How do lobby and advocacy happen in agenda setting? How do problems capture people's attention?
This series of articles in partnership with Andréa Gozetto* explains more about how institutional and governmental relations happen within the stages of the public policy cycle. In this article you understand how RIG professionals help the government order priorities in the public agenda.
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In the second article of this series, I will present the main characteristics of the first phase of the public policy cycle, the agenda setting. The agenda is made up of a set of problems or themes understood as relevant and that become priorities. However, despite the government needing to be attentive to all relevant social problems, some problems, very important for the market and for civil society simply do not receive adequate treatment, that is, they do not become priorities for the government.
Often, interest groups understand that it is their role to convince the government to make a certain problem a priority and, this is true. However, the greatest contribution of interest groups is in helping the government ORDER these priorities.
That's right, the government knows what the priorities are, but has a lot of difficulty in ordering them.
To understand what the government priorities are, just get to know the public agenda. The public agenda can be understood as the space in which the main social problems (national, regional and local) are gathered. This agenda is composed of the commitments assumed by the government, its immediate goals or interests, its priorities and restrictions in the resolution of public problems. Therefore, the public agenda can be identified from a government program, a budget planning, a party statute, etc.
As such, the great challenge of agenda setting is to use the appropriate tactics to help the government ORDER its own agenda of actions to solve public demands.
To do this, it is necessary to capture the attention of decision-makers. The presentation of indicators is an excellent way to do this. But, who provides these indicators? Governmental and non-governmental agencies offer data that come from routine monitoring of activities and events, such as: deaths on the roads, disease rates, immunization rates, consumer prices, infant mortality level, expenses forecast in the budget and so on. Scientific studies conducted about a particular problem at a given time also provide indicators. Even sectoral studies, technical notes and white papers that are presented to the Executive or Legislative powers to support the debate on a theme can provide relevant information for this stage. By knowing these indicators, decision-makers assess the magnitude of the problem and identify changes in it. Indicators are important to sensitize decision-makers to recognize the importance of certain problems.
Besides the indicators, it is possible to capture the attention of decision-makers due to a dramatic event, deep crises, emergence and dissemination of powerful symbols or personal experiences of the decision-makers themselves.
Another way to capture the attention of decision-makers is to collect positive or negative feedbacks on the operation of existing public policies and present them properly. These feedbacks can be collected in various ways: systematic monitoring and evaluation studies; complaints or grievances from the public that arouse the investigative interest of decision-makers and reports from public servants tasked with the daily administration of the public policy itself.
The problems enter and leave the public agenda. Various factors concur for this to happen: limitation of human, financial, material resources, time, lack of political will or popular pressure[1]. However, it is more likely that a problem will be included in the public agenda when some elements align: favorable public opinion, pressure by organizations of civil society and changes within the government.
It is certain that determining if a given problem exists or does not exist is a matter of interpretation. And, it is exactly at this point that interest groups act, because this interpretation can be influenced.
To define whether to use Lobby or Advocacy tactics it is necessary to take into account some points:
- Access to decision-makers;
- Complexity of the problem;
- Good level of knowledge of public opinion and decision-makers about the problem;
- Large number of social actors impacted by the problem;
- Public visibility of the problem;
- Existence of indicators provided by reliable sources that attest to the relevance of the problem;
- Degree of polarization around the problem.
On one hand, when you have access to decision-makers, the level of complexity of the problem is very high, there are reliable indicators to present and the degree of polarization is low, the best tactic to use is Lobby.
On the other hand, when you do not have access to decision-makers, the problem is of easy understanding, there is a large number of social actors impacted, there is public visibility of the problem and the degree of polarization is low, the most recommended tactic is Advocacy.
See you soon!
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[1] To deepen your knowledge consult: SECCHI, L. Políticas Públicas: conceitos, esquemas de análise, casos práticos. 2nd edition. São Paulo: Cengage Learning, 2015.
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*Andréa Gozetto is Executive Director of Gozetto & Associados and creator of the hub Conexão RIG. Since 2015 she has dedicated herself to supporting RIG areas to improve their strategic management and to base their political incidence actions on scientific evidence. She is the creator of the MBA in “Economics and Management– Governmental Relations” and the short course “Advocacy and Public Policies: Theory and Practice” at FGV/IDE, being academic coordinator in São Paulo. She has a Post-doctorate in Public Administration and Government (FGV/EAESP), Doctorate in Social Sciences (UNICAMP), Master's in Political Sociology (Unesp-Araraquara) and Bachelor's in Social Sciences (UFSCar). She acts as a career mentor in RIG, guiding and advising professionals to enhance their results.
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Sigalei Blog | Series Governmental Relations in the Public Policy Cycle - Andréa Gozetto
Recall the first article of the series by clicking below: 1. Lobby and Advocacy in the Public Policy cycle
