Agenda Setting and Policy Development, Higher Education

Abstract

Agenda setting and policy developmentDefinition: The capacity of an actor to define or influence issues on the public agenda by selecting issues seen as important or relevant; or by shaping the way these issues are framed, discussed and interpreted.Synonyms: policy development, policy framing, policy process, policy cycle IntroductionAgenda setting is one of key concepts in the critical or interpretative approaches in the study of policy development. Developed in response to positivist paradigms, which saw policies as largely technical solutions to objectively existing problems, critical or interpretive analysis emphasises the constructed, contingent, and processual nature of policies, in particular the role of differently positioned actors in bringing specific issues to the fore (Fischer, 2003). In this sense, the use of agenda setting in the research on higher education policy is fundamentally related to the questions of political power and influence, and thus to the relationship between longer-term structural change and stability, on the one hand, and individual or collective agency, on the other.In broad terms, agenda setting refers to the capacity of an actor (individual, group, organisation, institution) to define or influence issues on the public agenda. This occurs in two ways: on the one hand, selecting issues seen as important or relevant (thematisation or problematisation); on the other, shaping the way these issues are framed, discussed and interpreted (framing or interpretation). While policy processes normally involve elements of both, their analysis can be traced to two relatively distinct disciplinary traditions, one largely reliant on political science, and the other on communication and media studies. This article summarises the main elements of both traditions, and then delineates their convergences and implications for higher education policy research. Agenda setting in political scienceThe political science tradition of agenda setting research addresses the mechanisms through which policy issues arise into the policy arena -for example, through actions of policy makers, NGOs, and the media. In this framework, agenda setting is usually focused on the first stage of the policy cycle, Kommentoinut [t1]: Please delete to comply with the section standards.

Digital Payments on the Agenda: How Supply-side Actors Framed Cash and Digital Payments during the COVID-19 Pandemic in India

“…Agenda-setting is considered the very first step of the policy-making process (Howlett & Ramesh, 2003), and refers to the agency of an actorindividual or institutional -to influence public opinion. The actor sets an agenda by, firstly, sifting through and selecting issues to which they accord relevance (Birkland & DeYoung, 2012); and, secondly, shaping or framing the way these issues are discussed (Bacevic & Nokkala, 2018). The significance of this vision is underlined in a study by Pal et al (2018).…”