Agendas and Instability in American Politics

Abstract

Draft chapter for inclusion in The Oxford Handbook of the Classics of Public Policy and Administration, edited by Steven Balla, Martin Lodge and Edward Page, under contract with Oxford University Press. The twenty or so years since its first publication of Agendas and Instability in American Politics by Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones presents a timely opportunity to review the classic status of the book at it moves from being an innovative approach in public policy to one that is introduced as part of the canon. To achieve this aim in this chapter, I elaborate the factors that made the book so important at the time it originally came out in print, in particular the way Baumgartner and Jones responded and reacted to the contemporary intellectual agenda, and also the readiness of scholars for a book that pushed forward the study of agenda setting. After presenting a summary of the book’s arguments and empirical work, I assess the value of the book for students and scholars of public policy reading it in any period.