How to make any political agenda the citizens' agenda? / 2002.

Building on hundreds of thousands of systematically collected and content-coded local policy agenda observations, this book examines – theoretically and empirically - the policy agenda effects of four central aspects of any political system: the institutions that structure politics; the problems confronting the political system; the occurrence of regular and free elections; and the actors navigating the political system. Developing an explanatory model based on these four factors not only improves our understanding of the determinants of the local policy agenda but also contributes to a further integration of local government research, policy agendas research, and the broader discipline of political science. The book may be of particular interest to scholars and students of comparative politics, agenda setting, public policy, and local government.

What will gain the system’s attention? “Explores the dynamics of a broad range of policy issues in different countries . . . an important scholarly contribution.” —Political Studies Review Before making significant policy decisions, political actors and parties must first craft an agenda designed to place certain issues at the center of political attention. The agenda-setting approach in political science holds that the amount of attention devoted by the various actors within a political system to issues like immigration, health care, and the economy can inform our understanding of its basic patterns and processes. While there has been considerable attention to how political systems process issues in the United States, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Stefaan Walgrave demonstrate the broader applicability of this approach by extending it to other countries and their political systems. This book brings together essays on eleven countries and two broad themes. Contributors to the first section analyze the extent to which party and electoral changes and shifts in the partisan composition of government have led—or not led—to policy changes in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, and France. The second section turns the focus on changing institutional structures in Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, and Canada, including the German reunification and the collapse of the Italian party system. Together, the essays make clear the efficacy of the agenda-setting approach for understanding not only how policies evolve, but also how political systems function.

Focusing on the agenda-setting function of the news media from an information processing standpoint, this volume examines how individuals expose themselves to news media content and how this content translates into issue salience. It utilizes the individual as the unit of measurement. Many agenda-setting studies have used the issue, rather than the individual, as the unit of measurement. By employing an "agenda-setting susceptibility" index, the book details how individuals who actively process information in the news media are most susceptible to agenda-setting effects. Merging agenda-setting with research in information processing and uses and gratifications, it proposes and tests a causal model of media agenda-setting influences by examining demographics, psychological factors, and behavioral variables of individuals.

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

This Research Agenda documents and establishes the thinking of leading scholars in the field of political marketing and related sub-fields, also encompassing additional social science disciplines that intersect at the crossroads of political marketing.

"No Labels has the answer for how we unite this country and put it back on the path to prosperity and progress. The how is the NATIONAL STRATEGIC AGENDA. And JUST THE FACTS is essential reading for anyone who wants to help build this agenda. If you want to understand how America got itself into this mess, and how, with a little clarity and a lot of commitment, we can get ourselves out, pick up JUST THE FACTS and don't stop until you are finished." --Governor Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. Everyone knows our government is broken. But both our government and our country can be fixed if enough people come together to demand a new politics of problem solving. That's what No Labels has believed since we first launched in 2010. Now, we have launched our most ambitious initiative yet. We're spending the next year organizing leaders inside and outside of Washington, as well as regular citizens, to tackle America's toughest challenges. This new NATIONAL STRATEGIC AGENDA will be released in October 2015 and will set out a path for where America needs to go and how we get there. JUST THE FACTS will help guide the creation of the NATIONAL STRATEGIC AGENDA by clarifying the essential facts, trends and assumptions that need to serve as the foundation for discussion of critical policy issues such as jobs, the budget, Social Security and Medicare and energy. Politicians always tell us that we need to unite our nation. This book--and this new campaign for a NATIONAL STRATEGIC AGENDA--can show us how.