Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T09:31:33.121Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Upsetting the agenda: the clout of external focusing events in the European Council

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

Petya Alexandrova
Petya Alexandrova*
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Focusing events are sudden, striking large-scale occurrences that attract political attention. However, not all potential focusing events appear on the agenda. Combining data from multiple sources, this study conducts an analysis of the determinants of prioritisation of external focusing events in the European Council over a period longer than two decades. The results demonstrate that decisions regarding the placement of crises on the agenda are underscored by exogenous (humanitarian) and endogenous (geopolitical interest) considerations. Those events with a higher likelihood of agenda access include manmade incidents (versus natural disasters), events with larger death tolls and crises in the neighbourhood. Stronger competition between potential focusing events across time and space reduces the chances of access. The level of attention each event receives depends on purely strategic interests. Focusing events in neighbouring countries gain a higher portion of attention, as do occurrences in states having a larger trade exchange with the European Union.

Keywords

agenda settingEuropean CouncilEuropean Unionfocusing eventsforeign affairs
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Public Policy , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , December 2015 , pp. 505 - 530
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press, 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, D. (1997) The Study of Natural Disasters, 1977–1997: Some Reflections on a Changing Field of Knowledge. Disasters 21(4): 284–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexandrova, P., Carammia, M., Princen, S. and Timmermans, A. (2014) Measuring the European Council Agenda: Introducing a New Approach and Dataset. European Union Politics 15(1): 152–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexandrova, P., Carammia, M. and Timmermans, A. (2012) Policy Punctuations and Issue Diversity on the European Council Agenda. Policy Studies Journal 40(1): 69–88.Google Scholar
Baumgartner, F. R. and Jones, B. D. (1993) Agendas and Instability in American Politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Birkland, T. A. (1997) After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Birkland, T. A. (1998) Focusing Events, Mobilization, and Agenda Setting. Journal of Public Policy 18(1): 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birkland, T. A. (2004) “The World Changed Today”: Agenda-Setting and Policy Change in the Wake of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks. Review of Policy Research 21(2): 179–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birkland, T. A. (2006) Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change After Catastrophic Events. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Birkland, T. A. and Nath, R. (2000) Business and Political Dimensions in Disaster Management. Journal of Public Policy 20(3): 275–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boin, A., t’Hart, P., Stern, E. and Sundelius, B. (2005) The Politics of Crisis Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bulmer, S. and Wessels, W. (1987) The European Council: Decision-Making in European Politics. Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chien, H. (2013) Policy Change Or Policy Intractability in Post-Crisis Landscape? The Fukushima Explosion and Comparative Nuclear Energy Policy. Public Administration and Policy 56: 117–146.Google Scholar
Cristiani, D. and Fabiani, R. (2013) The Malian Crisis and its Actors. The International Spectator 48(3): 78–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Schoutheete, P. (2012) The European Council. In Peterson J. and Shackleton M. (eds.), The Institutions of the European Union, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 43–67.Google Scholar
Downs, A. (1972) Up and Down with Ecology: The “Issue-Attention Cycle”. Public Interest 28: 38–50.Google Scholar
Drury, A. C., Olson, R. S. and Van Belle, D. A. (2005) The Politics of Humanitarian Aid: US Foreign Disaster Assistance, 1964–1995. Journal of Politics 67(2): 454–473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dudley, L. and Montmarquette, C. (1976) A Model of the Supply of Bilateral Foreign Aid. American Economic Review 66(1): 132–142.Google Scholar
Faulkner, B. (2001) Towards a Framework for Tourism Disaster Management. Tourism Management 22(2): 135–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freudenburg, W. R., Coleman, C., Gonzales, J. and Helgeland, C. (1996) Media Coverage of Hazard Events: Analyzing the Assumptions. Risk Analysis 16(1): 31–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gomez, R. and Peterson, J. (2001) The EU’s Impossibly Busy Foreign Ministers: ‘No One is in Control’. European Foreign Affairs Review 6(1): 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gundel, S. (2005) Towards a New Typology of Crises. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 13(3): 106–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, B. D. (2001) Politics and the Architecture of Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jones, B. D. and Baumgartner, F. R. (2005) The Politics of Attention. How Government Prioritizes Problems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, S. S. (1975) The Distribution of Aid to Latin America: A Cross-National Aggregate Data and Time Series Analysis. The Journal of Developing Areas 10(1): 37–60.Google Scholar
Kato, M. (1969) A Model of US Foreign Aid Allocation: An Application of a Rational Decision-Making Scheme. In Mueller J. E. (ed.), Approaches to Measurement in International Relations. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 198–215.Google Scholar
Kingdon, J. W. (2011) Agendas, Alternatives and Public Policies, 2nd ed., updated. Boston, MA: Longman.Google Scholar
Liu, X., Lindquist, E. and Vedlitz, A. (2011) Explaining Media and Congressional Attention to Global Climate Change, 1969–2005: An Empirical Test of Agenda-Setting Theory. Political Research Quarterly 64(2): 405–419.Google Scholar
Maurer, H. and Simão, L. (2013) From Regional Power to Global Power? The European Neighbourhood Policy After the Lisbon Treaty. In Boening A. , Kremer J. and van Loon A. (eds.), Global Power Europe – Vol. 1. Theoretical and Institutional Approaches to the EU's External Relations. Heidelberg: Springer, 93–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGillivray, M. and Oczkowski, E. (1991) Modelling the Allocation of Australian Bilaterial Aid: A Two-Part Sample Selection Approach. Economic Record 67(2): 147–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGillivray, M. and Oczkowski, E. (1992) A Two-Part Sample Selection Model of British Bilateral Foreign Aid Allocation. Applied Economics 24(12): 1311–1319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, R. D. (1979) The Aid Relationship: A Foreign Policy Model and Interpretation of the Distributions of Official Bilateral Economic Aid of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, 1960–1970. Comparative Political Studies 11(4): 411–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, R. D. and Little, R. (1977) A Foreign Policy Model of U.S. Bilateral Aid Allocation. World Politics 30(1): 58–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, R. D. and Little, R. (1978) A Foreign-Policy Model of the Distribution of British Bilateral Aid, 1960–70. British Journal of Political Science 8(3): 313–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKinlay, R. D. and Little, R. (1979) The US Aid Relationship: A Test of the Recipient Need and the Donor Interest Model. Political Studies 27(2): 236–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meernik, J., Krueger, E. L. and Poe, S. C. (1998) Testing Models of U.S. Foreign Policy: Foreign Aid during and After the Cold War. The Journal of Politics 60(1): 63–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, T. (2012) Determinants of Disaster Aid: Donor Interest or Recipient Need? Global Change, Peace & Security 24(1): 109–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nohrstedt, D. (2008) The Politics of Crisis Policymaking: Chernobyl and Swedish Nuclear Energy Policy. Policy Studies Journal 36(2): 257–278.Google Scholar
Nohrstedt, D. and Weible, C. M. (2010) The Logic of Policy Change After Crisis: Proximity and Subsystem Interaction. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy 1(2): 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papke, L. E. and Wooldridge, J. M. (1996) Econometric Methods for Fractional Response Variables with an Application to 401(K) Plan Participation Rates. Journal of Applied Econometrics 11(6): 619–632.3.0.CO;2-1>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, J., Byrne, A. and Helwig, N. (2012) International Interests: The Common Foreign and Security Policy. In Peterson J. and Shackleton M. (eds.), The Institutions of the European Union, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 288–314.Google Scholar
Princen, S. (2011) Agenda-Setting Strategies in EU Policy Processes. Journal of European Public Policy 18(7): 927–943.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Princen, S. (2012) Agenda-Setting and the Formation of an EU Policy-Making State. In Richardson J. (ed.), Constructing a Policy-Making State?: Policy Dynamics in the EU. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 29–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seeberg, P. (2015) The EU and the Syrian Crisis: The Use of Sanctions and the Regime's Strategy for Survival. Mediterranean Politics 20(1): 18–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soetendorp, B. (1999) Foreign Policy in the European Union: Theory, History and Practice Vol. 19. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Stone, D. (2002) Policy Paradox. The Art of Political Decision Making, 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Stone, D. A. (1989) Causal Stories and the Formation of Policy Agendas. Political Science Quarterly 104(2): 281–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C. (2008) Credit and Blame. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Assche, T. (2012) When do New Issues Appear? Punctuations in the Belgian Executive Agenda. Acta Politica 47(2): 128–150.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Belle, D. A. (2000) New York Times and Network TV News Coverage of Foreign Disasters: The Significance of the Insignificant Variables. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 77(1): 50–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Belle, D. A., Rioux, J. and Potter, D. M. (2004) Media, Bureaucracies, and Foreign Aid: A Comparative Analysis of United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Japan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walgrave, S. and Varone, F. (2008) Punctuated Equilibrium and Agenda-Setting: Bringing Parties Back in: Policy Change After the Dutroux Crisis in Belgium. Governance 21(3): 365–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werts, J. (1992) The European Council. Amsterdam: North Holland Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.Google Scholar
Werts, J. (2008) The European Council. London: John Harper Publishing.Google Scholar
Wessels, W. (2008) The European Council: A Bigger Club, a Similar Role?. In Best E., Christiansen T. and Settembri P. (eds.), The Institutions of the Enlarged European Union: Continuity and Change. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 16–33.Google Scholar