Problem detection in legislative oversight:An analysis of legislative committee agendas in the U.K. and U.S.

This paper outlines a dynamic problem-detection model of legislative oversight where legislative committees engage in information-gathering to identify emerging policy problems. It is argued that activities of legislative committees are responsive to indicators of problem status across a range of policy domains. This enables committees to react to problems before, or at least simultaneously to, citizens. Our analyses use a new dataset on the policy agenda of UK Parliamentary Select Committees in combination with directly comparable data on US Congressional hearings. Aggregate measures of problem status (e.g. GDP, crime rates) and public opinion on the �most important problem� facing the country are used as independent variables. The comparison between a well-established and developing committee system offers insights into common dynamics across institutional contexts. The findings show that committee agendas in both the UK and US are responsive to problem status for the majority of issues

The Effects of Media and their Logic on Legitimacy Sources within Local Governance Networks: A Three-Case Comparative Study

__Abstract__ Although theoretical and empirical work on the democratic legitimacy of governance networks is growing, little attention has been paid to the impact of mediatisation on democracies. Media have their own logic of news-making led by the media’s rules, aims, production routines and constraints, which affect political decision-making processes. In this article, we specifically study how media and their logic affect three democratic legitimacy sources of political decision-making within governance networks: voice, due deliberation and accountability. We conducted a comparative case study of three local governance networks using a mixed method design, combining extensive qualitative case studies, interviews and a quantitative content analysis of media reports. In all three cases, media logic increased voice possibilities for citizen groups. Furthermore, it broadened the deliberation process, although this did not improve the quality of this process per se, because the media focus on drama and negativity. Finally, media logic often pushed political authorities into a reactive communication style as they had to fight against negative images in the media. Proactive communication about projects, such as public relation (PR) strategies and branding, is difficult in such a media landscape

Issue Networks and Activism

Using an investigation of a technical policy issue, this paper demonstrates the utility of employing an issue networks approach to understanding the dynamics among those concerned about the threat of earthquakes to the province of British Columbia, Canada and the state of Washington, United States. Such an approach focuses on issue emergence in the early stages of agenda building. This research demonstrates how scientific and technical expertise, in the absence of political leadership, is an unrivaled source of presumptive rights leading to key actor status within a specialized policy community. A complementary finding is that career-related rationales provide the overwhelming motivation for issue network participation. Copyright 1992 by The Policy Studies Organization.