Question

John Kingdon asks, what does it take to push an issue onto the policy agenda such that decision makers are giving serious attention to the issue? Explain Kingdon’s agenda setting framework, providing definition of key variables and the importance of a policy window for agenda setting. Then apply this framework to an environmental issue of interest to you and show how the attention of policy makers might be drawn to addressing it.

Answer 1

According to John Kingdon, it takes basically three steps: the problem; the solution; political will. If you show a problem without it's solution, it will not get the necessary attention and nothing will happen. Political will is very important too, and it can come from many factors, like post-elections views and natural disasters. These three fluxes have to encounter in order to get enough attention and make an available solution to fix the problem. This is called a policy window and it is highly important for the agenda setting on politics issues in a country.

Lets put the fires in Amazon forest as the environmental issue. It is caused by livestock producers, specially cows, that burn the threes to make more free lands to put their animals. With the conservative government that works in partnership it is not interesting to save the amazon forest. It is the opposition and the people's job to raise awareness about the situation and propose solutions. The political will can come by people's interest, and in this case, by the influence of others countries opinions over the subjects, like France.