by Jonathan Lewallen
Attention in the policy process—among individuals, among institutions and organisations, and within political systems—is a scarce resource. Paying attention to one or even a few issues means other issues go unaddressed.
Making a decision and choosing an alternative requires something called the “serial shift”: moving from addressing multiple issues at once, say within a legislative committee system or set of bureaucratic offices, to focussing on one issue at a time. Prioritising an issue on the agenda also means prioritising the advocates and policy conflicts associated with them.
We know a lot about how issues reach the decision agenda. Policy entrepreneurs and coalitions redefine existing issues and try to couple problems with alternatives; media coverage can attract elite attention and contribute to a sense that something should be done; policymakers schedule some issues to periodically recur so that they’re sure to receive attention some time, even if not right now.
We know less about how the serial shift feeds back in to the agenda setting process. Does the serial shift legitimise and certify conflict, signalling which conflicts are considered more legitimate? Or does restricting the decision agenda to one set of conflicts create a flow of attention to other issues?
I set out to answer these questions in my new Policy & Politics article “The influence of conflict on agenda setting in the US Congress.” I specifically compare expressions of disagreement at Congress’s decision stage with disagreement at the committee (agenda setting) stage. I measure committee disagreement with “views” attached to committee reports. When a U.S. congressional committee advances a bill, it includes a report describing the committee’s work on that bill. Although the report is meant to reflect the entire committee’s work, any committee member can attach their own “views.” Legislators have three types of views available to them: additional, which tend to reflect minor disagreements; minority, which tend to involve a significant number of the committee’s minority-party faction; and dissenting views which lie somewhere in between.
I find evidence that the serial shift certifies conflict: issues that see more disagreement at the decision stage also see more views attached to committee reports. A few important caveats to note: first, the statistical relationship is contemporaneous and short-lived. Second, we can be most confident that the relationship is seen in three policy areas: the environment, science and technology, and international affairs.
In my article, I identify two mechanisms for how decision-stage conflict certifies disagreement at the agenda setting stage. Committee chairs shift attention to conflictual issues they previously have avoided, they elicit conflict by violating committee norms, or they do both in combination.
My study speaks to the tension between deliberation and action. As policymaking institutions focus their attention on one issue in order to make a decision, they incentivise conflict at the agenda setting stage which can restrict participation from different actors and groups. As E.E. Schattschneider once wrote, “Some issues are organised into politics while others are organised out.”
You can read the original research in Policy & Politics at:
Lewallen, J. (2024). The influence of conflict on agenda setting in the US Congress. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000047
If you enjoyed this blog post, you may also be interested to read:
DeLeo, R. A., & Chow, C. (2024). Testing the Multiple Streams Framework in US state legislatures. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024) from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000044
van den Dool, A., & Qiu, T. (2024). Policy processes in China: a systematic review of the multiple streams framework. Policy & Politics (published online ahead of print 2024). Retrieved Oct 18, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.1332/03055736Y2024D000000038
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