The Iraq War and Agenda Setting

Abstract

This essay takes concepts from early examples of a literature that is seldom used in foreign policy analysisFthe literature on agenda setting in the U.S. governmentFand applies it to the case study of the U.S. decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. After a brief case history, the essay examines various core themes in the agenda-setting framework, and finds that concepts such as policy communities, focusing events, and policy windows can help explain the U.S. decision to go to war. The purpose of the essay is not to advance the current state of agenda-setting research, whose focus is usually not on explaining decision-making processes within the executive branch; the purpose, instead, is to revive an older framework of analysis from the agendasetting field and demonstrate its utility in examining foreign policy behavior. The essay suggests that the agenda-setting literature could offer similar insights to many other examples of foreign policy decision making, and concludes by suggesting a handful of broader lessons of the agenda-setting paradigm for the analysis of national behavior.The U.S. decision to intervene in Iraq was, in the view of some observers, the result of a classic groupthink process. To others, it stemmed from one or another cognitive errorFperhaps wishful thinking, or cognitive dissonance, or bad analogies. A more traditional way to view the decision would be in rational actor terms: President George W. Bush and his key aides defined their objectives, considered alternatives, weighed the risks and benefits of each, and selected the option that maximized benefits and minimized risks. To the extent that the decision to invade has been studied at all, the results tend to imply one of these wellknown theories to explain the choiceFtheories such as groupthink, groupthink, cognitive errors, or pure rational action. But one much less frequently used conceptFthe literature on agenda settingFoffers at least as much insight into the question of why the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and may be useful in cases well beyond the Iraq War in explaining national security choices.This essay's goal is not to advance the state of research on key debates in the agenda-setting literature. That insightful and by now quite extensive literature has come a long way from the contributions of the sources I will rely uponFbut its focus is most often on domestic politics, and especially agenda-setting within the Congress. 1 Another area of agenda-setting focus, and the one that deals most often

Doing versus seeing: acts of exploitation and perceptions of exploration

“…In Kingdon's analysis, policy advocates are akin to political entrepreneurs waiting for the alignment of circumstances that allows them to push their agenda to the fore. A powerful contemporary example is the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) (Mazarr, 2007 This agenda became highly salient with the tragic events of 9/11, when the administration, under the context of a 'broader war on terror' (Mazarr, 2007: 6), immediately began the development of military plans. The important point here is not whether the military plans were wise or not, or what the exact motivations of the policy advocates were-the key issue (as relates to our arguments) is that these longstanding proposed actions would not have become policy in the absence of the events of 9/11.…”

Policy Entrepreneurs and the Reorientation of National Security Policy under the G. W. Bush Administration (2001‐04)

“…One definition is offered by Kingdon (, 21): “[a]n actor who advocates and seeks to change policy by exploiting opportunities and employing entrepreneurial strategies.” Mintrom (, 36), writing from a public policy perspective, adds, “[t]hey are individuals who through their creativity, strategy, networking, and persuasive argumentation are able to bring new policy ideas into the open and promote policy change.” Another definition is provided by Mazarr (, 16) who, writing from a constructivist perspective, states that “[p]olicy entrepreneurs can be seen as the human embodiment of the social construction of policy… . Advocates determined, for one reason or another, to fight inertia, the bureaucracy, opposing interests, and anything else in their way to get the idea through the window [of opportunity] and into law or policy.” These three definitions complement each other and are useful for this research.…”

Journal of Applied Communications vol. 99 (3) Full Issue

“…Agenda-setting served as the guiding conceptual framework in this study. Studies have shown once issues like water are placed on the agenda (i.e., media agenda) and awareness of issues increases, the more likely individuals are to take action and reflect similar views on the issue (Lambright et al, 2006;Mazarr, 2007;Shiffman, 2007). A more active role from governmental and influential proponents driving the media agenda and public agenda have the ability to increase local and national awareness, further emphasizing the need for communicators to deliver this information to policy makers.…”