协商民主视角下的地方政府公共政策议程优化研究

公共政策作为政府宏观调控和利益分配的重要手段,与社会公众的生活密切相关,而公共政策议程作为政策制定的重要环节,在一定程度上决定着公共政策质量的优劣。实际上,公共政策议程设置机制与协商民主的价值理念和制度设计有着高度的契合性,必须在分析地方政府公共政策议程设置存在问题的基础上,从实现地方政府公共政策议程建构的协商民主诉求回归、优化结构和功能、创建地方政府公共政策议程设置的民主协商机制等三个方面,来探寻地方政府公共政策议程优化的实现路径。这将有助于引导社会公众有序参与政策议程,促成公众议程与政府议程的良性互动局面,最终提升地方政府公共政策质量,实现新时代人民日益增长的美好生活需要。     

公共政策议程合理设置的机制构建——基于我国高校扩招政策的分析

公共政策是政府管理公共事务的主要方式和手段,公共政策以公共问题为客体,通过问题的有效解决,进而维护公众及相关利益群体的公共利益.公共性是公共政策的根本属性,体现为平等性、民主性和合法性.我国高校扩招政策的议程设置是一个典型的公共政策议程设置,通过对该公共政策议程设置问题的剖析,对于构建其他公共政策议程设置机制,具有较大的现实指导意义.     

协商民主视域下的政策议程设定

公共问题是公共政策存在的逻辑起点,而公共政策的议程设定则是公共政策的逻辑起点。公共问题只有首先进入决策者的政策议程中,才有得到解决的可能。在现在中国的体制下,阻碍社会问题进入政策议程的因素主要有以下几个方面：政府主导型的议程设置模式、特殊利益集团对政策议程的不公平的干预、片面追求GDP的经济发展模式。这些因素只能导致社会问题的积蓄和扩大,不利于矛盾的解决。而作为决策形式的协商民主理论,对政策议程设定有如下启示：强调公民参与的议程设定模式、公民和团体平等的参与议程设定的能力、注重公共利益取向的公共协商能够包容公平、效率、自由和安全等公共政策所应有的价值和目标取向。     

议程设置与公共政策私用的风险探析

政策议程设置是公共政策过程的首要环节,为政府对公共利益进行权威性分配奠定基础,对于保证公共政策的公共性具有十分重要的意义。然而,政策议程本身对政策问题的确定与解决存在主观选择的可能性,蕴含了私用政策的风险,对公共政策的公共性造成威胁。政策议程被私用主要存在于公共问题成为政策问题的过程中,主要受组织层面、制度层面和大众传播媒介等方面的影响。为防止政策议程被私用,需要在政策问题的设立上引起重视,既要关注主体利益需要的规范,也要注重相应的外部监督机制。     

群众意见如何进入政府公共政策制定程序

人民群众集中反映的问题进入政府公共政策制定程序，指的是社会问题经过系统议程和政府议程而转变为政策问题，并且正式确立政策议程的过程。依据政策议程的基本原理，人民群众集中反映的问题进入政府公共政策制定程序的形式，可以大致划分为系统议程形式与政府议程形式。在我国目前的社会政治生活中，人民群众集中反映的问题进入政府公共政策制定程序，不同通过这两种形式进入政府公共政策决定程序的。如果按照政策诉求主体来划分，我们可以看到，我国目前存在的政策议程确立大致可以划分为三大类型，即外在创始型、政治动员型和内在创始型。其中，外在创始型是政策诉求由政府系统以外的个人或社会团体提出，     

群众意见如何进入政府公共政策制定程序

人民群众集中反映的问题进入政府公共政策制定程序,指的是社会问题经过系统议程和政府议程而转变为政策问题,并且正式确立政策议程的过程。依据政策议程的基本原理,人民群众集中反映     

“邻避冲突”中的议程设置——基于R市的实证研究

从公共政策过程的角度,立足于现实的"邻避冲突"案例,使用历时性的分析方法阐释了议程设置的过程与机制,研究发现,在中国大陆与核能开发有关的"邻避冲突"大多源自原有核能政策的垄断。民间群体想要打破政府对议程设置的垄断局面,必须经历核能政策垄断与"混合式"议程设置,公众议程的发起与新议程形象的建立,议程议定场所的选择与管辖权的争夺,议程的扩张与政策垄断的破坏,及"机会之窗"与"焦点触发",最终将自己面临的困境清晰地呈现给政策的制定者。案例表明,现实中自下而上的议程设置还存在诸多障碍:即来自政府方面的阻碍主要表现在体制和机制方面,来自公众方面的阻碍主要是其在参与和主导议程设置的能力上存在缺憾,来自大众媒体方面的阻碍主要是他们对议程话语权的操作和过度的风险放大。优化议程设置的可能性路径是:加强议程开启和沟通的制度化机制建设,建立和完善议程设定场所之间的统筹与协调机制,培育公众在政策参与方面的能力。     

隐蔽议程问题的理论与启示

合理性与合法性是评价公共政策的两个相互联系着的方面，公共政策只有经过它们检验，才能真正体现公共精神与实现公共目的。隐蔽议程中的政策制定却受私利集团的操纵，从而发生了“目标置换”，危及了公共政策的权威甚至于政治的稳定。这一问题必须要通过增强政治及政策制定过程的民主与开放程度来加以解决。该研究对于中国建立现代公共决策体制也有着重要的借鉴意义。     

论新闻媒体在政策议程设置中的作用

媒体议程设置作为政策议程设置的方式之一,新闻媒体首先起到了传声筒和放大镜的作用,同时也容易利用大众对它作为一个社会公共机构的信任搞虚假新闻。我国改革开放三十年以来,新闻媒体议程设置作用力不断增强。因此,正确处理政府与新闻媒体的关系,共同推进中国政策议程的优化迫切并且必要。     

协商民主与政策议程的成功设置

政策议程的成功设置是社会问题得以解决的前提。现实中由于政策议程设置机制或设置模式的原因,一些公众关心的社会问题难以进入政策议程,政府有时提出的政策议程设置主张也遭到公众的抵制和反对。协商民主作为一种决策体制和民主治理形式,用一套制度与程序规范提升政策议程设置内容及过程的合法性,有助于政策议程的成功设置。     

Did Jamie Oliver Really Put School Dinners on the Agenda? An Examination of the Role of the Media in Policy Making

Healthy eating is high on the government's agenda in current times and to all intents and purposes the media appears to have played a crucial role in putting it there. While media focus is no doubt intense and playing a vital role in public education (take Jamie Oliver's 2005 Channel 4 documentary, ‘School dinners’, for example), the question that lies at the heart of this article, is whether the media has led the government agenda on healthy eating and school dinners as appears to be the case. A close examination of the evidence suggests otherwise: government policy was already well set before the media began to show a concerted interest and hence its influence on policy‐making is more limited than might be expected. Rather than setting agendas per se, the media's role has been to refine and energise existing policy areas and to facilitate implementation.     

Public Sector ‘Modernisation’: Examining the Impact of a Change Agenda on Local Government Employees in England

Can public sector reform change service performance for the better? This is a hotly contested debate that carries significant theoretical and practical importance. In England, as in many countries, modernisation was at the heart of local government reform and represented an interpretation of New Public Management into a policy framework. This paper examines the role of the modernisation change agenda in England and what this has subsequently meant for ‘service improvement’. Drawing on both document analyses and qualitative interviews with local government employees, we find that while modernisation sought to establish continuous improvement, unintended consequences of modernisation have led to Staff Reductions, Skill Deficiencies, and Loss of a Competent Middle Core in local government, as well as performance outcomes creating an environment for Commissioning, Service Reduction, and Self‐Policing. Implications for the lasting roles and behaviours of public managers affected by this national change agenda are discussed, and conclusions for theory and practice are drawn.     

When good news is scarce and bad news is good: Government responsibilities and opposition possibilities in political agenda‐setting

Recent studies have drawn attention to the political contingencies of the media's political agenda‐setting influence, finding, for instance, that issues from the media agenda are more likely to attract attention if a party enjoys ownership of the issue. Supplementing the debate on why political parties respond to news, it is argued in this article that ownership is only part of the picture and that policy responsibility, together with news tone, constitutes a stronger explanation of news politicisation. Opposition parties respond to bad news because they reflect negative developments in social problems for which the government could be held responsible. The government responds to good news that reflects positive developments in social problems because this could politicise policy success, but is also forced to react when news explicitly address government responsibility and thereby threatens its image as responsive and competent. Furthermore, it is shown that news tone and policy responsibility condition the incentive to politicise owned issues from the media agenda. Thus, opposition parties will not politicise owned issues when news is good because this could draw attention to government success, while government is unable and unwilling to prioritise owned issues when news is bad and instead is likely to make use of its ownership strengths when news is good and the pressure to respond is low. The arguments are tested on a large‐N sample of radio news stories from Denmark (2003–2004). Opposition response is measured through parliamentary questions spurred by the news stories, while government response is indicated by references to these stories in the prime minister's weekly press meeting. Results confirm the expectations, suggesting that parties care more about the tone of news stories and the type of attention they might produce, rather than what type of issues they could serve to politicise.     

UNEMPLOYMENT POLICY: A CASE STUDY IN AGENDA MANAGEMENT

Abstract: Agenda management is a process in which governments attempt to prevent policy issues from emerging, to influence the public perception of issues and to shape or delete issues on the current agenda of policy making. Numerous techniques are available and governments may often resort to them for political purposes. Unemployment policy from 1976–82 provides a case study for assessing the significance of agenda management in the policy process. The many initiatives and announcements of the government and their presentation in the media are described. It is concluded that the government often appeared to employ agenda management techniques such as tokenism, symbolic reassurance, postponement and the selective presentation of social indicators. It is noted that the government's handling of the issue followed an annual cycle, superimposed on which was an electoral cycle. Its attempts to influence public perceptions of the issue had direct links with the nature of policy outputs.     

Setting the Post War Australian Policy Agenda – Causes and Content

What are the origins of policy agendas and what determines agenda setting? The one robust theory in the literature associates different agendas with different moments in the evolution of the broader party system namely mass, catch‐all and most recently cartel patterns. This article explores Australian evidence for this thesis. It also argues the cartel moment has recently mutated. Agenda setting is now circumscribed by a mismatch between the needs of policy making and the political incentive structure. The media have become primary tissue connecting political elites to their publics. But this traps the system in short term, primarily populist stances. Systemic capacities to mediate agenda setting have thus been corrupted.     

Agenda Setting in Emergent R&D Policy Subsystems: Examining Discourse Effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act

The literature on government responsiveness to societal issues is extensive but provides a mixed assessment of effectiveness. We examine this issue in the case of policy addressing effective and safe management of research and development in the emerging field of nanotechnology. Specifically, we examine the agenda setting effects of the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (the Act), a piece of legislation designed to be implemented by a network of actors in the nanotechnology research and development policy subsystem. We adopt a public values lens in our examination of discourse related to societal concerns. Policy documents from Congress, an agency, and federal funding recipients are examined. Findings suggest a narrowing of public values discourse around more specific societal concerns in the documents crafted after the Act was passed.     

How mass media attract political elites’ attention

Political agenda‐setting research has shown that policy makers are responsive vis‐à‐vis media priorities. However, the mechanisms behind this effect have remained understudied so far. In particular, agenda‐setting scholars have difficulties determining to what extent politicians react to media coverage purely because of the information it contains (information effect), and to what extent the effect is driven not by what the media say but by the fact that certain information is in the media (media channel effect), which is valued for its own sake – for instance, because media coverage is considered to be a reflection of public opinion. By means of a survey‐embedded experiment with Belgian, Canadian and Israeli political elites (N = 410), this study tests whether the mere fact that an issue is covered by the news media causes politicians to pay attention to this issue. It shows that a piece of information gets more attention from politicians when it comes via the media rather than an identical piece of information coming via a personal e‐mail. This effect occurs largely across the board: it is not dependent on individual politician characteristics.     

Agenda Setting and the Blogosphere: An Analysis of the Relationship between Mainstream Media and Political Blogs

This paper asks: what is the relationship between the mainstream media and blog agendas? To be more precise, this paper tracks media coverage and blog discussion of 35 issues during the 2004 presidential campaign to test the hypothesis that the mainstream media agenda exerts a substantial impact on the blog agenda against the increasingly popular hypothesis that the blog agenda exerts a strong influence on the mainstream media agenda. Using a computer‐assisted, quantitative content analysis of ten randomly selected A‐list political blogs and 50 randomly selected, less popular political blogs over the five‐month period from July 1 to November 30, 2004, the author finds that on the vast majority of issues there was a complex, bidirectional relationship between mainstream media coverage and blog discussion rather than a unidirectional media or blog agenda‐setting effect.     

Government alternation and legislative agenda setting

Recent studies of the legislative process have put forward a number of plausible hypotheses regarding the distribution of agenda‐setting power. These hypotheses have guided scholars in identifying those conflicts and actors that are crucial to explaining legislative change and the wording of legislation. However, this has not yet led to a better understanding of the choice of specific agenda‐setting rules. Why does the cabinet in some parliamentary democracies enjoy an undisputed role, while in others the parliament continues to play the role of co‐protagonist? This article attempts to answer this question by looking at some well‐known features of party systems. It is argued that in pivotal party systems, with limited government alternation, it is much more difficult to strengthen the government vis‐à‐vis the parliament. One factor prevents the procedural and institutional predominance of the cabinet under these circumstances: the lack of opportunities for, and expectations of, large and controversial policy change.     

Looking through a policy window with tinted glasses: Setting the agenda for U.S. AI policy

The policy agenda is currently being established for artificial intelligence (AI), a domain marked by complex and sweeping implications for economic transformation tempered by concerns about social and ethical risks. This article reviews the United States national AI policy strategy through extensive qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 63 strategic AI policy documents curated by the federal government between 2016 and 2020. Drawing on a prominent theory of agenda setting, the Multiple Streams Framework, and in light of competing paradigms of technology policy, this article reviews how the U.S. government understands the key policy problems, solutions, and issue frames associated with AI. Findings indicate minimal attention to focusing events or problem indicators emphasizing social and ethical concerns, as opposed to economic and geopolitical ones. Further, broad statements noting ethical dimensions of AI often fail to translate into specific policy solutions, which may be explained by a lack of technical feasibility or value acceptability of ethics-related policy solutions, along with institutional constraints for agencies in specific policy sectors. Finally, despite widespread calls for increased public participation, proposed solutions remain expert dominated. Overall, while the emerging U.S. AI policy agenda reflects a striking level of attention to ethics—a promising development for policy stakeholders invested in AI ethics and more socially oriented approaches to technology governance—this success is only partial and is ultimately layered into a traditional strategic approach to innovation policy.