Making Up the Government's Mind: Agenda Setting in a Parliamentary System

One of the most important aspects of policymaking in any political system is the pre-decision stage at which a potentially wide range of concerns and preferences are fashioned into some actionable list of proposals or a recognizable hierarchy of priorities. As well as indicating which concerns may dominate the thinking of officials who will later take formal decisions, it is at this early stage of policy development that non-government elites and other key actors may succeed or fail in their attempts to exercise significant power and influence (Schattschneider 1960; Downs 1972; Lukes 1974).