About the project

The starting point for this project is the argument that the development of the agenda of different political actors is pivotal in understanding contemporary Danish politics as well as politics in other countries. Especially, the development of the party political agendas deserves attention. Whether political parties focus on the environment, law and order or the welfare state has a number of important political consequences. It will affect the agenda of the electorate and thus affect electoral outcomes as well as policy decisions.

Political science, however, has not been very focused on agenda setting processes especially in relation to political parties. This may have to do with the fact that agenda setting processes used to be less central to politics - at least in Western Europe. Here it used to be taken for granted that politics should be focused on economic and redistributional questions founded in class conflicts. The whole political system with ideological mass parties was structured around these questions. As class voting has disappeared, political parties have lost members and politics increasingly takes place in the media, the party political agenda has become much more open and this has made agenda setting processes more important.

Because political science has not been very interested in agenda setting, there is no extensive theoretical literature which can serve as a starting point. The project therefore combines a number of theoretical perspectives. These are: 

The American tradition for studying agenda setting and policy making, especially the work of Baumgartner and Jones

Literature on political parties and issue competition

Literature on the operation and role of mass media in politics

 

Subprojects

1. Political agenda setting in comparative perspective. Read more (Christoffer Green-Pedersen)
2. Danish and European politics in times of change. Read more (Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Peter B. Mortensen and Rune Stubager).
3. Mass Media influence on the political agenda. Read more (Anne Binderkrantz, Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Rune Stubager)
4. Interest group influence on the politial agenda. Read more (Anne Binderkrantz).
5. Agenda Setting and Political Representation. Read more (Peter B. Mortensen).
6. The Dynamics of Issue Competition. Read more  (Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Peter B. Mortensen)
7. Stability and Change in Public Policy. Read more (Christoffer Green-Pedersen & Peter B. Mortensen).
8. Party Competition and political attitudes (Rune Slothuus). Read more
9. Political attention and institutional structures (Christoffer Green-Pedersen and Peter B. Mortensen in cooperation with Sara Hobolt, Oxford and Robert Klemmensen, Odense. Read more
10. Morality Politica in Comparative Perspective (Christoffer Green-Pedersen in cooperation with a number of Danish and international researchers). Read more
11. Mass media attention and Ministerial responsebility (Peter B. Mortensen). Read more