Page 35 - Proceeding 2015

POPESCU Luminiţa Gabriela FAMP
PUBLIC POLICY AGENDA AND RESPONSIVENESS GOVERNANCE CCASP

proper means of transportation an issue regarding the public transport field or an issue that is rather
connected to human rights? Special means of transportation for the disabled people is a solution to the
transportation issue. The human rights perspective involves equal rights for the transportation of the
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
disabled people and also the existence of proper devices that can allow disabled people to equally use
the public means of transportation.

The ideal solution would be for us to consider the connection between the public agenda and the

governmental one. But we must say that, if we use the results of the previous survey as a temporal method
of the governmental agenda, the process of establishing a connection between the two types of agendas

is altered by the existence of possible threats caused by the irregular types of questions, by the number
of respondents etc. (Jones and Baumgartner, 2005, p.226).

Causality is an important aspect of a public policy problem. A situation can turn into a problem but what

are the causes that generate the situation? Many problems – delinquency, poverty, inflation and pollution
– have multiple causes. Inflation is characterized by a generalized growth of prices, measured by the
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest production of goods and services, excessive demand of goods and services, a surplus of currency, the
index of commodity prices and it represents a political public problem with multiple roots: an under-

result of a psychological inflation (people expecting prices to rise) etc.

In order to solve a problem, we should pay attention to the causes, not only to the manifestations

(symptoms) but, in many situations, it’s not easy to identify or detect the main causes. Identifying the roots
of a problem and negotiating a compromise regarding them is not an easy task for the policy makers
because defining the problem turns into a problem itself.

The difficulty of the governmental agenda setting is also determined by the fact that the nature and
purpose of many public political problems are hard to express because of their dispersed or ‘’invisible’’
nature. And because determining the size of the problem is often inadequate, those who elaborate public

politics don’t always correctly evaluate the given situation and it becomes impossible for them to offer
adequate solutions or even undertake governmental actions in order to solve the problem. Next to these
inaccuracies we can also mention the inadequate understanding of the causes of the phenomena.

Another aspect connected to the governmental agenda refers to its capacity of being easy to
control/manipulate, as some of the problems involve a higher level of behavioral changes than others.
McKelvey (1976) and Schofield (1976) showed that in absence of a majority–rule, equilibrium implies that

virtually any policy outcome is possible. Hence, those who control the agenda can engage in all sorts of
manipulations. A monopoly agenda setter can achieve almost any outcome they wish, providing the

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