By David López García
In her précis, Mammotsa Makhene puts forward the claim that the new modes of information dissemination through social media are not being fully captured by mainstream policy agenda setting theoretical frameworks. Implicit in her argument is the call for the development of new theoretical lenses allowing policy analysts to assess the influence of the so-called ‘blogospehere’ in agenda setting. None of the frameworks studied for this week’s class explicitly mentions the Internet or social media’s influence in agenda setting. However, I will argue that the Multiple Stream Approach (MSA), developed by John Kingdon and his colleagues during the 80’s, is a useful analytical framework to explain the influence of social media over the agenda setting-processes. In doing so, I will resort to the current crisis in Mexican government due to republican candidate Donald Trump’s visit to Mexico.
According to Zahariadis (2014), the MSA is a framework that explains how policies are made by the government under conditions of ambiguity, defined as the situation in which there are many ways of thinking about the circumstances or phenomena, the issues that require state action, and the appropriate course of action to be taken. The MSA explains agenda setting and policy change by analyzing the interaction between five different streams: problems, policy, politics, policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs. The model suggests that “policy windows open and close based on the dynamic interaction of political institutions, policy actors, and the articulation of ideas in the form of proposed policy solutions. These forces can open, or close, policy windows, thus creating the chance for policy entrepreneurs to construct or leverage these opportunities to shape the policy agenda” (Howlett, et al., 2014, p. 103). Keeler (1993) furthers the framework by arguing that the magnitude and duration of crises and policy windows are significant predictors of the scope of the reform achieved by governments. Keeler defines crises as “a situation of large-scale public dissatisfaction or even fear steaming from wide-ranging economic problems and/or an unusual degree of social unrest and/or threats to national security” (1993, p. 233). The author points out the existence of ‘micro-windows’ and ‘macro-windows’, the former being small opportunities for change or restricted to certain narrow issue areas, and the latter being dramatic and wide-ranging development on the political and social scene that provide sufficient opportunity for profound policy innovations (Keeler, 1993).
I’ll resort to the current crisis in Mexican government due to Trump’s visit to Mexico to show how the MSA is a useful analytical tool to gauge the effect of social media in agenda setting. By late August, the former Mexican Minister of Finance, Luis Videgaray, was concerned that a victory by Donald Trump, based on his campaign against Mexico, would affect international markets and undermine the Mexican economy –this was the problem. As the responsible of the macroeconomic stability of Mexico, Videgaray constituted himself as a policy entrepreneur in the search of strategies to cope with an eventual Trump’s victory. The strategy put forward by Videgaray was to send an invitation to both Democratic and Republican candidates to make a trip to Mexico and meet President Peña Nieto to discuss the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States –this was the policy/solution. The close relationship between President Peña and Videgaray created a policy micro-window, and the invitation to both candidates was sent. Trump accepted the invitation within hours and made it public through his tweeter account, which had an immediate effect over Mexican public opinion. Minutes later, President Peña Nieto had to confirm the invitation and that the meeting was actually taking place, and he did it also through his tweeter account. President Peña Nieto’s invitation was ill received by Mexican public opinion, and an outburst of dissatisfaction in regards to the invitation manifested itself through social media.
In spite of the hostile environment, Trump’s visit took place. Furthermore, public opinion condemned the way that President Peña Nieto conducted himself in front of Trump. This crisis opened a window for another kind of policy entrepreneurs, those trying to damage the image Pena Nieto’s government looking forward to the next Mexican presidential elections. Actors from all the political spectrum of Mexico refused to forget the issue, and the media in which the conversation took place, was tweeter. Even traditional media covered the event by citing the tweets of Mexican main political actors. As hours and days went by, social unrest with the President’s strategy increased, expanding the size of the crises to a large-scale social dissatisfaction. The conversation through social media achieved such magnitude that what started as a micro-window to invite Donald Trump to Mexico, turned into a macro-window for entrepreneurs looking to damage Pena Nieto’s government.
In this context, the perception of the problem started to shift. The problem being discussed in public opinion was no longer Mexican macro-economic stability in the case that Trump wins. Now, the problem in the eyes of Mexican public opinion had to do with finding someone to blame for the strategy of inviting Trump to Mexico as a candidate, giving him the status of a President, and thus serving the purposes of his campaign. Amidst the political and public opinion turbulence, Videgaray resigned to his position, and President Peña appointed a new Finance Minister of Mexico. The first public act of the new Finance Minister was to announce that the Mexican government would take aggressive actions towards reducing its fiscal deficit, thus trying to impress confidence in international markets.
In spite that the original goal of Mexican government was met, namely impressing confidence in international markets to avoid macroeconomic instability, the particular coupling of streams regarding the problems, policy, politics, policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs, took place in such a way that Peña Nieto’s government faced unprecedented instability. As the above example shows, the MSA is a useful analytical framework to tackle the study of social media and its influence in the processes of agenda setting and policy/strategies decisions.
References
Howlett, M., Ramesh, M & Perl, A. (2009) Studying public policy: Policy cycles & policy subsystems. Oxford University Press.
Keeler, J. (1993) Opening the window for reform: Mandates, crises, and extraordinary policy-making. Comparative Political Studies, 25 (4), 433-486.
Zahariadis, N. (2014) Ambiguity and Multiple Steams. In Sabatier, P. and Weible, D (Eds.) Theories of the Policy Process, Third Edition, Westview Pess.
In her précis, Mammotsa Makhene puts forward the claim that the new modes of information dissemination through social media are not being fully captured by mainstream policy agenda setting theoretical frameworks. Implicit in her argument is the call for the development of new theoretical lenses allowing policy analysts to assess the influence of the so-called ‘blogospehere’ in agenda setting. None of the frameworks studied for this week’s class explicitly mentions the Internet or social media’s influence in agenda setting. However, I will argue that the Multiple Stream Approach (MSA), developed by John Kingdon and his colleagues during the 80’s, is a useful analytical framework to explain the influence of social media over the agenda setting-processes. In doing so, I will resort to the current crisis in Mexican government due to republican candidate Donald Trump’s visit to Mexico.
According to Zahariadis (2014), the MSA is a framework that explains how policies are made by the government under conditions of ambiguity, defined as the situation in which there are many ways of thinking about the circumstances or phenomena, the issues that require state action, and the appropriate course of action to be taken. The MSA explains agenda setting and policy change by analyzing the interaction between five different streams: problems, policy, politics, policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs. The model suggests that “policy windows open and close based on the dynamic interaction of political institutions, policy actors, and the articulation of ideas in the form of proposed policy solutions. These forces can open, or close, policy windows, thus creating the chance for policy entrepreneurs to construct or leverage these opportunities to shape the policy agenda” (Howlett, et al., 2014, p. 103). Keeler (1993) furthers the framework by arguing that the magnitude and duration of crises and policy windows are significant predictors of the scope of the reform achieved by governments. Keeler defines crises as “a situation of large-scale public dissatisfaction or even fear steaming from wide-ranging economic problems and/or an unusual degree of social unrest and/or threats to national security” (1993, p. 233). The author points out the existence of ‘micro-windows’ and ‘macro-windows’, the former being small opportunities for change or restricted to certain narrow issue areas, and the latter being dramatic and wide-ranging development on the political and social scene that provide sufficient opportunity for profound policy innovations (Keeler, 1993).
I’ll resort to the current crisis in Mexican government due to Trump’s visit to Mexico to show how the MSA is a useful analytical tool to gauge the effect of social media in agenda setting. By late August, the former Mexican Minister of Finance, Luis Videgaray, was concerned that a victory by Donald Trump, based on his campaign against Mexico, would affect international markets and undermine the Mexican economy –this was the problem. As the responsible of the macroeconomic stability of Mexico, Videgaray constituted himself as a policy entrepreneur in the search of strategies to cope with an eventual Trump’s victory. The strategy put forward by Videgaray was to send an invitation to both Democratic and Republican candidates to make a trip to Mexico and meet President Peña Nieto to discuss the bilateral relationship between Mexico and the United States –this was the policy/solution. The close relationship between President Peña and Videgaray created a policy micro-window, and the invitation to both candidates was sent. Trump accepted the invitation within hours and made it public through his tweeter account, which had an immediate effect over Mexican public opinion. Minutes later, President Peña Nieto had to confirm the invitation and that the meeting was actually taking place, and he did it also through his tweeter account. President Peña Nieto’s invitation was ill received by Mexican public opinion, and an outburst of dissatisfaction in regards to the invitation manifested itself through social media.
In spite of the hostile environment, Trump’s visit took place. Furthermore, public opinion condemned the way that President Peña Nieto conducted himself in front of Trump. This crisis opened a window for another kind of policy entrepreneurs, those trying to damage the image Pena Nieto’s government looking forward to the next Mexican presidential elections. Actors from all the political spectrum of Mexico refused to forget the issue, and the media in which the conversation took place, was tweeter. Even traditional media covered the event by citing the tweets of Mexican main political actors. As hours and days went by, social unrest with the President’s strategy increased, expanding the size of the crises to a large-scale social dissatisfaction. The conversation through social media achieved such magnitude that what started as a micro-window to invite Donald Trump to Mexico, turned into a macro-window for entrepreneurs looking to damage Pena Nieto’s government.
In this context, the perception of the problem started to shift. The problem being discussed in public opinion was no longer Mexican macro-economic stability in the case that Trump wins. Now, the problem in the eyes of Mexican public opinion had to do with finding someone to blame for the strategy of inviting Trump to Mexico as a candidate, giving him the status of a President, and thus serving the purposes of his campaign. Amidst the political and public opinion turbulence, Videgaray resigned to his position, and President Peña appointed a new Finance Minister of Mexico. The first public act of the new Finance Minister was to announce that the Mexican government would take aggressive actions towards reducing its fiscal deficit, thus trying to impress confidence in international markets.
In spite that the original goal of Mexican government was met, namely impressing confidence in international markets to avoid macroeconomic instability, the particular coupling of streams regarding the problems, policy, politics, policy windows, and policy entrepreneurs, took place in such a way that Peña Nieto’s government faced unprecedented instability. As the above example shows, the MSA is a useful analytical framework to tackle the study of social media and its influence in the processes of agenda setting and policy/strategies decisions.
References
Howlett, M., Ramesh, M & Perl, A. (2009) Studying public policy: Policy cycles & policy subsystems. Oxford University Press.
Keeler, J. (1993) Opening the window for reform: Mandates, crises, and extraordinary policy-making. Comparative Political Studies, 25 (4), 433-486.
Zahariadis, N. (2014) Ambiguity and Multiple Steams. In Sabatier, P. and Weible, D (Eds.) Theories of the Policy Process, Third Edition, Westview Pess.