Suchergebnisse

Agenda-setting in the EU has been largely approached using literature from US scholars that emerged over the last 35 years. Surprisingly perhaps, grand theory in European integration has been ignored, even though it might offer valuable insights for longitudinal studies, particularly where issues have had difficulty making it onto the policy agenda. This article seeks to reconcile neofunctionalist and agenda-setting literature, to trace the journey towards agenda-setting, a process through which venues and images play a crucial role over time in framing competing issues. It puts forward a combined framework for analysing agenda-setting dynamics, before applying it to examine a policy case over five decades. Tracing the 'issue career' of Community rail infrastructure upwards onto the EU's policy agenda, it shows how strategies to gain attention and build credibility mediate latent spillover pressures in order to secure agenda-setting change.

Soon into his term as President, Nicolas Sarkozy commissioned Jacques Attali, former adviser to Franc¸ois Mitterrand, to investigate ways to 'free up' economic growth. Decision 260 of the report published in February 2008 recommended doing away with the French department completely. The report reignited a decades-long debate about streamlining the levels of France's public administration. Drawing on websites and internet blogs, including Attali's own, this article examines civil society reactions to the proposal, uncovering diverse and conflicting attitudes towards the department, while revealing it to be the most 'accessible' expression of the Republic, bound up with the self. In many senses, this artificial political construct, purposely created to bear no reference to history or belonging, has paradoxically become a significant carrier of French culture and territorial identity.

Agenda-setting in the EU has been largely approached using literature from US scholars that emerged over the last 35 years. Surprisingly perhaps, grand theory in European integration has been ignored, even though it might offer valuable insights for longitudinal studies, particularly where issues have had difficulty making it onto the policy agenda. This article seeks to reconcile neofunctionalist and agenda-setting literature, to trace the journey towards agenda-setting, a process through which venues and images play a crucial role over time in framing competing issues. It puts forward a combined framework for analysing agenda-setting dynamics, before applying it to examine a policy case over five decades. Tracing the 'issue career' of Community rail infrastructure upwards onto the EU's policy agenda, it shows how strategies to gain attention and build credibility mediate latent spillover pressures in order to secure agenda-setting change.

Soon into his term as President, Nicolas Sarkozy commissioned Jacques Attali, former adviser to Franc¸ois Mitterrand, to investigate ways to 'free up' economic growth. Decision 260 of the report published in February 2008 recommended doing away with the French department completely. The report reignited a decades-long debate about streamlining the levels of France's public administration. Drawing on websites and internet blogs, including Attali's own, this article examines civil society reactions to the proposal, uncovering diverse and conflicting attitudes towards the department, while revealing it to be the most 'accessible' expression of the Republic, bound up with the self. In many senses, this artificial political construct, purposely created to bear no reference to history or belonging, has paradoxically become a significant carrier of French culture and territorial identity.