نوع مقاله : مقاله پژوهشی
عنوان مقاله English
نویسنده English
Introduction
Although agenda setting deeply influences all other stages of the policy cycle such as tools and solutions choice and policy implementation, it is vague how actors in the urban policy-making process set the agenda. Problem-finding is normative and value-based, but problem-solving is a technical activity that presumes the problem [1]. Objectivist and technical views on the nature of the issues in public policy cannot explain why various policymakers, stakeholders, and agenda-setters interpret a unique reality differently. Various definitions and interpretations are often made around a single information about a problem. Agenda setting is choosing an issue to be decided and who decides to choose those problems to be dealt with. Deciding what will be the problems is even more important than deciding what will be the solutions [2]. This research aims to answer how an issue finds a chance to be put on the table in city council meetings and how solutions are made.
Materials and Methods
Hermeneutic phenomenology and observation as Phenomenological hermeneutics are methods that are applied to this research. Constructivist grounded theory is based on hermeneutic phenomenology, while it is inevitable to use phenomenological hermeneutics to a better understanding of agenda setting. Constructivist grounded theory starts with gathering data [28], then initial and focused coding is executed. Observation and text analysis are used here. Attendance in city council commissions and meetings made it possible for us to closely encounter the process of structuring problems that are likely to be set on the agenda. So, the behavior of actors in different commissions is analyzed by observation as well as bills drafts, and proposals. Seeing what people do directly, gives the researcher a great amount of simplicity that cannot be derived from asking them to describe what they do. Here, the researcher is a pure observer and avoids any intervention to preserve the real circumstances of research and concerns about attendance in commissions.
Findings
This research makes a distinction between two major actors in the agenda-setting process: executives (municipal officers) and policymakers (city council members). Findings show that each of them plays a different role in agenda setting according to various issues. While executives pay attention to technical and economic requirements, cultural and political ones are more important to policymakers. They also focused on target groups. Issues supported by executives are differently set on the agenda from those supported by policymakers. This is the first important feature in the agenda-setting realm. Bills and proposals supported by the municipality are posed by technical and economic argumentation. In respective issues, the municipality or corresponding organization delegate focuses on technical and economic justifications of bills or proposals, debates on target groups, and cultural or political requirements are expelled from debates. In contrast, most of the non-technical and non-economic disputes around issues on the agenda are posed and focused by policymakers. National rules and regulations are important to both executives and policymakers in the agenda-setting process. Results from the actor’s behavior observation show that these two actors are distinct. Using the IPA model as a core of observation analysis, it explains a kind of behavior rooted in individual character and ability of actors. Different actors show different behaviors in the agenda-setting process. This can put them in separate taxonomies. Although executive delegates are not the same individuals in all commissions they show smooth and stable behavior, following a clear and definite pattern. They are actively task-oriented in the scope of issues that are based on technical and economic requirements. In reverse, they are passive task-oriented ones in political and cultural realms. Policymakers’ behavior fluctuates and according to their knowledge and expertise, they might accept each of the 4 roles. In other terms, executives who have technical and practical knowledge show task orientation behavior that might be passive or active due to the issue agenda and its requirements. The behavior of policymakers is more socio-emotional and is influenced by target groups to be positive or negative.
Conclusion
The prevailing agenda-setting model in Mashhad city council is a combination of power relations in the second dimension and agenda-setting barriers approach. On the one hand, executives (municipality delegates) are highly influential in commissions due to their knowledge and experience. In commissions and agendas based on technical and economic requirements or affected clearly by comprehensive and upper-level laws, executives can change decisions to non-decisions and put issues aside from the agenda-setting process. Policymaker’s actions can also be analyzed in this framework. Issues including economic and technical impediments and confined by upper-level laws are placed in a bounded rationality framework and reduce policy maker’s role in agenda setting. On the other hand, according to the second dimension of power, policymakers take issues into consideration that encompass political and cultural requirements and focus on target groups. Individualism is the salient trait of this model. Individualism in agenda setting is presented as both ignoring documents and political independence. It is supposed that executives focus on document-based agendas and policymakers concentrate on value-based judgments through agenda-setting processes that are not in the same direction as technical and scientific documents [31]. However, such a presumption is not functional in this model and individualism casts a shadow on agenda setting.
کلیدواژهها English