comparative elements of the project, our current focus:

Jones, Bryan D., Frank R. Baumgartner, Christian Breunig, Chris Wlezien, Stuart Soroka, Martial Foucault, Abel François, Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Chris Koske, Peter John, Peter B. Mortensen, Frédéric Varone, and Stefaan Walgrave. 2009. A General Empirical Law of Public Budgets: A Comparative Analysis. American Journal of Political Science 53, 4 (October): 855-73.

Introduction to a special issue of Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming 2011.

Please skim these two papers on whether partisan effects change the policy agenda in France, or budgetary priorities of governments over time; the simple point is to follow up on what we discuss about partisan effects in the CPS introduction above.

Note that another aspect of the extensions of the agendas project is to study framing and issue-definition in the US and comparatively. This is too much to cover in this class, so I'm only sticking to policy change questions.

US agendas project http://www.policyagendas.org/

Comparative agendas projects http://www.comparativeagendas.org/

Recommended readings on agenda-setting
Frank Baumgartner
October 30, 2009

This is a set of readings on agendas, not completely up to date by any means but it gives an introduction to much of the work.  It includes some things on threshold and cascade models as well which is not strictly speaking agenda-setting but is relevant.

Part I.  General readings

Bachrach, Peter and Morton Baratz.  1962. The Two Faces of Power. American Political Science Review 56: 947–52.
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones, eds.  2002. Policy Dynamics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baumgartner, Frank R., and Bryan D. Jones.  2009. Agendas and Instability in American Politics. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Jeffrey M. Berry, Marie Hojnacki, David C. Kimball, and Beth L. Leech. 2009.  Lobbying and Policy Change:  Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Suzanna L. De Boef and Amber E. Boydstun.  2008.  The Decline of the Death Penalty and the Discovery of Innocence.  New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carmines, Edward G., and James A. Stimson. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cobb, Roger W., and Charles D. Elder.  1983. Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda-Building. 2d ed. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Cobb, Roger W., and Marc Howard Ross, eds.  1997. Cultural Strategies of Agenda Denial. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Cobb, Roger W., Jeannie Keith-Ross, and Marc Howard Ross. 1976. Agenda Building as a Comparative Political Process. American Political Science Review 70: 126–38.
Cohen, Jeffrey. 1995. Presidential Rhetoric and the Public Agenda. American Journal of Political Science 39: 87–107.
Cohen, Michael, James G. March, and Johan P. Olsen. 1972. A Garbage Can Theory of Organizational Choice. Administrative Science Quarterly 17: 1–25.
Crenson, Matthew A.  1971. The Unpolitics of Air Pollution. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Downs, Anthony. 1972. Up and Down with Ecology: The Issue Attention Cycle. Public Interest 28: 38–50.
Durant, Robert F., and Paul F. Diehl. 1991. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policy: Lessons from the U.S. Foreign Policy Arena. Journal of Public Policy 9: 179–205.
Edwards, George C. III, and B. Dan Wood.  1999. Who Influences Whom? The President, Congress, and the Media. American Political Science Review 93: 327–44.
Flemming, Roy B., B. Dan Wood, and John Bohte.  1999. Attention to Issues in A System of Separated Powers: The Macrodynamics of American Policy Agendas. Journal of Politics 61 (1): 76–108.
Gaventa, John.  1980. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Granovetter, Mark S.  1978. Threshold Models of Collective Behavior. American Journal of Sociology 83: 1420–43.
Granovetter, Mark S., and Roland Soong.  1983. Threshold Models of Diffusion and Collective Behavior. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 9: 165–79.
Granovetter, Mark S., and Roland Soong.  1988.  Threshold Models of Diversity: Chinese Restaurants, Residential Segregation, and the Spiral of Silence.  Sociological Methodology 18: 69–104.
Jones, Bryan D.  1994. Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice, and Public Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jones, Bryan D.  2001. Politics and the Architecture of Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Jones, Bryan D.  2003. Bounded Rationality in Political Science: Lessons from Public Administration. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13: 395–410.
Jones, Bryan D., and Frank R. Baumgartner.  2005.  The Politics of Attention: How Government Prioritizes Problems.  Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kingdon, John W.  1995. Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. 2d ed.  New York: HarperCollins.
Kollman, Ken.  1998. Outside Lobbying: Public Opinion and Interest Group Strategies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kuran, Timur.  1991.  The East European Revolution of 1989: Is It Surprising that We Were Surprised?  American Economic Review 81 (2): 121–125.
Lohmann, Susanne.  1994. The Dynamics of Informational Cascades: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig, East Germany, 1989–1991. World Politics 47: 42–101.
Lux, Thomas.  1995. Herd Behavior, Bubbles, and Crashes. Economic Journal 105: 881–96.
Macy, Michael W.  1991.  Chains of Cooperation: Threshold Effects in Collective Action.  American Sociological Review 56 (6): 730–747.
Perry, H.W. 1991. Deciding to Decide: Agenda Setting in the United States Supreme Court. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Peters, B. Guy, and Brian W. Hogwood. 1985. In Search of the Issue-Attention Cycle. Journal of Politics 47: 239–53.
Repetto, Robert, ed.  2006. Punctuated Equilibrium Models and Environmental Policy.  New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riker, William H.  1984. The Heresthetics of Constitution-Making: The Presidency in 1787, with Comments on Determinism and Rational Choice. American Political Science Review 78 (1): 1–16.
Riker, William H.  1986. The Art of Political Manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riker, William H. 1996. The Strategy of Rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Schattschneider, E. E.  1960. The Semi-Sovereign People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Schelling, Thomas C.  1971.  Dynamic Models of Segregation.  Journal of Mathematical Sociology 1: 143–86.
Schneider, Anne, and Helen Ingram. 1993.  Social Construction of Target Populations: Implications for Politics and Policy.  American Political Science Review 87 (2): 334–47.
Stone, Deborah A.  1988. Policy Paradox and Political Reason. Glenview, Ill.: Scott, Foresman.
Stone, Deborah A.  1989. Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science Quarterly 104, 2 (Summer): 281–300.
Walker, Jack L., Jr.  1977. Setting the Agenda in the U.S. Senate: A Theory of Problem Selection. British Journal of Political Science 7: 423–45.

Part II: Important Case Studies (a small selection)

Birkland, Thomas A. 1997. After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Bosso, Chrisotpher J. 1987. Pesticides and Politics: The Life Cycle of a Public Issue. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Duffy, Robert J. 1997. Nuclear Politics in America: A History and Theory of Government Regulation. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Glick, Henry R. 1992. The Right to Die. New York: Columbia University Press.
Hacker, Jacob. 1997. The Road To Nowhere. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Nelson, Barbara. 1984. Making an Issue of Child Abuse. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Worsham, Jeffrey. 1997. Other People’s Money: Policy Change, Congress, and Bank Regulation. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.

Part III: Media Studies (just a touching of the classics in a huge field)

Dearing, James W., and Everett M. Rogers. 1996. Communications Concepts 6: Agenda-Setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hilgartner, Steven, and Charles Bosk. 1988. The Rise and Fall of Social Problems: A Public Arenas Model. American Journal of Sociology 94: 53–78.
Iyengar, Shanto. 1991. Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Iyengar, Shanto. 1993. Agenda Setting and Beyond: Television News and the Strength of Political Issues. In William H. Riker, ed., Agenda Formation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 211–29.
McCombs, Maxwell, and Donald Shaw. 1972. The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly 36: 176–87.
McCombs, Maxwell, and Jian-Hua Zhu. 1995. Capacity, Diversity, and Volatility of the Public Agenda: Trends from 1954 to 1994. Public Opinion Quarterly 59: 495–525.
Neuman, W. Russell. 1990. The Threshold of Public Attention. Public Opinion Quarterly 54: 179–76.
Zhu, Jian-Hua. 1992. Issue Competition and Attention Distraction: A Zero-Sum Theory of Agenda-Setting. Journalism Quarterly 69: 825–36.

Part IV: Comparative Studies (see also comparativeagendas.org for a set of references)

Baumgartner, Frank R. 1989. Conflict and Rhetoric in French Policymaking. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Baumgartner, Frank R., Christoffer Green-Pedersen, and Bryan D. Jones, eds.  2006.  Comparative Studies of Policy Agendas.  Special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy, vol. 13, no. 7 (September).
Blyth, Mark M.  1997. Any More Bright Ideas? The Ideational Turn of Comparative Political Economy. Comparative Politics 29: 229–50.
Blyth, Mark M.  2002.  Great Transformations: Economic Ideas and Political Change in the Twentieth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Blyth, Mark M.  2006.  Great Punctuations: Prediction, Randomness, and the Evolution of Comparative Political Science. American Political Science Review 100, 4  (November):  493-98.
Guiraudon, Virginie. 2000. European Integration and Migration Policy: Vertical Policy-Making as Venue Shopping. Journal of Common Market Studies 38 (2): 251–71.
Hogwood, Brian W. 1987. From Crisis to Complacency? Shaping Public Policy in Britain. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hooghe, Lisbet. and Gary Marks. 2001 Multi-Level Governance and European Integration. Lanham MD.: Rowman & Littlefield.
Pralle, Sarah B. 2003. Venue Shopping, Political Strategy and Policy Change: The Internationalization of Canadian Forest Advocacy. Journal of Public Policy 23 (3): 233–260.
Pralle, Sarah.  2006.  Branching Out and Digging In:  Environmental Advocacy and Agenda Setting.  Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Reich, Michael R. 1991. Toxic Politics: Responding to Chemical Disasters. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Soroka, Stuart.  2002. Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Zahariadis, Nikolaos. 1993. Markets, States, and Public Policy: Privatization in Britain and France. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.